Chapter 377: Warner Love Stories · Selected Collection

It is well known that within Warner Records, there are two publicly acknowledged lazybones—one is Sun Yanzi when she's resting, and the other is Sun Yanzi when she's working.

In this moment, her eyes blinded by envy, Sun Yanzi nearly bit her teeth together even while singing during her own autograph session promotion—

"Quiet summer, stars dotting the sky

"My heart holds a little longing, longing for your face~"

Her unique vocal timbre sang the most popular song from the album *Leave*, paired with her equally unmistakable diction, causing full-audience singalongs wherever the autograph session went—

"I can pretend not to see, or secretly miss you

"Until I touch your warm face~"

At the open-air autograph event, thousands of voices echoed into the sky!

Dressed in a pink hooded hoodie with a print, Sun Yanzi held the microphone toward the crowd, bouncing from one end of the stage to the other like an energetic hamster, her smile radiant: "Hey! Friends in Guangzhou~"

*Ningxia*, which initially drew attention due to its title, had after two weeks of buildup become the most widely sung song on Sun Yanzi's album.

*Lydia* came second, followed by *Butterfly Spring*, *Qingming Rain Above*, and *Between the Rainbow*, which tumbled in ranking in a chaotic battle.

Five hit songs from the debut album, all major hits, greatly solidified Sun Yanzi's status in the music industry. Meanwhile, all five songs being entirely written, composed, and arranged by Zhou Yi made more and more people drool over him.

This little brat may be arrogant, but the key is he's not just himself awesome—he actually knows how to feed people, and Sony and EMI are practically crying from hunger.

"I'm sorry my emotions weren't quite there at the start of this song, but it's not my fault—it's all Zhou Yi's fault."

After finishing the song, Sun Yanzi, who had bounced around the stage for nearly a minute, panted slightly, one hand reaching behind to adjust the cable clipped to her waist, the other gripping the microphone as she grinned teasingly: "He eats well, drinks well, and sleeps until he wakes naturally—I'm deeply envious."

"Bring him over to sign with Yanzi!"

In the crowd, a glasses-wearing man cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled: "If he comes, I'll definitely buy his album!"

"Aha, today is my autograph session—say that, and honestly, are you a Zhou Yi fan sneaking in?" Sun Yanzi, not knowing which joke had struck her, giggled uncontrollably, pointing at the glasses-wearing boy.

"No, I'm your fan!"

The glasses-wearing boy, thrilled by his idol's response, nearly jumped three feet off the ground—but before he could speak, his friend shoved him down and shouted loudly: "Yanzi! Stay away from that bad man Zhou Yi!"

"Yes! Stay away from the bad man!"

"..."

As if responding to a single call, fanatics took up the cause for dramatic effect, one after another adding commentary on Zhou Yi's rumored affairs and paparazzi photos—

On stage, Sun Yanzi could only laugh and sigh: "Do you all want to control whether I date or not? I'm already twenty-four."

"Don't listen to them, Yanzi! Hurry up and drag Zhou Yi over for the autograph session!" Female fans who clearly disagreed spoke up, declaring themselves both die-hard Yanzi fans and devoted fans of the "Twin Stars" couple.

"That might be difficult—I'm no match for him."

Sun Yanzi, secretly relieved, smiled warmly when speaking of Zhou Yi, her eyes curving into lovely crescents: "I'll ask my agent if we can include a Zhou Yi album as a free gift with purchase—he's basically just a bonus item to me."

"Yanzi! Why are the songs linked to you and Zhou Yi so sweet at first, but then all turn tragic? Didn't you object???"

During the casual chat segment, a fan who had clearly been emotionally devastated raised a protest.

The sweet songs before, including *The Summer Blown by the Wind*, were all wonderful—when *Little Dimples* and *Today You Will Marry Me* appeared, Twin Stars fans thought the grand finale had come—then came *Fairy Tale* and *Between the Rainbow*, two brutal knives in succession.

In *Fairy Tale*, the female lead Sun Yanzi dies; in *Between the Rainbow*, Zhou Yi lies on a hospital bed and dies. Not a single shred of fantasy left—completely slashed, and the male and female leads were slashed separately.

Too cruel.

Unforgivable!

"I asked him that too."

