Chapter 78: New Year's Gift: The Ban

"Happy New Year~"

"Happy New Year."

The moment the midnight bell tolled, despite the doors and windows blocking the way, the rising and falling sounds of fireworks and firecrackers in the village still clearly reached the ears of Zhou Yi, who lay alone on the redwood sofa in the living room—

One congratulatory text message after another kept jumping on the small Nokia screen; familiar night owls were all posting at midnight to share the joy of the New Year's arrival.

Sun Yanzi, Chen Hao, Zhou Jielun, Zhang Shaohan, Watching Xiao Yaxuan, Wen Lan, Liu Genhong, Fan Bingbin, and other night-owl experts were all there, not a single one missing.

Chen Hao even used a text message to complain about some of this year's Spring Festival Gala programs, thinking they weren't as good as last year's.

Zhou Yi, switching back and forth between text messages to reply, now missed the future QQ and WeChat immensely. With so many targets to reply to, it was truly too inconvenient.

But as soon as he thought that it was only 2001 right now, and Brother Ma was probably using the second big investment he got last year to push QQ's user scale, Zhou Yi let out a sigh.

Although in his previous life, these two small-but-beautiful software programs couldn't be said to be famous for their beauty, at least they could be called notorious. But all things considered, compared to traditional text messages, they were indeed much more convenient.

Carrying the regret of missing the little penguin due to time, amidst the singing of "Nanwang Jin Xiao," Zhou Yi, who had not turned off the living room lights, returned to his room and fell asleep peacefully.

The next day, the first day of the Lunar New Year.

Zhou Yi, dressed in new clothes, accepted the New Year's money from his parents with a grin, hands in his pockets, his down jacket wrapped tightly around him, and followed his parents up the mountain to worship Buddha.

Since the whole village already knew that Zhou Yaoguo's family had produced a nationally famous superstar, during the Buddha worship Zhou Yi felt like he was becoming a Buddha himself; everyone wanted to come up and chat a couple of sentences, or even take a photo together.

There were even elementary school students humming "Happy Worship" jumping around him—truly the King of Elementary School Students.

"May the Bodhisattva bless us, hoping that our Yiyi will be safe and sound and have a smooth journey from now on..."

Unlike Zhou Yi, who had already become the "village idol," Zhou Yaoguo and Zhao Ping normally completed all the worship rituals, muttering prayers for protection.

However, facts proved that this Bodhisattva was somewhat rebellious—

January 26, 2001, the second day of the Lunar New Year.

Early in the morning, Zhou Yi received a call from his agent, Qian Jiang.

"Zhou Yi, something's wrong."

As Zhou Yi's agent, Qian Jiang, who had been in high spirits just one day ago on the first day of the Lunar New Year, now clearly suppressed anger in his voice: "Rumors suddenly spread over there about banning mainland artists from performing and promoting; something is very wrong.

"Zhou Jianhui's side says they are inquiring and communicating to see if there is any misunderstanding in between..."

Speaking to the point of excitement, Qian Jiang even directly cursed in the phone: "Damn it! These little bastards, don't let me find out who is pulling such low-down tricks!"

Just fight fairly for sales and be done with it; what kind of skill is pulling such despicable underhanded moves?!

Qian Jiang was very angry, and his robust general's belly rose and fell accordingly.

Zhou Yi was currently eating fried sugar cakes at home; hearing this, his emotions didn't fluctuate at all, and he could even comfort his agent in return: "Small problem, Uncle Qian, don't be so anxious."

"I will help you find out exactly what is going on; keep the phone line open."

"..."

Chewing on the sugar cake, Zhou Yi looked at the hung-up phone, shook his head and chuckled lightly, not taking it seriously.

What is meant to come will come.

Having been mentally prepared for this, he felt no anxiety at all; in fact, he even wanted to laugh.

In this matter, even if Coca-Cola and Warner joined forces, they couldn't change the outcome.

Sure enough, four days later, the phone call from Zhou Jianhui, the General Manager of Warner, came—

"Zhou Yi, I'm sorry."

The General Manager of Warner, the very first words out of his mouth were an apology: "The company tried its best, but still couldn't change this situation. Starting next Monday, all mainland artists will not be able to perform or promote on the Treasure Island.

"Including but not limited to concerts, signing events, variety shows, radio promotions, television promotions, etc."

The General Manager of Warner, who had just single-handedly led Warner out of its low point, Zhou Jianhui, now ground his teeth in hatred: "Damn it, this is a fucking idiot!"

