Huayu: Starting from an Unemployed Male Model

The official Weibo hashtag #TheWindIsRisingMV# has garnered over 800 million views and 2.7 million discussions, breaking into the top 15 of Weibo's trending topics.

It trended on Weibo eight times, with two topics making it into the top ten: #OurYouthIsRising# and #WeiJun-TheWindIsRising#.

Celebrities followed suit by reposting the message, including Lu Han, Nazha, Xu Lu, Li Lin, Chen Shu, and Gao Hanyu...

Wei Jun's Weibo followers surged from 108 million to 316 million, with a weekly increase of 208 million followers.

Within 12 hours of its release on QQ Music, it entered the top 20 of the new song chart, and within 24 hours, its play count exceeded 2 million.

It broke into the top ten of the new song chart the following week, accumulating 1200 million plays and over 50 favorites.

The song received over 10 comments and was hailed by netizens as "the best song of youth in 2016".

It broke into the top ten of NetEase Cloud Music's new song chart and was selected as one of the "Most Popular Songs of 2016" by the official website.

The comments exceeded 15, with highly-rated comments such as "The wind was strong that year, scattering many people" and "The affection nowadays is cheap; once you delete a friend, everything is severed."

Kuaishou launched the #TheWindIsRisingCoverChallenge#, which attracted over 10 participants.

The number of notes related to "The Wind Rises Lyrics Handwritten Notes" on Xiaohongshu has exceeded 2.

The number of posts on Tieba (Baidu's online forum) under the hashtags #TheWindIsRising# and #WeiJunBar# exceeded 5000, and the number of followers increased from 2800 to 6.8.

It received an initial rating of 8.2 on Douban, with over 3000 reviews.

Erdi, a professional music critic with 680 million followers on Weibo, said: "The three words 'The Wind Rises' are not about the wind, but about our past youth and the us that can never go back."

The well-known marketing account "Music Voice" said, "Why did 'The Wind Rises' become popular? Because it is sincere. Wei Jun is sincere. The youth in the music video is not acted out, but rather lent to him by everyone. From the moment Wei Jun said that this is not his exclusive music video, but a music video that belongs to everyone, this song deserves to be popular."

......

Wei Jun became a sensation, thanks to the quality of his songs, the abundance of promotional resources, the top-notch, textured voice described in the tags "[Heavenly Voice]", the rapid-learning musical skills described in "[Super Beast Brain]", and the extremely infectious singing ability described in "[Burn My Calories]".

As Yang Hua said, he became an instant sensation.

With its commercial value soaring, a ton of endorsements and GG brands came knocking on its door seeking collaborations. The first to react was OPPO, a mobile phone brand that had previously collaborated with the song, requesting that "The Wind Rises" be used as the promotional song for its summer and back-to-school series of mobile phones.

Wei Jun was hired as the spokesperson for these two brand series for six months, totaling 200 million yuan.

Metersbonwe brought their new season's clothing to our door, requesting a collaboration and inviting Wei Jun to be the spokesperson for their campus series, a deal worth 300 million yuan a year.

Wei Jun's team accepted them all. They originally wanted to choose some endorsements and collaborations with male celebrities, but most of them had low product quality, were involved in shady dealings, or offered low prices.

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Some businesses even surreptitiously indicated that they could take more private photos of men, and pay more for that.

This is absolutely insane.

Wei Jun had no choice but to refuse.

In addition to brand endorsements, he also receives invitations for film, music variety shows, and magazine shoots.

The TV dramas "Together Through Windows" and "Whirlwind Eleven" purchased the rights to "The Wind Rises" to use as insert songs and ending themes.

Wei Jun has been invited to perform as a guest at the Ideal Music Festival and the Shanghai Asia Music Festival in August, with prices quoted at 200,000 and 150,000 yuan respectively.

Hunan TV's hit variety show "Day Day Up" has added a new music talent guest, Zhejiang TV's "The Voice of China" guest singer, and Beijing TV's "Crossover Singer" replacement guest, with prices of 30, 80 (package price) and 80 respectively.

These big-name variety shows offer low prices, but many artists flock to them because they have high popularity and high viewership, so they don't have to worry about guests. Wei Jun's previous price was high, but he didn't have any works, so it was just hype. No big-name variety shows came to him, and the ones that came to him were all trashy variety shows.

He was featured on the cover of the local fashion magazine "1626" and featured in a street style photoshoot by the fashion weekly "GRAZIA". Both magazines sent him invitations.

Wei Jun and Yang Hua discussed these invitations and decided to make appropriate choices based on their schedules and the actual situation.

