1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Wang Zupei came back after vomiting first, holding the remaining half bottle of wine and said, "Come on, Zhou Yan, let's share the last bit of wine."

Before Zhou Yan could say anything, Mother Wang spoke up, "Don't drink anymore. You've already drunk so much today. Don't drink too much and get into trouble."

This was not the first time that Wang's mother had advised them not to drink, but Wang Zupei and the others had not listened to her advice before.

But this time, when Wang Zupei heard his mother say this, he immediately backed down and said, "Mom is right. This is Zhou Yan's first time at home, so he really can't drink too much."

As he said this, he put down his wine glass.

After going to the toilet to vomit for a while, Wang Zupei is probably much more sober now and knows that he can't drink like this anymore.

Zhou Yan didn't want to drink anymore, so he followed his words and said, "Thank you for your understanding, brother. I really can't drink anymore. If I drink more, I will make a fool of myself."

"I can't make you look bad." Wang Zupei laughed, "I have nothing to do this afternoon, let's play mahjong. Do you usually play mahjong?"

"I rarely play, mainly because I don't have the talent for it."

"What talent is needed to play cards? The most important thing is luck. Today we won't play with the elders. Just the younger ones like us. When Zuan comes back, we'll start."

Wang Zupei said he wanted to wait for Wang Zuan to come back to play mahjong, but no matter how long he waited, he didn't see him come back, so he got up and went to look for him.

After a while, Wang Zupei came back cursing, "Zuan has fallen asleep."

"Second brother's alcohol tolerance is not good enough." said Joey Wong.

"Okay, let's not bring him. Let your eldest and second sisters-in-law come over and sit at the same table together."

Afterwards, Wang Zupei called his wife and sister-in-law to play mahjong with Zhou Yan. Wang Zuxian did not join in the game, but just watched from the side.

In order to take care of Zhou Yan, they played the simplest kind of mahjong, with prizes, but not big.

Zhou Yan can play mahjong. His level is not high, but not bad either. At least better than Joey Wong. After all, he has a good memory and can remember what cards everyone has played.

But when playing cards today, he didn't remember the cards at all, and didn't even look at what cards others had dealt. He just stared at the cards in his hand.

Usually, Joey Wong played cards like a wandering soul, but now that she was sitting behind Zhou Yan, she became anxious. She wanted to see whether Zhou Yan should touch the card or not, so she was so anxious that she directly asked Zhou Yan to touch the card.

The eldest sister-in-law joked with a smile, "Xiaoxian hasn't even gotten married yet, but you're already leaning towards Zhou Yan. Are you afraid that Zhou Yan will lose all his money, and you'll have a hard time living after you marry him?"

"Xiaoxian can't even be so focused when playing cards himself." said the second sister-in-law.

Wang Zupei also laughed, "Xiaoxian, you should give Zhou Yan some advice. He plays cards much better than you."

"He's drunk."

"I think he is much more sober than me."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "I don't play very often, so I'm a little confused. Please forgive me, brother and sister-in-law."

"We don't care. We are happy if we can win money."

"Yes, but Zhou Yan, don't lose on purpose."

"I would like to lose on purpose, but I don't have the strength to do so."

Zhou Yan actually wanted to sleep at this moment. This was what happened when he drank too much and felt very tired. However, today was his first time at Joey Wong's house, so he couldn't just go to sleep.

Playing cards with them now freed his mind and it was a kind of rest for him.

After fighting for about forty to fifty minutes, Zhou Yan's mind gradually became clear, but Wang Zupei, who was sitting opposite him, gradually became exhausted. He sat there swaying and looked like he might fall down at any time. He was probably extremely sleepy.

Seeing him like this, the eldest sister-in-law helped him up and said, "Why don't you go to bed too."

"No, I can still do it..." Before Wang Zupei could finish his words, his head sank onto the table and almost hit it, scaring his sister-in-law.

"You should go to bed now."

Wang Zupei also felt that he could not hold on any longer, and apologized to Zhou Yan, "Sorry, Zhou Yan, I need to take a nap first."

After Wang Zupei left, Mother Wang came over and asked Zhou Yan to go to his room to rest as well.

Afterwards, Zhou Yan went up to the second floor with Joey Wong and rested in the guest room.

The guest rooms were covered with new bedding. Zhou Yan felt that he was almost sleepy, but as soon as his body touched the bed, sleepiness came back again.