With absolutely zero promotion on the Treasure Island, even if Zhou Yi's new album was of high quality, it couldn't sell well; at the very least, Zhou Jianhui had never heard of a singer being able to carve out a share of the Treasure Island music market under such circumstances.

This was fucking a ban!

"No way out; we must now adjust your promotion strategy."

After cursing out this decision and making a solid statement that he would still choose to support Zhou Yi, Zhou Jianhui finally calmed his emotions: "I will fly to the mainland this afternoon; find some time to come to the company as well, and let me know when you arrive.

"This news shouldn't spread to the mainland that quickly yet; let's discuss the future direction."

Thanks to the internet not being very developed yet, this rumor that hadn't been officially released yet wasn't even published by the entertainment sections of the two major portal websites, Sohu and NetEase.

Even if someone heard this news, they would only think it was a few music companies on the Treasure Island who couldn't afford to lose, playing dirty tricks to blacken people's names, and would just laugh it off.

"Let's wait until after the seventh day; these few days I'll just stay home and accompany my family. During this time, General Manager Zhou, you can arrange for the company to follow normal public relations procedures to express a stance of non-approval."

Facing such completely force majeure events, Zhou Yi felt that unless he could instantly create a Golden Core and ascend on the spot, changing the style to perform a human manifestation, otherwise it would all be futile.

It would be better to eat and drink well; maybe at that time he could even "torture the fans" a bit, directly performing a massive purification.

After 2008, the purified Treasure Island fans might be everyone looking forward to it, welcoming the king's return.

"Alright, no rush; you can relax more; this isn't urgent."

Fearing that Zhou Yi might overthink this matter of being unilaterally banned, Zhou Jianhui hurriedly comforted him with a few more words, then hastily hung up the phone and went to contact Coca-Cola China while cursing.

No matter what the final result was, he still wanted to try a bit harder; at the very least, he had to fight for Zhou Yi's opportunity to participate in the Golden Melody Awards.

And not long after Zhou Jianhui hung up the phone, Sun Yanzi, who was also at Warner, called in—

"Zhou Yi! How are you? Are you okay? I heard you might be unilaterally banned and unable to come for promotion." Sun Yanzi's voice rarely showed such anxiety and worry.

"Don't worry, I'm fine; I can even eat a few more big pieces of fried sugar cake; my appetite is great."

Still with his usual off-key tone, Zhou Yi casually comforted the worried her with a sentence.

Right after Sun Yanzi, Watching Xiao Yaxuan, Zhang Shaohan, Zhou Jielun, Liu Genhong, and even Wen Lan, everyone he knew on the Treasure Island, called.

It made Zhou Yi feel a bit helpless and amused at the same time.

Clearly, he was the one being banned, so why was he the one comforting these people who were worried for him?

He had already made preparations long ago; otherwise, he wouldn't have chosen songs with extremely high popularity in KTVs, shopping malls, ice rinks, restaurants, and other public areas for the B-side pop songs of his second album.

Except for the relatively realistic hiphop work "Piao Xiang Bei Fang," all the songs on the B-side were basically hit songs for these public venues; basically, as soon as the intro played, people could sing a couple of lines along.

The lyric "Kou Kou" in the song "Not Trendy, No Need to Spend Money" is even a Minnan homophone, matching his Raozhou region's Minnan-speaking tone and aligning perfectly with the Minnan dialect of the Treasure Island region.

The melody guarantees widespread singing in every street and alley while allowing Warner to further sell him as a victim through the Minnan element.

Language is truly the thing in the world most capable of piercing the human heart.

Not to mention the ultimate weapon "Jiangnan".

In the 2004 god-tier battle, "Jiangnan" stayed on the charts for 50 weeks in total, with 30 weeks ranking in the top ten; for weekly number one, "Jiangnan" took the crown for 16 consecutive weeks.

By comparison, "Qi Li Xiang" stayed on the charts for 42 weeks, with 35 weeks in the top ten, and took the weekly number one spot for 18 weeks.

PS: The editor said the Sanjiang recommendation effect was relatively poor, possibly because the book title was too non-mainstream, and asked me to change it to a more mainstream title...

Unable to think of any mainstream option, the editor recommended I use this one, "Chinese Entertainment of 2000"...

PS2: The next chapter will be later, around 11:30.

This chapter wasted more than half an hour in a battle of wits with the censors...

(End of this chapter)