After reading these invitations, Wei Jun felt both happy and troubled. He knew that his schedule would be very busy from now on, and he would no longer have the leisurely time to drink coffee in a café.

......

Shanghai, the filming location of "1626".

Wei Jun arrived at the studio early, where many behind-the-scenes staff were already busy.

"Wei Jun, you're here. I'm the editor-in-chief, Sam." A man wearing sunglasses, a brown shirt, bell-bottoms, and light makeup walked over.

"Hello, editor-in-chief." Wei Jun extended his hand and shook it gently.

"You're here quite early," Ah Sam waved and had someone bring two cups of coffee. "I'll show you around."

"Okay." Wei Jun nodded.

"This is the styling room. Stylist Kabby will do your hair and makeup in a bit."

"This is the dressing room, where we'll choose a few outfits for the photoshoot."

"This is the filming studio..."

After touring around, Wei Jun got a general understanding of the work process and then followed the staff to prepare for the shoot.

"This one won't do, it's too mature."

"This one won't do either; it's not eye-catching enough, it's too ordinary."

"This one fits our 'Windy Youth' style perfectly—clean, refreshing, and giving off a feeling of a young person chasing their dreams."

Wei Jun wore a pure white washed cotton crew neck T-shirt underneath, with the neckline slightly loose, revealing his collarbone, and the cuffs slightly rolled up.

The middle layer is a light blue, thin, oversized shirt with the top two buttons undone and the hem irregularly tucked into the waistband. The outer layer is a khaki long trench coat with a slit design at the back. A wind machine was used during the shoot to create the feeling of walking in the wind.

She wore dark gray straight-leg cropped trousers and cream-white New Balance running shoes with light gray details.

The hairstyle was "naturally tousled hair blown by the wind," and the props used in the photoshoot included a silver bracelet, a vintage Casio digital watch, a canvas backpack, wired headphones, and manuscripts.

The overall look isn't trendy or flashy, but it's clean, relaxed, artistic, and youthful.

"Editor-in-chief, are you going to take pictures of me?" Wei Jun, who had just finished his styling, stood in the photo studio, looking at Editor-in-Chief Sam, who was fiddling with the camera.

"It's rare to see such a high-quality model, so I couldn't help but feel itchy to try it myself." The editor-in-chief raised the camera and took a few test shots.

"Tsk tsk, just a few casual shots and the results are so good. His looks, temperament, and figure are all top-notch. Inviting Wei Jun to shoot the cover this time was really worthwhile." Ah Sam looked down at the pictures and muttered to himself.

A staff member nearby revealed with a smile, "Sam is not only the soul of our '1626' magazine, but he is also a writer and photographer."

"Alright then." Wei Jun felt it didn't matter who was the photographer; he would look good no matter how the photos were taken.

"Wei Jun, make a running motion, then turn around."

"Turn on the blower."

"Yes, that's it, perfect."

Editor-in-Chief Sam kept instructing Wei Jun on how to change his shooting posture, while his camera clicked away in rapid succession.

Running against the wind, turning around, wearing headphones and looking down at the manuscript, looking up at the sky...

Wei Jun completed everything perfectly, and the editor-in-chief, Sam, praised him highly.

After filming wrapped, Ah Sam began interviewing Wei Jun.

"I listened to 'The Wind Rises' 18 times last night," said Sam, making a startling statement.

"Thank you," Wei Jun paused for a moment, then smiled, "18 times, I believe you."

"Thank you," Sam thought Wei Jun was a genuine person and would be a first-rate friend. He smiled and then asked, "I saw some people online calling you a musical prodigy. What do you think?"

"Just look at it on your phone," Wei Jun joked before replying seriously, "I'm not a musical prodigy. Actually, this song was purchased with overseas copyrights. I'm just the lyricist."

Wei Jun knew that as the popularity increased, many critics would follow, and even if he credited the composer in the music video, he couldn't stop those who were jealous.

"If you do this, people will criticize you. Aren't you afraid?" Ah Sam frowned, worried about Wei Jun's future situation.

"So what," Wei Jun shrugged, "the reason this song is so popular is just because I had the advantage of writing the lyrics, oh, and I have a little bit of singing skills. Most of the credit goes to those who lent me my youth."

"One last question," Ah Sam paused, "Describe yourself in one word for the summer of 2016."

Wei Jun rested his chin on his hand, thought for a long time, and then answered, "This summer is borrowed by me."

Editor-in-Chief Sam stared in surprise, his eyes filled with emotion.

This phrase later became the cover title of the August issue of "1626".