Chapter 53: Meteorite's Contract

  "Mr. Zhou's age... is truly surprising." Upon hearing Morino Shirō's opening remark, Zhōu Xiǎo smiled and said: "Oh no, no, being young doesn't mean you can't write either."

  It can be said that before meeting Mori Shizuka, Zhou Xiao had already predicted that he would be surprised by his age, so such polite words were what he had prepared in advance.

  "Although there are many young people, few can write with such delicacy and maturity, with details as perfect as Mr. Zhou's," Sen Shiran continued, "He is one of the rare ones I've seen in my decades-long life!"

  "You're exaggerating, I just wanted to make some money so I wrote a book." said Zhou Xiao.

  "Not a single bit of exaggeration, this work is really good. I even saw the shadow of Keigo Higashino in it. In today's Japanese literary world, probably only he can produce such works!" said Mori Shiran. What he didn't say was that although some of the writing still showed the immaturity of a teenager, in terms of plot arrangement, Mori Shiran even felt that Zhou Xiao was a bit more cunning than Keigo Higashino!

  How could he know that the shortcomings in the text were partly because Zhou Xiao had never really written anything, let alone Japanese, and partly because Zhou Xiao had intentionally left some seemingly frivolous and shallow words to make the other party at least not suspect his eighteen-year-old author identity.

  Actually, logically speaking, Sen Shilang and Zhou Xiao are the buyer and seller. As the buyer, Sen Shilang should try to lower Zhou Xiao's level in order to easily suppress the price. However, a small action by Zhou Xiao made him cautious about such behavior. The manuscript sent to Wen Chun was not his original but a reprinted copy that cost a lot of money. For Sen Shilang, this behavior undoubtedly told him that Zhou Xiao did not only submit to their weekly magazine Wen Chun, but also submitted to other magazines.

  This just made Sheng Lang praise Zhou Xiao for a while, at least letting him not easily give up negotiating with his side.

  "Let's talk about the contract." Sen Shilang handed a document to Zhou Xiao.

  After contacting the lawyer introduced by Uncle Inoue last time, Zhou Xiao also studied Japan's contract system carefully during this period. So this time, Zhou Xiao doesn't need to consult a lawyer again. Moreover, he is now signing a contract for only one book. If Shukan Bunshun ruins a promising young author just for the benefit of one book, it would be too stupid.

  "After flipping through the contract, Zhou Xiao said: 'You can have the rights to serialize and publish physical books, but I won't sell the adaptation rights for media outside of print, including online, film, and television. To put it bluntly, this is my bottom line.'"

  "Mr. Zhou Xiao, this is just your first book..."

  "I know, but this is what I insist on. Even if I knew that no one would be able to find it afterwards, I wouldn't sell the adaptation rights for my other works."

  "In that case, regarding the manuscript fee, we will lower the value of this book of yours," said Morishita.

  "This is the price offered by several other magazines that are in competition with you, and it's under the condition that I don't sell adaptation rights. You can take it as a reference."

  "This..."

  "Mr. Morishita, to be honest with you, the reason I submitted my work to your company is that I grew up reading your publications! I like your style and I'm a fan of yours! That's why I can speak openly with you. This is just my first book, but soon there will be a second and third one too! So, do you want to save tens of thousands of yen in manuscript fees now, or would you rather let a young author who may contribute to your company for years to come go to your competitor? I'm sure you'll make the wise choice!" Zhou Xiao looked at Morishita sincerely and said with conviction.

  Half an hour later, Zhou Xiao finally came out of the weekly Wen Chun. After a few words from Zhou Xiao, Sen Shilang finally gave up his efforts to save money and offered a contract that was quite good for a newcomer writer, and this contract was only for one book. As for Zhou Xiao's subsequent books, they would likely receive even higher royalties.

  When good fortune comes, the spirit is refreshed. Zhou Xiao walked quickly on the road with a spring in his step. A month ago, he was so poor that he could only live in a small room rented for 50,000 yuan per month. Now, he has signed a contract with a record company and this initial manuscript fee can already allow him to live relatively comfortably for some time. Not to mention the possibility of publishing physical books, adapting into TV dramas, or even having translated versions published in China.

  At the time of Zhou Xiao's contract signing, his song was also slowly fermenting.

  Xiaoyeli Qin finally had time to listen to songs, she put paper and pen on the table, this thing was used to write music reviews, as a professional music critic, she was very professional.

  She casually flipped through the CDs she had accumulated over the past two weeks, and after seeing Zhou Xiao's CD, Ono Rinko was stunned for several seconds before finally remembering what happened when she bought the CD. She rubbed her temples in regret, listening to the unpleasant song was undoubtedly a kind of torture for her, but since she had already bought it, she couldn't not listen to it either.

  "Should I listen to it first and suffer, then use other songs to wash away the impression of this song, or should I not let this song affect my mood when listening to others' music?" Xiao Ri thought for a moment, and still threw Zhou Xiao's CD aside. He felt that it was unfair to let all the singers on other CDs pay for his bad mood just because of this one CD.

  "After listening to this guy's CD for a while, I might just have to go do something to wash away my bad mood..." thought Ono Rikko.

  More than an hour passed quickly, the number of unheard CDs by her side gradually decreased, and the words written by Ono Rinko's pen increased. Finally, when her hand hovered over the unheard CDs, she found that there was only one CD left.

  "...This week's writing is still short of words, the remaining words will be used to scold him, who made me take the poisonous tongue route anyway." thought Koto Minadzuki.

  When later generations followed the trajectory of "Little Love", a question was often raised, that is, who made the greatest contribution to "Little Love" between Ono Ryoko and Mura Tsuyoshi?

  What kind of trajectory is the popularity of a song? It has been several days since Village Gang's performance that made all colleagues like it, and in these few days, "Little Love" has become popular in an unprecedented way.

  "What was that song you just hummed?" "Little Love, you don't know, our company's Qiang used this song to chase after Cheng Zhiyin from their department!"

  "Really? This song sounds pretty good."

  "If you like it, hurry up and buy it. When I went to that CD store to buy it, there was only one left. I guess it's selling well." Actually, it's not that it's selling well, but the CD store only had a stock of five in total.

  "Selling well? Then why haven't I heard of it......"

  "Hey, you still know all the song stars, and hearing his name, it seems like he's Chinese or Taiwanese, maybe he's a star who has already released Japanese singles."

  "That's right, I'll go buy it after work then!"

  Such conversations have been staged in Village G's company for the past few days, and it's not just within the company. Through these people, their friends, family, lovers, and with the help of karaoke, Zhou Xiao's song has slowly but rapidly begun to spread through the media. Gradually, his name also started appearing on the internet, and occasionally, radio stations would receive requests for this song, only to be informed that it didn't exist in their database...

  Even Ogura Yui, who has been training with the company recently, heard this song when singing karaoke with friends, but when she went to the CD store to find it, she found that almost all CD stores could no longer find this song.

  It's Friday again, and Zhang Hu Da Xing arrived at the company early in the morning to receive the news that Zhou Xiao had gone to class with the company's composer. In terms of attending classes, Zhou Xiao is quite diligent, which makes Zhang Hu Da Xing very happy. Moreover, the tuition fees for this group of composers are not cheap, and judging from Zhou Xiao's current situation, the money he earns from selling CDs is unlikely to be enough to cover his tuition fees.

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