ILSITM Chapter 81

After signing with the record company, I lived and ate there every day.

There weren’t many people in the record company, only three including the boss.

“Your company only has three people!” I was a little surprised.

“Four people. I’m both the boss and an employee,” the middle-aged man joked self-deprecatingly.

The middle-aged man’s surname was Chen, and after signing with the record company, I started calling him President Chen.

During this time, I was a bit busy. First, I received the Malaysian PWH Music Award locally, then I went to Taiwan to receive the Golden Melody Award, and then to Hong Kong to receive the Top Ten Gold Songs Award…

After traveling back to Malaysia in 1989, I sang a song that Aaron Kwok sang in 1990 and unexpectedly received so many awards. Encouraged, I decided to release another album.

An album requires ten songs, and I chose ten songs that suited my vocal range, all of which were popular golden oldies from the 1990s.

Among them were the Four Heavenly Kings’ “Endless Love For You,” “Goodbye Kiss,” “Days We Spent Together,” “Meeting in the Rain,” as well as “Sailor,” “Love is Like a Tide,” “Tears of a Hero,” “My Future Is Not a Dream,” “I Once Loved You With All My Heart,” sung by other Hong Kong and Taiwan singers…

At this moment, I was in the recording studio rehearsing “My Future Is Not a Dream” when the door was suddenly forced open, and a group of people swarmed in.

“It’s him. This kid can’t sing, he’s ugly, and a record company actually wants to promote him and release an album for him. It’s like a toad wanting to eat swan meat. Why doesn’t he take a piss and look at himself?” a woman said, pointing at me and insulting me.

After traveling back to Malaysia in 1989, I discovered that the face in the mirror was unfamiliar and ugly.

So much so that every time I looked in the mirror afterward, I would curse “myself” for being an ugly freak.

At that time, there was a very ugly male singer in Taiwan who had become popular throughout Treasure Island Taiwan with a song called “I’m Ugly, But I’m Very Gentle,” and this song was now traveling across the sea to Malaysia.

“I’m ugly, but I’m very gentle,” I replied with only this sentence and then fell silent.

I didn’t know the woman who insulted me, but she was very beautiful.

I didn’t understand why such a beautiful woman would insult me, just because I was a mediocre singer and ugly?

This group of people were actually holding cameras in their hands, taking pictures of me in a frenzy.

The next day, a Malaysian entertainment news story made me a “public” figure.

The record company and I didn’t take it seriously, especially me. I was single-minded and busy recording my album day and night.

A few days later, my first album was finally released, and the sales were surprisingly good.

That day, the record company arranged a celebration banquet to celebrate the great sales of my album.

Looking at the table full of delicacies, I asked, “President Chen, is it necessary to order so much when there are only four of us?”

“The company has increased its staff. Two mysterious people will be joining my company today. They’ll be here soon,” President Chen said with a smile.

The table was full of Malaysian delicacies, including Assam fish head, satay skewers, tom yam cuttlefish, coconut rice, Malay pastries, and so on.

Malaysian cuisine blends Chinese, Indian, and Western flavors on the basis of local ethnic cuisine.

Their staple foods are rice and noodles.

Malaysian cuisine is spicy or sweet, mainly using beef, mutton, chicken, duck, fish, and shrimp as the main ingredients, seasoned with curry, sambal, Assam, tom yam, and other spices, with a unique flavor.

“Welcome you two to join my agency,” President Chen suddenly stood up and greeted a man and a woman who walked to our table.

I was taken aback when I looked at the man and woman.

I didn’t know the man, but I would recognize the woman even if she were burned to ashes. She was the one who had brought a group of entertainment reporters to insult me a few days ago.

“Let me introduce you. This is our record company’s new Vice President Li, who also serves as the vice president of my newly opened agency. This beautiful woman is Xiaofei, the first agent of our agency. She will provide services for our future pop star, A Dong,” President Chen happily introduced the two to everyone.

“Hi, A Dong, I’m very happy to serve you,” Vice President Li was very approachable and took the initiative to extend his hand to me.

I shook his hand with a smile.

“A Dong, we meet again. I’m very happy to be your agent,” Agent Xiaofei also enthusiastically extended her hand.

I was furious and asked President Chen, “Isn’t this the woman who humiliated me in front of the entertainment reporters last time? Why did you hire her as my agent? What do you mean?”

Seeing that I was losing my temper, President Chen explained, “A Dong, you misunderstood her. The ‘insult’ incident last time was actually jointly planned by Vice President Li and me. Because your album was about to be released, but you were still a newcomer with little attention in the industry, in order to increase your popularity, we used the ‘insult’ trick to hype you up. I haven’t clarified this matter with you all along. Although you were very unhappy at the time, the effect was very good. You can see that the great sales of your album this time are inseparable from the ‘insult’ hype.”

After listening to President Chen’s explanation, I let go of my misgivings, shook hands with Agent Xiaofei, and then said, “Please ‘insult’ me more in the future.”

The originally awkward atmosphere was immediately enlivened by my words, and the atmosphere immediately improved.

Vice President Li and Xiaofei were both poached by President Chen from other agencies.

In addition to President Chen offering a higher salary than their original companies, the main reason they were willing to come was that they valued me.

They were both confident that after their “management,” I would definitely become a rising star in the Chinese music scene.

After my first album sold well, President Chen wanted to release a second album for me.

For the second album, I wanted the songs I sang to be truly original, rather than plagiarizing old songs from other singers.

“For the second album, I hope that the record company and the agency will take care of it, and you will invite lyricists and composers to tailor-make it for me,” I didn’t want to plagiarize old songs anymore, so I made a request to President Chen and Vice President Li.

President Chen and Vice President Li didn’t know that I had traveled from the future. They thought that all the songs I had sung before were handled by myself, so they thought I was a singer-songwriter, so when they promoted me to the outside world, they also positioned me as a singer-songwriter.

Now that I suddenly proposed to have someone write the songs, they thought that I was starting to act like a big shot because my first album had sold well.

“I have more than a dozen ready-made songs here that are very suitable for A Dong to sing, it just depends on whether you use them or not,” just as the three of us were in a stalemate, a male voice suddenly sounded in the conference room.

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