194: Chapter 199 A Conversation with My Hometown Before Departure

The next morning, before the mist over the Xiang River had fully dispersed, Chen Mo went out alone.

He wore only a gray hoodie and walked north along the path on Xiang River Middle Road, passing by the Du Fu Pavilion and the bridge piers of the Orange Island Bridge, until he reached a deserted spot and sat down on a rock by the river.

The river water flowed slowly northward beneath his feet, and Mount Yuelu on the opposite bank appeared and disappeared in the morning mist. A few egrets took flight from the sandbar in the middle of the river and landed on a shoal further away.

Chen Mo watched for a long time, thinking of nothing, yet it seemed as if he had thought of everything.

This river flowed from Changsha to Dongting Lake, then to the Yangtze River, then to the Pacific Ocean, and beyond that was Los Angeles, but he didn't want to go to Los Angeles right now.

He just wanted to sit here a little longer.

When he returned home, Mother Chen had already prepared breakfast: steamed buns, millet porridge, and a plate of stir-fried sour beans with chopped chili peppers on the table.

His father was sitting on the living room sofa, his reading glasses sliding down to the tip of his nose, scrolling through news on his phone.

Chen Mo brought a bowl of porridge and sat next to Chens Father. Neither father nor son spoke; there was only the faint sound of chopsticks hitting the rim of the bowls.

In the afternoon, the sun came out—a rare, clear day. The bedsheets Mother Chen had washed that morning were drying on the balcony, and the leaves of the pothos plant were shining bright green in the sunlight.

Chens Father moved two rattan chairs from the study to the balcony, sat in one, and left the other for Chen Mo.

Chen Mo came out with a few tangerines and sat down next to Chens Father. He peeled one; the skin broke under his fingertips, and juice splashed onto the back of his hand.

He handed a segment over and said, "Dad, have some tangerine."

Chens Father took the tangerine and put it in his mouth, chewed a few times, his eyes still fixed on the phone screen.

Father and son were silent for a long time.

Mother Chen was washing dishes in the kitchen, the tap running with a splash. Downstairs, someone was walking a dog, and the puppy was chasing its own tail in circles on the lawn.

"When you're out there, don't be afraid of offending people." Chens Father spoke suddenly, his voice flat, as if reading the news, but he was speaking in the Changsha dialect.

Chen Mo's hand, in the midst of peeling the tangerine, paused.

Chens Father pushed his reading glasses up. His phone screen was still lit, the interface paused on a financial news notification.

"The more successful you are, the more people will hate you. No matter how many awards you win or how many times you appear on the Spring Festival Gala, there will always be someone who doesn't like you. Being afraid is useless; just keep moving forward."

As he said this, he didn't look at Chen Mo, but instead gazed at the long wake on the Xiang River in the distance, shimmering like crushed gold in the sunlight.

"I offended many people when I was in the mining business. In those first few years, competitors hired people to block my car. One year during the Spring Festival, someone even splashed red paint on our house."

Chen Mo put another segment of the tangerine into his mouth and asked, "What happened after that?"

"Later, they realized they couldn't stop me, so they stopped trying. It wasn't that they had become better people; it was that I had become too big for them to block."

"You've become big now, too—big enough that those who criticize you can only post online. But online posts can hurt, too. Your old man has lived for decades; I've still got some body armor."

"Some people criticize you not because you've done something wrong, but because you are too strong. You didn't do anything wrong; you're just strong enough."

Chens Father placed his phone on the armrest of the rattan chair, picked up the tangerine peel Chen Mo had peeled, sniffed it, then put it back on the coffee table. He picked up the ceramic cup, which had lost most of its heat, and glanced at Chen Mo over his reading glasses.

"What was your agent's name again? Scott. And that redhead, what was his name? Ed. The cat is quite well-behaved. The tall one, Shawn. And the one who plays piano, the Berklee College of Music graduate."

"Charlie."

"Right, Charlie. He sang a song called 'Changsha.' Your mother watched it on Douyin for a long time and said this foreign lad is talented and likes spicy food, too. The song is playing everywhere online now."

Chens Father set his enamel cup on the coffee table, stood up, and brushed some non-existent dust off his trousers.

"And that friend of yours, she's a good person. Willing to learn Huagu Opera from your mother, helped me out, and she's bold, too—dared to sing 'Liu Hai Cuts Firewood' at Orange Island after learning it only a few times."

"She is indeed a good person."

Chens Father nodded, turned, pulled open the balcony door, walked into the study, and closed it.

