The date is August 17th, Tuesday, afternoon.

  The location is in the streets of Beijing.

  The autumnal equinox has passed, but the autumn tiger is just as formidable, especially in a big city like Beijing. The sun beats down fiercely, the asphalt road is scorching hot, and the air conditioning units on both sides of the road are constantly spewing out heat waves. Every passing car brings with it a wave of heat mixed with the smell of gasoline... Even at 8 or 9 in the morning, standing outside for three minutes will leave you drenched in sweat.

  Liu Xiangdong stood outside a music store wearing a T-shirt and shorts, holding a stack of printed A4 paper.

  As a professional investigator, his task today is to complete the 100 questionnaires in hand. Of course, considering that there will be invalidations, damages and other unexpected factors, in order to ensure that he can recover more than 80 valid questionnaires, the actual number of questionnaires he received is 120.

  This is a survey of the sales situation of singer Liao Liao's first same-name album "Liao Liao". The company organized a total of 12 people to participate in this survey, among which 8 people are from other cities, and 4 people including him are responsible for Beijing.

  The scope of his survey is in the eastern part of the city, and he can choose a specific location. Any audio-visual store, bookstore, convenience store... As long as he can find people who are buying or about to buy the album called "Liao Liao", let them fill out the questionnaire.

  This is not an easy survey to conduct, as the sales model for records and books is quite scattered. If it's a famous singer or author who has just released a new work, it's still manageable. But what really gives people headaches is investigating the sales situation of some small-time singers and authors, because you might stand in front of an audio-visual store for an hour without anyone coming to buy their works. In comparison, these surveyors prefer to take on movie review surveys, as they only need one person to guard a cinema, spend three to five hours, and can already collect 100 qualified questionnaires.

  And this Liao Liao, and her album, obviously belong to the category of giving people a headache.

  Because Liu Xiangdong himself also likes to listen to songs, and due to the special nature of his profession, when everyone goes into the cinema to watch a movie, these investigators need to wait outside for everyone to finish watching the movie and come out. This waiting time is at least an hour and a half, or even two hours. With such a long wait, using music to pass the time is clearly the best choice. When guarding bookstores and audio-visual stores, they don't even need to bring their portable players, because the store's music never stops.

  So, the popular songs and singers on the market, those who have done relevant surveys or questionnaires about related characters or albums, need not be said, even if they haven't received any related orders, they are still quite familiar.

  To put it bluntly, their job is actually on the periphery of the literary and art circle, so they naturally have a certain degree of familiarity and understanding with this circle.

  But Liao Liao this name...... he had never heard of it before.

  So he knew this job would be about the same as before and would take him two whole days.

  This time he chose a private bookstore that he had been to many times before, which was quite famous in the eastern part of the city and was called "Zuòzhào Bookstore". It has four open rooms, with books, audio-visual products and other items sold on the first floor, while the second floor is a teahouse. Even if you don't buy any books, as long as you order a pot of tea, you can take a few books upstairs to read while drinking tea.

  The bookstore is not very large, but there are two universities just outside this street. There is also a supermarket and a cinema on this street that can attract consumption. Within a radius of two kilometers, there are three small districts with a certain scale, so the source of customers is absolutely not worried about. Every time he came here to conduct surveys in the past, he could always complete his work relatively quickly.

  Liu Xiangdong arrived here when the time had just reached 8:30, and the bookstore had just opened its doors. He waited patiently outside the door, and the boss, after making a round of inspection inside the store, turned around and saw him standing outside, beckoning him to come in and wait.

  In the past two years, he has come to this store for investigation at least thirty or fifty times, and he has long been familiar with it. Moreover, it is really too hot outside, so Liu Xiangdong didn't bother with formalities and stood by the door, blowing the fan.

  Soon there were a lot of people flowing in, and he quickly waited for his first survey object.

  He was a young man, probably around twenty years old, likely a student at one of the nearby universities. As soon as he walked in, he asked directly if they had the cassette tape of "Liao Liao". The store clerk handed it to him, and after paying, he was about to leave with a smile on his face. Liu Xiangdong quickly approached him, explained his work, and invited him to fill out a questionnaire. He readily agreed. A few minutes later, Liu Xiangdong received his first valid survey.

  Then, Liu Xiangdong was surprised to find that in just about an hour, more than 20 copies of the questionnaire had been sent out and all were returned qualified.