Since the release of *Between the Rainbow*, Sun Yanzi had heard this question countless times; her hand instinctively rubbed the back of her neck inside her hoodie, and she playfully stuck out her tongue: "But you know Zhou Yi—I'm already dead in *Fairy Tale*, so I don't get a say."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Hmm, yeah, it's all Zhou Yi's fault—he's utterly wicked!" Finally, sensing her excuse lacked credibility, Sun Yanzi slapped the back of her neck and raised her right hand to lead the chant: "Down with Zhou Yi!"

The fans below could barely hold back their laughter, rolling about in fits of mirth.

Yeah yeah yeah!

You're absolutely right!

Others joined in chanting: "Down with Zhou Yi!"

On stage, Sun Yanzi heard them, her eyes crinkling with delight, clenching her tiny fist and loudly leading the chant at the autograph session: "Down with Zhou Yi!"

Zhou Yi is utterly wicked! Yanzi's resentment is boundless!

On the very day Sun Yanzi held her autograph session in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, a teenager named Tan Haibo in Yingde, Qingyuan, walked into a small music store clutching money he had saved for a long time—

"Madam, do you have Sun Yanzi's new album?"

The unremarkable boy stared at the shelves filled with tapes and CDs, his eyes brimming with longing, yet he immediately fixed his gaze on his favorite female singer.

"That English-name album is sold out—I haven't restocked yet."

The shopkeeper, a toothpick clenched between her teeth, glanced at the boy; seeing his disappointed expression, she added: "But I have a new album by Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi together—would you like it?"

"A joint album by Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi?"

Tan Haibo's small eyes were filled with big confusion.

Though they'd been called Warner's Twin Stars since debut, hadn't they never released a joint album before?

"Yes, newly released—haven't even had time to promote it yet. Here it is."

Saying this, the shopkeeper placed before the boy a tape and CD version, both with the cover reading *Warner Love Stories* in bold red background with white letters, alongside large headshots of Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi—looking utterly cheap and shoddy—

"Tape is seven yuan, CD is twelve yuan. The CD includes all Zhou Yi's music videos. Add ten more yuan, and for twenty-two yuan you can get the deluxe edition with Zhou Yi's 90-minute music film *In the Name of the Father*."

"??? How much?"

"Too expensive? It's already cost price—I'm not even making a profit off you because you're so young. You can't expect me to lose money..."

"..."

After some haggling, Tan Haibo walked away, having spent twenty yuan—a fortune—to take home the brand-new original soundtrack *Warner Love Stories* by Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi.

And not long after he left, a few young people with bangs long enough to cover their eyes also came to buy discs—

"Cassette tape 7 kuai, CD 12 kuai, deluxe 22."

"Damn, boss lady, you taking me for a fool? 12 kuai for a deluxe? Give it or not, if not I'm going to the next shop."

"Fine, fine, fine…"

The young man Tan Haibo, completely unaware that he had already been taken for a fool, hurried home and excitedly shoved the disc into the VCD—

What first greeted his eyes was a snow-screen.

After a delay of quite a while, the picture finally normalized, and the MV footage gradually appeared—

First Sun Yanzi sang mummy's and granny's folk songs: "By Butterfly Spring," "Sky Dark Dark," then Zhou Yi sang "Daddy Mummy," "In the Name of the Father," both parents present;

Then came "The Summer Blown Through by the Wind," filled with school scenes, followed by the graduation songs "Goodbye," "Cheers," "Wind Rising," and then "A Little Happiness," "Little Dimples," "Today You Will Marry Me."

Right after that came two indispensable big knives: "Fairy Tale" and "Between the Rainbow";

After the knife came "Mr. Lonely" and "Fireworks Cool Easily."

Closing it all out was "Qingming Rain Up," used for visiting Sun Yanzi's (Zhou Yi's) grave on Qingming Festival.

From birth to growing up, falling in love, getting married, and then to being buried and visited on Qingming—a complete one-stop service.

"Warner Records' brand-new masterpiece at the end of 2002! Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi officially form a duo, releasing their first combined album 'Warner Love Story · Greatest Hits'!

"A re-arranged concept, an extraordinary baptism of the soul—let us make a pilgrimage to love!"

Starting from November 10, 2002, audio-visual shops all over the country gradually began picking up the habit of peddling this pirated album—clearly cobbled together by some discerning soul—to customers; by now the trend has finally taken hold.

The carefully packaged high-concept vibe propped up by "In the Name of the Father," paired with rock-bottom prices and catchy songs doing the spreading, let this album seize a huge chunk of the market in almost no time—

And began extending into the lower-tier market that the legitimate album's tentacles could never reach; many buyers deeply resonated with the inscription on the album's cover.

