Chapter 27: Stolen Away in This Life

  "Hello, I am the boss of Sanlian Publishing House, and my name is Li Zhicheng."

  Haha, I knew it, someone would come after all.

  Zhou Fan smiled when he saw another private chat with himself.

  "Hello, make it quick, I'm busy and have to go downstairs in a minute."

  "Uh..."

  Although he didn't know why, Li Zhi felt that the other party had some hostility towards him, but he still said, "We plan to publish your work. I don't know if you still hold the copyright for publishing physical books of your work?"

  "Of course, there was a guy who asked before, but I didn't respond to him."

  "Great, we think very highly of your work and plan to publish it."

  Li Zhi Cheng was overjoyed. Fortunately, he had joined the other party's fan group, otherwise a classic work would have slipped away.

  "Alright, alright, then what are your conditions?"

  "Hmm, this guy is an old hand."

  Isn't this guy a newcomer? How does he look like an old hand? However, Li Zhicheng soon realized that such a classic book, he could see it, others can also see it. Just now wasn't there someone asking him about it, back and forth, didn't they become familiar with each other? But Li Zhicheng came with sincerity, he was not afraid of being rejected by the other party.

  "We plan to publish your work at a price of 50 cents per thousand words, no, 10 cents per thousand words. What do you think?"

  "This?"

  What's going on? Why is it another buyout?

  It seems that this buyout has no risk, but even if you kill Zhou Fan, he would not be willing to sell such a classic work to them in one go. Even if the buyout price is doubled, Zhou Fan still disagrees.

  "Sorry, 100 is too low."

  "Oh, I see."

  "100 is already a price for some old authors, of course, your work itself has great advantages, so we bought it at the price of an old author. However, since you think it's a bit low, I can take the initiative to add another 50, how about 150 yuan per thousand words?"

  "It's still too low."

  “200？”

  Li Zhi Cheng raised his price again.

  "200 looks okay, but..."

  Obviously still low.

  “ok，300。”

  Added another 100 yuan at one go, and 3,000 yuan for a thousand words, which is already the price of some popular authors.

  "Haha, 300, a book can sell for tens of millions, I think it's too cheap."

  Zhou Fan still shook his head.

  Back then, the Book and Sword Enchanting Record brought tens of millions, or even over a hundred million, in benefits to Mr. Jin Yong. It's worth noting that back then, Jin Yong was serializing his work on Ming Pao. If not for this book, Ming Pao, the most famous newspaper in Hong Kong, would have gone bankrupt. From this perspective, it generated profits of at least several hundred million.

  Although Zhou Fan didn't think of tens of millions, selling this work for tens or hundreds of thousands was impossible.

  "What do you mean?"

  Li Zhi Cheng originally wanted to raise the price to 500, which was the highest price they offered. However, looking at this guy refusing so quickly, not to mention raising it to 500, even if he raised it to 1,000 yuan, that is, one yuan per word, I estimate he wouldn't agree either. He thought to himself, this guy's taste isn't bad after all. But someone who can write such a classic work also can't be an uncouth person.

  This account must be very good at math.

  "To be honest, I'm not too interested in this buyout contract. How about we change the approach, for example, to a share-based one? What do you think?"

  "Divided?"

  "Although we've split up in our cooperative mode, we rarely do it anymore, but I can still answer you."

  Li Zhi Cheng nodded directly, although it might give up more benefits, but for this book, it's worth it.

  "Normally, for a manuscript fee, if it's a split, ordinary people get 7% of the manuscript fee. As for you, we can give you 10%."

  "No objection 10%."

  Zhou Fan nodded.

  "Great, I didn't expect my brother to be a straightforward person too."

  Li Zhi Cheng almost thought he had seen wrongly, this guy wasn't a master of haggling, how did he agree so readily?

  "But..."

  "As expected."

  A chill ran down his spine; this guy was indeed not a good person. Gathering his spirits, Yang Zhi Cheng decided to go all out against him.

  "Although 10% is more than usual, I think my work isn't ordinary. How about this: if 'The Book and the Sword' sells over 1 million copies, we'll split it 2:8; over 2 million, 3:7; over 3 million, 4:6; over 4 million, we'll split it evenly. As for after that, I think it can still sell more, but never mind, let's just do it this way."

  "You, you, you..."

  Li Zhi Cheng was stunned, he thought this guy would say something, but unexpectedly, he spoke wildly.

  It doesn't cost money.

  Even if it's the most top-notch author now, it's hard to sell 100,000 sets. Although "Book Sword" is a classic, after all, this has just begun, and he is also a newcomer. To sell 1 million sets, it's really as difficult as ascending to heaven. Not to mention the 2 million, 3 million, or even 5 million sets later on. This kind of talk is simply a fool's dream. However, Yang Zhi would not bother explaining this to him. Since he likes to daydream, let him go ahead and do so. So he directly gave his approval, saying "No problem, I'll have my secretary draft a contract for you to take a look at. If there are no issues, we can sign it."

  "Alright."

  The negotiations went very smoothly and didn't encounter any trouble at all.

