Chapter 77: Future Plans

In the music and film industry, many creators choose to publish their works under pen names. For example, the little Frog beside Li Xuan has always composed under the pen name Little Frog. Creators like Little Bug from another world, Forest Evening, Brother A—these are all pseudonyms. The screenwriter of “A Chinese Odyssey,” Jiane, is also a pen name for Liu Zhenwei. “Cleaver” was Zhang Qiyang’s pen name when he wrote online novels in his previous life. He had also used this catchy and memorable name while working as a short drama scriptwriter.

As for why he chose this particular pen name, there was no special reason—it was simply because he was quite skilled with a cleaver. When friends came by, he could use it to chop meat; when wolves arrived, he could wield it to defend himself. Li Xuan and her friends found it rather baffling that Zhang Qiyang wanted to use Cleaver as a pen name. But this young master had always marched to the beat of his own drum, forging his own path, so they simply let him be.

Once Li Xuan decided to sing “Grandma’s Penghu Bay,” Zhang Qiyang resolved to perform a song about his hometown this week, to soothe his persistent homesickness. By a strange coincidence, both Zhang Qiyang and the original host hailed from the same place—they were both from Xi’an, born in Chang’an County. The original host had moved to the capital to attend international school in second grade and rarely returned to Xi’an thereafter. Still, Xi’an had left many precious memories from childhood. Zhang Qiyang himself had lived in Xi’an much longer, growing up there until he left for university. He loved his hometown’s oil-splashed noodles, Qin opera, and shadow puppetry.

There were many musical works about Xi’an in the other world, but this week Zhang Qiyang planned to sing a particularly unique one that best embodied his hometown’s character. On the stage of “My Song,” this piece would be at a clear disadvantage, perfectly matching Zhang Qiyang’s intent to hold back this week. He couldn’t choose a strong Xi’an-themed work to compete, lest he outshine Zhao Ziqi and lose the chance to repeatedly trounce her in the future. Thus, he settled on a song he personally adored, though it might not appeal to the audience—an homage to the hometown of his memories.

On Tuesday afternoon, Zhang Qiyang arrived at Eastern Music Network to record the digital version of “Exaggeration,” and by chance, Li Xuan was there to record her new song. Li Xuan had come to record “Grandma’s Penghu Bay.” She had a long-term contract with Eastern Music Network, and every new release would debut digitally there.

Although Zhang Qiyang brought much new user traffic to Eastern Music Network, the real backbone of the platform was someone like Li Xuan. Li Xuan had a legion of devoted fans, and any new song she released would sell at least a hundred thousand copies. Zhang Qiyang’s “Night Star” had been on sale for quite some time, but had barely sold over fifty thousand. The sales trajectory for “Ten Miles of Spring Breeze” was fairly average, only just hitting thirty thousand so far. “I Don’t Care” was stuck at just over twenty-nine hundred, struggling even to break five thousand. Whether this week’s “Exaggeration” would set a new record was uncertain, but prospects looked dim. There were simply too few diehard fans willing to pay for Zhang Qiyang’s music.

It couldn’t be helped—everyone saw him as the son of the richest tycoon, and even if he’d fallen out with his family, he still had more money than he could spend. So there was really no need to pay to support his artistic endeavors. If another struggling musician had poured heart and soul into works like “Night Star” or “Ten Miles of Spring Breeze,” people would surely be willing to support them. But for the tycoon’s son, the Gunner, forget it.

Fortunately, Zhang Qiyang didn’t care much about the income from online song sales. His insistence on selling music at Eastern Music Network was mainly to support the cause of legitimate releases. If he wanted quick money, he could just accept more gigs—the earnings would roll in effortlessly. For example, several video live-streaming platforms had already offered him high prices to appear as a special guest this week. The highest offer came from a small website, which promised an eye-popping three million for a two-hour broadcast! Unfortunately, that platform was rather obscure and wanted to hire him purely to boost its profile. Zhang Qiyang realized that appearing there wouldn’t actually raise his own popularity or yield significant gifts, so he declined.

For live streaming, he preferred Zebra. Zebra’s appearance fees weren’t high, but the platform had many users and a high conversion rate for gifts. This week, Zebra, feeling the pressure from competitors vying for Zhang Qiyang, doubled his appearance fee to one million, with eighty percent of gifts convertible to cash, letting him choose the hosts and time slot. Such terms made refusal impossible.

In the end, he signed an exclusive contract with Zebra, agreeing to do only one special broadcast for them this week. The hosts would be Dong Huan and Li Da, serving him as usual. The time slot remained the same: Wednesday night at eight o’clock.

According to last week’s arrangement, he would also present the championship trophy during the broadcast. To avoid another incident like Zhou Shilin’s deranged attempt to snatch the trophy, Zhang Qiyang decided to auction it off this week—the person who sent the most gifts during the live stream would win the trophy. Although this amounted to selling the trophy by another name, and would surely invite criticism afterward, Zhang Qiyang was long past caring about public opinion. People could say whatever they liked—he had substance, and the more attention he attracted, the more he could turn others into his cannon fodder when he eventually shone.

For this week’s broadcast, Zhang Qiyang set a modest goal for himself: to earn three million! Though it paled in comparison to Wang Jianlin’s famous target, making three million in one night was already an impressive feat. For now, Zhang Qiyang intended to work hard, take on more gigs, and quickly save up ten million. Afterward, he planned to open an independent studio within Eastern Entertainment, assembling his own management team to map out his future career.

He couldn’t always rely on Chen Ke’s team to clean up his messes for free, nor could he always depend on the goofy Qin Xueyang to fight solo for him. Qin Xueyang was good at watching the money—her unusually long pinky made her a natural at guarding the coffers. But as for future planning, she wasn’t cut out for it.

Since he’d chosen to develop his career in the entertainment industry for the long haul, Zhang Qiyang needed his own management team to maximize his value. In addition, he wanted to use Eastern Entertainment as a springboard to launch a personalized independent film company. He already had a name in mind: “Shadow Cobbler.”

In the current climate of the country’s increasingly restless film and television industry, Zhang Qiyang hoped to nurture a group of film lovers with the spirit of craftsmanship, people willing to work diligently on movies. China’s film industry wasn’t short of money, hardware, or technology; what it lacked was real talent and a steady, earnest approach to filmmaking.

Having just crossed over, Zhang Qiyang hadn’t yet run out of steam—he certainly couldn’t settle down at the moment, so he wouldn’t touch film in the short term. Singing was his passion; he could indulge in it freely. But film was his career, and he wouldn’t treat it lightly.

When the time came—after he’d made enough waves, played enough games, and his heart had finally calmed—he would approach filmmaking with the spirit of a craftsman, and he would certainly make films. At that point, he wouldn’t chase box office numbers, but pursue excellence.

Before then, he hoped to foster a group of steady, unflappable filmmakers to join him in fulfilling their dreams, truly propelling Chinese cinema to take flight. To reach this long-term goal, he needed to start earning money in earnest right now.