  He thought for a moment, slightly surprised, that among the people who came to this store, about one in seven or eight was heading straight for Liao's album - which surprised him, because in his impression, Liao's name was really unfamiliar, definitely not a big-name singer, but based on the sales situation of just over an hour, her album had absolutely top-notch market performance.

  Then, before he could even process his surprise, another unexpected event occurred. When someone else bought a copy of "Liao Liao" tape, the store clerk suddenly reported to the boss that the "Liao Liao" tapes were out of stock.

  This is a rare thing!

  To know, generally before books, tapes, CDs, video tapes and other things are put on the shelves, the production and distribution side must have made a rough estimate of the market performance after listing, and arrange production according to this estimate. Generally speaking, when they are just listed, these things will not be out of stock.

  Since it's out of stock, there is only one explanation: the production and distribution side greatly underestimated the market performance of the goods, resulting in insufficient production, inventory, and stocking.

  Specifically for this album "Liao Liao", the publisher did not expect it to sell so well!

  Liu Xiangdong was surprised and just wanted to ask how many goods had been brought into the bookstore, but before he could speak, someone else came in to buy "Liao Liao". The other party heard that the cassette tape was gone, so they changed their mind and wanted a CD. As a result, it was discovered that there were only two CDs left, so the other party directly bought them all!

  Liu Xiangdong was even more shocked!

  Up to now, he has sent out and retrieved nearly thirty questionnaires in less than an hour and a half. Upon careful consideration, these thirty questionnaires should represent the forty copies of Liao's tapes or CDs sold at the bookstore.

  In the bookstore, the boss was holding his mobile phone to order goods from the distributor, but the more he talked, the more angry he became. It seemed like they were about to quarrel, and finally hung up the phone. The boss then turned to Liu Xiangdong and said: "Brother, since you're always doing this survey and that survey, you must have some connections at the record company, right? Can you help me get some of Liao Liao's tapes and CDs from inside?"

  Liu Xiangdong didn't have that ability, and upon hearing this, he quickly explained that he was just a professional investigator with no connections to the music industry. Then his boss complained, saying that since the day before yesterday, he had discovered that "Liao Liao" was selling extremely well, and from then on, he had been constantly calling to request more stock, but the distributors had insisted that there was no stock available, resulting in this situation, where only two vinyl records were left unsold in the store, while cassette tapes and CDs were all sold out, and they could only watch as other stores with remaining stock continued to make a profit.

  After complaining to Liu Xiangdong, he asked the little girl at the cash register, "Why did you change this disc? Where is that 'Liao Liao' one? Put that one on!"

  Then Liu Xiangdong heard the album "Liao Liao" for the first time.

  At first, he thought it was ordinary, just the kind of urban love song that can often be heard on the streets, but this singer's voice had a unique feature, and the singing had more flavor than other singers.

  But when he heard the fourth song, he was suddenly moved by its surging rhythm and unique lyrics - it turned out to be a folk-style song!

  Then the sixth song gave him a huge surprise!

  He was so eager to ask the store owner what the song was called after listening to it, and the store owner was delighted to say: "You like this song too? This song is called "Obsession"! I also super love it! There are two more songs that are similar in style to "Obsession", both of which are super good! By the way, wasn't that folk song earlier pretty good? That one's called "My Hometown Love Affair"! Oh yeah... take a look at your questionnaire, there should be quite a few people who came for that song!

  Liu Xiangdong picked up the recovered questionnaires and flipped through them. Indeed, when answering "Which song do you like most in this album?", many people chose "My Hometown" and "Persistence". In addition to these two songs, there were also many who liked "Cheers, Friends" and "Wildflowers".

  And then, the rest of the time suddenly became enjoyable!

  The store was playing "Liao Liao", listening to the sound coming from the speakers, sometimes lazy and sometimes gentle, but always rich in texture and extremely pleasant to listen to. Listening to the moving melody and enchanting rhythm, Liu Xiangdong's work progressed rapidly!

  Of course, the store didn't have "Liao Liao" for sale, but that doesn't mean only people who had bought it could fill out the questionnaire. As long as you wanted to buy it, then you were a suitable survey subject. And perhaps because the speakers at the entrance of the store were playing songs from "Liao Liao", in the next hour, the proportion of people entering the store asking about "Liao Liao" was even higher than before.

  After a period of busy time, it was only 12 o'clock in the middle of the day, and Liu Xiangdong was surprised to find that he had actually sent out and successfully retrieved one hundred and four questionnaires.

  That is to say, the investigation work that originally needed two days has been smoothly completed!

  This surprised him more than anything else!