  Li Zhi Cheng temporarily ended his conversation with Zhou Fan and instructed his secretary to prepare a draft agreement.

  Just then, the secretary was slightly surprised, "Director Li, are we going to sign the Book of Sword Enmity?"

  "What's wrong?"

  Li Zhi Cheng felt he had made himself clear, what's wrong with Little Li today?

  "No, Director Li. I just received news that Xinsheng Publishing House has sent out a kill order for 'The Record of Sword and Vengeance'. The manager said he hopes all publishing companies will give him face and not contact this author."

  "What a great Xin Sheng Bookstore."

  Li Zhi Cheng was somewhat angry upon hearing this news.

  What he hated most was this kind of person who would ban and suppress others at every turn, relying on their own strength to tie up authors every day. In the past, he had heard many such messages. It's just that Sanlian Publishing House was relatively weak, and it didn't concern him either. So before, Li Zhi Cheng only felt disdain for Xinsheng Publishing House's ban order, and didn't think much of it.

  But now, when it's his turn, he feels that Xin Sheng Bookstore is really disgusting.

  "It's okay, continue writing the contract, I just don't believe that Xinsheng Bookstore can do anything to me."

  This time, Li Zhi Cheng really went all out.

  Although Sanlian Publishing House is a small publishing company, if someone offends them, they will definitely not let it go.

  Besides, if it were just an ordinary book, that would be fine. But what was being suppressed was his most important work at the moment. Isn't this ruining one's own rice bowl? In an instant, Yang Zhi Cheng became angry and didn't care about any so-called suppression, continuing to let his secretary sign the contract. Moreover, afterwards, he also contacted a few friends as preparation for the future.

  An hour later, Zhou Fan read the contract and found no problem. Li Zhi Cheng immediately replied that he would send the contract to his place of residence. When he signed it, everything would be fine. Of course, Li Zhi Cheng had originally wanted to say that he would come in person, after all, this book might open up the market for Sanlian Publishing House. Moreover, he also remembered that their books used to sell at most only 400,000 to 500,000 copies. Perhaps, under the stimulus of "Shu Jian En Chou Lu", a miracle might occur, and it was not impossible.

  However, Zhou Fan refused directly, citing inconvenience, and finally had no choice but to opt for mailing.

  Later generations recalled the development history of Sanlian Publishing House, and it is necessary to mention that at that time, Yang Zhicheng signed a contract with Wuxia Master Zhou Yifan (also known as Zhou Daxia), which provided tremendous energy for the development of Sanlian Publishing House. However, Yang Zhicheng did not expect at that time that the sales volume of "The Book and Sword" would far exceed the quota written in the contract.

  Channel 6459

  Today is the last day of Zhou Fan's agreement with 6459, and after singing for this day, Zhou Fan will leave 6459. Therefore, Zhou Fan came to the 6459 channel very early today. However, because 6459 has reached a record of 130,000 people online at this time, even if Zhou Fan logged in to 6459, no one else saw Zhou Fan come online in the vast crowd.

  Of course, just like there are several people who see Zhou Fan, they won't think he's really Zhou Fan. Because since Zhou Fan's "This Life This World" became a hit on YY, many people have changed their YY names to Zhou Fan. Look, in the 6459 channel alone, there are already over a dozen people named Zhou Fan.

  Just then, when Zhou Fan was thinking of calming down and listening to music, a familiar song started playing.

  A life of transformation.

  Isn't this sung by yourself in this life?

  But then he listened again and found out that it wasn't his own singing, but someone else's cover.

  Originally, there was nothing wrong with cover songs. After all, many new songs come out and have many covers. Some covers are even better than the original. But when Zhou Fan heard the background music of this song, he was suddenly stunned.

  "Hello everyone, this is a new song I've been brewing for a year, I'm Xu Fei."

  I'm screwed, even a fool knows what's going on now.

  The song "This Life, This World" that I sang on YY last time was actually stolen by someone and became a work of singer Xu Fei.

  Anger, anger.

  At first glance, Zhou Fan was furious.

  He didn't think that in this world where art is considered sacred, such a thing would happen. Of course, even if it's a miraculous world like Earth where anything can happen, if Zhou Fan encountered something like this, he would also be furious.

  "Nuo'er, what's going on with this 'This Life, This World' sung by Xu Fei?"

  Zhou Fan directly found Nuo Er and excitedly said.

  "Zhou Fan, don't get excited, we just got this news too. Singer Xu Fei has released his latest album, and the name is indeed 'This Life, This World'. And as soon as this song came out, it became super popular and pushed Xu Fei to a very hot spot. We've already contacted the record company that Xu Fei signed with, but they replied in ways like 'we don't know', 'we're not aware of it', or completely denying it. I'm about to mobilize all netizens on YY to thoroughly expose this matter. But..."

  "What's that?"

  "Just the other side, a few days ago, had PR deleted most of our song records that we posted on the internet. Moreover, they even fabricated some evidence to prove that "This Life" was indeed created by singer Xu Fei during his one-year retreat. At the same time, several singers also testified beside them."