1990: Starting from Baojia Street

On March 7, the third day after the release of "Never Let Me Go", Chen Hongheng went to Zhou Yan's office to report on the situation in the days since the establishment of the Literature Department.

Several people in his team have all arrived now, and there is no pressure on personnel for the time being. However, Chen Hongheng still drew up a list, hoping that the Human Resources Department can help the Literature Department recruit five more people.

Zhou Yan simply glanced at the list, didn't say anything, and signed it directly.

Since I have told Chen Hongheng before that I will give him enough autonomy, there is no need to ask Chen Hongheng for the five recruitment places now.

Chen Hongheng was quite surprised to see Zhou Yan sign without asking any questions. He didn't expect Zhou Yan to really let him do it.

After getting the note signed by Zhou Yan, Chen Hongheng said, "The publishing house wants to arrange a book signing event for you, but it may be postponed for a while."

"Why?" Zhou Yan asked.

Chen Hongheng said with a smile, "Because we can't transfer so many books at the moment."

Since it is a book signing, we must ensure that there are books, otherwise what will we sell to readers when they come?

Even if there aren't many signatures, a conservative estimate is to prepare a thousand copies.

But there are not so many books in Yanjing now.

The sales of "Never Let Me Go" were so good that Yanjing originally had some spare stock, but several neighboring cities were clamoring for the book, so some were transferred there.

If we force ourselves to do so, we can certainly get a thousand books together, but the normal sales of other bookstores cannot be affected by the signing. Isn't this putting the cart before the horse?

"Four hundred thousand copies, aren't they enough so soon?" Zhou Yan was also a little surprised.

"It's not sold out so quickly, but some places are preparing stocks to prevent a shortage of books later, and some other counties are also requesting them. I heard from Liu Yang that the first print run won't last too long, so the publishing house has contacted a total of six printing factories across the country to print more. This time, they should print one million copies."

“They are quite courageous.”

"Haha, they are also very anxious, because after the previous peak sales period is over, sales will drop rapidly."

Zhou Yan nodded. Chen Hongheng was right. Sales would indeed drop rapidly in a few days.

On the one hand, the popularity will decline, and on the other hand, piracy will appear.

After pirated copies came out, fewer people bought genuine copies.

"咚咚-"

There was a knock on the door.

Zhou Yan responded, "Come in."

The door opened and Akina Nakamori came in excitedly, "Look at me——"

After entering the door, Akina Nakamori saw Chen Hongheng and was suddenly stunned. She held back the words she was about to say.

Zhou Yan introduced her with a smile, "This is Chen Hongheng, the director of the new literature department of the studio, and this is..."

"Hello, Ms. Nakamori." Chen Hongheng smiled and greeted Akina Nakamori in Neon language.

Akina Nakamori was quite surprised to hear Chen Hongheng speak Neon. She replied in Mandarin, "Mr. Chen, your Neon is very standard."

"Ms. Nakamori, you are overpraising me. Your Chinese is standard."

"No no."

Zhou Yan asked her, "What did you want to say just now?"

Akina Nakamori smiled and raised the book in her hand, "I bought a copy of your new book at the airport."

"My new book?" Zhou Yan looked confused.

Chen Hongheng next to him also had a confused look on his face.

The reason they were confused was that the cover of the book in Akina Nakamori's hand was completely different from "Never Let Me Go".

"Yes, your new book."

Seeing Zhou Yan's puzzled expression, Nakamori Akina was very puzzled. Didn't the new book just come out? Not only was it reported in the news, she also heard Zhou Yan talk about it on the phone.

In fact, she had already agreed with Zhou Yan before, and Zhou Yan prepared a book for her. However, when she saw a vendor selling books at the airport, she felt it was fate, so she bought one.

"Show me the book."

"Oh."

Akina Nakamori walked over and handed the book to Zhou Yan.

Zhou Yan took the book and after seeing the cover, he couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. It really said "Don't Let Me Go" on it, and the author's name was also Zhou Yan.

He flipped back and saw a long introduction to the author, but a lot of the information in it was wrong.

For example, the introduction says that he was born in 1966, but he was actually born in 1970, a difference of four years.

The introduction says that he is a native of Yanjing, but he is from Jinling.

However, it was true that he studied at the Central Conservatory of Music and stayed on to teach there. Apart from this information, there were also some flattering words that made Zhou Yan blush.

