117: Chapter 117 Your entertainment industry is too rich

During a break in training, Li Li dragged Shen Jue to a corner of the equipment area.

"What kind of treatment did Jiang Rumu get at the Company before?"

Shen Jue glared at him.

"Why don't you just ask her yourself?"

"You answer first."

"Then can you answer me first why you won't just ask her yourself?"

"Because what the person involved describes is their feelings, while what a bystander describes is the facts. Are you going to tell me or not?"

Shen Jue opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Good grief. This analysis... it made so much sense, yet it was so scummy.

He still spilled everything, like beans pouring out of a bamboo tube.

How the Company had put her on ice for half a year, how they skimped on her appearance fees, how they buried traps in her contract, and how they used donations to fudge their taxes—all details only an insider would know.

"Anything else?"

"What else could there be?"

"What's she like when she's working?"

Shen Jue tilted his head fifteen degrees.

The scope of this question was a bit wide. From legal disputes to work habits, there were eighteen disciplines in between.

"Her? Well, I know there was a rumor from before she recorded songs... When recording, she liked to curl up on the floor of the recording studio, hugging a cushion, picking at the lyrics word by word. She didn't like the songs the Company made her record just for money, but her attitude was always great. She was incredibly stubborn when recording; if one breath was off, she could re-record it forty times. Once, she even recorded until the sound engineer cried—not because she scolded him, but because the sound engineer said, 'Teacher Jiang, if you keep doing this, I really won't make it until the end of my shift.'"

Li Li nodded.

Shen Jue squatted nearby, and the more he watched, the stranger it felt.

Brother Li wasn't asking these things just to make conversation.

It was as if he was collecting material.

—

The second thing Li Li did was even more outrageous.

Over two days, he sought out Qi Wanyin three times.

Each time, he chose a blind spot for the cameras—a hallway corner, the rooftop stairwell, a corner of the cafeteria.

The first time, Qi Wanyin only said three sentences before leaving.

The second time, fifteen minutes.

The third time—a full forty minutes.

Li Li didn't record or take notes the whole time. He just listened.

Qi Wanyin spoke very slowly.

She met Zou Xiaoou at twenty-nine, married in secret at thirty, and discovered he had someone else at thirty-one.

At thirty-two, she was told to "keep it quiet."

At thirty-three, she ran into him and his rumored girlfriend on a variety show.

At thirty-four, she signed the divorce agreement.

That same year, she received a lawyer's letter from his manager—'Please do not imply any romantic relationship with Mr. Zou in public.'

She stood at her doorway holding that letter, and when the courier asked her to sign for it, she did. After going back inside, she sat there for an hour, took the divorce certificate out of the drawer, and looked at the front and back three times.

Then she put it back.

It took another two years before she threw it away.

Seven years.

From marriage to being denied that she had ever existed, seven years.

"What about that last silver ring?"

Qi Wanyin twisted her thermos.

"Threw it away. Last month."

"Where did you throw it?"

"In the Pearl River."

When she said this, the hand holding the cup was impossibly steady.

So steady it made one's heart feel blocked.

Li Li's mind was also in a panic; it sounded like a version of a secret marriage drama.

—

The third thing: writing songs.

To be precise—changing lyrics for two songs simultaneously.

The melodic frameworks from his past life existed in his mind; one for Qi Wanyin, one for Jiang Rumu. The music wasn't the problem; the lyrics were. The original lyrics wouldn't work; they needed changing.

Qi Wanyin's song needed "farewell"—not resentment, not relief, but taking the first step while standing on the ruins.

Jiang Rumu's song needed "companionship"—not the cloying kind of love song, but "you are in the storm, and I am here."

The emotional trajectories of the two songs were completely opposite.

One was letting go.

One was holding on.

Then his brain exploded.

Training by day, Cheng Songyan's whistle sounded like a death knell. Back to the dorm at night, changing lyrics on the iron bunk bed. As he changed them—'Seven years of obsession, finally letting go,' damn it, was this for Qi Wanyin or Jiang Rumu?

He rubbed his temples.

It was for Qi Wanyin.

Keep writing.

'You don't have to look back, I am in a place you cannot see'—wait, which song did this go to?

He flipped through his phone's memo app three times, the drafts of the two songs arranged in a crisscross pattern on the screen, dense and packed.

At 1:00 AM, he wrote a version and deleted it.

At 2:00 AM, another version, not right.

At 3:00 AM, he realized he had grafted the chorus of Jiang Rumu's song into Qi Wanyin's song.

He tore the whole section apart and started over.

