Peninsula: From Water Injection to Stardom

Although Jiang Yan doesn't seem to have any business commitments since returning from China, he has actually been quite busy.

Besides rehearsing collaboration stages at JYP in the evenings, he also spends his days in the studio perfecting the demos Park Jin-young bought from him and preparing his first comeback album.

He sent the demo of the collaboration song to Lee Ji-eun via email after he finished it.

After some deliberation, he chose the song "GANADARA," partly because the lyrics resonated with his identity as a foreigner and generated discussion.

After about a week, Yuehua finally settled his account for the first time.

The total cost was 300 million Korean won, which is less than 1.4 million Chinese yuan.

The amount of money wasn't much, but for someone who had only been a solo artist for a little over a month, it was a very generous settlement.

The first thing Jiang Yan did after receiving the settlement was to spend a day finding a private apartment near the Lehua dormitory to rent.

I didn't choose a very large apartment; around 70 square meters is more than enough.

After that, he paid a cleaning company to give the apartment a thorough cleaning before he started moving, moving all his belongings from the dormitory to the apartment.

With the apartment matter settled, Jiang Yan continued to rehearse and prepare for the stage performance of "Recalling Songs".

The stage recording with SBS was scheduled for June 15th, which gave us plenty of time.

However, just as Jiang Yan had mentioned on the phone, Yoo Jeong-yeon was exhausted from juggling the show and promotional activities at the same time.

According to inside information provided by Mina, Yoo Jeong-yeon now falls asleep as soon as she enters her room after returning to the dormitory late at night, and her sleep quality is quite good.

……

Time flies, and it's already the 11th.

During the day, Jiang Yan was still at CUBE's studio, focused on mixing a song for the album, until a phone call came in and he stopped what he was doing to answer it.

"The company has arranged a fashion magazine shoot for you, and it's scheduled for next month."

The caller was Jiang Zhennan, who told him that Yuehua Entertainment had arranged new domestic resources for him.

The magazine assigned to them was "Men's Health," a mainland Chinese publication, which is considered a second-tier men's fashion magazine.

This was a supplement that Yuehua Entertainment directly shoved into his publication by buying the cover for his entire team, and it was just a regular August issue.

Although it wasn't the peak season of September and October, nor the beginning or end of the year, Jiang Yan wasn't picky; as long as it was available, it was fine.

Starting with a second-tier magazine is a good start. First-tier magazines like ELLE, VOGUE, and GQ will come along eventually.

However, after learning that Yuehua Entertainment had bought him a cover, Jiang Yan actually thought it would be better to just give him a regular monthly supplement in a near-top-tier magazine.

Anyway, it's all about the team buying the cover, buying a near-top-tier magazine like "BAZAAR MEN" to do a wave of fashion marketing, which is convenient for their fans to brag about.

The current fan culture isn't so meticulous that people go to the official magazine accounts to find invitation records for cover shoots; buying a cover and bragging can fool many people.

It can only be said that Yuehua's marketing strategy is still too conservative.

But after thinking it over, Jiang Yan ultimately decided not to use this marketing method for the time being.

Appearing in fashion magazines is meant to elevate one's social standing and solidify a certain status.

But he's still in the stage of expanding his popularity, so there's no rush and he can take it slowly.

Besides the magazine shoot, Jiang Zhennan also told him that the Nivea Men endorsement he had previously signed would also be filmed in China next month.

After the shoot, the brand will make an official announcement on Weibo and begin promoting GG.

After saying these two things, Jiang Zhennan hung up the phone.

However, after putting down his phone, Jiang Yan did not immediately continue mixing.

The phone call also reminded him that he should take a break, but when he checked the time, it was only a little past two in the afternoon.

Jiang Yan checked his phone again and found that there were no unread messages. So he thought for a moment and decided to call Kim Seolhyun.

The phone rang for a long time before being answered.

"Oppa?! Why are you calling at this hour?"

Kim Seol-hyun's voice on the other end of the phone was filled with surprise and disbelief; she clearly hadn't expected Jiang Yan to call at this time.

"Can't I? I just suddenly wanted to call you." Jiang Yan made this call for no reason other than to call Jin Xuexuan.

"Sure, but it feels really strange. You never call me at this time," Kim Seolhyun said softly.

"So what are you doing now?"

"Um, I'm rehearsing at the company. The group is making a comeback later this month."

"Wait a minute, what date are you returning?"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Yan remembered that AOA was also making a comeback this month.

"Number 22? What's wrong?" Kim Seolhyun replied, puzzled.

"Luckily it's the 22nd, so it doesn't clash with my week," Jiang Yan said after a moment's thought.

The 22nd is the fourth week of June, while his comeback performance stage is the 15th, which is the third week of June.

In other words, he avoids direct competition with AOA in the same week, thus avoiding direct competition in the first week.

"Are you afraid of clashing with our comeback?" Kim Seolhyun finally realized what Kang Yeon meant. She had also learned about the recall for music show promotions from him before.

"Yeah, if we all go in the same week, I'm afraid you guys will steal one of my spots," Jiang Yan said frankly.

AOA's comeback single is "Heartbeat," which has achieved strong streaming numbers and is a top 20 hit on Melon's yearly chart.

If they competed against each other on smaller platforms at the same time, "All I Wanna Do" would most likely be outperformed in terms of digital music sales; only his title track could secure a victory.

As for why we're not talking about the major stations, it's because the three major stations this month will be swept by the legendary and resilient EXO, who just made their comeback.

"Hehe, oppa, does this mean you've escaped a disaster?"

"I guess so, but AOA also has an inherent disadvantage against me."

"Mo? What is it?"

"So their popularity ranking is on my side."

"Oppa~ I won't side with you!"

"real?"

"Of course, we in AOA have a strong team spirit."

"..."

When Jiang Yan heard Jin Xuexuan say that, he almost burst out laughing on the spot.

AOA has this concept of team spirit? This is probably not a challenge to stop laughing.

Suddenly, however, Kim Seolhyun's voice became muffled, as if she had moved the phone away from her mouth, and Kang Yeon could also vaguely hear other women's voices on the other end of the phone.

The two voices communicated for a while, and after a while, Kim Seolhyun's voice became clear again.

She said apologetically, "Oppa, we can't continue chatting. Jimin unnie told me we have a meeting later."

"Go ahead, I'll hang up now," Jiang Yan said.

"Yes, bye-bye, oppa saranghaeyo~"

Amidst a few kisses from Kim Seolhyun, the phone was abruptly disconnected.

……