The light was still on in the office. Leon thought someone had forgotten to turn it off.
Just as he muttered a few curses under his breath about which bastard was wasting his electricity bill, he looked up and saw "headlights" brighter than LEDs.
A woman wearing a low-cut tight camisole and a black blazer was sitting at Phil's desk, which was piled high with documents like a small mountain.
Brown skin, flaming red lips, and the look of a mature woman with distinct Mexican features...
Leon recognized her at a glance. It was the financial executive he had personally appointed, Aisha Garcia.
"Fxxk... the accounts here are a total mess... I never encountered this kind of situation when working for Shorty before..."
The woman was muttering to herself. When she looked up and saw Leon, she realized she might have said something wrong and quickly covered her mouth.
"Shorty?" Leon frowned, feeling like he had heard this strange nickname somewhere before.
Seeing Aisha's terrified expression, Leon smiled and said, "I just stopped by to check on things on my way home..."
"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Leon Smith, the founder of this company."
Aisha's tension instantly relaxed, and her eyes lit up.
Her chest heaved violently from the excitement, causing a dizziness-inducing tremor that nearly knocked Leon out.
"Fxxk... this rivals even Beyoncé."
In his impression, Mexican girls always seemed to be curvy, with dangerously hot bodies.
If it were just individual cases, it would be fine, but almost every Mexican girl seemed to be built like this.
Unless the entire population achieved genetic ascension, it could only be the result of highly popularized silicone technology.
Aisha said excitedly, "Mr. Leon, do you remember me? We met once..."
"Met? When?"
"At your autograph session last month..."
Leon suddenly realized. After becoming famous, he met many strangers every day, but he never forgot women with "big guns."
Aisha had left too deep an impression on him. At that autograph session at Manhattan Beach, this girl was wearing only a string bikini, with barely enough fabric on her whole body to make a single face mask.
Even more unforgettable were her extensive tattoos. Through the bikini, it was easy to judge that they spread almost all the way to her danger zone.
How could someone like this obtain the hellishly difficult CPA qualification?
Leon couldn't understand it, but when he saw the neatly organized accounting tables in Aisha's laptop, all his doubts vanished instantly.
Records of promotional giveaways, potential losses at sales terminals...
Aisha had taken almost every easily overlooked detail in accounting into consideration.
"The company's accounts were too chaotic; they really didn't look like they were organized by a professional..." Aisha sighed helplessly.
Leon laughed awkwardly twice. "Thank you for your hard work... If you can't finish today, you can do it tomorrow."
"Miss Cardi B demanded her dividend as soon as possible. I must finish the work before then."
Hearing this, Leon realized that since Cardi B's debut EP Bodak Yellow was released, dividends had only been distributed once in the first week. It had been almost two weeks without splitting the money.
Since its release, the sales of Bodak Yellow had been steadily rising.
In the first week, all 35,000 copies (vinyl plus CD) were sold out.
The sales volume in the second week was 41,000 copies, including 10,000 vinyl records.
By the third week, vinyl sales had declined somewhat. After all, this type of music was mainly popular among the lower-class demographic, whose spending power was limited.
Ultimately, third-week sales remained above the 40,000 level.
According to Aisha's statistics, calculating with a CD price of $7 and a vinyl price of $16, the sales revenue for the second and third weeks combined was $700,000.
"Deducting printing costs, promotional expenses, album production costs..."
"I have factored in potential discrepancies at the sales end. The final profit due is $309,000."
Leon nodded. The figure Aisha calculated differed from the actual incoming amount in the company account by less than a thousand bucks.
It seemed like a huge sum, but Cardi B would take away 20% of the sales revenue (royalty rate plus other agreements likely implied here or previously mentioned as 10% sales royalty + copyright, leading to a higher effective cut or just a raw calculation). Just that portion alone exceeded $140,000.
Thinking about the huge taxes he still had to pay, Leon gritted his teeth so hard his molars nearly shattered.
---
Five days later, reports of victory kept coming in for Apocalypse Music.
First, the boss, Leon, would appear on Conan in two days. Even bigger news was that Cardi B had made headlines across major music media outlets.
This Black girl had shocked the world at the charity fundraiser in Austin.
Originally, according to Leon's assumption, those Texas rednecks wouldn't dare cause trouble at a Black gathering of over ten thousand people.
But unexpectedly, typical rednecks like local veterans and biker gang members showed up at the rally anyway.
A strange thing about the Black community is that they are fierce as wolves when facing the weak.
But when facing rednecks with waists thicker than water buckets, carrying guns, they never dared to provoke them casually.
The ten thousand people at the scene only dared to stare fiercely at this group of rednecks; everyone chose silence.
Only Cardi B chose to "keep it real" right in their faces!
While performing Bodak Yellow, she suddenly jumped off the stage and started twerking at the group of biker rednecks.
Even more outrageously, she shoved her "tail light" right into an old white man's face, nearly suffocating him amidst his muffled screams.
She literally "ulted" right in his face!
In Black culture, "Kiss my ass" is often the greatest insult.
This move instantly ignited the whole venue. Ten thousand excited folks drove the rednecks out with force.
And so, another legendary photo was born. The photo of "Cardi B ulting a redneck in the face with her tail light" went viral across the US.
Even CNN, known for its seriousness, cut to Cardi B's tail light right after President Obama's press Q&A.
"As expected of you..."
Leon's desk was covered with various reports about Cardi B. This girl always managed to do some bafflingly astonishing things.
Just yesterday, Cardi B, having just received her dividend, sent Leon a photo at midnight.
She used the money to buy a two-carat loose diamond and had it embedded in her pssy...
When Leon saw the photo, the expression on his face was richer than the periodic table.
The benefits brought by the traffic were obvious. Sales of Bodak Yellow records soared this week, reaching an astounding 80,000 copies, doubling the previous figures!
Riding this wave of traffic, Bodak Yellow successfully broke into the Billboard Top 10 and was eyeing the top five throne.
After dominating the charts for seven consecutive weeks, hip-hop king Eminem finally showed signs of decline. Breaking this balance was a short young male singer from Hawaii.
The singer, who used Mars as his name, had multiple singles from his first album climbing the Billboard charts at rocket speed.