With the accompaniment sorted out, Zhou Ziheng made another trip to the Guangzhou electronics market to buy a master cassette tape.
A master tape, essentially, is the raw cassette recording made by a singer.
Because these tapes are used to duplicate copies, they have to meet certain quality standards.
Of course, a singer could technically just buy ordinary blank tapes meant for everyday listeners off the shelf, and that wasn't strictly forbidden.
However, ordinary blank tapes were of lower quality, and once duplicated and recorded, the quality of the copies would become even more unbearable.
Unbearable quality meant static hiss on the tapes, or even the possibility of skipping on every single copy.
Therefore, even though Zhou Ziheng didn't have much money to spare, he still chose to buy a blank master tape costing over three hundred yuan for the recording.
When Zhou Ziheng returned to the Friendship Hotel with the master tape, Li Chunbo had already come back.
Yet Zhou Ziheng immediately noticed that he was in low spirits, standing alone in the hallway and gazing blankly in the direction of the distant railway station.
"Brother Chunbo, what's wrong? Has something happened with the publishing?"
Zhou Ziheng walked over and stood side by side with him.
"Ziheng, you're back!" Li Chunbo offered a bitter smile. "I always thought this cassette of mine sounded wonderful, and that if it got published, a lot of people would love it. But today I realized that the people who dislike it seem to outnumber the ones who do."
Hearing this, Zhou Ziheng said nothing and simply listened quietly as he poured out his feelings.
"Today in the planning department, Brother Guangping and the others organized a listening session. Most of the planning department came, and we listened to my tape together. And the result..."
As he spoke, Li Chunbo visibly slumped. "The result was that out of more than a dozen people, only Brother Guangping and Brother Xiaoqi thought this tape had the potential to be published. Not a single other person agreed. Do you know how they described this tape? They said it could be summed up in one word: rustic! They said you couldn't find a more rustic set of songs anywhere in all of China."
"Brother Chunbo, you really don't need to care what those people think."
Zhou Ziheng paused for a moment of reflection before saying:
"Although the China Record Company is a record label, there are actually very few people inside who truly understand music. Most of them are just bureaucrats padding their resumes. You have to believe that since Brother Xiaoqi and Brother Guangping both approve of your tape, it proves your tape genuinely has something captivating about it. Brother Xiaoqi and the others are not clueless outsiders. When it comes to market research and musical literacy, they are no worse than any of those musicians from Hong Kong and Taiwan. With their support, why worry so much? Even if the China Record Company didn't agree to publish it today, I'm sure that before long, thanks to the efforts of Brother Xiaoqi and the others, your tape will be successfully published."
Regarding the cassette album *Xiaofang*, Zhou Ziheng had happened to come across information about it in his past life.
The details were pretty much identical to the current situation: after Li Chunbo mailed the tape to Li Guangping for a listen, Li Guangping immediately felt the tape had huge potential.
Consequently, he rushed straight over to Li Chunbo's residence to discuss it with him.
Later, when he took the tape back and proposed publishing it, he met with opposition from the newly formed planning department.
Only Chen Xiaoqi stood with him.
Because the tape faced opposition from the majority of the planning department, its release was delayed again and again.
Finally, in 1993, Chen Xiaoqi stated in a meeting that if the tape failed, he would take full personal responsibility for the consequences.
It was only thanks to Chen Xiaoqi's robust support that the tape was ultimately able to hit the market.
And facts proved that Chen Xiaoqi's vision was extraordinary.
As soon as the cassette was released, it instantly captured the hearts of listeners in Yangcheng.
Shortly after, at the Summer Audio and Video Ordering Fair in 1993, it won the favor of audio-video distributors from all over the regions, and over the following two months, it sold a massive two million copies nationwide.
Two million copies—what kind of concept was that?
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the cassette market in Mainland China had always been massive, and there were plenty of Hong Kong and Taiwan singers whose tapes sold in the millions here.
But those were artists from Hong Kong and Taiwan; never before had a Mainland singer achieved such high tape sales.
It wasn't until October of this year that Yang Yuying broke the awkward drought of Mainland singers failing to cross the million-sales mark in one fell swoop with *The Wind is Amorous, the Water is Smiling*.
As for Li Chunbo, he became the very first Mainland singer whose cassette sales surpassed two million copies.
Why was 1993 dubbed the Year of Li Chunbo?
The reason was that in the Mainland that year, he was the undisputed king.
His cassette sales not only overwhelmed numerous Mainland singers, but he also stood alone against Hong Kong and Taiwan artists without losing his footing.
One can only imagine how glorious Li Chunbo's year was in 1993—an era when Hong Kong and Taiwan pop culture swept the Mainland, and the cassette of almost any artist from those regions could sell hundreds of thousands of copies in the Mainland—when he held his own against the Four Heavenly Kings, Dave Wang, Chyi Chin, Wakin Chau, and others.
Just how glorious was Li Chunbo?
At the time, the commercial performance fees for most Mainland singers were basically within tens of thousands of yuan.
Yang Yuying and Mao Ning were hot, right?
In 1993 they were blindingly successful, yet their commercial performance fee was only twenty thousand yuan per show.
And what about Li Chunbo? His commercial performance fee started out at tens of thousands as well.
But because he received far too many offers for commercial shows, there came a day when he was simply too busy to handle them all. To turn down an offer, he quoted a direct price of two hundred thousand yuan.
To his surprise, almost without hesitation, the other party agreed immediately.
Two hundred thousand yuan—what a terrifying figure that was at the time.
In the early 1990s, when having ten thousand yuan already made someone a wealthy person, two hundred thousand was practically an astronomical sum, an amount ordinary people could only gaze at from afar.
Armed with these details from his past life, Zhou Ziheng was incomparably certain that Li Chunbo's tape would be published and would undoubtedly become a massive hit.
"Heh..." Li Chunbo gave a bitter laugh, sounding as though he had lost his confidence. "I hope so!"
"It will! Didn't Brother Xiaoqi promise you that he would find a way to get your tape published? You should believe he can pull it off!"
Zhou Ziheng comforted him.
"Yeah!" Li Chunbo nodded. Though worry still lingered on his face, it was noticeably reduced. He looked at Zhou Ziheng and asked, "What about you? Are you really going to finish recording your tape before heading over to Pacific Audio & Video?"
"Yes! I've already chosen the songs for the tape!" Zhou Ziheng said, suddenly smiling. "When it comes time to record, I'll need your help. There's a song on the album that I'd like to invite you to duet with me on. Also, regarding the post-production work for the tape, I'm not very handy with the equipment myself. Since you have the experience of producing *Xiaofang*, you must know your way around this, so I'll be asking for your help with the post-production."
"No problem at all!" Li Chunbo agreed without a moment's hesitation. "Though I'm just an amateur myself, you mustn't blame me if I'm not professional enough when the time comes!"
"How could I?" Zhou Ziheng replied with a smile.
Truth be told, Zhou Ziheng really didn't know how to handle post-production.
To be precise, he didn't know how to handle the post-production of this era.
The music equipment of the nineties was completely different from later generations.
In later times, there were all kinds of electronic gear, and even post-production could be synthesized using various devices.
But this era didn't offer such wonderful equipment for him to use.
Mastering, post-mixing—all of these tasks required the vintage equipment of this period.
And neither the original body nor Zhou Ziheng himself understood much about these things.
Therefore, having Li Chunbo—someone who was familiar with the equipment and had already produced *Xiaofang* by himself—come to help was undoubtedly the best choice.
Otherwise, if he were left to figure it out on his own, he might be entirely in the dark, unable even to find the power switch on the equipment, let alone produce anything.