Chapter 598: A Small Knife on the Butt—Eyes Opened

"Eh! I won! I actually won!"

November 20, 2003, Monday—a day neither corporate workers nor students really wanted to get through.

After cursing the school's damn schedule countless times in his heart, Li Jiafeng, a freshman at Sun Yat-sen University who had decisively chosen to skip class before the third major lecture began, was now so excited he resembled Fan Jin upon passing the imperial exam, shouting and screaming without end.

Fu Yuqin, clearly feeling somewhat uncomfortable, tugged at her boyfriend's shirt corner; under the surprised gazes of many people, her ears turned red, and she whispered a reminder: "Bibi, so many people are watching, don't shout like that."

"I really won, look!"

Li Jiafeng, overcome with emotion, revealed the cinema ticket pasted inside the album packaging; the words "Pirates of the Caribbean" stood out exceptionally prominently, and Fu Yuqin's eyes immediately lit up: "You really won?!"

Could winning a prize actually be true? Could it really descend upon them?

Although it was merely a single movie ticket, the joy of unearned gain and the thought of getting a bargain rushed to the girl's brain first thing, constantly stimulating her excited nerves.

To coincide with the release of Zhou Yi's new album "Gui Cang," just before the launch, Disney announced a surprising piece of news—

They prepared eighty-eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight special "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie tickets to be randomly included with the first batch of Zhou Yi albums, and every single gift ticket bore a unique serial number and Zhou Yi's portrait, considered a good omen—

Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau each get 10,000 plus scattered ones; the mainland has many people, so it's 50,000 plus scattered tickets. Winning consumers just need to take the ticket to a Warner-owned cinema to watch for free.

If your city has no Warner cinema or the cinema is too far and you don't want to go, just enter the "Zhou Yi Treats You to a Movie" event page on the Warner official website, input the number for verification; once verified, a Warner staff member will contact you to change the ticket redemption location to the cinema nearest to you.

In 2003, movie tickets in mainland big cities were still considered a high-priced category.

A single movie ticket easily started at 25 yuan; tickets at better new-style cinemas went straight for over forty, and some experts even predicted that by around 2005, ticket prices at new-style cinemas would very likely exceed the 50 yuan mark.

With Zhou Yi handing out these eighty-eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight gift tickets, it was somewhat shocking.

At least for Li Jiafeng, a college student who had just started university, even with the money he earned from summer holiday work, buying two movie tickets at once still made his heart ache.

Yet right now, Zhou Yi had directly paid for one of his tickets.

Although not much, it was enough to add another layer to his worship of his idol in his heart.

Setting aside other things, just this round of gift tickets meant Zhou Yi, or rather, Warner jointly with Disney, had to spend at least three to four million RMB out of their own pockets.

Looking across the Chinese music scene, who else could do this?!

Who else?!

Such a conscientious idol, sings so well, buying the album is absolutely no loss, okay!

Blow it up!

Li Jiafeng, his face glowing with red, swaggered out of the bustling audio-video store with his girlfriend, his expression full of pride.

"Boss, give me ten boxes of the 'Gui Cang' cassettes."

"Gone, gone, the 'Gui Cang' cassettes are sold out; there are still a few CDs left, do you want them?"

"Ah?"

"He doesn't want them, I do; just the CDs, give me two boxes of CDs."

"Brother, what's wrong with you? Don't cut in line; I didn't say I don't want them. Give me two boxes of 'Gui Cang' CDs too! Give them to me first!"

"Who the hell stepped on my foot!"

"..."

Those arguing, those stepping on feet, and those desperately trying to cut in line all merged into a single chaotic mass.

As the owner of the largest audio-video store on these few nearby streets, Li Zhongguo, who hadn't seen this scene in a long time, felt his body, already fifty-four years old this year, as if it had returned to eighteen, possessing endless ox-like strength to throw into his work—

Eyes quick and hands fast, he pressed the calculator with a crackling sound; the sounds of "zero out," "zero out" rose and fell on the counter.

"Damn it! It has to be Zhou Yi's albums; these are the ones people are fighting to grab."

Having finally managed to get through the small peak of the launch time and directing his staff to rush to the warehouse to pull stock for replenishment, Li Zhongguo finally let out a sigh of relief; looking at the scene where only a few other people's albums remained on the shelf in the most prominent position, his fat face smiled like a chrysanthemum.

Just this nearly one hour of sales volume was enough for him to start calculating how to get more stock from the upstream distributors to sell; even if he had to bundle some other people's hard-to-sell albums, he didn't care; for Zhou Yi's, he could sell at a slight premium.

He has high volume; he has the right to set a premium!

"What do you think he's thinking? Selling an album like a lottery draw, even subsidizing millions out of his own pocket to treat fans to movies; won't that kill him with heartache?" The landlady, dressed like a landlady, also exhausted, leaned against her waist sitting on a chair, took a breath, and held a toothpick in her mouth, feeling heartache—

As if those several million were paid by her.

"You don't know a damn thing; I estimate he didn't spend a single cent of that several million; it's purely Disney trying to ride the hype to promote their new movie, a cooperation reached with Warner; it's all business."

Having made some family fortune through ups and downs in the business sea, Li Zhongguo scolded his wife playfully, patting his chest and giving his word: "Do you really think Zhou Yi is as honest as he says? If he were that simple, with such arrogant behavior, he would have been set up and cheated countless times by now."

Warner's new cinema needed promotion after completion, Disney's new movie needed promotion, and Zhou Yi's new album needed promotion; this was completely a win-win business strategy for all three; spending a few million to link the three together was purely spending small money to achieve big things.

If they really launched a proper channel promotion, wouldn't it start at tens of millions anyway?

"Really? He gets fame for free without spending a cent? Are those big companies that good, spending money to do charity for him?"

"I told you, you wouldn't understand; this is business. However, it's clear that Zhou Yi is indeed very confident in this album of his; he is completely using his reputation as a guarantor."

Old Li, having taken a sip of chrysanthemum tea to moisten his throat, sighed with emotion.

In fact, just as he predicted, after Zhou Yi's "Gui Cang" went on sale, the theory that he spent millions out of his own pocket to treat fans to movies quickly rushed into online community discussions across various regions—

And it was very quickly rumored to be over ten million.

Netizens who had never seen such a gesture were shocked.

The four major portal websites—Sohu, Sina, Tencent, and NetEase—immediately added reports on this matter; due to signing an exclusive deal, Sohu even broke a bit more inside information—such as the fact that this was actually a welfare Zhou Yi actively fought for on behalf of his fans, and so on.

"It is said that Disney and Warner initially both disagreed, but Zhou Yi slammed the table and told them, 'If you disagree, then don't cooperate again in the future,' and only then did the two sides soften, begging Zhou Yi to sit down and talk properly."

"They originally only wanted to give 10,000 tickets, but Zhou Yi haggled them down to 50,000; subsequently, Zhou Yi, adhering to the principle of seeking welfare for fans, directly haggled out the number 88,888, saying 888 means 'fa' (prosperity), aiming for good luck."

"Moved. This is the first celebrity who truly treats fans like brothers and sisters, not just talking about it..."

In this wild yet pure, and easily fooled, internet era, Zhou Yi played this welfare card so loudly that people from record companies led by Sony and Universal were left dumbfounded...

Wait, bro?

You are selling albums, right?

You are selling albums, correct?