Walking the Path of a Workaholic in Cliché Novels (QT) Chapter 41

“I’m also hugging the guitar. Is it the style of An Min just now? I don’t like it very much. It’s hysterical. I feel very uncomfortable after listening to it.”

     “Anything is fine, don’t let me listen to that magical singing just now.”

     The audience below was still immersed in Zhang Ruojun’s “cheerful” dance music, and the scene was noisy.

     “I once wanted to get it over with…”

     The desolate singing opened a path in my heart, and the wind poured in, bringing hesitation and uneasiness. The audience who had been whispering just now suddenly fell silent.

     “Because I couldn’t catch the last train.”

     “Standing in front of the platform, wandering alone with nowhere to go.”

     The soft, hoarse voice seemed to be telling a story calmly, but at the end, a trill broke all the calm. Adults who pretended to be strong lost their defenses like this.

     The five judges sat upright and listened. Just listening to one sentence of some songs and they can feel the huge energy hidden behind them. This song was definitely not simple.

     There were hundreds of spectators in the audience and more in front of the stage. They got goosebumps when they heard the words “I once wanted to be done with it”, and then the singer sang “Nowhere to go, a lonely shadow wandering”, and the hoarse vibrato directly changed life. The peace was torn apart.

     There was no hysterical shouting, but it was full of struggle. The first verse of this song made people’s scalp numb. They really don’t know what will happen next. Even the audience’s breathing became very quiet and careful.

     “I once thought that it would be over once and for all.”

     “Because looking at the earth from the sky.”

     “If I spread my arms, can I jump into its arms?”

     “Rusty railings, swallows leaving their nests.”

     “Abandoned ship on the dark sea.”

     “Listen to the sound of the waves, it’s calling me back.”

     Staring at the earth, jumping in, rusty railings, swallows leaving their nests, dark sea, abandoned boats, layer after layer of superimposed images, loneliness, fear, despair… There was no word “death”, but every stroke was ‘wanting to die’.

     The singer’s voice on stage was hoarse, with a kind of open-mindedness that had seen through the world, as if he had completely accepted this arrangement, could open his hands and jump, could stand on the beach and wade away step by step.

     “Don’t go.” The listeners shouted uncontrollably in their hearts. They didn’t know where their sadness came from.

     A scene seemed to appear before their eyes. The smiling young man walked step by step towards the sea under the night sky. The tide was trying to take him away in waves. The helplessness and despair were silent in his heart, unable to be expressed.

     “I know the old nest is still waiting for the bird that cannot return,”

     “I know the sun is still there but the dark clouds are jumping too high,”

     “I know tomorrow won’t be worse than today,”

     “I know,”

     “I know everything,”

     “But!”

     Along with the chorus, all the suppressed emotions exploded at this moment.

     The words ‘I know, I know’ were almost shouted. The audience’s hearts were tightened, and their noses were so sore that it was difficult to calm down. What kind of things had he experienced that his singing had such power that directly touched the soul?

     Tao Ran in the audience held a tissue and unknowingly burst into tears. People who didn’t understand him would probably just think that he was pretentious. Why would he collapse to the point of seeking death over a trivial matter?

     Just because of that moment, I didn’t understand why all the unsatisfactory things happened to me, and I didn’t understand why I worked so hard to live.

     “I also want to love life, but I’m sorry, I can’t hold on anymore.”

     An Yinong was trapped in his own world. He had no father or mother. When he was four years old, he was discovered by a volunteer teacher (in an orphanage). He began to study music and devoted his life to it. But everything, his dreams, his pride, his happiness, came to an abrupt end at the moment when his life was about to set sail.

     He held the guitar and sang like a knife, cutting himself open.

     “I once thought that it would be over once and for all.”

     “Because the name was quietly removed.”

     “Memories are abandoned in the past, and their whereabouts are unknown and no one cares.”

     “I once thought that it would be over once and for all.”

     “Because of the sudden silence of others.”

     “I have never learned how to get along with others.”

     The emotion of the song changed direction at this point. The pain was so extreme that it gave rise to the courage to live toward death. What about being deaf? How about losing the boost? I can still sing!

     An Yinong stood up immediately on the stage, holding the guitar in his hand, with the courage to face the bleak reality. His voice was hoarse and passionate: On this stage, I have lost and I have left temporarily, but I have never been afraid.

     “The rainy cool autumn, the returning swallows,”

     “In the silent night, a searching light.”

     “Look at the tide receding and the moonlight falling to the bottom of the sea.”

     “I once thought that it would be over once and for all.”

     “But I’m afraid I’ll miss you.”

     “You secretly picked me up without telling the world.”

     “As long as we live, we will definitely be able to change?”

     “Can humble people expect miracles?”

     “Because of your existence, I started to look forward to it.”

     In the dark and cold world, someone stretched out his hand, just like the companion who flew back to find the lonely swallow, or the light that came to find someone in the silent night.

     Although it was small, it broke the hopeless and lonely world and gave ‘him’ a reason to live – because there are people who can fish for it, and there are people who are expecting you to survive.

     At this time, the song has come to an end, and the singer almost sighs:

     “I once thought that it would be over once and for all.”

     “It’s just that the gloomy sky cleared up that day.”

     “The water under the bridge is shining, what a warm day.”

     As the last word fell, the dark fog that had previously been created to weigh on people’s minds was penetrated and shattered by a beam of sunlight. The more depressed, sad, and desperate he was before, the warmer and dazzling his hope was now.

     This song was not about ‘death’, but ‘life’.

     The music stopped, the lights came on, and An Yinong on the stage bowed to the audience. His face was covered with a thin layer of sweat, glistening in the light, his eyes, his smile, everything about him glistened.

