Peninsula: From Water Injection to Stardom

The next day, at 6 a.m. as usual, the van arrived on time downstairs at the Ment TV station.

The two main things to do today are: first, to record a performance for "M! Countdown"; and second, to go back to MBC this afternoon to participate in the live broadcast of "Show Champion" as the winner.

This week's announcement actually has nothing to do with Jiang Yan, but I still have to go because it will give me some exposure on TV.

Although he considers this exposure unnecessary, he won't go out of his way to avoid it.

To put it bluntly, his current status isn't high enough to justify not attending.

In the backstage dressing room, Jiang Yan sat in his seat waiting for Jiang Zhennan to return and tell him the rehearsal order for today.

Just like yesterday, there was a queue for recording the stage.

After waiting for a while, Jiang Zhennan pushed open the door and walked in, saying, "Today is about the same as yesterday, it will take a long time."

Jiang Yan nodded upon hearing this: "Then I'll go out for a stroll."

After saying that, he got up and walked out of the rest room into the corridor.

It wasn't aimless; I walked to the waiting area over the stage to see who was rehearsing or recording.

However, before he even reached his destination, he could clearly hear the voice of a female idol singing from afar.

Jiang Yan recognized the voice as belonging to EXID, a popular girl group that rose to fame last year with their fancams and became a top-tier group.

His opponent is also promoting his song at the same time, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, he will be one of the competitors for first place next week.

Kang Yeon had listened to EXID's comeback title track "Ah Yeah" in his previous life, but he actually preferred another song, "Every Night".

After peeking over to watch the other party's complete stage recording, Jiang Yan turned around and went straight back to the dressing room.

In the past, he might have taken the opportunity to greet and get to know these female idols who were promoting their songs at the same time, thus expanding his social circle.

But right now, Jiang Yan just wants to focus on getting her own career going.

He sat back down on the sofa and switched to power-saving mode.

However, he had only been resting with his eyes closed for less than an hour when he heard Jiang Zhennan's excited voice: "Wake up! You're going to be famous!"

Jiang Yan opened her eyes and looked at him in surprise, asking, "What do you mean?"

"Guess how many albums you've sold so far."

"One hundred thousand copies?"

"Uh... not that many."

Jiang Zhennan paused for a moment, clearly not expecting Jiang Yan to give this number.

"Where is the fire?"

Jiang Yan looked at Jiang Zhennan in bewilderment. How could he conclude that Jiang Zhennan was going to become famous when he didn't even have 100,000 copies?

"Then why don't you just say one million? Let's be realistic, okay?" Jiang Zhennan said speechlessly.

"So how many are there exactly?"

"It's already exceeded 30,000."

"Okay, tell me the details."

"I just received the news. Yesterday, after the department settled the first day's sales, the online pre-sales and offline sales combined totaled more than 10,000 units. But today, a batch of online orders suddenly increased, and all of them are from China."

Jiang Zhennan relayed what he knew about the situation.

The album's current sales exceeding 30,000 copies are ultimately due to Jiang Yan's sudden increase in domestic sales.

The source of these losses is undoubtedly the new fans attracted by the "beautiful, strong, and tragic" persona created through Weibo marketing.

"Based on this situation, I feel that with some effort, we should be able to produce 50,000 more copies," Jiang Zhennan said, offering a reasoned analysis.

"Indeed, but we could actually be a little bolder," Jiang Yan said with a smile.

"What do you mean?"

"50,000 copies may be the limit of my current number of fans, but it is not my limit."

"Huh? I don't understand what you mean."

"It's okay, you'll understand later."

Jiang Yan smiled, not intending to give Jiang Zhennan a special explanation of what he was going to do in the future.

The conversion rate of new fans to China-based sales was faster than he had expected, and higher China-based sales meant that, if he wanted, he could rely on this data to "balance" his offline sales in South Korea.

There's an even more extreme method: registering both ends simultaneously and then posting big posters to boast about sales and attract influencer followers.

Many K-pop groups have used this method since then, but Kang Yeon will not do it.

Because not betting on losing is his bottom line.

……

After the recording of "M! Countdown" was completed, Jiang Yan also completed recordings for three major stations in the following days.

His first week of promotional activities has ended, and all that's left is to wait until next week for the TV station to release his scores and rankings.

A week may not seem like a long time, but during this week, what Jiang Zhennan said earlier, which seemed like a joke, actually came true.

Jiang Yan has become famous.

However, it didn't become a huge hit, but rather a minor one.

After entering the Melon daily chart, the title track "I Am You, You Are Me" has climbed into the top ten in just one week.

Another song, "All I Wanna Do," is also in the top 20, and based on the data curve on the website, these two songs are expected to stay on the daily charts for a long time.

The remaining two non-mainstream songs lacked market growth and are almost falling off the daily charts, but that's no longer important.

With the two songs that charted, Jiang Yan's popularity has grown significantly.

CUBE responded that they have received several invitations for local commercial performances, with appearance fees exceeding 100,000 yuan.

This appearance fee is not low in South Korea, because the highest price quoted for commercial performances here is only around 300,000 won.

In other words, Jiang Yan's fan base and popularity have been initially recognized by the local market.

There has been a lot of discussion about Kang Yeon on Korean online forums these past few days.

"I really didn't expect this guy's songs to be so popular."

"Is this data real? How can so many people listen to his songs? Are you sure it's not data inflated by fans?"

"Data ignoramuses, wake up! If you could get into the top ten of the daily charts just by having fans boost your numbers, then boy band fans would have already blown up the charts by now KKKKK"

"What's so good about this song? The melody's just so-so."

"Although I'm not a fan of him, this song is surprisingly to my liking, and it's been on my playlist for a while now."

"It's already in the top 5 of Genie's daily chart, which means there are really a lot of people who love listening to it..."

"It's not just that the music is good; haven't you noticed that his album has already sold over 4 copies on the H-charts?"

"No way, does he really have that many fans?"

"I don't know if he has a lot of fans, but it's true that a lot of people listen to his songs. The convenience store downstairs from my house plays his songs on repeat every day ㅋㅋㅋㅋ"

"..."

After posting many threads online to discuss and verify the authenticity of Jiang Yan's popularity, these people finally concluded that, at least for now, he is indeed somewhat famous.

However, ARMYs, who are also aware of this situation, have been somewhat panicked in the past two days.

Jiang Yan's promotional dates coincided with BTS's, but now the chart performance of their title track has completely exceeded their expectations.

In other words, next week, the other party will transform into BTS's most direct competitor for the number one spot on the minor channel.

This situation was something the ARMYs had never imagined would happen before.

This doesn't make sense, does it?

Shouldn't he have been completely obscure after his solo failure? How come it looks like he's going to make a name for himself before BTS!