A grand feast for the Chinese entertainment industry

Chapter 125 Money's Being Given Out!
October 11th, Thursday.

Great news—Rolling Stone is settling accounts!

Since the album was released on March 1st, only two payments have been made. One was the royalties for the first 3 copies sold in the Taiwan market, and the second was from the mainland. After Moyan settled with Xinhua Bookstore, he settled with Lin Jianlu for both channels. Now, we've finally received the third payment.

This is definitely the biggest one yet.

The reason Lin Jianlu came to stay in Taiwan this week is at least 30% because he is waiting for this sum of money.

Even Su Huilun and Chen Shuhua were extremely excited—now that everyone is a family, that will be a huge sum of money, and it will definitely be the largest royalty payment ever made to a singer by Rock Records since its inception!
Two agents, Ge Fuhong and Zhang Aijia, also came along.

They brought a full team of accountants to carefully check every sales record provided by Rolling Stone.

This time, the sales figure is approximately 662 million copies, excluding the mainland market. Subtracting the previous 500,000 copies sold in Taiwan, the total sales figure is approximately 612 million copies.

After settling this transaction, we've basically reached the milestone of tens of millions in sales. There will definitely be more to come, perhaps even many years from now, but the scale will never be comparable to this settlement.

Prices vary in each market, so the money earned will naturally differ.

The highest CD prices are in Singapore and Korea, but Singapore is directly operated, with Rock Records having its own distribution capabilities there. In Korea, however, they have to rely on licensing to local distributors. Therefore, in reality, the revenue per CD in Korea is less than in Hong Kong for the company. Of course, that has nothing to do with Lin Jianlu, who receives royalties directly based on the release price, regardless of the actual profit.

The accountants worked hard all morning, ate a simple boxed lunch at noon, and then continued working.

The audit concluded at 3:30 PM, and Zhang Aijia informed Lin Jianlu that he could sign the papers—signing the papers meant acknowledging the sales data provided by Rolling Stone, which would eliminate any legal issues and allow him to receive the money directly.

In reality, there was still some shady dealing involved, but it was harmless and had little impact. Therefore, Ge Fuhong and Zhang Aijia discussed with Lin Jianlu that they shouldn't worry about it, as it was industry practice and they would definitely steal a little.

This time, Lin Jianlu is popular enough, and Rolling Stone also wants to achieve tens of millions in sales, so they have stolen very little. In fact, in the early stages, before five million copies, they basically didn't steal any at all. They should be content!
Then sign it. Sign it and get the money.

A total of 612 million copies of sales royalties were settled, with a pre-tax net income of up to 826 million US dollars!

Not only is this the largest royalty settlement in Rolling Stone's history, but it's also Lin Jianlu's biggest single income since her debut—it's amazing!

Furthermore, this is not simply a matter of a large sum of money. When the funds are deposited into his HSBC account, his account manager will definitely generate a report – which will once again prove his extraordinary earning power as an Asian superstar and the most popular person in the entire Chinese entertainment industry this year!
At the same time, this also means that HSBC's previous credit line and loan to me were absolutely the right decisions – this loan will be very safe and the borrower is fully capable of repaying on time!

That evening, Lin Jianlu treated everyone to dinner.

Some things, even among the closest relationships, are best kept private. Therefore, instead of hosting at home, we rented a large villa, inviting all our acquaintances from the Rolling Stones network for a lively get-together. We drank, ate barbecue, sang karaoke—it was a wonderful time.

Before the party even ended, just after nine o'clock, Lin Jianlu and his two wives left together. Everyone was in high spirits today, so after the social event, they decided to go back to their own home and have a good drink together to celebrate.

Well, they both got really drunk in the end. They put on some music and started dancing around like crazy. Su Huilun even rolled up her pants, all the way up to her thighs, trying to imitate Lin Jianlu's long, white legs as a backup dancer.

Later, he simply took off his pants, wearing only his underwear, and started doing a provocative dance.

Chen Shuhua laughed heartily, clapping and cheering, until Lin Jianlu quickly stripped them both naked.

…………

November 22nd, Friday, flying to Bangkok.

Featuring a super-luxurious troupe of dancers with long, white legs, it's another super-exciting and explosive live performance.

The next morning, I got up and flew to Sishui.

Both shows were very successful. Duan, who was wandering around backstage, had a smile on his face the whole time. This approach wasn't invented by Rolling Stones; Japan had been doing it for a long time. The appeal of a single star might not be enough, but when everyone performs together, it still makes the fans feel that it's worth the ticket price.

So Rolling Stones does this every year, usually eight shows, covering Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. They usually go to the largest venues in the area, some with a capacity of over 30,000 people, others with around 10,000. It's almost impossible to have tickets left over. The promoters are happy, the local fans are happy, and Rolling Stones are happy too.

Of course, ordinary singers and minor celebrities are also happy.