“The greatest composing genius of this century.”

“The youngest film master.”

“Music album sales worldwide exceed 100 million.”

Because it was so ridiculous, Zhou Yan didn't finish reading the introduction and turned to the back.

Following the introduction is a preface by the author.

Zhou Yan did write a preface for "Never Let Me Go", but the content was very simple. It just roughly described why the book was serialized in "October" and mainly talked about the encounter with Zhang Shouren at the Writers' Congress.

But the preface of the book he was holding was not that one at all.

The key point is that this preface actually has a title, called "Every lonely night is accompanied by words and notes."

The content is consistent with the title, and it mainly tells the story of how "I" gradually became a world-renowned artist from a lonely little boy who was not understood by ordinary people.

It’s true that although this preface is written in a very ridiculous and exaggerated way, it is quite emotionally moving. The person who wrote it is quite talented.

Zhou Yan couldn't help but sigh that people are working so hard on piracy nowadays and even write their own copy.

However, what puzzled Zhou Yan was why these pirates would compile these things themselves?
The author's profile and preface are all included in the original book, so you can just copy them directly. It would be a waste of time and effort to compile them yourself.

Could it be that people who pirate products have some kind of bad taste?

But when Zhou Yan turned to the back, he understood why.

This is not a complete book at all. It only contains the first third of "Never Let Me Go", which was previously serialized in "October".

In other words, when this pirated version came out, the original book had not yet come out, and they had no place to copy it, so they could only take the tens of thousands of words serialized in the magazine, and then add other things to make it into a book.

The following tens of thousands of words are more complicated, including Shen Congwen's "Border Town" and Li Ruzhen's "Flowers in the Mirror", which can be said to be three meals a day.

Chen Hongheng was sitting nearby and wanted to see what the book was about, but he was too embarrassed to go over and take a look.

After Zhou Yan finished reading, seeing that he was curious, he handed the book to him and said, "Take a look, it's quite interesting." After hearing what Zhou Yan said, Chen Hongheng became even more curious. Isn't it just a pirated book? Why would it be interesting?

After Chen Hongheng roughly flipped through it, he couldn't help but laugh and said, "The person who did this is considered a talent. Maybe they wanted to seize the market in advance, so they came up with this set."

Zhou Yan nodded, "It seems that they are also anxious. They even ran to the airport to sell it."

"We have to be in a hurry. In a few days, a high-quality pirated version will come out and this book will have no market at all." Chen Hongheng curled his lips and asked curiously, "Why did they add "Border Town" and "Flowers in the Mirror" at the end? If I were to make a pirated version, I would definitely just repeat the previous content, so it wouldn't be so easy to detect."

What Chen Hongheng said is right. "Border Town" and "Flowers in the Mirror" are works from different eras, and the wording and sentence structure are completely different from "Never Let Me Go". If someone casually flips through it, it is easy to see the problem.

"Maybe the pirates feel guilty and want to let readers at least see two books." Zhou Yan shrugged and smiled.

"That means it's great value for money." Chen Hongheng laughed.

Akina Nakamori was listening to their conversation and was completely confused.

"You think this is pirated?"

"It's not as simple as piracy. At least pirated copies can show the original content. This one only has one-third of the content, and the rest is from other books."

"How could this be! The girl selling books looked very honest and told me that she was a salesperson at the airport."

The sales clerk at the airport... Zhou Yan found that Akina Nakamori was so easily deceived. She could actually believe such a clumsy lie. How could a sales clerk at the airport sell books to passengers? It was impossible to even think about it.

Chen Hongheng also stood up at this time and said goodbye with a smile, "Boss, Ms. Nakamori, you guys chat, I'm going back to work."

Zhou Yan nodded, "Go and get busy."

"Goodbye, Mr. Chen."

After Chen Hongheng left, Nakamori Akina sat down next to Zhou Yan and said angrily, "I'm so stupid. I got cheated again."

Zhou Yan smiled and took a copy of Never Let Me Go from under the coffee table. "You said you wanted to read it, and I've prepared it for you. Why do you need to buy it from others?"

"I just feel it's fate that I happened to meet someone selling your book, and I also want to increase the sales of your new book."

Akina Nakamori looked at the book she bought and became more and more angry. Suddenly, she picked up the book and wanted to throw it into the trash can.

