Since they are reborn, they must be supported by the school beauties.

Chapter 221 I'm a fucking genius!
Chen Cheng never expected that he would meet the author and original singer of "Mice Love Rice" in the recording studio of Jiangcheng Conservatory of Music.

In his memory, this song should take another two years to become a nationwide hit, becoming the pioneer of Chinese online songs and an unparalleled masterpiece.

But unexpectedly, by the end of 2002, the song had already entered the recording studio.

Chen Cheng didn't pay much attention to online songs in his previous life, but the influence of this song was truly overwhelming, surpassing that of many top stars.

It can be said with certainty that in that era, none of Jay Chou's songs had as great an impact as "Mice Love Rice".

Back then, this song was like a magic spell, seamlessly permeating every place and space.

It's playing in internet cafes, taxis, buses, shopping malls, billiard halls, barbershops, and music stores—wherever there are loudspeakers, this song is playing.

It is said that this song earned the original author, Yang Chengang, at least 200 million yuan.

What does that mean? This was during the era when piracy was at its most rampant, and they still managed to earn 200 million yuan.

If music copyright management were done properly, the value would more than triple.

Although he didn't have any particular feelings about the song, seeing the original singer perform it right in front of him at this moment still made him feel very nostalgic.

Especially when he sang, "I love you, I love you like a mouse loves rice," Chen Cheng would have sung it out loud if he wasn't afraid of giving himself away!

However, Liu Shiyu, who was standing to the side, looked completely bewildered.

She asked herself, "Can this... even be considered a song?"

The lyrics lack any depth; it's like a primary school student confessing their love to another primary school student.

The melody was completely unoriginal, and every chord progression followed the rules. In the eyes of this professional, it was an amateur song that couldn't be more amateurish.

But when he turned his head and saw Chen Cheng listening with great interest, even grinning and tapping his feet to keep time, he was even more puzzled. He thought to himself, "Why are you so engrossed? This song is miles worse than the ones you write."

Chen Cheng didn't even have time to look at her.

He felt that he had actually managed to copy the song today, and he was determined to buy it!
Yang Chengang has been working on this song here all afternoon, but no matter how he records it, it just doesn't feel right.

But with the agreed-upon time fast approaching, and the two strangers outside about to use the recording studio, he couldn't keep it occupied any longer and had to finish recording as quickly as possible.

Actually, he was never quite satisfied with this song. He had finished writing it last year and recorded it once, but he was never satisfied with his own singing, and he also felt that the song was not well-written. He was even a little embarrassed to sing it in front of others.

After all, he was a big, burly man, and he felt ashamed to sing such childish and cheesy lyrics.

After singing the song without much success or failure, he quickly left the recording studio and said to his friend, "Old Zhou, let's hurry up and leave, others still need it."

Then, with a forced smile, he said to Chen Cheng and Liu Shiyu, "I'm sorry, we're almost done here."

Chen Cheng deliberately stepped forward and asked curiously, "Dude, did you write that song yourself?"

"right……"

Yang Chengang scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly and said with a hint of awkwardness, "I just wrote it for fun when I had nothing else to do. Last year I thought I'd record it first and see if I'd have a chance to publish it later. But the previous recording wasn't very good, so I redid the accompaniment this time, but I still feel it's not very mature."

Chen Cheng then asked him, "Are you a local?"

Yang Chengang nodded: "Yes, I'm from Jiangcheng, and I graduated from Jiangcheng Conservatory of Music. What about you? Are you a student at Jiangcheng Conservatory of Music?"

"Oh no."

Chen Cheng said with a smile, "I'm from Jiangda University. I'm here with my teacher to record today."

Then he suddenly asked Yang Chengang, "Dude, is your song selling?"

"Sell?"

Yang Chengang asked him in surprise, "You want to buy it?"

"right!

Without hesitation, Chen Cheng said, "I think this song is quite interesting. It's lighthearted, heartwarming, and catchy. I want to buy out all the copyrights for this song at once, including the version you sang. Name your price."

"This one……"

Chen Cheng has confused Yang Chengang.

He couldn't understand why Chen Cheng would want to spend money to buy the song after only hearing him sing it once, even though he really liked it.

Even if he really likes it, what can he do with the song?
If I were to sell this song to a record company, they probably wouldn't even dare to look at it. These days, who are the people who can sell songs to record companies? They're all incredibly talented.