Wang Zuxian poured him a glass of water and placed it on the bedside table, then pouted and said, "Didn't I tell you not to drink too much before I came here? I've never seen you drink so much."

"My eldest and second brothers are too enthusiastic." Zhou Yan said with his eyes closed while lying on the bed.

"After drinking this time, I guess they will hold back a little next time. We were planning to go out for a walk this afternoon, but now it's over. You should get some sleep, and remember to drink some water if you're thirsty."

"Um……"

Zhou Yan responded in a daze, and then fell asleep.

Joey Wong tucked the quilt for Zhou Yan and did not get up to leave. Instead, she sat beside him, supporting her chin with her hand and looking at Zhou Yan.

Although she had just complained about Zhou Yan, she knew that Zhou Yan behaved like this just to leave a good impression in front of his family.

She had never seen Zhou Yan drink so much before. Normally, Zhou Yan would not drink any more after he became slightly tipsy. He would always stay sober and would not make any mistakes.

Today, when she saw Zhou Yan drunk and sleeping soundly on the bed, she felt that Zhou Yan was more adorable than usual.

After sitting there in a daze for a long time, Joey Wong got up and walked out of the room, then closed the door gently.

When she was walking down the stairs, Mother Wang looked up at her and asked, "Is Zhou Yan asleep?"

"Yeah, fell asleep."

"How much does he drink normally?"

"I can drink alright, but I rarely drink, and not much each time."

"Zhou Yan looks quite reliable, and his words and actions are very decent after drinking." said the second sister-in-law.

"Well, he's a good drinker, but he still has a good alcohol tolerance. Both Ju Pei and Zu An vomited, but he was the only one who could hold on."

"That's true."

"Hey, Xiaoxian." The eldest sister-in-law looked at Wang Zuxian again, "After you get married, will you live in Yanjing or Jinling?"

Before Wang Zuxian could speak, her second sister-in-law took over the conversation, "Then he should live in Yanjing, after all, Zhou Yan works in Yanjing."

"I heard that the air quality in Yanjing is not very good."

"It's actually okay, except that sometimes it doesn't quite work," said Joey Wong.

"Where does Zhou Yan live in Yanjing now?"

"He bought a courtyard house before and usually lived in it."

“Isn’t life in a Siheyuan inconvenient?”

"It's definitely not comparable to newly developed commercial housing, but his courtyard house has been renovated well, and overall there aren't too many inconveniences."

"So after you get married, are you going to continue living in that courtyard?"

"I haven't thought about it yet." The eldest sister-in-law said seriously, "Of course we have to. Zhou Yan's income should not be bad. You two will definitely not have any pressure to buy a house in Yanjing. Buy a good house as soon as possible, so that you won't be at a loss when the time comes."

"His brother built some houses in Jinling, and one of them was given to us."

"Build a house in the countryside? Although the environment in the countryside is good, it is not convenient to live there."

"No, it's in the city. His brother is also in the real estate business."

"Oh, that's nice..."

Joey Wong chatted with her mother and two sisters-in-law in a casual manner. She also talked about Zhou Yan's family situation, but did not go into too much detail.

In particular, she did not disclose the scale of Zhou Yan's business.

……

Zhou Yan slept until five o'clock in the evening.

It was a rare opportunity for him to get such a good night's sleep, and his sleep quality was surprisingly good.

He has been busy filming recently and has slept very little, so he managed to make up for his sleep today.

During dinner, they had their second match, but after the fierce battle at noon, everyone was much more restrained in the second match.

At noon, the people at the table drank four and a half bottles of white wine. In the evening, the amount was greatly reduced, and in total they only drank a little over one bottle.

After dinner, Zhou Yan stayed to chat for a while, then got up and left.

Joey Wong also came out with him, and the two of them still stayed in the small house she bought at night.

After returning to his residence, Zhou Yan took a shower first.

As soon as he came out of the bathroom, he received a call from Huanyin Xu Xiangjie.

After the call was connected, Xu Xiangjie apologized first, "I'm sorry, Mr. Zhou, I called you so late, I hope I didn't disturb your rest?"

"What's the matter?"

"Teacher Zhou, do you know seed music?"

Zhou Yan frowned and thought about it, then nodded, "I've heard of it."

He didn't know much about these music companies in Taiwan, but he had heard this seed music because he remembered that David Tao was the singer of this company.

"They have a singer-songwriter under their label who I think is pretty good and I want to sign him."