The next day during training, Li Li finally started acting off, too, nearly walking into a pull-up bar.

Qin Xiaoshan chewed on a steamed bun nearby: "Brother Li, you didn't sleep well, right? Your dark circles are so heavy."

"They're natural."

"No, they weren't this—yesterday—"

"Eat your bun."

By the second night, the final versions of both songs took shape in his mind simultaneously.

He sought out Qi Wanyin first.

—

The playground was empty, training had ended, the Firefighter had returned to the dorms, and the guests had dispersed. A few streetlights cut the ground into halves of light and shadow.

Qi Wanyin stood next to the pull-up bar, her hat off, her long hair loose.

"The song is written."

She turned around.

"Listen to it once first, I've sent the lyrics to your phone."

Qi Wanyin looked down at her phone. The screen lit up, and the lyrics scrolled down line by line.

Li Li began.

A cappella. No accompaniment, no reverb, just one person's voice spreading out across the empty playground.

The intro was short, coming in after four beats.

"Seven years of obsession, finally letting go; your name is from now on just a name—"

When the first line landed, the hand Qi Wanyin used to hold her phone stopped.

She didn't look up. She stared at the words on the screen.

When the chorus started, her shoulders moved. Very slightly.

"No need to wait for the lights to come on, no need to wait for anyone to look back; walk out that door, and everything is waiting for you—"

The streetlight hit her profile, and something slid out from under her eyelashes, flowed down along her cheekbone, and hung from the tip of her chin.

She didn't wipe it away.

The whole song was five minutes and thirty seconds long.

Li Li finished the last note and stopped.

The playground was silent for a few seconds. The static of a walkie-talkie came from the duty room in the distance.

Qi Wanyin kept her head down. Tears fell onto the phone screen one by one, blurring two lines of lyrics.

She didn't make a sound.

She stood there for ten seconds or so before looking up.

Her eyes were red.

She took a step back. Bowed. A ninety-degree bow.

She paused for three seconds.

Straightened up.

"That's enough."

Two words.

Li Li didn't respond.

Qi Wanyin turned and walked toward the far end of the playground. A Production Team cameraman was squatting twenty meters away; she walked straight over to him, stopped, and asked something.

The cameraman nodded and pointed toward the equipment warehouse.

She turned and walked back, her pace twice as fast as before.

"The Production Team has an electronic keyboard in reserve, on the second floor of the equipment warehouse."

She stood in front of Li Li, the tip of her nose still red.

"Tomorrow night, I will sing this song in your livestream room, and you will accompany me."

It wasn't a discussion. It was a notification.

Li Li was stunned for a moment. "My livestream room?"

"Your account has so many followers, lend it to me for one night."

She took out her phone, opened Weibo right in front of him, and typed—

[Tomorrow night at 8:00, new song premiere on livestream. @Li Li, see you in the livestream room.]

Sent.

She pocketed her phone and was already making a call.

"Hey, Old Chen, help me contact—"

The voice drifted further and further away, and she disappeared around the corner of the dormitory building.

Li Li stood in the middle of the playground.

Damn it.

That's what you call decisive.

It took him three days to write the song, but it took Qi Wanyin thirty seconds to plan the livestream.

—

Before he could recover, his phone vibrated.

A WeChat video call.

Jiang Rumu.

He answered.

The screen lit up. A high ponytail, no makeup, wearing that loose gray hoodie.

But her expression was off.

It wasn't the kind where she'd tease the camera and giggle. Her lips were pursed, her chin slightly tucked—a stubbornness of "I have something to say, but I refuse to say it."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Three words, each one with thorns.

"...What is actually wrong?"

"I said nothing."

Li Li looked at her for two seconds.

She said she was fine, but the two Band-Aids on her collarbone rose and fell with her breathing.

"I wrote a song for you."

Jiang Rumu's chin tucked in a little more.

"What?"

"I wrote it for you. Give it a listen, learn it, and sing it yourself."

The other side of the screen went quiet.

"When did you—"

Li Li didn't wait for her to finish; he started singing.

When the first line came out, Jiang Rumu tilted her head.

"Finally reached this day, drawing this full stop"

When the chorus came in, her body leaned forward half an inch.

"Remember that year you found me on the university campus"

By the second verse, she blinked. Blinked again. The frequency increased.

During the bridge, she switched the phone from her right hand to her left and used her right hand to rub her nose.

It wasn't an itch.

The last line fell.

Li Li stopped.

On the screen, Jiang Rumu turned her head away and quickly wiped the corner of her eye with her hoodie sleeve. The movement was very fast.

When she turned back, there were no traces left on her face.