  So, when he was about to leave after thanking the owner, he thought for a moment and turned back. After some bargaining, he finally bought that last CD from the owner for 20 yuan, which actually only cost 8 yuan and had been played many times already.

  Finally, Liu Xiangdong walked away with a smile on his face after spending the money to buy the CD. The store owner, who made several times more profit than usual from selling one CD, had a painful expression on his face.

  And on this day, in Beijing, Songjiang, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenyang... all the investigators responsible for investigating the sales of "Liao Liao" album almost completed the investigation in just one morning.

  So, on the same day in the afternoon, all the survey questionnaires were summarized and fed back to the survey company. Two hours later, after professional personnel's statistics, calculation and analysis, a systematic survey analysis was produced.

  But what can't be written into the survey analysis is that among the twelve investigators who participated in the survey, nine people chose to buy a tape or CD of "Liao Liao" after the survey ended, and seven of them even spent a high price to buy second-hand goods like Liu Xiangdong.

  But strangely, none of them felt even a little bit cheated.

  It was the store owners who were confused and sold trial CDs in their stores, but afterwards, many people were so depressed that they couldn't help but frequently call to urge delivery, venting all their depression on the distributors.

  …………

  August 18th, Wednesday, morning.

  In the general manager's office of Changsheng Records, Zheng Changsheng took a delivery notice from Liu Zhongxin, the manager of the publicity department, with a look of shock and astonishment on his face.

  The other party's manager personally called to urge delivery just now, and the formal notification of picking up goods has already arrived, it can be seen that the other party is already in a hurry!

  Zheng Changsheng's throat was dry, and he rubbed his eyebrows with his hand, waving the delivery note in his hand. His tone was already unclear whether it was surprise, confusion or excitement, or a mix of emotions. "200,000 boxes of tapes? Dongguan Bookstore alone wants to take 20 boxes of tapes?... Are they crazy or am I crazy?"

  He shook his head and slapped the delivery notice on the table, staring at Liu Zhongxin and asked: "How much goods were actually delivered to Dongguan Bookstore in the first batch?"

  "Tapes 15,000, CDs 1,500, vinyl records 500, a total of 17,000 sets."

  Zheng Changsheng's hands unconsciously rubbed the delivery notice in his palm, then suddenly bent down, pulled out a drawer and flipped through it twice, took out a file folder, muttered to himself, "Last week they reported sales of 4386! The week before last... let me see, it was 1128, no mistake, it's this one! I'm not good at math, afraid of making mistakes, Old Liu, Little Wang, you both help me calculate, how many did we sell in total for the two weeks?"

  Lao Liu was stunned for a moment, and for a while he didn't come back to his senses. It was Secretary Xiao Wang who, being used to listening to the boss's casual instructions, almost had a conditioned reflex, lowered his head slightly, hesitated for a moment, and then reported the number: "There are 5513 in total."

  "Right! 5513! Now help me calculate again. What's 17,000 minus 5,513?"

  Old Liu was stunned again, and this time it was Little Wang who answered: "It's 11,487."

  "Bang!" Zheng Changsheng's palm slapped heavily on the table, "1,014,187 copies?! I'm going to go bankrupt! As of last weekend, Dongguan Bookstore still had over 10,000 copies left, and in just two days, they're telling me that all these copies are sold out?! You, you... who can tell me, is this for real?! How come I feel like I've been turned upside down?! Is this Liu Mingliang's album? Zhang Chan's? Or... has Zhen Zhen made a comeback?! Or maybe... Fei Xiang Band has jumped ship to our Changsheng Records?!"

  Secretary Xiao Wang and Liu Zhongxin from the Propaganda Department exchanged a glance and both shut their mouths tightly.

  It's no wonder that President Zheng suddenly became so agitated and even violent, because the situation was indeed too sudden and too unbelievable! It had already reached a bizarre and inexplicable degree!

  Who would have thought that just a few days ago, the first album released by a half-new female singer would be sold out in less than two weeks!

  And what's more, it's not just that they're selling out of stock, the main problem is that they're selling out too quickly!

  Selling quickly is not scary, what's scary is... the company had assessed the market prospects of this record beforehand. At that time, the high-level executives within the company collectively listened to this album and unanimously believed that its sales should be conservatively estimated!

  That is to say, everyone in the company thinks this record may not sell well!

  As of now, it's great that the singer from our own company and the album from our own company are selling well, which is a joyful thing for everyone. However, what's frustrating is that despite all the calls asking to expedite shipping and notifications to pick up goods, everyone is still in the dark about what happened with this album and why it's selling so well.

