1: Chapter 1: Treat the author like a donkey.

Someone on the plane was eating chive pockets.

Chen Mo was the one who was woken up by this smell.

When he opened his eyes, he was completely dazed, and his first thought was—

"Who the hell eats chive pockets on a twelve-hour international flight?"

His second reaction was to look down at his hands—knuckles distinct, fair and clean—and the phone he was holding showed the date: August 28, 2013.

Chen Mo stared at that date for a full ten seconds.

August 28, 2013. This was a day he would never forget.

In his previous life, on this very day, he took off from Capital Airport carrying a reputation stained with insults, with three trending topics hanging on the hot search list—

"Chen Mo Terminates Contract", "Chen Three Hundred Million", "Chen Mo Get Out of the Entertainment Industry"

They were all neatly tagged with the word "Explosive", looking quite festive; anyone who didn't know better might have thought he was already a top-tier celebrity.

Memories flooded in like a breached dam, mixing with the smell of chive pockets and drilling into his brain.

Chen Mo turned his head to look. A middle-aged man in the back row wearing a gold chain was eating with his mouth glistening with oil, and seeing Chen Mo turn around, he grinned at him.

"Little brother, want a bite? Homemade, plenty of filling."

Chen Mo was silent for two seconds, swallowed, and said, "I thank you very much."

This time-travel thing was too bizarre; he had to start adapting by eating chive pockets.

In his previous life, Chen Mo's life trajectory was like the mine his father operated—he dug up treasure in the beginning, but the rest was full of pits.

At sixteen, he was swindled by a talent scout into signing with a crappy company called "Xingyao", where he sang two OSTs that had fewer plays than the number of coal transport trips at the mine.

He acted in a web drama as the fifth male lead, with lines totaling no more than ten sentences, three of which were "Yes, Young Master", "As you wish, Young Master", and "Spare me, Young Master."

The group was even more of a joke.

To promote the "Crown Prince" of the company, they treated the rest of them like air—zero exposure, low income, paying for their own travel expenses for performances, and even having their microphones muted during group concerts.

The life he lived back then, calling it depression would be an understatement; he almost jumped off the company building.

Unable to bear it any longer, he proposed contract termination.

Then came a year-long tug-of-war, and the company hit back with a sky-high compensation claim—three hundred million.

The reasoning was training costs, loss of expected revenue, and a bunch of other legal terms Chen Mo had never even heard of.

This contract termination storm caused quite a stir.

Although he won the lawsuit in the end and the compensation was cut to 1.5 million, that money was scraped together by his father, Chen Jianguo, by selling a truck from the mine.

Chen Mo would always remember that night; the summer in Changsha was as stifling as a steamer, and he felt like a piece of jade in that steamer, his mother's face as pale as Ruoxi.

His father threw the bank card at his face, his weathered face turning red with anger, pointing at his nose and scolding, "Chen Mo! I provided for your schooling, I provided for your singing, and this is what you give me in return! 1.5 million! Do you know how many tons of coal that blood-and-sweat money represents!"

"I don't care what kind of dreams you have out there. Once this 1.5 million is paid, you give up on that nonsense. Go to Los Angeles, study finance, come back, and take over the family mine. If you dare to touch music again, I'll break your legs!"

The final image in his memory was his father sitting on the sofa, taking a fierce drag of his cigarette; amidst the swirling smoke, that gaze, once full of expectation, was completely extinguished.

In his previous life, he compromised.

He went to Los Angeles and became an international student at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, attending classes, taking exams, and graduating with guilt and reluctance.

His father's health deteriorated after he took over the mining company, and he was completely tethered to Changsha.

It wasn't until he was thirty, when his father became critically ill, that he picked up the musical scores he had shelved for ten years in the hospital corridor.

But it was too late.

Passion had faded, inspiration had dried up, and all that remained were commercial calculations and compromises to the market.

He became a successful businessman, but he would never again be the boy who wanted to shine on stage.

Last night before going to sleep, which was 2023, he had just finished negotiating an acquisition and was so exhausted that he passed out on his office sofa.

The last thought before falling asleep was: "If life could start over, even if it just let me be young once more, I would still want to stand in the center of the stage and let the whole world know my name."

The heavens heard his prayer.

Not only did it let him be reborn, but it also gave him a "disastrous start."

Blacklisted by the entire internet?

For Chen Mo, who had experienced malicious acquisitions and public opinion sieges in the business world that would swallow you alive in his previous life, the spit on the internet was nothing.

