Peninsula: From Water Injection to Stardom

The dinner was lively, but Jiang Yan mostly listened to their conversation, only occasionally chiming in with a few words.

After everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, he raised a glass of water filled with juice to conclude the gathering: "Congratulations on your successful debut! I believe you'll soon win first place."

"Thank you, oppa~"

Upon hearing this, Sana Minato and the others also raised their glasses, each filled with a drink, to express their gratitude.

After finishing his closing remarks, which marked the complete end of the gathering, Jiang Yan stood up and said, "Alright, let's not talk about this anymore. Everyone, please pack up. You can't go back to your dorms too late."

"Ah—are we just going back like this?" Yoo Jeong-yeon exclaimed with a disappointed expression, clearly still feeling a bit unsatisfied.

"Then what else do you want, Jeongyeon?"

"I thought oppa would take us out to play later..."

"Hmm...do others think so too?"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Yan scanned Yu Dingyan and the others with a questioning expression.

The reactions he received were quite different.

Aside from Yoo Jeongyeon, only Lim Nayeon and Park Jihyo nodded in agreement, while Hirai Momo shook her head blankly.

Sana Minato and Mina Mina did not show any reaction, but both of them looked at him, seemingly waiting for him to make a decision.

Jiang Yan hesitated for a moment. He felt that taking six newly formed female idols out together was a bit too conspicuous, so he shook his head and made an excuse, saying, "Let's talk about it next time. I might have something to do later."

"oh……"

Upon hearing this, Yoo Jeongyeon could only put on a dejected look and then began to pack her belongings like the other members.

A few minutes later, Jiang Yan and the others left the private room and went downstairs.

After seeing those people off, Jiang Zhennan leaned over with a half-smile and nudged Jiang Yan's arm with his elbow: "How was it? Did I give you a good assist just now?"

But it would have been better if he hadn't brought it up; now that he has, Jiang Yan is just about to confront him.

"What's so good about it? Why are you making up stories for me? When have I ever mentioned them to you?"

"Isn't it good that I'm helping you gain favor?"

"Do you think I need this?"

"Why wouldn't I need it? Don't you know what it means that true feelings can't be kept, only tricks can win people's hearts?"

"..."

Jiang Yan opened his mouth to refute, but after thinking about it carefully, he realized that what he said did make a lot of sense.

But he still had other questions and asked, "Then why did you specifically mention Mina and the others?"

Jiang Zhennan spread his hands and replied in a relaxed tone, "Originally, I only wanted to name the one who filmed a music video with you, but then I thought I might as well name all three Japanese girls together, since it wouldn't make a difference to name one more."

Jiang Yan had nothing to say about the reason given by Jiang Zhennan.

"Hey, tell me the truth, which one of those do you like?"

"There's no such thing as liking or disliking them, we're just friends."

"Tsk tsk, if someone else said that, I might believe it."

Jiang Zhennan clicked his tongue; he didn't believe Jiang Yan's words at all.

Can someone who says "girlfriend is also a friend" and is also extremely handsome be a devoted person?

Bro, that joke isn't funny at all.

Seeing the disbelieving look on the other person's face, Jiang Yan only smiled slightly, but did not refute it.

He certainly wouldn't mind developing a deeper friendship with a few of them, but he felt that there was no need to deliberately push it forward at the moment.

For him, his career is more important right now.

Without the support of a career, how can you have the confidence to build a "harem" in the future?

Relying on personal charm? He's not that naive.

Perhaps someone like Kim Seolhyun, who is obsessed with love, might not care much about her partner's career, but not every partner is like Kim Seolhyun.

……

July 11th, the day after having dinner with Yu Jung-yeon and the others.

In the morning, Jiang Yan went to the filming location they were collaborating with with the people from CUBE to discuss the interior set design.

Jiang Yan returned to the company at noon and, while eating, casually searched on various domestic platforms.

On Weibo, his official Weibo account is now approaching 100 million followers.

Aside from the tens of thousands of zombie powders purchased initially, the rest are fans of various ingredients.

On Baidu Tieba, the number of followers of his personal Tieba, "Jiang Yan Bar", has increased from over 100,000 at the beginning to over 700,000 now. There are also many active users every day. Even if you don't visit the bar for a day, there will be 99+ unread new posts.

However, what surprised Jiang Yan was Bilibili's response.

Some content creators uploaded videos of his music show performances, and several of these videos have surpassed 50 views.

This number of views may not seem like much, but you have to know that at this time, most of the videos on Bilibili are still related to anime and manga, and the other part is parody videos.

Posting content related to K-pop here will get you attacked by countless anime fans in the comments section.

In some J-POP ranking videos, whenever a K-POP group appears, they are bombarded with comments like "Get lost, you jerk!"

Jiang Yan also clicked on the comments of his videos with high view counts. Undoubtedly, even among Chinese people, the user reactions in the comment section were mixed.

All I can say is that the boycott by these long-time Bilibili users is a boomerang. Once the official K-pop group accounts are invited to join and a large number of fandom users are brought in, things will calm down.

Of course, Weibo has always been the biggest channel for K-pop promotion. However, Bilibili is seen by these foreigners as being similar to YouTube, so they also set up a presence on it as a promotional platform.

On the other hand, the fact that Jiang Yan has this number of views on Bilibili also shows that more and more casual viewers are paying attention to him.

This is definitely a good thing.

Jiang Yan doesn't mind having casual fans; in fact, the more casual fans, the better.

While casual fans may not spend money on data manipulation or buy physical albums and merchandise to support an artist, they can still provide a significant amount of exposure.

That's how country names come about.

Jiang Yan's transition from idol to singer requires a large following among casual fans.

No matter how many die-hard fans you have, it's hard to support a full stadium-level tour; only a large enough casual audience can make it easier to achieve.

Of course, he didn't expect to be able to open a stadium directly in one step.

Opening a theater for 10,000 people within a year and a half of his debut was a goal Jiang Yan had set for himself.

Don't think that a 10,000-person concert hall sounds like a small number of people. Solo singers who can attract more than 10,000 people per concert on tour are top-tier artists in any country.

Keep in mind that when a member of a world-class girl group goes solo and holds a solo concert, the audience will only be around seven or eight thousand people.