The opening of China Entertainment Group gave Jay Chou a head-on confrontation

Chapter 922 Expansion of Territory

The reporters who managed to stake out the target and take photos were lucky; if they could, they might even have wanted to hug Zhou Yi and kiss him a few times to express their gratitude.

This is a unique job in China, and only someone like Zhou Yi could do it.

The only downside is that it's not exclusive.

But this also had its advantages: the photos of Zhou Yi pulling the cart existed from various angles, greatly fueling the fans' boasting and amplifying both newspaper exposure and website news clicks.

The reporters were moved to tears.

The Book of Changes, my eternal father!
"Winning an award is like going to the market to buy produce. Just ask anyone in the music scene today?"

"A Grammy gold phonograph is the dream of other singers, but for Zhou Yi, it's only good enough for a cart!"

"It's a real act, but I like it. If you're so capable, let others act like that too."

"Exactly, exactly. Don't the others want to pretend?"

"It's such a waste to use the Book of Changes to write songs for Zhang Jizhong's terrible movies. Sigh, this stupid bearded guy got a free ride."

"There's nothing I can do. That idiot with the big beard is cunning; he made a reservation with Zhou Yi in advance. Zhou Yi also needed to bring some new employees from his company, so he naturally agreed. Sigh..."

"Jianghu Xiao is a nice song, but why does it feel more like a song about the Smiling, Proud Wanderer?"

"..."

In mid-March 2006, Zhang Dahuzi's version of "The Return of the Condor Heroes" officially began airing on major television stations, and its ratings have been rising steadily since its premiere—entering April, it successively won the ratings championship, runner-up and third place on many local television stations.

Despite the criticism from netizens, they still have to watch it.

This has led to the current mixed reputation of this version of "The Return of the Condor Heroes" on the internet.

Furthermore, both the male and female leads were constantly criticized for their performances and the plot. Huang Xiaoming, in particular, was unfortunately compared to Louis Koo's peak performance as Yang Guo in the early episodes, and was ridiculed relentlessly.

The situation only improved after Huang Xiaoming officially appeared as the Condor Hero and revealed his true identity.

He truly brought out the charm of the weathered Condor Hero, no longer needing to pretend to be young and innocent, instantly entering his comfort zone, which further boosted the show's popularity.

Zhou Yi's "Jianghu Xiao" and Zhang Liangying's "Tianxia Wushuang" were already popular before they were even broadcast, thanks to Zhou Yi's own name. After that, they became popular all over the country as the TV series aired.

Of course, while there's less controversy, there are still many people dissatisfied with Huang Xiaoming.

On Tianya, some people even took a screenshot of Zhou Yi's ancient costume look in the MV of "Jianghu Xiao" and photoshopped it to look like Yang Guo, claiming that this is the real Yang Guo who makes you fall in love at first sight.

"Looking like me is something you can only dream of. Even a prime Jimmy would give me a wide berth. These people's expectations are too high."

Once home, Zhou Yi, who had immediately switched to vacation mode, looked at the posts on Tianya boasting about his good looks and couldn't help but let out a soft hum.

No celebrity dislikes being praised.

Otherwise, why would he enter the entertainment industry and show off in front of others?

Question traffic, understand traffic, become traffic.

It's fun to outshine others for a while, and it's even more fun to keep outshine them.

Cheng Hao was stunned for a moment, wondering what this "peak Jimmy" thing was, but then she quickly realized that it was referring to Gu Tianle and laughed heartily: "Then you still win. Gu Tianle has had so much plastic surgery, but you still have your original face."

There's no current trend of distinguishing between cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery. Cheng Long gets criticized for having plastic surgery just for getting double eyelids done, but Gu Tianle is considered to have plastic surgery by Cheng Hao.

The truly top-tier, naturally handsome face belongs to Zhou Yi.

Although Huang Xiaoming is also famous for his good looks, he is clearly still a long way from Zhou Yi. The most obvious point is that Zhou Yi can pull off the messy hairstyles in idol dramas. She saw it with her own eyes when he auditioned for his cameo role as Li Bai.

Most importantly—the Book of Changes is amazing.

Facial imperfections can be corrected through cosmetic procedures, plastic surgery, lighting, and makeup. But height is a real asset. Otherwise, why would Li Mingmo outshine the Four Heavenly Kings in a group photo from the last century? Just standing there is the best cosmetic procedure.

Guo Fucheng's face alone is much more handsome than Li Ming's, but as soon as they take a photo together, he is completely overshadowed by Li Ming. His disadvantage is his height.

"I like to hear that."

Switching back to the work report, Zhou Yi clicked the mouse, indicating his agreement and suggesting more—Cheng Hao gave him a warm punch.

"pain!"