Why would this young man buy my songs when I'm just a nobody who graduated from a third-rate music academy and doesn't have a proper job even though I'm doing gigs?
However, Yang Chengang is indeed short of money right now and doesn't want to miss a good opportunity to make money.

In China, you must remember one thing: anyone who does art but doesn't make a name for themselves will definitely be broke.

Because if he had money, he could make himself famous even by writing some scribbles.

Yang Chengang then tentatively asked him, "Um... how much money can you offer?"

Chen Cheng opened his two palms: "I'll buy out the entire copyright permanently, and I'll give you 100,000."

"Fuck..."

Yang Chengang was dumbfounded.

His friend was stunned, and Liu Shiyu, who was standing next to him, was also stunned.

Although these three people have vastly different musical abilities, they are surprisingly in agreement: "You're crazy to spend 100,000 yuan on this?"

Yang Chengang felt that if Chen Cheng had said 10,000, he might have actually wanted to buy it, but since he said 100,000, the thing had no credibility at all.

So he chuckled and said, "Young man, don't joke with me. I'm willing to sell for 100,000 yuan. Are you willing to pay?"

Chen Cheng immediately gestured with his thumb towards the door twice: "Let's go, let's go find an ATM, I'll withdraw 20,000 yuan for you right now as a deposit, tomorrow we'll find a lawyer to draft a copyright transfer agreement, we'll sign the contract, and I'll give you the remaining 80,000 yuan on the spot!"

Seeing Chen Cheng's very serious expression, Yang Chengang was a little confused, wondering if he was serious or joking.

One hundred thousand yuan is a lot of money. He's been making music for quite a while now, and he's never earned that much.

So, with the attitude that it wouldn't hurt to try, he readily agreed, "No problem, buddy. My name is Yang Chengang. If you can give me 20,000 yuan as a deposit today, I'll leave my ID card with you, and we'll exchange contact information and sign the agreement tomorrow!" Chen Cheng felt like he'd struck gold, so he didn't hesitate at all. He said to Liu Shiyu, "Teacher Liu, wait for me a moment. I'll go get 20,000 yuan from Brother Yang and come back to find you after I'm done."

Liu Shiyu thought to herself, "You can't spend money like this! Spending 100,000 yuan on this song, is this still the extremely shrewd Manager Chen?"

You managed to create a campus network, and you wrote so many great songs yourself. You've seen the world!

What's going on? Is this?

Did the song "I love you, I love you like a mouse loves rice" really sway you?
Liu Shiyu had no idea how popular this song would become.

If the world's artistic works are led by elite groups, they will never understand what truly drives users' enthusiasm.

While those superstars are certainly impressive, their audiences are often highly segmented. For example, most of Jay Chou's listeners now are below the age of college students, mainly concentrated in high school and university.

What about junior high school students?
What about those young men and women who dropped out of school and refused to study?

What about those young people who tighten screws in the factory?
What about the service workers in the various shops on the streets and alleys?

They might not even like listening to Jay Chou. So what if he's a superstar? I just love singing "Mice Love Rice" to express my feelings, and crying while listening to "Seeking Buddha" and "Lilac Flower"!

I just don't like those nunchucks and golden cudgels you're talking about.

The song "Mice Love Rice" not only perfectly suits all this kind of people, but can even reach down to elementary school students. This is a phenomenal internet hit song that only comes out once every few years. Even elderly people in their sixties and seventies can hum a few lines. If you could really buy it for 100,000 yuan, that would be a huge profit.

So, fearing that Yang Chengang might run away or change his mind, Chen Cheng took him to the ATM at school and withdrew 20,000 yuan in cash in two separate transactions, which is the daily withdrawal limit of an ATM.

Chen Cheng stuffed a thick wad of 20,000 yuan into Yang Chengang's hand and said with a smile, "Brother Yang, please count it."

Yang Chengang watched as he took out the money and turned around to give it to him, so he was sure there was no mistake. He suppressed his excitement, took the money with trembling hands, and said in a daze, "What could be better? There's definitely no problem!"

After saying that, he looked around, quickly stuffed the money into the inside pocket of his leather jacket, and then painstakingly pulled out an ID card from inside, handing it to Chen Cheng: "Brother, this is my ID card. Keep it safe and give it back to me after you sign the contract tomorrow!"

Chen Cheng didn't stand on ceremony with him, after all, some level of protection was necessary.

After accepting his ID card, the two exchanged contact information. Chen Cheng didn't know where to find a lawyer, so he planned to call his bosom friend Shen Luning after he finished his work and ask her for advice.

