Chapter Fourteen The Telephone on the Well

  "The place you're at now has a huge flow of people, but most of them are just passing by, especially since everyone is on their way to work. Even if they're interested, most can't stop and listen to your singing." Zhou Xiao turned around to find that the person talking to him was an old man in his sixties.

  "Who are you?" Zhou Xiao asked.

  "I'm just a passerby, and I think you sing quite well, but the place you chose is not very suitable. You should move forward a bit, stand near the platform, so that people waiting for the train can hear your voice, and when the train comes, they'll have enough time to rush over."

  "It makes sense..." wasn't that Zhou Xiao was stupid, it's just that he had never thought that he would have a day where he would do this kind of work, so he hadn't thought it through too thoroughly either.

  "Then I'll go ahead and try again!" Zhou Xiao said as he stood up.

  "You can try, but don't hold out too much hope..." said the old man.

  "Why?"

  "The Japanese are not that romantic, there was a street performer here before, even foreigners have performed here, but they didn't last long, there were too few people who would stop to listen." said the old man.

  "But why..." Zhou Xiao was puzzled, but as soon as the question arose, he thought of a very important issue. Now it's 2000, although Japan has always been an open nation, what he did seemed to be really ahead of his time? Sato Natsuki's success probably had a lot to do with her being in the year 2013.

  However, Zhou Xiao would not give up easily, since he had come, he felt that he must achieve something.

  Heeding the old man's advice, Zhou Xiao moved his performance location a little closer to the platform and continued singing.

  One song after another, Zhou Xiao spent the entire morning of the second day in his own songs.

  Although he was pointed out by others and stood in a relatively better position, as the old man said, the Japanese who were in a hurry had few people willing to stop and listen to Zhou Xiao's singing. Two hours passed, and Zhou Xiao looked at his guitar case, which contained about 2,000 yen in small change, but he couldn't sing anymore.

  It's been about three hours from morning till now, and Zhou Xiao has earned around 3,000 yen. If he sings for ten hours a day, he might be able to earn 10,000 yen, but that's absolutely impossible. Even if he wanted to do so, his body wouldn't be able to withstand it.

  A professional singer may be able to hold a concert for several hours, but even so, the singer himself will have rest time. As for Zhou Xiao's current physical condition, although his Japanese pronunciation is standard and clear, he still hasn't undergone rigorous training and has a weak foundation. Three hours of continuous singing has already left him somewhat speechless.

  "Ah, forget it." Zhou Xiao helplessly gestured and started preparing to head home.

  "Since it's not possible to do this in the morning for working people, maybe tomorrow won't have to come too early, so just warm up your voice in the morning... In his past life, Zhou Xiao also wanted to be in this line, but unfortunately, he had less talent back then. Although he practiced singing and acting for a period of time, he still couldn't become an artist."

  Before going home, he even went to the supermarket to buy some food. It can be said that if 3,000 yen can be spent on food every day, Zhou Xiao's basic life would not have to worry, but this is obviously impossible. Although the small house he rented was less than ten square meters, the rent was still a difficult five thousand yen for him to bear. He had to work hard to earn money in order to guarantee that he wouldn't be kicked out.

  After eating a lunch he made himself, Zhou Xiao started his writing career. Last night, after rummaging through his mind, he finally got an exciting result, because in addition to Keigo Higashino's several works, he also found another person's series!

  These two books are called "We Are the Foam Rangers" and "We Are the Flower Foam Group", even if they were put in Japan fourteen years later, the names of these two books would not be known to everyone, but the TV series adapted from them created a miracle.

  The name of that TV drama is "Hanzawa Naoki".

  As we enter a new century, the impact of the internet and various emerging media on television is enormous. In some ways, Japan is an extremely conservative country, so they still hope that Japanese TV can continue its glory, but even if they do more and better, they cannot save the overall decline of Japanese dramas.

  In the year 2000, television is in the era of Takuya Kimura's reign. At the beginning of this year, the TBS drama "Beautiful Life" starring Takuya Kimura achieved an average rating of 31.8%, ranking first in Japanese TV drama ratings history.

  In 2001, Takuya Kimura starred in the legendary drama "HERO", breaking the record set by "Beautiful Life" and putting his name on the top two spots of Japanese TV drama ratings.

  Unfortunately, this became the last glory of Japanese dramas in the first 15 years of the 21st century.

  After the two dramas of Kimura, the ratings of Japanese dramas began to decline slowly. Although there were also some plays such as "Gokusen" and "Shiroi Kyoto" that had good ratings, the overall decline in ratings was still unstoppable. By 2006, if a Japanese drama could get a rating of 20%, it would be considered a godly drama.

  Especially after 2010, as long as a TV series' ratings didn't fall below 5%, it was basically considered normal.

  But on this basis, there are two TV dramas that have achieved legendary results against the trend.

  These two TV dramas, one is the 2011 broadcast of the original script "Housekeeper Mita", and the other is the 2013 broadcast of "Hanzawa Naoki".

  And of the two dramas, Hanzawa Naoki is even more incredible. The premiere's ratings of 19.4% are already a number that would allow most TV dramas to hold a celebration party, but this was not enough. From episode 2 to episode 6, Hanzawa Naoki's ratings were all above 20% and kept getting higher!

  Episode 5: 29%, Episode 6: 29%, and Episode 7 broke through the barrier to reach 30%!

  By then, Hanzawa Naoki's momentum had been established, and episodes 8 and 9 continued to soar, until episode 10 reached an astonishing rating of 42.2%!

  Reiterate again, this is 2013's record!

  The final episode of the Japanese drama had a viewership rating of 41.3%, which was the same as in the year 2000, but after 13 years, when entertainment options were abundant and ratings had gradually declined over the past 13 years, Hanzawa Naoki's final episode surprisingly became the highest-rated show, it has to be said that this is an incredibly miraculous phenomenon.

  How could Zhou Xiao possibly allow such a miracle to fall into someone else's hands?

  Hanazawa Naoki's two works, in theory, should have started serialization in magazines at the end of '03. Now, the author of No. 2, Ikeido Run, is probably still working on other things, but Shuoxiao doesn't have much time. An author's ideas are often formed early on, so for him, the sooner he writes it down, the better.

  Two more days passed in singing and coding, when it was the fourth day after Zhou Xiao's crossing, that afternoon, he was still at home revising, his phone rang.

  "Strange, who could it be?" Zhou Xiaonan picked up his phone in a daze. In the past few days, almost no one had called him.

  The numbers displayed on the old black and white screen quickly made it clear to Zhou Xiao who was making the call.

  "Hey, Uncle Inoue." Zhou Xiao answered the phone.

  "Shū... Shū Xiao, where are you now? Can you come out for a bit?" The voice of the theater owner, Uncle Inoue, came from the other end of the phone.

  "I'm fine, I'm at home. Where are you? I'll come find you. But I haven't had lunch yet, since you've called me, I'll have to rely on you for a meal." said Zhou Xiao.

  "Alright...alright, come on." Mr. Inoue agreed hesitantly.

  Note: The rankings of Japanese dramas in this chapter are basically the modern Japanese drama rankings after 1989, which is the Heisei era. Before 1989, it was considered a medieval era with fewer cultural activities, and ratings above 50 were not uncommon, so they are not included.