1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Jeff Brown guessed right. His assistant contacted Huanyin and expressed his desire to invite Wang Lihong to participate in the Backstreet Boys' No. 16 performance. However, the other party did not agree immediately and only said that he would wait and see the schedule before making a decision.

The assistant turned around and told Jeff Brown the result. He was not surprised at all because he had expected it.

But Jeff Brown was very interested in this Phantom Sound. "Who is the owner of this Phantom Sound Company?"

The assistant shook his head. "I haven't found out anything about this. I only know it's a new company in Taiwan."

In fact, he didn't check at all.

Huanyin is a company in Taiwan. They are too far away and it is not easy to check them.

This time, Leehom Wang released the single in cooperation with Sony. His assistant learned from Sony that Leehom is the company of Huanyin, and also got Huanyin's contact information from Sony.

"Don't Sony know about this company either?" Jeff Brown expressed doubt.

After all, both parties have cooperated, and Sony should have known about Phantom Sound.

A large international company like Sony has connections in the music industry of various countries and is familiar with companies in various countries.

"They didn't reveal anything useful."

Jeff Brown nodded. He guessed that Sony probably knew about it but was unwilling to disclose it.

Although Jeff Brown was a little disappointed that he didn't find out about Phantom Sound's background, he would not spend too much energy investigating.

It would be best if we could invite Leehom Wang, but if we can’t, that’s fine, it’s just a convenient move.

The most crucial thing is Y himself. He plans to call Y himself in two days after the Lantern Festival in China is over to ask about the song.

……

On the afternoon of the Lantern Festival, Zhou Yan stayed with Joey Wong and watched her play cards with her grandmother, eldest aunt and third aunt.

Zhou Yu came back in a hurry, holding a book in his hand, "Look what this is?"

There were two card tables in the room, and a lot of people gathered around them. When they heard what he said, they all looked over.

"Xiao Yu, what are you holding?" the old lady looked up and asked. While speaking, she did not forget to throw away the unwanted chicken in her hand.

“This is the latest issue of October.”

Most people in the Zhou family knew about "October" magazine, but they didn't understand why Zhou Yu took this book.

Wang Zuxian's eyes lit up, "Is it that San Ge's novel has been serialized?"

Zhou Yan only talked about "Never Let Me Go" with Joey Wong during their chat, and didn't tell any other family members.

The main reason was that he felt that he released works quite frequently, and it would be troublesome to tell his family every time a work was released.

He would definitely tell his family about things like making a new movie, but he would not take the initiative to tell them about other things like releasing a new song or a new novel.

After hearing what Joey Wong said, everyone looked at Zhou Yan again.

The old lady asked, "Xiao Yan, what novel do you have?"

She almost forgot that her grandson was a novelist. Zhou Yan hadn't published a novel for some time.

"I wrote it a while ago, and it happened to be picked up by Zhang, the chief judge of October, so he decided to serialize it in this issue."

Today is February 21st, and March’s “October” has already come out.

Zhou Yan also knew that he would be leaving early, but he had been at home celebrating the New Year and didn't pay much attention to it.

If he were in Yenching, he should have received the sample issue.

Zhou Yu held up the magazine and said with a smile, "Third brother, you didn't even tell your family about your new work. I only knew about your new book serialization from my former colleague at the Yangtze Evening News, who also happened to see it today."

This also cleared up Zhou Yan's doubts. He was wondering how his elder brother knew about his novel serialization.

"Come, show it to me." The old lady waved quickly.

The old man on the other side also waved, "Let me see first."

Other people also wanted to watch it, but it was not easy to compete with the two old people.

Zhou Yu smiled and took out four magazines from his bag. "It's okay. I bought a few more. Let's read them together."

Although he bought a few more books, there were too many people in the family and he couldn't divide them all. In the end, there was one book for each table, one for the younger generations, and the other two were given to the old man and the old lady respectively.

Everyone stopped playing cards and focused on Zhou Yan's novel.

Those who didn't have magazines would either go to read those that had magazines, or come over to chat with Zhou Yan about the new book.

Uncle Zhou Yaozu lost the competition and didn't get any magazines to read. He looked at Zhou Yu and couldn't help complaining, "You are such a good person, don't you know how to live your life? Don't you know how to buy a few more? There are so many people in our family, who will read these few magazines?"