The faint whirring of a computer starting up drifted out through the crack in the door.

Since stepping down from his top position a few years ago, Chens Father had hired a professional manager to handle company affairs; he only needed to oversee things.

Chen Mo leaned back in the rattan chair and finished the last segment of the tangerine. The tangerine was sweet, the sun was warm, and the bedsheets swayed gently in the breeze.

Six hours before his flight to Los Angeles, Scott called to say that people from the Changsha Tourism Bureau had contacted him through a TV station, their tone very serious.

"After that song 'Changsha' was sung at Orange Island, the city government held a small meeting overnight. They made a final decision this morning: they want to buy the song to use as Changsha's international promotional anthem."

"It's not a temporary commercial jingle; it's for long-term use as the official city anthem, to be promoted globally."

In the morning, several officials from the Tourism Bureau paid a personal visit.

The leader was a middle-aged man with glasses, surnamed Liu. He said he had also been at Orange Island that day, dragged out by his daughter for a walk, and ended up seeing that impromptu performance.

"My wife's eyes turned red after listening to Mr. Charlie sing that song 'Changsha.' She said that the Changsha this American sang about made her want to visit more than all the promotional videos we've filmed."

They placed the drafted cooperation proposal on the coffee table.

Chen Mo leaned back against the chair and flipped through the proposal from start to finish. Copyright ownership, scope of use, licensing terms—every item was clearly written out.

The fee offered was the maximum budget they could provide.

Chen Mo closed the document and said, "The song was written by Charlie on the spot; I have to ask his opinion regarding the copyright."

"That is only natural. Please go ahead."

He picked up his phone and dialed Charlie's number. It was the middle of the night in Los Angeles, but Charlie answered almost instantly.

"Charlie, Changsha Tourism wants to buy the copyright for 'Changsha' to use as a long-term official city anthem and promote it to the world."

There was some noise on the other end of the line—likely Charlie jumping out of bed and hitting his bedside lamp. His voice still carried the huskiness of sleep.

"I wrote it on a park bench. They want to use it as a city anthem?"

He seemed somewhat incredulous, paused for a moment, then let out a big yawn and said something, his articulation very clear.

"Tell them they can have it, but with one condition: the version they use must include the samples—the river, car horns, children's laughter, the guitar tuning of the street band. That is the real Changsha."

Chen Mo translated this to Director Liu, saying that Charlie didn't want a copyright fee, but the only condition was that the official version must retain those samples.

Director Liu took off his glasses, wiped the lenses with his sleeve, and agreed repeatedly.

Chen Mo stood up to shake hands with Director Liu, his expression serious, and said, "The copyright is free, but add one clause to the contract: no commercial use may edit or remove the samples."

"The sound of the river wind at Orange Island, the engine of the tricycle in the early morning, the children's laughter, the sound of the street band tuning their strings—it's a whole. If any part is missing, it's not that song anymore."

Director Liu nodded solemnly and then added this clause by hand in the contract appendix. The writing was forceful, the pen tip pressing indentations into the paper.

That afternoon, the official Weibo and Twitter accounts of the Changsha Tourism Bureau released a video simultaneously.

The footage slowly panned from the statue of the young man at Orange Island to the night view of the Xiang River, with Charlie's song 'Changsha' as the background music.

It opened with the sound of the morning river wind, followed by the engine of a tricycle approaching from a distance. The laughter of children drifted faintly from the beach, and before the friction of the street band tuning their strings had ended, Charlie's piano prelude fell gently upon it.

The footage finally settled on the upturned eaves of the Du Fu Pavilion, and the subtitle appeared: "This is Changsha. Welcome to Changsha."

Less than an hour after the video was released, Blood Orange Data showed that international tourism inquiries for Changsha had increased nearly tenfold year-on-year. The top three search keywords were "Orange Island," "Changsha Night Market," and "Mao."

That evening, on the way to the airport, Chen Mo received a call from Director Liu, saying that tourism bureaus from many other cities had come to inquire if they could also have a similar promotional song made.

Chen Mo forwarded this message to Charlie.

Just before boarding the plane, Charlie sent a follow-up message: That song wasn't written by me; it was written by Changsha. I just wrote it down for the city.

The plane passed through the clouds, and sunlight shone in through the porthole, landing on the silver bracelet on his left wrist engraved with "Keep going. I'll be watching."

Outside the window, the clouds over the Pacific Ocean were being gilded by the sunlight.