Bab 70: Unease

August 8th, 8am.

For New Century, today was great day, it was the day when Wang Jingwen's new album would be released.

All the executives, shareholders, and staff were all gathered in the company preparing to witness the performance of the new album.

This project involved billions of yuan, and it was by far the biggest project New Century had ever taken part in, it made them all expectant and excited.

In addition, unlike those small entertainment companies, New Century Entertainment had a huge marketing network, their sales points covered almost all of Huaxia. The records had been sent to various sales points overnight. Once the albums were released, people wouldn't need to run around, just taking a few steps, they could go to the store and buy Wang Jingwen's record.

Of course, during this period of time, New Century Entertainment had done plenty of advertising for Wang Jingwen on TV and the Internet. Bus stations, subway stations, and even the streets were almost all covered in Wang Jingwen's album posters, indicating the specific times and locations where the new album would be sold.

To create this overwhelming publicity, New Century Entertainment invested more than 30 million, plus the filming and production of the music video, they had invested a total of almost 100 million.

At this moment, the staff of the statistics department had been preparing. They were just waiting for Cao Dequan to order the major sales points to start selling. Then, they could start counting the sales of the album.

...

In the conference room, there was a full house.

At this time, everyone was talking and laughing, their mood was obviously excellent.

Only Wang Jingwen was anxious, she had a bad feeling about this.

To put it bluntly, she still had no confidence in the new album. She always felt that during the production of songs, the production levels of Gao Xiaosong and Zhang Xiaohua were completely out of a grade, so much so that Wang Jingwen had no confidence in securing the victory for the first album.

Wang Jingwen was not a fool. She was clear that if the sales didn't achieve the desired results, then it would definitely affect her fame. She knew how much was riding on this project, she just hoped that her fan base could allow her to ride through this storm.

When she first came, she promised to take New Century to a new level and never leave the shareholders disappointed.

But now she wanted to do nothing more than take her words back.

Wang Jingwen felt a bit depressed as she thought of this..

But now, she was being forced to go with the flow.

Based on her own popularity, it wasn't necessarily true that fans wouldn't buy it.

At this time, a staff member went to Cao Dequan and asked: "Chairman, all the sales points are ready now. I heard that many fans have already queued up at the door of each store. When can we start selling?"

Cao Dequan looked at the time. Hearing about the queue of fans outside the stores, he was overjoyed. It seemed that selling 3 million records in a short time wouldn't be that difficult.

Satisfied, he nodded: "Well, give out the notice, Miss Wang Jingwen's album is now officially available for sale!"

Here, Cao Dequan ordered all the stores to open their doors and officially started the sales of Wang Jingwen's new album.

After all, Wang Jingwen still had a great influence. Many fans had indeed queued up for a long time at the door of the store, just to get a new record of Wang Jingwen.

There are even some vendors who had spotted the business opportunity and were prepared to buy in the albums large quantities and then later resell them to fans who couldn't get hold of the album for a higher price. This was the experience that the traders had learned from the release of Wang Jingwen's first album. Once Wang Jingwen's records were sold out, they would set up stalls outside and start selling.

As soon as the major stores opened their doors, a large number of fans rushed into the store, the scene was more hectic than those 'Black Friday' sales promotion at department stores.

However, when they saw that the unit price of the album was 1,000 yuan, there were lots of fans who just put the records back, shook their heads helplessly, and then walked out of the store empty-handed.

Some of the fans who came with each other gnawed their teeth and decided to take the sharing system. They started to share the cost for the records between each other. Some gave up and just planned to wait for the pirated version, why bother buying it if you could find it online for free. The key was that it was just too expensive, they really couldn't afford such a high price!

There were also many wise fans who chose to wait for people to review the album.

After all, Wang Jingwen had changed her record company. Before, her album was made by HuaXiang Entertainment, but now it was from New Century and the price was so expensive. They became cautious, unwilling to waste so much money on something uncertain. When they found out if it was worthy of being that expensive, it wouldn't be too late to come back and buy one.

.....

Online, Forum.com

Thread Name: The Goddesses New Album

"Has anyone bought Wang Jingwen's new album, can you leave reviews below considering getting it, is it worth it?"

"The goddess...she....she has fallen, the new songs are so trash 😭"

"My heart is currently shattering"

"Your heart is shattering imagine how my ears feel"

"I know right is that really Wang Jingwen singing? What the hell happened?"

"Is it really that bad"

"Overall the song's aren't actually that bad compared to other songs, it's just compared to the first album it suck ass, it's definitely not worth 1,000 yuan"

"I listened to the songs in order to relax, but these songs are so depressed. It sounds funeral music. Like what the hell was she thinking"

"Has it been pirated yet, I wanna give it a listen"

"Piracy you wish.... there is a New Century Entertainment trademark on the cover. They will suppress those websites so hard, you're gonna be waiting for a while"

"Trust me you don't wanna hear it, it will ruin your image of the goddess it's just better to keep her holy in your mind"

"Wasted 1,000 yuan, I'm so f****ing pissed."

"Unlucky mate better luck next time"

"That's why you don't get baited by their ads"

"1,000 yuan that's nothing I wipe my ass with that"

"Hey commenter above f*** off before this granddaddy gives you a beating"

....

After the first waves of reviews started getting out, many fans were discouraged and just left the storefront and headed home defeated.

At the same time, in the minds of many fans, Wang Jingwen was no longer seen as the "Goddess of Music". After listening to the songs on her new album, the fans directly viewed her on the same level as all the other artists, just another one-hit wonder. From the fresh face of music that was reviving Huaxia's music scene to just another basic superstar, especially after the quality of the first album, her downgrade hit them harder. They were really disappointed with her!

As always, eventually snippets the songs of Wang Jingwen's new album appeared on the Internet. This just spread the feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction more reviews came out complaining about the album. Naturally this caused the sales of the album to plummet drastically. Those who were previously thinking of getting the album were put off, the sales of the album became almost stagnant.

Many people were looking forward to her riding on her success and improving the quality of the songs, but instead she just returned to same quality of all the other artists out there who had killed of the music industry in the first place. The disappointment struck harder now, more than ever, especially after she had shown them hope, only to do this...

Some just turned to hoping HuaXiang Entertainments would come out of nowhere again and continue to explore new singers and music, changing the current entertainment culture, otherwise they really would lose it.

...

From the afternoon to the evening, the major media stations also launched targeted reports, all of which claimed that the new album was a major failure, a stain on New Century's Portfolio.

In order to retaliate against the contempt and humiliation that they received last time from Wang Jingwen, several medias quoted a passage from Wang Jingwen's the press conference:

"HuaXiang Entertainment is nothing. Zhang Xiaohua is absolutely nothing without me!!"