"Stop pretending. The building is about to start construction. Are you going to attend the groundbreaking ceremony?" Cheng Hao, who had been sitting on the man's lap, adjusted her position as she smoothed her hair and asked with a smile.

"So fast?"

Zhou Yi was astonished: "Which piece of land?"

He currently has three plots of land under his control.

One of them is the Weixin International Building in Zhongguancun. Warner Music (China) beat Sohu, and Zhou Yi's connections and influence outmaneuvered Lao Zhang, securing the building for a total price of $2.3 million. The renovation of the building, which will be the future headquarters of Warner Music (China), has already begun, and it is expected that Warner Music will be able to move in by the end of next year.

The remaining two belong to Guiyi and its subsidiaries.

Guiyi's parent company's land is located in the core business district of Beijing, a prime location only four kilometers from the CBD. That 6401-square-meter plot of land was ultimately acquired by Guiyi, and not taken away by China Resources at a low price as Zhouyi remembered.

The land owned by its subsidiary is located near the 798 Art Zone in Beijing.

These three locations alone could bring him considerable future profits, not to mention the residential properties, villas, and shops he has continuously purchased through Guiyi Investment over the years.

After all, although Guiyi focuses on the internet, it doesn't mean it will abandon the physical world. It has started to expand its investments in the four major first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, as well as in Hong Kong, Macau, Hangzhou, Chongqing and other places, under the guise of several subsidiaries.

This is normal.

It's foolish not to spend money when you have it; making money from money is the only way to succeed.

Last year, ringback tones provided nearly 6 million yuan in cash flow, not to mention the ringback tones business revenue brought by companies like Pang Long under Warner Music.

With Warner backing them, they won't be exploited too much by China Mobile.

"That area next to the China World Trade Center belongs to Yi Group. It was personally ordered by President Wang from Wanda. It seems the promises you made to him are quite tempting." Cheng Hao clicked her tongue in amazement, thinking about the speed of the negotiations with Wanda.

Zhou Yi immediately slapped her bottom in dissatisfaction—

What are you talking about? What do you mean by "drawing a pie in the sky"?

I call this foresight!
In the entire investment world, who doesn't know the renowned name of Ziwei Star!

Although Guiyi has now entered a broad-based investment mode, investing in a large number of small internet companies to nurture them, this does not mean that Zhouyi's reputation as an investment master has been diminished—after all, Guiyi leading the investment is different from Zhouyi leading the investment.

Guiyi has a professional team composed of a large number of professionals, while Zhouyi is just himself. "So, should we lead the investment or should we lead the investment?"

"Of course it's Guiyi. At our current scale, it's still a long way from being recognized by the Book of Changes."

At the same time, in the conference room of KuXun.com.

As the chairman of the company's technology committee, Zhang Yiming was naturally kept behind after the meeting—his main responsibility was to make promises to the people in Guiyi Investment Department.
After all, he's the most technically savvy person in the whole company.

Zhang Yiming, who thought he had been chosen by Zhou Yi, the Midas touch master, the best angel investor in the Internet industry, and the most popular investor in the industry for five consecutive years, is now somewhat disappointed.

He even thought he would get to see the Book of Changes.

At the beginning of this year, KuXun.com, which focuses on using vertical search technology to provide accurate and real-time information on vacations, flights, hotels, and travel for a wide range of travelers, officially launched "Train Ticket Search," breaking down the large information gap that exists in the train ticket industry.

This technology, which uses KuXun Train Tickets to obtain travel information such as train tickets and timetables, provided a natural growth point for KuXun in its search for investment, and GuiYi, an investment giant in the industry, was naturally attracted to it.

After investigation, Guiyi then began formal contact with Kuxun.

"It's not that easy for us to meet Zhou Yi. Let alone Zhou Yi, we might not even be able to meet the general manager, the heartthrob."

Because of the classic screen image Cheng Hao left before retiring from the entertainment industry, "Man-Magnet" has almost become her nickname.

"Not necessarily. Yiming is a tech guy. If they need to understand things more thoroughly, Yiming might be invited over for a talk."

..........................................

April 13, 2006, Thursday, is an auspicious day for praying for blessings, taking a bath, and breaking ground.

For people in this line of work, choosing an auspicious day based on feng shui to break ground is a very normal thing.

The concept of Feng Shui has been inseparable from this profession since ancient times.

Wearing a fluorescent vest and a safety helmet, Zhou Yi shook hands with Wang Jianlin, who was also equipped with the same gear, before the groundbreaking ceremony, and officially completed the groundbreaking process in front of the camera.

It's all just a show, a complete performance.

Cheng Hao, also wearing a safety helmet, stood behind the camera, leading the applause and watching the man's every move with a smile.

"Congratulations, Mr. Zhou."

"You're too kind, Mr. Wang."

