Jeff Brown really guessed it right. His assistant contacted Phantom and expressed that he wanted to invite Wang Lihong to participate in the Backstreet Boys' performance on the 16th. The other party did not agree immediately and only said that he would make a decision after checking the schedule.
The assistant turned around and told Jeff Brown the result. He was not surprised at all because he had expected it before.
But Jeff Brown was very interested in this phantom sound, "Who is the boss of this phantom sound company?"
The assistant shook his head, "I didn't find out about this. I only know that it is a new company in Taiwan."
In fact, he didn't check at all.
Huanyin is a company from Taiwan. They are too far away and it is not easy to check.
This time, Leehomwang released a single in cooperation with Sony. The assistant learned from Sony that Leehom was the company of Phantom Music, and also got the contact information of Phantom Music from Sony.
"Does Sony not know much about this company?" Jeff Brown expressed doubts.
After all, both parties have cooperated, and Sony should not have no understanding of Phantom.
A large international company like Sony has connections in the music industry in various countries and is familiar with companies in various countries.
"They revealed nothing useful."
Jeff Brown nodded. He guessed that there was a high probability that Sony knew about it, but was unwilling to disclose it.
Although Jeff Brown was a little disappointed that he did not find out the background of the phantom voice, he would not spend too much energy investigating it.
It would be best if you can invite Leehom Wang. If you can't invite him, forget it. It's just a smooth move.
The most important thing is Y himself. He plans to call Y himself after the Lantern Festival in China ends in two days to ask about the song.
……
On the afternoon of the Lantern Festival, Zhou Yan stayed with Wang Zuxian and watched her play cards with her grandma, aunt and third aunt.
Zhou Yu ran back in a hurry, holding a book in his hand, "Look what this is?"
There were two tables of cards in the room, and there were many people surrounding them. When they heard what he said, they all looked over.
"Xiaoyu, what are you holding?" The old lady raised her head and asked. As she spoke, she did not forget to throw out the unwanted chicken.
"This is the latest issue of October."
Most of the Zhou family knew about "October" magazine, but they didn't understand why Zhou Yu took this book.
Wang Zuxian's eyes lit up, "Is it serialization of Third Brother's novel?"
Regarding "Never Let Me Go", Zhou Yan only told Wang Zuxian during chat, and no other family members mentioned it.
Mainly because he feels that he publishes his works very frequently, and it would be really troublesome to tell his family every time a work is released.
He would definitely tell his family about things like a new movie, but he would not take the initiative to tell other things like a new song or a new novel.
After hearing Wang Zuxian's words, everyone looked at Zhou Yan again.
The old lady asked, "Xiaoyan, what novel is yours?"
She had almost forgotten that her grandson was still a novelist, and Zhou Yan had not published a novel for some days.
"I wrote it some time ago, and it happened to be favored by the editor of "October" Zhang, so I decided to serialize it in this issue."
Today is February 21st, and March’s “October” has already been released.
Zhou Yan also knew that he would leave early, but he had been celebrating the New Year at home during this period and didn't pay much attention to it.
If others are in Yanjing, they should have received the sample issue.
Zhou Yu held the magazine and said with a smile, "Lao San, you didn't even tell your family that you had a new work. I only found out that your new book was serialized after hearing it from my former colleague at the Yangtze Evening News. He also happened to see it today. This book.”
These words also solved Zhou Yan's doubts. He was wondering how his elder brother knew about the serialization of his novel.
"Come here, show me." The old lady waved quickly.
The old man on the other side also waved, "Let me see first."
Others wanted to see it too, but it was hard to compete with two old people.
Zhou Yu smiled and took out four more magazines from his bag, "It's okay, I bought a few more and we can all read them together."
Although he bought a few more books, there were too many people in the family to divide them among themselves. In the end, there was one book for each table, one for the juniors, and the other two for the old man and the old lady respectively.
Everyone didn't even play cards, they were all paying attention to Zhou Yan's novel.
Those who didn't have a magazine in hand would either go to the one with a magazine and read it, or come over to chat with Zhou Yan about the new book.
Third uncle Zhou Yaozu failed in the competition and didn't get the magazine to read. He looked at Zhou Yu and couldn't help complaining, "You are such a good guy, don't you know how to buy a few more books? There are so many people in our family. Who can read these books? ”
Zhou Yu smiled and said, "I found these five books in the two nearest places. I am too lazy to go to other places. Third uncle, five books are a lot. Buying more is a waste."
