Chapter 152: Those Who Bring Tales of Right and Wrong

PS: Thanks to Wandering Alone in the Rain on a Rainy Day (a tycoon) for the 5,888 tip. May kind people be blessed with lifelong peace and safety. It is the first time I have ever seen so much money. Seeing a glimmer of hope at my lowest point feels warm and deeply comforting. I will release an extra chapter for you tomorrow.

"Don't you worry. After all, Murong Xue's popularity isn't as high as yours, so getting just over twenty million in recommendations is completely normal..."

Gentle and lovely younger sister sat in Ren Qian's lap, offering kind words of comfort.

Yet Ren Qian merely knitted his brows. As a musician—a musician with memories and experiences spanning two lifetimes—he understood the laws of the market.

The difficulty of increasing sales from one million to two million is simply incomparable to scaling from ten million to twenty million. And pushing from twenty million to thirty million is fraught with countless obstacles.

The Heavenly King of Song from the old era, Jacky Cheung, only ever reached a peak of a little over thirty million with his ultimate album. And that was in a nation of 1.3 billion people, led by a Heavenly King whose influence spanned the entire Asian continent.

Although the Hua-Xia Charter Empire boasts a larger territory, its population stands at only around 1.6 billion, with even fewer people willing to spend money, especially now that an increasing number of people listen to music through streaming platforms.

Thus, when Ren Qian released an album, the absolute ceiling was around thirty million copies.

This fell far short of Wan Feng's peak album sales!

"There's no way not to worry. If Murong Xue could achieve thirty million in sales, I would feel a bit more at ease. But half a month has already passed, and her album sales are stuck at twenty million. Meanwhile, Heavenly Queen Auntie's sales have only reached twenty-four million. I'm afraid this is already the limit of the imperial market..."

"How could that be? The empire has a population of 1.6 billion, and at least one or two hundred million people know who you are. Your fame and fan base both surpass Murong Xue's. There's no problem at all for your album to hit forty million in sales."

The gentle younger sister continued to persuade him, feeling that Brother Qian had been under immense pressure lately, often waking up in the middle of the night to analyze data.

This was already starting to affect his normal life.

"No, no, no, spare me the flattering words. I need to think of a way."

Gentle pulled out her phone once more and opened Weibo.

"Look, your fans have started a trending topic: 'If God Qian releases a new album, would you be willing to buy an extra copy?' If everyone buys just one more copy, it can help fulfill God Qian's bet. As God Qian's fans, surely none of us want to see him forced out of the music industry in disgrace just because of a wager? We are still waiting for God Qian to achieve the status of Heavenly King of Song, waiting for him to sing for us until he's ninety...

This topic has nine million participants. Just do the math; the sales could easily surge by ten million."

Ren Qian: "..."

That is completely unreliable, okay!

Even if sales rise, it would only be by a few million at most. To truly open up the market... it still requires...

Ren Qian fell into deep thought.

……

Meanwhile, across the internet, various media outlets were hyping the release of the two Heavenly Queens' albums by Gunshi Media, wildly exaggerating how formidable Gunshi was, how formidable Ren Qian was, how formidable the Heavenly Queens were, and how formidable Murong Xue was.

They sought to expand the influence of this event to the maximum possible extent, ensuring that Gunshi would reap greater profits and their artists' market value would skyrocket.

Naturally, just as Gunshi paid certain prominent media outlets to heap praise, there were inevitably other media outlets that Gunshi hadn't paid off that chose to smear him instead—such as HexaSearch.

This media company had long since fallen out with Ren Qian after his fans flooded their entertainment news section and crashed it.

The company had even wanted to sue Ren Qian to extract tens of millions in damages.

As it turned out, the court simply ignored their lawsuit.

HexaSearch naturally harbored deep resentment. This time, they disabled the news comment section entirely, publishing sensational entertainment headlines solely to smear Ren Qian while preventing his fans from leaving any comments.

They wanted to leave people gritting their teeth in frustration without any means to retaliate!

"An Evaluation of the Imperial Entertainment Industry Status and Market Value: 25 Million Album Sales.

This assertion is not without foundation. We can cite actual examples to illustrate. In February, Lin Ruowan released an album and secured twenty million in sales. In June, Heavenly Queen Li Feifei and Murong Xue released albums simultaneously, securing twenty million and twenty-four million respectively.

No one else in the domestic sphere can surpass these three in terms of fame and influence.

Even Ren Qian is not much stronger than them.

Following this line of reasoning, Ren Qian's album next year will definitely fall short of forty million, and even thirty-five million is questionable!

That being the case, according to the wager he made with Heavenly King Wan Feng, if his album fails to reach forty-three million, he must withdraw from the music industry! As the saying goes, a man without credibility is worthless. As a public figure of immense influence, and as an idol worshipped by countless teenagers, a promise is a promise. While he may not bring much positive energy to the youth, he at least cannot afford to lose his integrity.

We hope that when the time comes, Ren Qian will not corrupt the youth of our empire and will voluntarily depart from the music industry.

Finally, we only wish to leave Ren Qian with one piece of advice: learning knows no bounds, and music even less so. We hope you will not remain arrogant. We originally expected you to reform, but it turns out you refuse to give yourself a chance to turn over a new leaf.

Because of a single wager made back then, your path to becoming the Heavenly King of Song has been severed!"

The most disgusting aspect of HexaSearch was how they relentlessly hounded Ren Qian on this single point, twisting his former confidence into sheer arrogance.

A tree lives for its bark, and a man lives for his pride.

Back when Ren Qian was still a nobody, this very Wan Feng had repeatedly coerced and suppressed him.

In the beginning, Wan Feng meddled behind the scenes when Ren Qian signed with Mars Entertainment, causing his band, Landing on Mars, to collectively turn against him.

Later, Wan Feng leveraged his own popularity on Weibo to suppress Ren Qian.

From then on, he bit down and refused to let go, escalating his attacks with each strike more vicious than the last.

Anyone would have a temper, let alone someone targeted so relentlessly.

Ren Qian was furious, desperately wanting to rush right up to Wan Feng and slap him across the face twice.

Yet back then, Ren Qian was merely a nobody. He could only make such a wager, forcing Wan Feng to apologize publicly as a way to turn the tables and slap him back.

To his surprise, HexaSearch Media was so utterly shameless that they completely whitewashed Wan Feng's wrongdoing while maliciously and biasly smearing Ren Qian!

Ren Qian only wanted to tell them to go to hell. When people sink to a certain level of baseness, they really are formidable. Just how much money did you make off my scandals and fake news?

And now, because my fans stood up to seek justice for me and caused you losses, you hold a grudge against me?

You're allowed to use me to rake in dirty money, but I'm not allowed to defend my legitimate rights?!

What an absolute joke of epic proportions!

Right at this moment, a key decision-maker from Wangyi Corporation placed a phone call to him.

"Mr. Ren, we've noticed that HexaSearch Media seems to have developed a bitter grudge against you."

The voice belonged to a man in his forties who spoke with considerable respect, clearly looking to cooperate with Ren Qian.

"Indeed. Let's drop the pleasantries and speak frankly. Your company wants to monopolize the entertainment news sector, and I happen to find HexaSearch an eyesore. If we can cooperate, I, Ren Qian, am more than willing."

The man was clearly stunned. They say that whoever brings you gossip is themselves a gossip-monger; why did this Ren Qian show not a shred of caution?

Could it be that he had been driven to desperation by HexaSearch?

Be that as it may, Wangyi might stand to gain even greater profits from this.

Yet he failed to realize that with a single casual remark, Ren Qian had shifted from being a mere listener of gossip into the one stirring it up... (To be continued.)