Faced with Lao Wang's polite words, Zhou Yi smiled knowingly and said, "Cooperation is mutually beneficial, cooperation is mutually beneficial."

Old Wang clearly understood his subtext, and his smile was as bright as a chrysanthemum. He was filled with emotion—Zhou Yi was only seven years older than his son, yet he had already achieved such success in his career.

Even among the internet upstarts who generally started their businesses at a young age, Zhou Yi is the youngest.

It has to be said that comparing yourself to others is truly infuriating.

"I heard that President Zhou is going to attend the closing ceremony of the World Cup..."

Although he has retired from Chinese football, Lao Wang, who still keeps an eye on the sport, started a conversation with Zhou Yi about the World Cup. After all, he was a dominant force in the Jia-A era, so he and Zhou Yi could still have a lot to talk about football.

The most classic question – Who do you support to win the World Cup?

And I also want to lament that the Chinese national football team didn't qualify for the World Cup.

The calculation of points and the resulting favoritism backfired, and the Football Association's amateurishness really infuriated Lao Wang.

If the Football Association hadn't been so unprofessional, and if they had scored just two more goals against Hong Kong, they wouldn't have been eliminated due to goal difference this season...

Compared to Lao Wang, who had already been cheated by the Football Association, Zhou Yi was remarkably calm.

He knows far too much about the inside story and such.

Leaving aside the distant past, Serie A, which is now regarded as a holy land by all football fans, will be exposed in a month with the biggest match-fixing scandal in history, "Calciopoli," involving several big clubs and mid-to-lower-tier teams, with the buying and selling of points making people dizzy.

The championships that fans are so proud of are ultimately nothing more than the product of a shady power struggle between Italian football clubs and the Italian Football Federation.

With as many as 26 people prosecuted, it was a complete sweep – the once-renowned "Little World Cup" was utterly destroyed.

"Didn't he publicly declare his retirement from football? Why does he still seem to care so much?" Cheng Hao asked casually as she got into the car after finishing her trip.

"It's all business, he's shrewd. Football can be a calling card, you can tell by how many people miss Dalian football now."

Zhou Yi smiled, completely unconcerned: "How's 'The Stone'?"

"It's scheduled for release on June 30th. Summer vacation is here, so there should be more people watching this kind of comedy." Cheng Hao perked up immediately when talking about his first production.

Because of its connection to the I Ching, "Crazy Stone" had a significant advantage – it could use songs from Warner Music's library at a very low cost. This was a huge relief for Ning Hao, who had a limited budget.

For Zhou Jianhui, the matter was even simpler to handle—after all, Ning Hao is a Golden Melody Award-winning director who came from Warner Bros., and now he's making theatrical films; the friendship is still there.

Paying a token fee is fine; you can even use songs from the I Ching if you want.

Of course, he was just saying it casually. While Ning Hao was grateful, he couldn't actually use Zhou Yi's song; that would be a bit too much of a jerk.

Although he was also envious of the role that "Jianghu Xiao" played in promoting the early stages of "The Return of the Condor Heroes," Ning Hao clearly knew how to handle people—he also reported to Cheng Hao that he wanted to invite Hu Yanbing, a singer under Warner Music, to compose and sing the theme song and the end credits song.

Reciprocity is a courtesy.

The cost will be deducted from the publicity budget provided by China Film Group. Anyway, Hu Yanbing is really not expensive now.

The online promotion was also packaged with Wang Xiaoyu's Zhiyu Zhile, which mainly promoted the idea of ​​transferring profits within the company.

"Wang Xiaoyu's business deal is going to be a disaster."

"I guess so. Just this year alone, he has invested heavily in two online productions, 'The Little Fairy' and 'The Return of the Condor Heroes,' and he has already achieved his goals for the year ahead of schedule."

As one of the TV dramas that became popular at the beginning of the year, "The Little Fairy" did not have Zhou Yi's songs, but it did have a song called "A Glance of Ten Thousand Years" composed by Lin Junjie, lyrics by Yao Ruolong, arrangement by Hong Jingyao, and sung by S.H.E.

The lineup for this song is absolutely dreamlike; its popularity and reach skyrocketed as soon as it was released.

After the TV series aired, Hu Ge and Lin Yichen, who are recognized as "beneficiaries of the Ziwei star halo," became even more popular, making countless people envious.

Tank Lv Jianzhong, a newcomer from HIM International Music, also made his debut with the soundtrack of "The Little Fairy". His song "Tears of a Thousand Years" opened up his fame and made him a familiar face.

Given this situation, it would be impossible for Cai Yinong not to increase her promotional investment.

"There's one more thing. There's an investment deal with Guiyi that exceeds their authority, and you need to make a personal decision. It's with an internet company that focuses on a specific niche market, called Kuxun.com..."

(End of this chapter)