Chapter 68: Only the Phoenix Perches on the Paulownia

“A five-yuan channel fee per card—Shengda Network can accept that in principle. We can offer a cumulative eight-yuan marketing fee for each card: five for Legendary Entertainment, three for the internet café owners. The actual revenue from a thirty-five-yuan monthly card comes to twenty-seven.” After a round of discussion with Chen Tianqiao, Luo Xianxian gave a prompt and straightforward reply.

After all, there was little room for maneuver when it came to channel fees; there were ample precedents in the industry to draw from. The commission rates that so many pioneering online game companies offered to various levels of bookstores and kiosks were all quite transparent. The real divergence between Luo Xianxian and Legendary Entertainment centered on the issue of an upfront, one-time investment.

She insisted, “A one-million-yuan penalty for breach of contract is too little. If you falter and three months later have nothing to show for it, even if you pay us one million in compensation, we’ll have lost a crucial window of opportunity. After all, once we sign, we’re committed to not developing our own alternative recharge system.”

Gu Cheng responded openly, “Fine. If you think one million is too little, then raise the initial development fee. Make it two million. If I can’t produce the system, I’ll pay you two million. Does that satisfy you?”

If someone was willing to pay more upfront, Gu Cheng saw no reason to refuse. He was not like Chen Tianqiao, plagued by constant suspicion of his peers’ schemes—Gu Cheng genuinely wanted to cooperate with Shengda.

The inherent technical limitations of “Dragon Clan” meant the game would never sell well in regions with poor network quality, so Gu Cheng had no fear of being overtaken by such tactics.

Luo Xianxian was practically breaking into a sweat. She tried to discern whether Gu Cheng was merely posturing or genuinely sincere, but his demeanor was so forthright that she could not read him at all.

She could only resort to the last tactic Chen Tianqiao had taught her over the phone.

Through gritted teeth, she argued, “All right, we can agree to the two million upfront development fee. But who’s to say that, after you’ve developed this system, you’ll only provide third-party payment services for our ‘Dragon Clan’? If we front the money and you turn around and sell the user base elsewhere, then we shouldn’t be the only ones footing the bill!”

Gu Cheng smiled knowingly. He thought to himself that Chen Tianqiao was indeed shrewd, but considering the state of the market in 2001, it was unlikely another online game of this type would reach similar heights. Even if he agreed to give “Dragon Clan” exclusive access to this third-party system, it was hardly a big concession.

As for other types of online games with rising popularity, like “Magical Baby,” Gu Cheng intended to suppress them with full force—there was no chance of cooperation there. “Magical Baby” was another game whose concept had recently been hyped, and it was due to start charging for access in the latter half of the year. The game was modeled after last year’s hit, “Stone Age,” but with further refinements in system and graphics.

Because of its turn-based structure, “Magical Baby” was naturally well-suited to poor and laggy networks. Its “encircle the cities from the countryside” market strategy overlapped with that of “Legend.” Gu Cheng had a crystal-clear understanding of who could be a partner and who could not; he would never make the mistake of supporting a rival.

Having thought everything through, he said briskly, “All right then. If Shengda is willing to provide two million as an upfront development fee, we can promise that no other online game will be allowed to join the system before July 1st, that is, the start of the second half of this year. If your company offers three million, we’ll extend this exclusive authorization to the end of December. The choice is yours.

Of course, this promise applies only to the field of online games. If we use the system for other clients—selling single-player games or audio-visual products, for example—then that has nothing to do with Shengda.”

Luo Xianxian knew that three million was not a great sum. Though development of such a payment system would cost only a few hundred thousand, the expense of installing the software on tens of thousands of internet café computers nationwide was truly staggering.

Chen Tianqiao’s three million would merely offset a portion of Legendary Entertainment’s offline marketing costs for half a year. Ultimately, that money would end up in Gu Cheng’s Alibaba pockets through the ground promotion teams.

“We agree to this model in principle,” Luo Xianxian said, her tone weary as she signaled her intent, and then continued negotiating the details with Pan Jieying.

As long as Gu Cheng kept his strategic sense for distinguishing friend from foe, the details were not his concern. He rose gracefully, tossing out a final remark as he left: “All right, you two keep talking. I’m busy—I’ll go record some music.”

Watching his retreating figure, Luo Xianxian felt a sudden sense of bewilderment. “President Pan, isn’t your younger brother… well, how come he’s into music?”

Pan Jieying gathered up the quote sheets, sighing quietly. “Cheng has many talents and an even broader heart. Making games probably doesn’t take up even a third of his attention.”

…

When Gu Cheng returned to the studio, Teacher Gao and the other assistants were taking a tea break. Seeing Gu Cheng enter, they all prepared to get back to work.

Ever since he’d returned from Taiwan before the New Year, Gu Cheng had thought long and hard about how busy he’d become—he simply couldn’t be a full-time musician. But since Chai Zhiping had given him the chance to sing “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “Meteor Rain,” he figured he might as well add a couple more songs, take advantage of the New Year lull to record a small EP, and keep it as a memento.