"I heard this is Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi's real experience…"

"This couple died so tragically, wuwuwu…"

"Sigh, even big stars are ill-fated people—every Qingming they have to go sweep the grave of their fiancée…"

"Isn't it sweeping the fiancé's grave? Look at the lyrics of 'Qingming Rain Up'—every year folding chrysanthemums to send to your side."

"Didn't both Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi get a terminal illness and not have long to live? They agreed that whoever died later would go sweep the grave of the one who died first?"

"…"

In 2002, although China had already entered the WTO, the domestic economic development still hadn't reached the affluent point where every family owned a computer. Even the four tier-one cities still had huge impoverished populations, let alone the far vaster rural areas and small county towns.

Black internet cafés in rural areas and small county towns were still something many people couldn't afford; the real favorites of students and idle folks at the bottom of society were the black-shop arcade rooms, where for one kuai you got eight or ten coins to play King of Fighters '97 and the like.

Under these circumstances, for a large number of songs to spread, there was always only one means—piracy.

Pirated copies that had been passed through who knows how many hands, retaining who knows how many rumors.

A typical example was Tang Sanshi's "Ding Xiang Hua."

And because so few people in these places even went online, in schools like Yifu Primary and Middle School where there wasn't even a single computer class per week, huge numbers of student fans would basically spend their spare time chattering away, swapping the gossip they knew—

Either something so-and-so said after coming back from outside, or the truth that some distant relative's kid in the neighborhood had looked up online!

"You know that Chen Long? They say he cried when he heard Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi got a terminal illness."

"There's also a Huang Zhan in Hong Kong—I don't know who he is, but I heard Zhou Yi's terminal illness was the same as his, so the two of them chatted about their conditions for a long time, and it got photographed…"

"Huh? Isn't that the same as that 'Ding Xiang Hua'? 'Ding Xiang Hua' also dies of a terminal illness, right?"

"…"

One place, one version—some places even had three schools and eight versions.

Students who had previously heard pirated copies of songs like "Happy Worship," "Jiangnan," "Green Light," and so on felt deep regret over the bombshell news about Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi.

Of course, some would question it, and then some know-it-all would stride out with full confidence to "slap down the doubters"—

"Sun Yanzi said it herself that she's dead, can't change the doctor's decision—that's not having long to live!"

"Right, right, Zhou Yi also said a dead Sun Yanzi can't speak—I've seen the news."

"Sigh, poor things…"

"…"

Relying on the stories spun by the unscrupulous pirates, combined with gossip-lovers adding fuel and stirring up trouble, "Warner Love Story · Greatest Hits" even sold out at 4 kuai, 6 kuai, 8 kuai in many small cities, and in many people's minds became an official Warner release.

Sales on this scale also forced many audio-visual shops selling legitimate albums, in order to attract customers, to start placing orders with the pirates for stock…

There were even more unscrupulous ones who paired "Ding Xiang Hua"—a song that never had an MV—with Zhou Yi's "Mr. Lonely" MV, and stuffed it into this "Greatest Hits" too, directly cementing the rumors of "terminal illness" and "being poisoned so the voice changed."

Especially the conspiracy theory of being poisoned so the voice changed—it perfectly explained why the lyrics, composition, and MV were all Zhou Yi's, yet the singer's voice wasn't Zhou Yi's original voice.

When Zhou Yi heard this news, he was completely dumbfounded—

"What the hell, I got poisoned? My voice ruined and I got a terminal illness? And what the hell is this 'Greatest Hits'?"

No matter how tough his psyche was, for a moment he was hit pretty hard by this news.

Qian Jiang was also a bit helpless: "Because those pirates figured the more tragic they made the story of you and Yanzi, the higher the sales. You're too hot right now, your songs are hot—anything that touches you sells big.

"Now supposedly other pirates are planning to copy this idea, putting together a greatest hits of you and Elva Hsiao, claiming she's your on-again-off-again new girlfriend, and there are even ones doing compilations of you with other female singers…"

Zhou Yi: "…"

"Zhou Yi & Dai Peini Love Compilation," "Zhou Yi × SHE Real Love Record," "Zhou Yi ×…"

Once the massive piracy machine started rolling, even Zhou Yi and Warner combined couldn't stop it—this man who previously only had rumors spread about him in newspapers had suddenly gained a lot of "evidence on records"…

(End of this chapter)