They don't have many commercial performance opportunities, and their earnings are limited. For them, participating in such a large-scale concert can be considered a commercial performance, and the money won't be much less. On the other hand, appearing alongside so many big stars is also an opportunity for fans to get to know them.

For example, Richie Jen and Rene Liu are among them. They both came to the Bangkok concert, and Rene Liu even took the opportunity to quietly ask Lin Jianlu, "Has Sister Aijia been acting a bit strange lately? She called and scolded me for no reason twice already!"

Lin Jianlu shrugged, "I didn't know! They've been very nice to me!"
The music video for "Fairy Tale" became a huge hit, saving her life. She's been quite active in Taiwan for the past six months, constantly appearing on TV shows, shooting magazine covers, and doing commercials. She's doing very well. Recently, it's said that she's going to take on a movie role, but she's still quite willing to accept the role, even though it involves some revealing scenes. She probably hopes to become as popular as she was with "Siao Yu" back then.

Zhang Aijia seems to be showing some disdain for her lately.

She thought her brain was full of clever tricks, but in Zhang Aijia's opinion, it was actually incredibly stupid!

Having worked together for over half a year, they had become exceptionally close. Zhang Aijia was often straightforward and honest. She herself admitted that she initially wanted to matchmake Lin Jianlu and Liu Ruoying, and even hinted at it. However, she later realized it wouldn't work out, as Lin Jianlu seemed uninterested. She even considered having Liu Ruoying become Lin Jianlu's assistant, just like Ge Fuhong had assigned Lin Xilei. But after much deliberation, she felt that Liu Ruoying was inferior in both looks and emotional intelligence, and was no match for Lin Xilei. She also estimated that Lin Jianlu would look down on her, so she gave up the idea.

She has now set her sights on Su Huilun and Chen Shuhua.

Liu Ruoying has almost completely fallen out of favor.

…………

After the performance in Sishui, everyone else went back to their hotels to rest so they could catch their flights easily the next morning. But Lin Jianlu couldn't do that; he would have to sleep on the plane.

Everything is ready in America, and he's going there to record.

Sylvia Chang is busy with this year's Golden Horse Awards and will definitely be unable to get away, but Ge Fuhong arrived in Surabaya in the afternoon and will accompany Lin Jianlu to America with Lin Xilei.

For her, nothing else mattered.

When they arrived in New York, Zhao Mingxin from Sony Columbia was waiting for them—for Zhao Mingxin, it was almost the same story, nothing else of note.

Recording Lin Jianlu's three English songs is the most important thing everyone is doing right now!

Let's go, let's get to work!

Before leaving, Su Huilun and Chen Shuhua were both a little reluctant to part. Although they would meet again next weekend to attend the final two shows of the Rolling Stones tour, it seemed that flying to America was a different story, and it felt like it was so far away all of a sudden.

However, both of them were at their busiest time and it was impossible for them to get away to be with her.

Chen Shuhua was alright; she was much older and more mature. Su Huilun, on the other hand, seemed to be losing control of her emotions. She touched her chest and said, "You have to behave yourself over there. Don't go chasing after foreign girls. Foreign girls are all promiscuous; you'll get diseases! If you get a disease, I won't let you touch me again!"

Lin Jianlu chuckled and ruffled her hair. "Okay!"

Seeing that Lin Jianlu's agreement was so perfunctory, she was very dissatisfied and said, "Don't think that we're both too busy. We're not busy at all. At worst, we won't sell the album. Shu Hua and I will take some time to suddenly fly over and check, and give you a surprise! So, don't get caught by us! Be good!"

Lin Jianlu smiled again, nodded seriously, and said earnestly, "I'll definitely behave! I won't date foreign girls!"

So they rushed to catch a plane in the middle of the night, and it took off just before midnight.

Eat, sleep, sleep, eat, eat, sleep... until I really couldn't sleep anymore, and the plane still hadn't arrived.

We refueled once during the flight and flew for about 23 hours before finally landing in New York. Let's adjust the odometer: hey, it's 1 p.m. local time.

In terms of time alone, the flight took about 13 hours.

Everyone was quite tired. Zhao Mingxin came to pick them up at the airport. They shook hands upon meeting, but didn't bother to say much. After a few simple words, they went out, got into the car, and headed straight to the hotel.

However, while still in the car, Lin Jianlu's phone suddenly rang. When he answered, he was surprised to find that it was Chen Hong, whom he had met not long ago, on the other end of the line. "Oh, Chen Hong, hello!"

"Hey, you didn't leave? Why didn't you say so earlier? I just arrived in New York, just landed!"

"Oh, I'm here to record some songs in English. I'll see if I can make some money off these foreigners. Hahaha... Hey, just singing whatever comes to mind. Give it a try! Ah? You're not going back to the capital? Oh, that's great. You know New York well, right? Perfect. If you're going straight back to New York, you lead the way, and I'll pay for a couple of American meals!"

(End of this chapter)