"Otherwise, you won't be able to survive."
Zhou Yan smiled and said, "My eldest brother is going to be a father soon, so he must save a little. After this child comes out, milk powder and clothes will be a big expense."
"My third brother still understands me."
Zhou Yaozu curled his lips and smiled again, "Actually, I've heard people talk about your new book, but I just didn't pay attention to it all the time."
"Uncle Third, you know, why don't you tell us?"
"I thought you knew."
Zhou Yan smiled and said, "It's just a novel, I didn't tell you specifically."
Zhou Yaozu nodded and expressed his understanding.
He had heard this from his school teachers before. The school teachers now knew that Zhou Yan was his nephew, so they came to ask him when they learned that Zhou Yan was going to publish a novel.
It's just that he rarely pays attention to literature and doesn't pay special attention to it.
Zhou Yu looked at the direction of several books and said with a frown, "I don't know when they will finish them. I haven't read them yet."
Zhou Yaozu laughed and said, "You are sincere, why should you hand over all five books and keep one for yourself?"
"If I really keep it, I will definitely be in your hands now, Third Uncle."
Zhou Yaozu pursed his lips and did not refute, because Zhou Yu was telling the truth. If Zhou Yu kept a copy, he would definitely grab it.
"You should come back after reading it." "I'm so anxious to share this good news with everyone."
Zhou Yan smiled and said, "This serialization should contain more than 60,000 words. If you finish reading it... it will probably take more than an hour."
"You are overestimating their reading speed. The fastest among them can't finish reading in less than two hours, especially the old man and the old lady. These words are enough for them to read all afternoon. I guess your uncle can read them faster." , but he’s not very fast at reading.” Zhou Yaozu sighed again, “You should let me read first, after all, I am the fastest reader.”
Zhou Yu joked, "Uncle San, your reading speed is very fast. You can read a composition of several hundred words in half a minute."
He was talking about Zhou Yaozu's speed in correcting papers.
"Half a minute is a slow one. If you encounter a fast one, don't take ten seconds."
Zhou Yan smiled knowingly when he heard his third uncle's words.
Although many students complain that the teacher changes the composition too quickly and cannot finish the composition, they cannot blame the teacher because there is really no way to read it word by word.
In fact, most students’ compositions don’t require time to read at all.
Zhou Yan taught in a first-class middle school in his previous life, and the students' compositions were very vague. They basically only needed to read the beginning and the end.
Check out the 16-9 book bar and see the correct version!
If he encounters a question with a poor quality, Zhou Yan will basically just look at the ending and give points.
As time goes by, a vicious cycle forms. Students know that teachers only look at the beginning and end when marking papers, focusing on the surface of the paper, so they pay special attention to the design of the beginning and the end, and are especially confused in the middle.
Teachers see so many papers like this that they don’t even look at the middle part.
Everyone knows that this is not good. It is impossible to judge the students' composition level. The end result is that most people get similar scores for their compositions.
But there is no way to break this vicious cycle unless the number of marking teachers can be increased dozens of times every year, so that each teacher has enough time to read through the composition, even find out the typos and wrong sentences in the composition, and then standardize deductions point.
Although this cannot absolutely judge the quality of writing, it is at least better than rapid marking.
However, it is impossible to add so many marking teachers.
When they talked about grading, Zhou Yu asked curiously, "I remember that Xiaoyan didn't have particularly outstanding writing skills when he was in middle school, right? Third uncle, were his Chinese scores good before?"
"His grades are very good in all subjects, and his Chinese is certainly not bad. As for his writing ability, I have no impression."
Even though Zhou Yan was his nephew, Zhou Yaozu couldn't read his essays. At most, he could only pay attention to his grades in various subjects.
Zhou Yan's cultural classes have always been very good. Even if he doesn't go to Yangyin University, he can get into most domestic universities based on his grades. That is, Yanjing University and Tsinghua University are a bit more stressful.
Zhou Yan was among the top students in his class back then, and the top students in his class were all in schools like Tsinghua University, Yenching University, and Fudan University.
So when Zhou Yan went to Yangyin, his head teacher thought it was a pity.