He didn't like asking Su Zishan for favors, mainly because Su Zishan sometimes liked to tease and make sarcastic remarks on purpose. To put it bluntly, she was unserious and far less reliable than Shen Luning.

Yang Chengang felt a bit hot in his hand with the 10,000 yuan in cash, afraid of losing it or being robbed. So he quickly said to Chen Cheng, "Brother, let's keep in touch by phone tomorrow. I'll be going now."

"no problem."

Chen Cheng nodded and waved to him, "Bye-bye, Brother Yang."

"Bye-Bye!"

Yang Chengang zipped his leather jacket all the way up, called to his friend who was waiting for him not far away, and then, like a criminal who had just committed a crime, hurriedly ran away and disappeared.

Chen Cheng watched the two disappear into the distance, shaking his head inwardly and pondering, "They bought 'Mice Love Rice' for 100,000 yuan, what a mess... But how should this song be released? Posting it on the school's intranet will definitely cause a sensation, but damn it, pirates will just steal it in no time, and then all the online music websites will be able to hear it, and those bastards will just make all the traffic."

"So, should we just use a snippet as background music for members? That seems a bit unfair to the song's powerful impact."

On the way back to the recording studio, Chen Cheng kept frowning, thinking about how to maximize the profits of the song "Mice Love Rice".

Soon, he suddenly realized something.

Actually, piracy is not a problem.

Many popular songs and literary works actually became popular because of rampant piracy.

While piracy may affect direct revenue from copyrighted content, it can lead to a geometric increase in the audience for copyrighted content, laying a solid foundation for future monetization.

Therefore, if the song "Mice Love Rice" can be forcibly linked with Renren.com, the more pirated copies of the song will be, the more popular it will become, and the more popular it will become, the greater the popularity of Renren.com will be.

Yes, that's the right approach.

So, how can we force this song to be linked to Renren.com?
Saying this song was produced by Renren.com? That's utterly useless.

Piracy only steals your songs, not this information.

So, how about we just embed Renren (校内网) directly into the lyrics?
The lyrics to this song weren't very good to begin with, so it doesn't matter if you change them!

For example: "When I hear your voice, I have a special feeling that makes me keep thinking about you and I dare not forget you. I remember there is someone who will always remain in my heart, even if I can only think of you like this."

The skill level is just average.

Let's keep the first paragraph and modify the second paragraph to embed it into the Renren (校内网) website!
Then let's change it to: "When I hear your voice, I have a special feeling that makes me keep thinking about you. I dare not forget you. I open my Renren (a Chinese social networking site) album and look at the photos you posted. Even if all I can do is think about you like this."

Although the changes weren't great, at least the Renren (校内网) photo album was integrated!
Besides, looking at photos to miss you is a more direct way to express my feelings!

Anyway, the really catchy part of this song is the chorus, "I love you, I love you, just like a mouse loves rice."

Therefore, changing these two lines of lyrics yourself would absolutely not affect the song's fate of becoming a huge hit.

Imagine that this song will generate billions of plays online in the next few years, and countless more will be sung by the general public.

Every time this song is played, hummed, or sung properly, it will mention Renren.com, giving Renren.com more exposure. You can't get this level of exposure without spending hundreds of millions on advertising, and you might not even achieve this effect with hundreds of millions!
Thinking of this, he suddenly became excited, grinning and muttering to himself, "I'm fucking a genius!"

After saying that, he quickly made a phone call to Yang Chengang.

Yang Chengang and his friend had just gotten into a taxi, their faces flushed with excitement, when they suddenly received a call from Chen Cheng. Yang Chengang muttered subconsciously, "This guy isn't going to back out, is he?"

He answered the phone nervously, "Hey buddy, what's up?"

Chen Cheng smiled and said, "Brother Yang, could you help me book a recording studio at the music academy tomorrow? I want to change a couple of lines of lyrics for your song, and I'd appreciate it if you could record it for me again."

Chen Cheng then added, "But I won't let you record for nothing. I'll give you an extra ten thousand yuan as a reward for your hard work!"

Yang Chengang was stunned and subconsciously asked, "Really...really give me ten thousand?"

His subtext was: "You're my cash cow. Even if you don't pay me, I'll still record it for you. You're asking for 10,000 yuan for each re-recording? You're too arrogant!"

Chen Cheng chuckled and said, "I always keep my word. I'll bring the cash with me tomorrow. After the recording is complete and everything is fine, you can take the ten thousand yuan directly."

(End of this chapter)