"The rhythm of this song is so fast, how am I supposed to learn it in a few days?"

"Take your time."

"You make it sound so easy, it's almost like rap, I can't catch the rhythm at all—it's easy for you to sing, but it's a killer for anyone else."

She was complaining, but the thorns in her voice were gone.

Li Li leaned against the wall. "Your contract expires tomorrow, right?"

Jiang Rumu's hand stopped.

Silence for two seconds.

"...Yes."

"Will you be releasing a statement?"

She shook her head.

"I don't want the Company to leech off the attention. Let it expire quietly, and that's the end of it."

Just then—

A scream suddenly came from the other side of the screen.

Teacher Wang's voice, exploding from afar.

"Mumu! Mumu, come here quickly!!!"

Jiang Rumu jumped, holding the phone and running. The image shook violently—the hallway, the corner, the door frame—she rushed into Teacher Wang's office.

"What's wrong, Teacher Wang?!"

Teacher Wang stood in front of the computer, both hands covering her mouth, her whole face flushed red.

It wasn't fear.

It was being so happy she was going crazy.

"Singer Qi Wanyin! It's that Qi Wanyin! She donated two million to our orphanage!!!"

Jiang Rumu froze.

Three seconds.

She flipped the phone around, aiming it at her own face—then aiming it at Li Li.

"Li Li."

"Yeah."

"What did you do?"

"Huh?"

"Qi Wanyin is going to premiere a new song in your livestream room tomorrow, and now she's donated two million to the orphanage."

The phone was pushed three centimeters closer.

"Did you sell yourself?"

Li Li closed his eyes for a moment.

"I did sell myself."

Jiang Rumu's face stiffened.

"Sold myself for three days to customize a song for her."

The stiff face relaxed after a second, and new confusion piled on.

"What song is worth that much?"

Li Li shook his head.

"Listen to it tomorrow. We originally agreed on one million, who knew she'd donate two million."

He paused.

"You people in the entertainment industry are just too rich."

Jiang Rumu stared at the screen, not speaking for a long time.

Behind her, Teacher Wang was still pacing in the office, muttering "two million, two million, two million."

Jiang Rumu lowered her eyes, the corners of her mouth curling up slightly.

"Then this one you wrote for me, is it worth—"

She didn't finish.

Li Li looked at her on the screen. Her hoodie collar was crooked, a few strands of hair had escaped from her ponytail, and behind her came the sound of Teacher Wang's off-key laughter and the indistinct sound of children reading aloud.

"Remember to sing it for me once you've learned it."

Jiang Rumu pursed her lips.

"Who wants to sing for you."

She clicked the phone off.

Hung up.

Three seconds later, a message popped in.

[Send me the lyrics.]

[The full version, the one with annotations.]

[Sing it again and send it as a voice message.]

[I'll practice when I remember to.]

Li Li looked at these three messages and pocketed his phone.

Footsteps came from the other end of the hallway. Shen Jue emerged from the stairwell, clutching his phone.

"Brother Li! Did you see that Sister Qi posted on Weibo? Saying that tomorrow in your livestream room—"

"I saw it."

"Then you—"

"Go back to sleep."

Shen Jue stood there, watching the back of Li Li as he pushed open the dormitory door.

He always felt that Brother Li's steps were a bit lighter tonight.

Just a bit.

He looked down and scrolled through Weibo.

Under Qi Wanyin's post, there were already over ten thousand comments.

[Sister Wanyin is singing a new song tomorrow night!!! In Li Li's livestream room???]

[What kind of divine collaboration is this?]

[Wait—since when did Qi Wanyin × Li Li get so close???]

Scrolling to the most popular comment, Shen Jue shivered—

[So whose person is Li Li, anyway? Su Nianzhi, Qi Wanyin, Jiang Rumu, can they please queue up?]

He pocketed his phone and dove under the covers.

On the opposite bed, Gu Zeyan's phone screen was still lit.

His thumb hovered over Qi Wanyin's Weibo post for a long time.

No like, no comment.

He switched to WeChat, typed a line to his manager, then deleted it all. He typed another line, even shorter.

Sent.

Locked the screen. Rolled over.

In the darkness, only the slight creaking of the iron bunk bed remained.

And on the neighboring bed, Jiang Shiyu's eyes were half-open, his phone pressed under his pillow.

On the screen was the management team group, the latest message:

—[Tomorrow night, Qi Wanyin × Li Li livestream premiere, estimated online viewers to exceed ten million. Should we find a way to leech some traffic?]

Jiang Shiyu turned his phone over.

He didn't reply.

But he didn't delete it either.