Zhou Yu smiled and said, "I found these five books in the two nearest places. I am too lazy to go to other places. Uncle San, five books are not a small number. It would be a waste to buy more."

"Otherwise, you will live well."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "Big brother is going to be a father soon, so he must save some money. After the child is born, milk powder and clothes will be big expenses."

"Third brother still understands me."

Zhou Yaozu curled his lips and smiled again, "Actually, I have heard about your new book, but I haven't been paying attention to it."

"Uncle San, you knew about this, why didn't you tell us?"

"I thought you knew."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "It's just a novel, I didn't tell you about it specifically."

Zhou Yaozu nodded and expressed his understanding.

He had heard about this from his teachers at school before. The teachers at school now all knew that Zhou Yan was his nephew, so when they learned that Zhou Yan was going to publish a novel, they came to ask him.

It's just that he rarely pays attention to literature and doesn't pay special attention to it.

Zhou Yu looked at the direction of several books and pouted, "I don't know when they will finish reading. I haven't read them yet."

Zhou Yaozu laughed, "You are a very honest boy. Why did you hand over all five books? Keep one for yourself."

"If I really kept it, it would definitely be in your hands now, Uncle San."

Zhou Yaozu pursed his lips and did not refute, because Zhou Yu was telling the truth. If Zhou Yu kept one, he would definitely snatch it away.

"You should come back after you finish reading." "I was so anxious to share this good news with everyone."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "This issue should have more than 60,000 words. If you read it all... it will probably take more than an hour."

"You overestimate their reading speed. The fastest ones among them can't finish reading in two hours, especially the old man and the old lady. These words are enough for them to read for an entire afternoon. I guess only your uncle reads faster, but he's not a fast reader anyway." Zhou Yaozu sighed again, "You should let me read first. After all, I read the fastest."

Zhou Yu joked, "Uncle San, you have a fast reading speed. You can finish reading a composition of several hundred words in half a minute."

He was talking about Zhou Yaozu's speed in marking papers.

"Half a minute is slow. If you encounter a fast one, even ten seconds won't be enough."

Hearing what his uncle said, Zhou Yan smiled knowingly.

Although many students complain that teachers correct essays too quickly and they cannot finish reading the essays, this cannot be blamed on the teachers because there is really no way to read the essays word by word.

In fact, you don’t need to spend time reading most students’ essays.

In his previous life, Zhou Yan taught in a top-notch middle school. The students' essays were empty and meaningless, and basically only the beginning and the ending mattered.

If he encounters a poorly written paper, Zhou Yan will basically only look at the ending and give a score.

Over time, a vicious cycle has formed. Students know that teachers only look at the beginning and end when marking the papers and focus on the appearance of the paper, so they pay special attention to the design of the beginning and the end, and are particularly confused in the middle.

The teacher has seen this kind of test paper many times and will not even look at the middle part.

Everyone knows that this is not a good idea as it is impossible to judge the level of students' writing. The end result is that most people's essays get similar scores.

However, there is no way to break this vicious cycle unless the number of examiners can be increased dozens of times each year, so that each teacher has enough time to read through the essays, and even find out the typos and grammatical errors in the essays, and then deduct points according to a unified standard.

Although this cannot absolutely judge the quality of writing, it is at least better than quick marking.

However, it is impossible to add so many examiners.

Talking about the marking of papers, Zhou Yu asked curiously, "I remember that Xiaoyan didn't have particularly outstanding writing skills when he was in middle school, right? Uncle San, were his Chinese grades good before?"

"He has good grades in all subjects, and his Chinese is certainly not bad. As for his writing ability, I don't have much impression of him."

Although Zhou Yan is his nephew, it is impossible for Zhou Yaozu to read his essays for no reason. At most, he would pay attention to his grades in various subjects.

Zhou Yan has always been good at academic subjects. Even if he didn't go to the Central Conservatory of Music, he could have been admitted to most domestic universities based on his grades. The only universities that would be a bit stressful would be Yenching University and Tsinghua University.

At that time, Zhou Yan was among the top students in his class, and the top students in his class were all studying in schools like Tsinghua University, Yenching University, and Fudan University.

So when Zhou Yan went to the Central Conservatory of Music, their class teacher felt it was a pity.