Hearing Xu Xiangjie's words, Zhou Yan narrowed his eyes, and many thoughts flashed through his mind.

He knew very little about Seed Music, except that David Tao was in the company.

Could it be that the person Xu Xiangjie wants to sign is David Tao?
Zhou Yan didn’t know exactly when Tao Zhe made his debut, but he seemed to have never heard any news about Tao Zhe, so he probably hasn’t officially debuted yet.

"Who?" Zhou Yan asked.

"Zhou Chuanxiong."

Hearing the name, Zhou Yan raised his eyebrows.

Although he is not Tao Zhe, Zhou Chuanxiong is not bad either. I didn’t expect Xu Xiangjie to find this person.

"Is this Zhou Chuanxiong a newcomer?"

"In fact, he is not a newcomer. He was selected as one of the first candidate members of Little Tigers in 88, but he did not join due to personal reasons. Later, he debuted on his own and released a solo album. It has been five or six years now."

"It's been five or six years since my debut."

This surprised Zhou Yan.

Zhou Chuanxiong is quite well-known, but he became popular after 2000. I didn’t expect that he debuted so early.

It seems that he hasn't developed very well in recent years.

"He's very productive and has released quite a few albums, but the response has been average."

Zhou Yan asked curiously, "If that's the case, why do you want to sign him? He's a singer who's been in the industry for five or six years, has released so many albums, but is still not famous. What do you like about him?"

"He has a high output." Xu Xiangjie's answer was very concise.

"Is that the only reason?"

"Of course, in addition to his high output, some of his works are quite good. I think the reason why he is not famous is because he took the wrong path."

Zhou Yan asked again, "It's just signing a person. You have complete autonomy. Why are you asking me specifically?"

Huanyin has actually signed quite a few people during this period. In addition to Wang Lihong and Mayday, there are also several newcomers, and the signing costs are not high.

Although Zhou Yan didn't know these newcomers, he had seen their performance videos and found that they were all of good level and could be trained.

"If I just sign him, I can decide for myself, but I hope to give him more resources, which is not something I can decide."

Xu Xiangjie can sign people on his own, but after they are signed, it is no longer up to Xu Xiangjie to decide how much resources can be allocated to them.

"If we can't ask for more resources for him, then there's no point in signing him. He's different from other newcomers. It's not suitable for us to spend time slowly training him. We need to start packaging him right after signing him."

Zhou Yan didn't mention the resources, but just asked, "He is now a singer of Seed Music. Can you sign him? Since Seed Music is willing to only release one album for him in recent years, it means that they are very optimistic about him. Can you sell him so easily?"

"Teacher Zhou, you don't know this." Xu Xiangjie laughed, "In fact, Seed Music has already wanted to terminate the contract with Zhou Chuanxiong, but I won't mention it now."

"How did you know?"

"Seed Music is a subsidiary of EMI."

Zhou Yan understood all at once. Xu Xiangjie had worked at EMI for quite a long time before. He must have some connections there and know some inside information.

"Are you planning to take over immediately after Seed Music terminates its contract with Zhou Chuanxiong?"

"No, I'm going to bring the person over right now."

"Why? Wouldn't it be more economical to wait until the contract is terminated before taking it over?"

"Seed Music plans to terminate the contract with Zhou Chuanxiong after releasing his next album. I want to bring him over now so that we can release the next album."

Zhou Yan couldn't understand what Seed Music did. You might say they were ruthless, as they wanted to let Zhou Chuanxiong release another album. But if you say they were kind, they actually terminated the contract right after the new album was released.

Maybe there are some things in between that Xu Xiangjie doesn't know about, but it has no impact on them.

If we can really buy Zhou Chuanxiong at a low cost, it will definitely be a very cost-effective deal.

What Xu Xiangjie said was right. Zhou Chuanxiong has a very high output. In addition to the songs he sings himself, he also writes many songs for others.

Although most of the songs written for others did not make much splash, there were often some hits, such as "Notebook" written for Kelly Chen, "Fragrance of Flowers" written for Xu Shaoyang, and "Betrayal" written for Na Ying.

Many people say that Zhou Chuanxiong’s songs are too monotonous in style and are basically just catchy songs, but it has to be said that being able to write catchy songs well is also a skill.

Thinking of this, Zhou Yan said, "Sign him over. You can arrange the resources. Just don't exceed Mayday and Wang Lihong." (End of this chapter)