Zhou Yan stopped her and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Of course this kind of book should be thrown into the trash can."

Zhou Yan smiled and took the book in his hand. "Don't throw it away. It can be considered a blessing in disguise for you to have come into contact with two excellent Chinese literary works. You can take a look at Border Town and Flowers in the Mirror... Of course, you have to wait until your Chinese level is higher."

"Really? Are these two books good?"

"Ah, very good."

"Oh, then it's kind of useful."

"Then keep it, so you can see it often and you won't be fooled again in the future."

"Yeah." Nakamori Akina nodded, then became annoyed again, "Why did I believe that girl? Okay, let's not talk about this--"

Akina Nakamori hugged Zhou Yan's neck and asked, "What are we going to eat tonight?"

This question made Zhou Yan stunned. Normally, shouldn't she ask "Do you miss me?" Zhou Yan even prepared his answer.

Unexpectedly, she did not play by the rules and asked what I wanted to eat in the evening as soon as we met.

"I asked Kong Chao to prepare hot pot tonight, and we'll have hot pot."

"Hotpot." Akina Nakamori's eyes were sparkling, and it was obvious that she was very satisfied with the hotpot.

Zhou Yan also knew that she loved hotpot, so he asked the canteen to prepare it.

The reason why Akina Nakamori was happy was not only because she loved hot pot, but also because of Zhou Yan's thoughtfulness. She was very addicted to the feeling of being seriously considered.

Asking “Do I miss you?” may get a false answer, but asking “What do you want to eat tonight?” will get a true answer.

But then she pursed her lips and said, "Can you eat hot pot?"

She knew that Zhou Yan was very strict with his diet, especially oil and salt, so he basically would not eat hot pot.

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "It's okay to have a meal occasionally, and we are eating a shabu-shabu pot."

Akina Nakamori smiled and kissed Zhou Yan on the face, "Thank you for your hard work."

Zhou Yan curled his lips, "Although it's not a bad loss, your consolation is not sincere enough."

Akina Nakamori knew what Zhou Yan meant, and she shyly kissed Zhou Yan on the lips, then quickly stood up and said, "I have to go back to the hotel first, and then I will come back to have dinner with you later."

After saying that, she ran away without waiting for Zhou Yan to answer.

Zhou Yan licked his lips. The remaining lipstick on them had a slightly sweet and floral scent, the same smell as the lipstick he used when they first kissed.

……

Akina Nakamori came to Yanjing this time to record the two songs "Fireworks" and "Homecoming".

It would have been better to come back after a while, but she knew that Zhou Yan's new book was published, so she couldn't wait and came to Yanjing in advance.

In the next few days, Zhou Yan basically spent half a day in his office and another half a day in the recording studio accompanying Akina Nakamori to record a new song.

I also encountered some troubles during recording.

She sang the song "Return Home" very well, and it felt right. Some minor issues could be fixed with simple adjustments.

But when she sang "Fireworks", something always felt wrong.

Zhou Yan hoped that her voice could be sweeter or even more mellow when she sang this song, but the effect was not good.

Her resonance is so good. Ask her to be sweeter or more vocal, and she can still sing with that 3D reverberation feeling.

Zhou Yan even asked her to try singing "Christmas Song" to get the feeling, and she sang with the same feeling.

After adjusting for a long time, Zhou Yan felt that this song might not be suitable for Akina Nakamori to sing at all, and it might be better for Shizuka Kudo to sing it.

Although Shizuka Kudo's singing skills are not as good as Akina Nakamori's, she is able to sing this kind of song.

After a long silence, Zhou Yan said, "How about we stop singing this song and let me change another one for you?"

He was negotiating, but Akina Nakamori was very excited, "No, this song cannot be changed, even if it is "Homecoming"."

Of course this song cannot be changed, because it is full of memories of her and Zhou Yan. Now whenever she sings this song, she can think of the fireworks that night.

So, she has to sing this song herself and cannot give it to anyone else.

Seeing how excited she was, Zhou Yan quickly said, "Okay, okay, no change, no change, let's make some adjustments."

Akina Nakamori clenched her fists and was very motivated. "Don't worry, I will definitely adjust."

Zhou Yan also clenched his fist and responded to her, "Okay, I believe you." (End of this chapter)