     This was a star, a person who could shine.

     Zhang Ruojun had forgotten everything around him and stared at him on the stage greedily. Time went back and he returned to the day when he first met ‘Ke Yinong’.

     A nameless amateur, an audition, with no professional judges, not enough audience, and very poor conditions. However, the sparkling feeling he had when he sang on stage was the same.

     He was fascinated, very fascinated.

     “Why did I enter the entertainment industry?” The long-forgotten original intention came to mind, “It was to chase this light.” It was also to possess this light.

     However, Ke Yinong’s performance later disappointed him. In reality, he was not as glamorous as he was on stage. He even wanted to leave the stage temporarily to study.

     “It turns out that ‘Ke Yinong’ has never changed, he is still so dazzling.”

     Zhang Ruojun looked at him, becoming crazy and possessive. He had been away for a year, and there have been so many changes in ‘him’ this year. Zhang Ruojun wanted to see more clearly, what has changed and what has not changed.

     He even wanted to know what clothes he liked to wear the most recently, what perfume he used, and whether he still liked to watch those movies… He wanted to know and control all of this.

     Tao Ran in the audience looked at the stage blankly, and the people on the stage seemed to be looking at this too.

     “It is said that the pain we feel is a signal from the body – danger, leave, save me. I heard your cry for help, and this is my answer. So, try to survive.”

     The tight string in his heart was broken, and Tao Ran fell to  his knees, unable to suppress his emotions any longer.

     Tao Ran’s manager was startled. He looked around, afraid of being discovered. But he was overly worried. There were many people crying like Tao Ran until they could not breathe.

     “I thought of my sister who jumped down from upstairs. It happened to be a sunny day… Oh my god, I really don’t cry like this normally.”

     “I think this song is telling that young man, don’t talk about death easily. The way you work hard to live is really beautiful.”

     Even the fans who were attracted by Zhang Ruojun were looking for tissues – their makeup was wet with tears.

     “I don’t want to cry, I just don’t know why.” This fan couldn’t help it. She kept thinking about her experience over the years, being kicked around like a ball by her divorced parents. Although she was rich, she couldn’t even find true love. None of her people.

     She also had that moment when she wanted to die just like that.

     So she went to the top floor and looked down at the earth. Human beings were as small as ants. She stared at the earth, and the earth stared at her. The ground turned into a whirlpool, attracting her deeply.

     “It turns out that I have never forgotten how I felt at that time.”

     This fan had not been following Zhang Ruojun for a long time. When she had money and free time, she liked to spend money on beautiful men. Zhang Ruojun was not the first idol she had followed, and he would not be the last. But now, she had an idol she really wanted to follow.

     “His name is Ke Yinong, right?” The fan took off the idol’s headband, broke it and stuffed it into his pocket, and asked with crying panda eyes, “How can I join his fan support club?”

     The fan’s face was livid. Although this fan had only joined a few months ago, she was very generous with money and often booked the venue. If she could, she didn’t want this fan to go elsewhere or slap them in the face like this.

     But can she stop it? Can’t stop it!

     And… the fan looked towards the stage. The young artist on the stage reminded her of the time when she was chasing idols. It had been a long time since she had been so emotional over a song.

     “It’s not too much for me to apply for a small account, right?”

     “Singing live is so different from listening to recorded music.” Tang Yu looked at the people on the stage with a smile in the box, and the light hit his wet face, which was extremely sexy.

     The way he unleashes his charm on stage was really sexy. Like a firebird fluttering its wings and burning with abandon.

     Looking from the direction of Tang Yu, it happened to be Zhao Ze’s box. Zhao Ze was like a wolf that had been hungry for three days, staring at An Yinong on the stage. If one looked closely, they could see greed and desire.

     Some singers can’t listen to live music. The kind of music sung from the soul was too contagious. Some people cannot be approached easily because they were too dazzling and cannot be forgotten after seeing them.

     On the judging panel, the five judges had calmed down and began to analyze the song.

     “This song doesn’t have a high-octave sound, but the exciting and suffocating effect is not weak at all.” Old Gao tried to analyze the arrangement of the song. He imitated the ups and downs of the song’s tone by beating the beat.

     “It started out calm, depressing and sad, and then the intensity gradually increased.”

     Old Gao’s face was filled with surprise and he was as happy as a child who found a pirate’s treasure: “This musical structure is very interesting. It has a kind of confrontation, as if two emotions are in dialogue, one is rationality, and the other is collapse, which creates a heartbreaking feeling. The sad effect. A very tasteful composition.”

     “The lyrics are so amazing.” Dajin exclaimed, “It’s like knives stabbing into the heart one after another. I couldn’t catch the last bus, my contact information was deleted… these are all very, very small things in life. Things, but when combined, they are like a sword hanging over the head.”

     “But the most unforgettable thing is the last words. Before, it was the waves calling me back, here it’s secretly fishing up without telling the world. The two can represent two states, one can’t get out of the predicament, despair and want to die, and the other found spiritual support and struggled to survive.”

     Teacher Wang completely agreed: “His special voice is very suitable for this kind of sad song. And he added a little vibrato when singing, which captured the audience’s hearts.

     “The climax is not a show off of skills, but a layering of emotions, especially the chorus, which is truly earth-shattering. A performance at the level of a concert hall.”

     The evaluation of a powerful diva’s “concert hall-level performance” is high praise that ordinary singers cannot get, but no other judge had any objection.

     The host waited until they had almost finished speaking and stood up: “It seems that our judges and teachers have already ‘knew it in mind’ and asked the judges and teachers to rate Ke Yinong’s singing.”