Zhou Yaozu recalled it and did not expect that Zhou Yan showed any writing ability in middle school. However, this is not surprising. Many writers are like this. However, there are not many people who wrote often in middle school and later became writers, such as Zhou Yu.
Thinking of Zhou Yu's matter, Zhou Yaozu smiled and said, "You, on the other hand, wrote many articles and poems when you were in middle school. I remember that you also submitted an article to "Today" and passed it."
Zhou Yu smiled sheepishly, "I was only in junior high school when I submitted my article to "Today", but "Today" didn't last long before it disappeared. I was still in pain for a long time."
"Brother, have you ever submitted an article to "Today"?" Zhou Yan said unexpectedly.
Many people don't know the magazine "Today", but it has special significance to the development of Chinese literature in the 1980s.
This magazine was created by Bei Dao and Mang Ke themselves. It was handprinted at first, and then distributed everywhere. It was a completely underground publication, and later it developed into a mimeographed magazine. However, the scale was very small, and most of them were published in Yanjing and other places. Spread around.
Zhou Yan did not expect that his eldest brother in Jinling would actually know about "Today" and contribute articles to it.
"Today" did not last long, only two years in total, but it gathered a lot of people at that time, and many of them later went on to develop well in the literary world.
Zhou Yu said with a smile, "I read "Today" and was very excited, so I wrote a letter to Bei Dao and submitted it. Unexpectedly, not only did I receive a reply from Bei Dao, but I was also told that the manuscript was approved. It was a poem, but I can’t remember the content of the poem.”
In fact, Zhou Yu still remembers that poem. After all, it was the first poem in his life that was published in a magazine. How could he forget it? But looking back now, he feels that the poem was not well written, so he is embarrassed to say it.
Gu Fangfang was beside her, her eyes flashing, "You actually wrote poetry, I didn't even know it."
He and Zhou Yu have known each other for such a long time, and they soon have children. She didn't even know that Zhou Yu had published poems. If her third uncle hadn't mentioned it today, she might not have known about it.
"It's all old memories, and I haven't written much about them since."
Zhou Yan smiled. This was his eldest brother Zhou Yu. He usually looked like he was joking and talking a lot, but in fact he was very good at hiding things. And even though he clearly hid things, others still thought he didn't hide them.
Zhou Qian and the others had previously wondered why the family wanted the eldest brother Zhou Yu to engage in politics and the second brother Zhou Hong to do business. The second brother was obviously more stable and the eldest brother was more flexible.
Now it seems that the arrangement at home makes perfect sense.
Being in politics doesn't have to be very serious, especially when the position is not high, it can be a little detached and confusing.
The eldest brother was born to be an official. Every unit he has experienced over the years has been managed by him to death. Whether it is downward management or upward management, he has a good way.
……
Zhang Shouren rushed to the work after having lunch at home.
As soon as he arrived at his work, he heard the good news that this issue of the magazine was selling very well in Yanjing, and the printing house had been notified to print more copies.
Because when the sales started, there was news that there were not enough copies, so I added more copies this time to prevent insufficient sales in other areas.
"October" was released in Yanjing earlier than other places, but it was only two days after its release. The sales speed was a bit beyond Zhang Shouren's expectations.
"I heard that Yan Normal University collectively purchased three hundred copies."
"So many? Haven't school started yet? Don't they have subscriptions?"
"In addition to the subscription, someone purchased an additional three hundred copies. It seems that they were ordered by Zhou Yan's fan club."
Zhang Shouren was surprised, "There are so many people in Zhou Yan's support club at Yan Normal University?"
If you buy 300 copies of the magazine, then the support club will definitely have more than 300 members, maybe even far more than that.
There are only so many students at Yan Normal University, but so many people attend Zhou Yan's support club?
What Zhang Shouren didn't know was that although there were not that many people from Yan'an Normal University participating in the support club, the Yan'an Normal University's support club was not limited to students from Yan'an Normal University, but also included non-school students.
There are many students from middle schools in the surrounding area. Because our school does not have such an organization, they choose to join the support club of Yan Normal University.
This time Zhou Yan's new book will be serialized in "October", and the magazine was decided upon at the meeting.
This is because it’s still on vacation, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to stop at 300 copies. (End of chapter)