Entertainment: A whirlwind marriage with a fairy-like mother at the start!

Late May.

The reception area at the headquarters of Salty Fish Entertainment was unusually lively.

Yang Nuo hadn't stopped since nine in the morning. On her desk were a dozen USB drives, three stacks of folders, and two cell phones ringing at the same time.

"Mr. Yang, our company has three songs we'd like to submit for review. Here are the demo tapes and the authorization letter—"

"Mr. Yang, could you please put us in a queue? Our boss said we can come over anytime for a face-to-face meeting—"

"Mr. Yang, this song was just recorded by our newly signed singer. It has a Chinese style. What do you think about it—"

......

Yang Nuo was completely baffled.

Liu Qianqian and Zhou Jielun's achievements overseas speak for themselves.

Billboard number 43, Spotify streams in the tens of millions, and a surge in overseas fans—these figures stand like a giant GG card before the entire Chinese music industry.

Everyone saw the path to overseas markets.

The tollbooth on this road has only one name – Salted Fish Entertainment.

Yang Nuo organized all the sample tapes and materials she had received, categorized them, and stacked them on a cart before pushing it into Yu Le's office.

"Mr. Yu, as of noon today, we have received 123 songs from 47 companies."

Yu Le sat behind her desk, holding a thermos in her hand.

"Just leave it there."

For the next three days, Yu Le locked himself in his office and listened to the songs one by one.

One hundred and twenty-three songs.

Some are new songs, and some are older songs that have already been released.

The quality varies.

Several of the songs are clearly copycat works; you can tell from the beginning that they are simply following the template of "Blue and White Porcelain," with stiff melodies and awkward lyrics.

Yu Le threw it directly into the "Not Passed" pile.

There are also some truly excellent works. The melodies are mature, the arrangements are complete, and they have the potential for overseas dissemination.

three days later.

Yu Le selected nineteen songs from 123.

The pass rate is less than 16%.

When Yang Nuo took the review results to notify the various companies, those that were approved were overjoyed, while those that were not approved were disappointed, but no one dared to say anything.

No one in the industry dares to question Yu Le's vision.

"Mr. Yu, the overseas distribution rights for all nineteen songs have been signed. Old Mike from North America said they can be released in batches starting in June." Yang Nuo finished reporting and prepared to leave.

"Wait a moment."

Yu Le called out to her.

"There's one more song that I need to work on separately."

Yang Nuo turned her head, her pen hovering over the notebook.

Yu Le put down her thermos and said a name.

"A Spray of Plum Blossoms"

Yang Nuo was stunned for a moment.

"Yi Jian Mei? The one by Fei Yuqing?"

"right."

Yang Nuo opened her mouth, but swallowed the words that were about to come out.

This song was released in 1983. It's been 26 years since then.

In China, this song is undoubtedly a classic. But when it comes to the overseas market—it's an old song from over twenty years ago, without any visual packaging, without the support of popular singers, and its melody and style are worlds apart from the current mainstream aesthetics in Europe and America.

It doesn't look like the kind of work that could make a splash overseas.

But Yang Nuo had been at Xianyu Entertainment for so long that she had long since learned one thing—when Yu Le asked her to do something, don't ask why, just do it.

"I'll contact the copyright holder right away."

Yang Nuo went out and dialed Fei Yuqing's management team.

The other party's reaction was roughly what Yang Nuo had expected.

"A Spray of Plum Blossoms? Mr. Yu wants to release this song overseas?" The agent on the other end of the phone sounded utterly bewildered. "Mr. Yang, are you sure you're not mistaken? This song is almost thirty years old..."

"It was personally requested by Mr. Yu. Overseas distribution authorization and copyright revenue sharing will be handled according to the standard contract."

The other party remained silent for a few seconds.

"Alright, since Mr. Yu has asked, we'll cooperate. But... Mr. Yang, let me be clear from the start: if no one listens to this song overseas, don't blame us for not warning you."

Yang Nuo didn't respond to that.

After hanging up the phone, she returned the signed authorization contract to Yu Le's office.

"Mr. Yu, everything's taken care of. However..." Yang Nuo hesitated for a moment, then couldn't help but ask, "Why did you choose this song?"

Yu Le leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers lightly twice on the table.

In a previous life, around 2020, a blogger named Egg Bro sang a section of "Yi Jian Mei" in the snow in front of the camera, accompanied by the phrase "XUE HUA PIAO PIAO BEI FENG XIAO XIAO". The video went viral overseas, with over 100 million views, becoming one of the most popular Chinese music memes in the world.

A song from thirty years ago has unexpectedly found its way into the phones of young people all over the world.

This incident proves a point—good melodies have no expiration date.

"You don't need to know why," Yu Le said, taking a sip of water. "Tell Old Mike that the promotion strategy for this song is unconventional."

"Then how do we get there?"

"Find a few comedy bloggers in North America and have them use this song as background music for their videos. The content is unrestricted, the more absurd the better."

Yang Nuo wrote it down, and although she was full of questions, she readily accepted the order and left.

Early June.

The first batch of nineteen Chinese songs has been made available on major overseas streaming platforms.

The results were better than expected.

Eason Chan's "Ten Years" surpassed 800,000 plays in its first week on Spotify thanks to its incredibly moving melody. Many comments expressed that "even though I don't understand the lyrics, the melody itself makes me want to cry."

Lin Junjie's "Jiangnan" unexpectedly became a hit among English-speaking audiences in Southeast Asia due to its poignant chorus melody. A Singaporean music blogger even made a video titled "Top 10 Most Beautiful Melodies in Asia," with "Jiangnan" ranking second.

Wang Fei's "Red Bean" was selected as the soundtrack for a short film by a French independent film director. After the short film was shortlisted for the Cannes Short Film Festival, the search volume for the song in the European market skyrocketed.

While none of the songs achieved phenomenal success, they all solidly established themselves in overseas markets.

After the compiled data was sent back to China, the owners of the companies that had entrusted their songs to Xianyu Entertainment for distribution were all grinning from ear to ear.

Previously, their songs had zero overseas distribution.

Now it has hundreds of thousands or even millions of views. Although it can't compare to the views of European and American superstars, it's a breakthrough from scratch.

But the real show is yet to come.

June 10th.

"Yi Jian Mei" is available on Spotify, YouTube Music, and iTunes.

There were no promotional posters. No teasing tweets. Not even the official Facebook account of Salty Fish Entertainment posted anything related.

Silently, like a snowflake, it fell on the land across the ocean.

On the same day, the group of comedy bloggers that Old Mike had contacted started posting videos.

The first person to try this was a beautiful Chinese blogger with 280,000 followers, whose online name was BigTommy.

He filmed a 15-second short video.

In the video, BigTommy is wearing a short-sleeved shirt and standing in his backyard, holding a beer and grinning at the camera.

Then--

A basin of water was poured down from above the screen.

BigTommy was soaking wet, with beer spilled all over the floor.

He did not react.

He simply closed his eyes, tilted his head slightly back, and revealed a Zen-like expression of "all things are empty".

Background music starts playing.

Fei Yu-ching's unique voice, having traversed twenty-six years, drifted out from the phone speaker.

"Snowflakes are falling—the north wind is howling—"

"The world is a vast expanse of white—"