  Of course, Zheng Changsheng is after all Zheng Changsheng. He entered the industry alone back then, as an outsider with no musical background, yet he managed to develop Changsheng Records into what it is today in over a decade, so he's naturally not a simple character.

  And besides, the inventory notifications from all over the country that he had been receiving since yesterday also gave him some buffer time, so he was not too shocked.

  So, although the fact that Dongguan Bookstore sold out of all 17,000 records and left him momentarily stunned, after sitting down and smoking half a cigarette, his mind was revitalized.

  Liao Liao is an artist in his company, and the album was released by his own record label. The more albums he sells, the more money he makes... Who cares why it's suddenly selling so well? Isn't making money something to be happy about?

  As soon as he thought of this, his mind suddenly became clear and bright.

  Then, the excitement that had been suppressed in the heart due to being too shocked earlier suddenly surged up!

  Wow! Including cassette tapes and CDs, that's 220,000 copies sold out in less than two weeks!

  Liao Liao is going to be popular!

  And it's still on fire!

  Last week, I was looking at the sales ranking of Dongguan Bookstore and sighing, thinking when my company would have a He Runqing. This is great, it's happened overnight!

  He Runkui is so popular, her weekly sales are around 1.5 million copies, aren't they?

  Liao Liao's album is no worse than hers!

  Thinking of these things, his face became excited and thrilled without realizing it.

  Just then someone knocked on the door, he shouted "come in", and when he looked up, he found that it was Zhao Mei Feng and Yang Fan, the deputy manager of the propaganda department, who came in together.

  "Anything wrong?" he asked.

  Yang Fan opened the folder and handed it over, saying: "I just received the survey results sent by the investigation company."

  "So soon?" Zheng Changsheng took over the file folder with some surprise and looked at it seriously.

  1. Where did you know about Liao's album?

  A、Through TV and radio programs；（37.2%）

  B、A friend told me；（47.7%）

  C、I've heard Liao Liao's songs before; (5.2%)

  Others (9.9%)

  …………

  4、In the album "Liao Liao", which song do you like the most? (Multiple choices are allowed)

  That Summer (14.3%)

  ……

  My Hometown and I (59.4%)

  ……

  F、"Obsession" (89.2%)

  Wildflower (81.5%)

  Cheers, Friends (82.2%)

  ……

  Unfinished Love (51.4%)

  …………

  By this time, Zheng Changsheng was completely stunned.

  Within the company, for this album's generally well-received song "That Summer", it only received a 14.3% favorability rating. On the other hand, several songs that had everyone worried and almost caused the general manager to terminate production of the album in anger, unexpectedly became huge hits! Especially the song "Obsession", which received an astonishing 89.2% favorability rating!

  This is equivalent to saying that out of every ten people who have heard this album, nine people like this song!

  This reputation is so explosive that it's... terrifying!

  At this time, Zheng Changsheng raised his head and swept over the faces of the four people in front of him. When his eyes passed over Zhao Meifeng, she seemed to want to say something but stopped herself. However, at this moment, Zheng Changsheng had no mind to ask her what was wrong.

  He looked down again, and the survey data showed that a total of 1109 questionnaires were distributed to fans who had already bought or wanted to buy but hadn't yet bought the record. The number of qualified questionnaires returned was 1084 - as a small-scale market survey, this sample size has a certain degree of representativeness. After all, so far, the album's distribution quantity in the entire market is only 220,000 copies.

  He handed the folder over to Liu Zhongxin, indicating for him to take a look.

  At this time, Yang Fan hurriedly said: "When the investigation company sent over the results, they specifically told me that although it was not included in the survey content, they thought it was necessary to remind me extra. They think that the reputation of this album is exceptionally good, and from the survey results, the transmission rate is also extremely high. The fans have a strong desire to buy. So, they think that once this album starts to be re-supplied on the market, sales may explode!"

  Zheng Changsheng nodded slowly upon hearing this, and before he could say anything, the knocking sound came again.

  "Come in!" Zheng Changsheng shouted, then said: "Leave the door open, don't close it!"

  For the first time since the company's establishment, this general manager's office was bustling like a vegetable market. But at this moment, Zheng Changsheng's heart had no worries, only a sense of grandeur!

  It is often said that a horse will not gain weight without nighttime grass and a person will not become rich without unexpected wealth, but now he knows his own source of unexpected wealth —

  Here!

  ***

  60,000-word chapter seeking recommendation votes!