So he’d asked around in the Qiantang music circle, originally looking for a recording studio, and had unexpectedly run into the musician Gao Dasong. The man had just left Beijing after a scandal involving his ex-girlfriend’s suicide, seeking peace at home. After resigning from his post as “Director of Sohu Entertainment Division” in Zhongguancun, he’d heard the “country’s newest cutting-edge online independent music portal, Dingdang.com,” was recruiting, so he came by to see what Gu Cheng was capable of.

That was how the two of them met and started playing music together—no talk yet of job changes.

Once Gu Cheng’s EP was finished, he would definitely sell it, but there was no need to go through third-party distribution channels. He’d just put it up on Dingdang.com. By then, his “Alipay” should also be up and running. Anyone who shared his vision could buy online, pay cash at an internet café, and wait for delivery.

For now, Gu Cheng would sell albums just as Dangdang.com sold books.

After Jay Chou’s “JAY” album was introduced, even without much promotion, over thirty thousand copies had shipped in January alone. A few thousand remained unsold for the time being, but Gu Cheng had paid for those himself and kept them in stock to avoid breach of contract. Once the album’s popularity picked up, those would certainly sell out.

When it came to selling Jay Chou’s album, Gu Cheng had negotiated with several domestic offline channels, giving them the lion’s share of the profits. For at least the next two years, he would not be able to completely cast off the offline sales networks.

At that time, most domestic music albums consisted of ten to twelve songs. Anything shorter wouldn’t fill a single cassette, and in China’s “buy music by the weight” climate, such an album simply wouldn’t survive.

As for the four-to-six-song mini-albums common in the East or Japan, almost no one in China was producing them. The Japanese-style “singles” were even less feasible—what? Expect consumers to buy a disc for just one song? Ridiculous!

Though Gu Cheng didn’t care much about the sales of his commemorative EP, he didn’t want to be too eccentric, so he settled on four songs.

“Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “Meteor Rain” accounted for two, both written and composed by others at Chai Zhiping’s behest. While in Taiwan, Gu Cheng had played music with Jay Chou and Fang Wenshan, and had performed the future hit “Exaggerated,” originally by Chen Yisen. The arrangement was fairly simple, so Jay Chou had helped arrange it and sent it over a few days ago; Gu Cheng recorded it in Qiantang.

The last song was a problem for a while, but after racking his brains for two nights, Gu Cheng shamelessly borrowed “Man’s Ocean,” a song Zhou Chuanyong would release three years in the future.

But with Gu Cheng’s standards, he couldn’t just copy it wholesale. The reason he chose “Man’s Ocean” was because it resonated with his current emotional state, and he could truly bring it to life.

Gu Cheng always felt that a song needed more than just a voice—the key was to capture its spirit, just as a painting was more than mere likeness. As the saying goes, “Zhang Sengyao mastered flesh, Lu Tanwei mastered bone, Gu Kaizhi mastered spirit”—spirit was paramount.

No matter how popular a song became in later years, if Gu Cheng couldn’t inhabit its world, he had no interest in covering it.

In his previous life, he’d never experienced real love, though he’d slept with many women. By the time he died, he was deeply lonely inside, yearning for genuine affection. But he knew well that he was already too stained by sin to turn back, so whenever he encountered solo female artists he admired for their talent, he would gently help them towards success, steadfastly refusing to sully them himself and protecting them from being sullied by others.

Gu Cheng believed he could capture the deepest pulse of “Man’s Ocean.” He tweaked the lyrics and arrangement to suit himself, stripping away some of the standard sentimental entanglements between men and women, and adding a touch of the broad, enlightened optimism of “A thousand sails pass by the side of a wrecked ship.”

Once the mood was set, Gu Cheng and the musicians took their places and ran through the song twice.

“…Rolling up longing so long, waving as I watch you set sail, to the heaven you believe I cannot give.

A gentle man is like the ocean, love hides at the crucial moment, yet all the sorrow opens wide in the chest.

To be the distant, watchful moonlight, not the wall that blocks your path—my love is cutting off my own wings, to give you the sky…”

When the song ended, Teacher Gao Dasong, acting as sound engineer, checked the results and was satisfied. “Perfect. It’s a real waste for you not to be a professional musician, messing around making games instead. Remember to pick up your disc in a month; here are the demos of the two songs for your drama.”

Gu Cheng smiled modestly and accepted the demo containing “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “Meteor Rain,” teasing, “If I were a professional musician, wouldn’t I have to sing whatever sells? Better to be an amateur—sing only what I love, what I can truly inhabit.”

In music and film, Gu Cheng had only one rule: he would participate personally, but unlike those professional actors who prided themselves on “challenging every role,” he only played characters close to himself, or not at all.

He had no interest in “challenging” himself. If he had to act, he wanted to play someone like himself; otherwise, he wouldn’t force it. Why should a handsome man try to become a fat slob? No need at all.

If it wasn’t true to himself, he wouldn’t perform. Let people say he was unprofessional if they wanted—he never claimed to be a professional.

It made no difference to him.