Netizens have shorter memories than fish.

Today they can lift you to the sky, and tomorrow they can do the same for someone else; those who scold you and those who praise you are often the same group of people.

As long as you can produce works solid enough, today's dark history will be tomorrow's material for a satisfying comeback story.

Chen Mo put his phone back in his pocket and reached into the seat pocket in front to pull out a crumpled in-flight magazine.

He flipped through it casually, but his mind wasn't on the pictures; he was reviewing his situation.

Since he was living a new life, since he had returned to 2013, and since his father hadn't completely locked him away in the mine yet...

His fingers stopped.

On the back cover of the magazine was a Spotify advertisement.

In 2013, the streaming era had just begun, Spotify had just established a foothold in the US market, and the dividend period of the mobile internet was about to arrive.

Chen Mo stared at the advertisement, his pupils slightly contracting, "Music belongs to everyone."

A thought, so crazy it made his fingertips cold, emerged uncontrollably.

Who said this was a disastrous start?

This was practically a perfect, heaven-sent start where the heavens were spoon-feeding him success!

What he had in his head was a full ten-year advantage in pop culture.

He knew which songs would become hits, which musical styles would explode next year, which producers would go from unknown to industry titans, and even which social media platforms would become the next big trend.

What if, at this very juncture, he "originally created" those "divine songs" that hadn't been born yet in advance?

He didn't even need complex arrangements or expensive production; a famous person once said that even a pig could fly if it stood in the path of a strong wind.

Just by taking out those catchy melodies, it would be enough to trigger a tsunami in this newly awakening market.

Chen Jianguo had originally enrolled him in the finance major at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business; this was perfect, no need to change locations.

Next to the University of Southern California was the famous Thornton School of Music; finding an excuse to transfer or audit classes when the time came would be incredibly simple.

In his previous life, he stood off-stage, watching others shine, his heart feeling like it was being gnawed by ants.

In this life, not only did he want to shine, but he also wanted to blind everyone's eyes.

Chen Mo leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and the corners of his mouth curled upward uncontrollably, as if he were already standing on the stage of the Grammy Awards.

"Kid, what are you going to Los Angeles for?" The middle-aged man in the back row with the gold chain was clearly a chatterbox; after finishing the chive pockets, he wiped his oily mouth and leaned forward to ask.

Chen Mo turned his head, looking at the uncle's face, which radiated simple enthusiasm, and those heavy, oppressive memories seemed to be instantly drained away.

Damn those chive pockets!!!

"School," Chen Mo said with a smile.

"Which school? University of California?" The uncle's Mandarin carried a thick Northern accent.

"The University of Southern California," Chen Mo said.

"Wow!" The uncle gave a thumbs up, his face wearing an expression that said, "You kid are something else," "A top student! What major are you studying?"

Chen Mo turned his head, looking at the churning sea of clouds outside the porthole, the sunlight filtering through the clouds and spilling onto his profile, revealing an unprecedented firmness.

"Music," he said.

The uncle was clearly stunned for a moment, then his eyes widened even more, and his voice rose a few octaves.

"Really? Does that mean you're going to be a big star in the future? My daughter is always making a racket at home, saying she wants to learn to sing, singing that... what's that Canadian kid's song? What's his name again?"

A name flashed through Chen Mo's mind instantly, and he blurted it out: "Justin Bieber?"

"Yes, yes, yes! That's him!" The uncle slapped his thigh, the sound making one's own leg hurt, "My daughter's room is plastered with his posters everywhere. I have to say, following him to learn English, she's really become a lot more diligent."

Chen Mo laughed out loud.

Bieber.

That miracle child who was discovered on YouTube by Braun.

And at this moment, in 2013, Braun was in his prime.

He held Bieber in his hands, held Ariana in his hands, and he was looking around, searching for the next target he could turn into gold.

A plan rapidly took shape in Chen Mo's mind.

What he had to do was not just write songs.

He wanted to create a myth belonging to the East, a name that those who had once mocked him would have to look up to.

Chen Mo repeated softly, smiling as he said, "Maybe."

He turned his head and looked in the direction the plane was descending—

Los Angeles.

There was sunshine, beaches, the world's top entertainment industry, the ten years he had lost, and the era that was about to come—his own era.

The smell of the chive pockets didn't seem so unpleasant anymore.

Chen Mo closed his eyes and began to hum a melody softly in his heart.

[This is a parallel universe with a largely similar timeline; please do not project this onto reality, dear readers.]