Chapter 418: The Hen That Lays Golden Eggs

Looking over the entire history of the Chinese music scene since its inception, setting aside Teresa Teng—that sales monarch whose figures can't be verified due to the era's circumstances—from the eighties and nineties of the last century up to now, the number-one spot for total album sales has actually always been a two-person race—

One is Zhang Xueyou, the other is Liu Dehua.

From his debut up to early 2003, Zhang Xueyou had released a total of sixty records including greatest-hits compilations, and the figure publicly announced by his company was over twenty-five million copies;

Although Liu Dehua had always been mocked with nicknames like "Liu Half-Tub" and "Liu Military Knife," in terms of total album sales and the popularity of his singles he was the only one since the nineties who could go toe-to-toe with Zhang Xueyou.

Among the Four Heavenly Kings, the most popular Li Ming, because he didn't have many explosive Mandarin songs, actually had lower total record sales outside Hong Kong and Macau than Zhang and Liu.

After entering the new century, Liu and Zhang could still deliver massive hits like "If This Doesn't Count as Love" and "Practice" that could enter the chart competition, and individual albums could barely scrape past the million-line in Asian regional sales, becoming the last face of the Hong Kong circle's Four Heavenly Kings era.

Over all these years, although because of different statistical agencies and methods, these two camps have always been a case of "the man says the man is right, the woman says the woman is right," both claiming to be number one, but within the Hong Kong circle this was actually considered harmless.

After all, no matter how they fought, first place belonged to their own people.

But now it's different.

When Warner officially announced that Zhou Yi's Chinese-language album sales had solidly exceeded ten million copies, they truly felt despair—

You have to know that Zhou Yi's debut year was 2000, a year when piracy was incredibly rampant.

From the second half of '00, '01, '02.

Two and a half years, pure Chinese-language album sales over ten million copies, and blooming on multiple fronts—damn, even peak Zhang Xueyou and Liu Dehua plus a Li Ming all popping pills together couldn't reach that.

In this overall downward trend of the market, they couldn't determine how long this Hong Kong circle album record—which they thought no one could touch—could still hold.

"Zhou Yi is a monster. Before him, I've only seen Teresa Teng able to occupy such a large market share by herself.

"I don't doubt at all that even if the domestic music market continues to shrink in the future, Zhou Yi will still maintain extremely high sales, because his record baseline has already far surpassed the sequence of top-tier singers in the Chinese-language circle."

A quick Hong Kong reporter interviewed Zheng Donghan, President of EMI Records Asia. As one of only two people in the country who could sit in the position of President of an international record company's Asian division, when Zheng Donghan said this he wasn't as sour as his peers.

It's just a god-tier card—talk as if no one else has ever pulled one.

Back in the day he had also pulled the god-tier card Teresa Teng, and later was supported by two support cards, Tan Yonglin and Zhang Guorong; Li Ming, Zhang Xueyou, Liu Dehua, and Wang Fei had also been under his banner.

One could say that at its peak, Zheng Donghan in the Chinese music circle was a one-man dominance—over half of the major singers had been handled and steered by him. This is also why his son Zheng Zhongji was called "Crown Prince Ji" in the Hong Kong circle.

He wasn't too worried that Warner's market share could grow large enough to make him unable to survive. After all, Zhou Jianhui had only pulled the one god-tier card, Zhou Yi; the rest, only Sun Yanzi could be considered exceptionally talented, but he still had a similarly-aged Watching Xiao Yaxuan to match up against her.

On the mainland, well-known singers like Lao Lang and Pu Shu had already been destined to leave Warner along with Song Ke's downfall.

"Old fox—if it weren't for Watching Xiao Yaxuan, do you think he'd still be so easy to talk to."

Also on the 3rd, Qian Jiang, who had flown back to the capital, was complaining in his president's office about Zheng Donghan's saying one thing and meaning another.

Viking Records is under EMI, with Watching Xiao Yaxuan's mentor Yao Qian holding the general manager position.

One could say that after renewing her contract, Watching Xiao Yaxuan was no longer simply Viking's number-one sister, but was beginning to sprint toward the position of EMI Greater China number-one sister.