Zhou Yaozu recalled and didn't expect Zhou Yan to show any writing ability in middle school. However, this is not surprising. Many writers are like this. On the contrary, there are not many people who often write in middle school who later become writers, such as Zhou Yu.

Thinking of Zhou Yu, Zhou Yaozu smiled and said, "You, on the other hand, wrote a lot of articles and poems when you were in middle school. I remember you submitted a manuscript to Today and it was accepted."

Zhou Yu smiled sheepishly, "When I submitted my work to Today, I was only in middle school. But at that time, Today didn't last long and I was in pain for a long time."

"Brother, have you ever submitted an article to Today?" Zhou Yan asked in surprise.

Many people don’t know about the magazine “Today”, but it has special significance for the development of Chinese literature in the 1980s.

This magazine was created by Bei Dao and Mang Ke. In the beginning, they printed the copies by hand and distributed them everywhere. It was a completely underground publication. Later, it developed into mimeographed ones, but the scale was very small, and most of the copies were distributed in Yanjing and its surrounding areas.

Zhou Yan didn't expect that his elder brother in Jinling actually knew about "Today" and even contributed articles to it.

"Today" did not last long, only two years at most, but it attracted a lot of people at that time, and many of them later developed well in the literary world.

Zhou Yu smiled and said, "I read Today and was very excited, so I wrote a letter to Bei Dao and submitted my manuscript. I didn't expect that I would not only receive a reply from Bei Dao, but also be told that my manuscript was accepted. It was a poem, but I can't remember the content of the poem anymore."

In fact, Zhou Yu still remembers the poem. After all, it was the first poem in his life to be published in a magazine. How could he forget it? But looking back now, he feels that the poem was not well written, so he is embarrassed to say it.

Gu Fangfang was standing next to him, her eyes twinkling. "I didn't even know you wrote poetry."

He had known Zhou Yu for such a long time and they were about to have a child, but he didn't even know that Zhou Yu had published a poem. If Uncle San hadn't mentioned it today, she might not have known about it.

"It's all old news. I haven't written about it much since then."

Zhou Yan smiled. This was his elder brother Zhou Yu. He usually seemed to be laughing and talking a lot, but he was actually very good at hiding things in his heart. Moreover, even if he was hiding something, others would still think he was not hiding anything.

Before, Zhou Qian and her friends wondered why the family wanted the eldest brother Zhou Yu to go into politics and the second brother Zhou Hong to do business, even though the second brother was more stable and the eldest brother was more active.

Now it seems that the arrangement at home makes a lot of sense.

Being in politics doesn't necessarily have to be very serious, especially when you are not in a high position, it can be a bit eccentric and confusing.

My eldest brother was born to be an official. Every unit he has worked in over the years was managed strictly by him. Whether it was managing downwards or upwards, he was very good at it.

……

After having lunch at home, Zhang Shouren rushed to the unit.

As soon as he arrived at the unit, he heard good news that this issue of the magazine sold particularly well in Yanjing and the printing factory had been notified to print more copies.

Because we received news that there were not enough copies as soon as the sale started, we added more copies this time to prevent other areas from having a shortage of copies.

"October" was released in Yanjing earlier than in other places, but it had only been on the market for two days. This sales speed was a little beyond Zhang Shouren's expectations.

"I heard that Yanshi University collectively purchased 300 copies."

"So many? Isn't school starting yet? Don't they have a subscription?"

"In addition to the subscription, someone else purchased 300 copies. It seems that it was Zhou Yan's fan club that ordered it."

Zhang Shouren was surprised and asked, "Zhou Yan's support group at Yanshi University actually has so many people?"

If 300 copies of the magazine are purchased, then the number of members in the fan club must be more than 300, or even far more.

There are only so many students in Yanshi University, how come so many people join Zhou Yan's fan club?

What Zhang Shouren didn't know was that although there were not that many people from Yanshi University participating in the fan club, the Yanshi University fan club was not limited to Yanshi University students, and there were also non-school students participating.

There are many students from nearby middle schools who choose to join the Yanshi University Fan Club because their schools do not have such organizations.

This time Zhou Yan’s new book will be serialized in "October", so we decided to subscribe to the magazine.

This is because it is still the holiday season, otherwise we would not be able to get 300 copies. (End of this chapter)