"Making money—nothing shameful about it."

Zhou Jianhui, glowing with health, beamed as he looked at Zhou Yi sitting beside him: "Ayi, the company will throw you a big celebration event later, make the whole thing grand. Also, when are you planning to release that English song of yours?"

"Before the Grammy Awards ceremony, it was released as a single. On one hand, it's convenient for generating hype; on the other, we can ride the Grammy's momentum."

Zhou Yi, who had stayed in Korea a few extra days because of the little princess, yawned wearily. When asked about that English song, he thought for a moment and set a time: "But the premise is that I must secure a Grammy nomination to be able to hype this momentum."

"Don't worry about that, the company will go all-out to make it happen for you."

Hearing this, Zhou Jianhui immediately thumped his chest and gave his guarantee: "The four general-field awards are hard to say—those old fossils in the European and American music world are still very discriminatory toward Chinese people—but for the other awards, you can still compete."

The four general-field Grammy awards refer to Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best New Artist.

There are no restrictions on music genre—all musicians from every branch of music participate in the competition. Precisely because of this, those old fossils guard these four awards far more strictly than the others.

Zhou Jianhui was also afraid Zhou Yi would feel dissatisfied later, so he gave him a preventive shot in advance.

"Don't worry, I don't really care about awards. Whether they give it to me or not, it's the same—I don't need that piece of meat." Zhou Yi waved his hand indifferently: "If they don't give it to me, even better—I can keep hyping and selling albums."

What good is a trophy compared to hard cash? He wasn't in the European and American music circle—he didn't need some Grammy to elevate his status.

When he was desireless and unattached, a Grammy trophy was no different to him than a small stone on the roadside.

A small stone might even be able to skip across water.

"Fine, as long as you're mentally prepared. Leave the rest to the company."

Zhou Jianhui then pulled open a drawer and handed him a brand-new contract document: "This is the China Mobile Global Pass endorsement that they came over in person to negotiate with me while you were in Korea. Ayi, take a look and see what you think."

Global Pass—China Mobile's most premium and simultaneously most widely applied service, bar none.

Zhou Yi himself even used it, because he needed to run all over the world.

"China Mobile is currently on a massive buying and consolidating spree of internal resources. They can't come up with too much money to sign you in the short term, so they're willing to use resources for an exchange."

"Exchange?"

Zhou Yi raised an eyebrow and flipped open the contract in his hands—

The money, just as Zhou Jianhui had said, wasn't much—"only" thirty-five million, for a four-year contract. But China Mobile was willing to use its own Global Pass business resources to do publicity and promotion for Zhou Yi, and even attached a profit-sharing ringtone clause.

"Per song, China Mobile only takes… 5%?"

When he saw this number, Zhou Yi almost thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.

"You've been to Korea too, so you know how booming the ringtone business is over there. If China Mobile can successfully replicate it, then just this profit-sharing alone, conservatively estimated, is enough to earn you an extra several tens of millions."

"…"

"This is real. China Mobile's internal project values this highly—Song Ke also fell out with the company because of this matter."

Seeing Zhou Yi fall silent, Zhou Jianhui, thinking he didn't understand the distribution method, earnestly explained: "According to the contract China Mobile originally gave Song Ke, they planned to take 15%."

"…Is that so. Then no problem, but the legal details of the ringtone clause still need to be perfected, to avoid China Mobile playing the rogue later."

Facing this endorsement contract and profit-sharing clause from a desperate-to-recruit China Mobile, Zhou Yi, who had suppressed his inner surprise, appeared very cautious—

So cautious that it even exceeded Zhou Jianhui and Qian Jiang's expectations.

He made a phone call.

For the first time since graduating and leaving school, Zhou Yi very solemnly dialed his teacher's number.

When the China Mobile liaison received the news that Warner was willing to negotiate, they arrived full of enthusiasm—only to be completely dumbfounded—

The person in charge even wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him—how could the one leading the negotiation actually be a legal big shot from Peking University???

Upon reviewing the legal opinions attached to Warner's newly submitted contract, they were all graduates of Peking University's Law School...

(End of this chapter)