Chapter 252: Maybe That’s What You Call a Genius!

Chapter 252: Maybe That’s What You Call a Genius!

Song Xuan was confident she had not mistaken the car. In a city the size of Donghai, Lamborghinis could not exactly be called rare, but there certainly were not many of them either.

And Wu Chen’s Lamborghini—she had seen it the second time they met. A brand-new Lamborghini Aventador, the one people nicknamed the Big Bull, and blue.

Blue was uncommon across Lamborghini’s whole range. Yellow, white, gray, and the like were far more usual.

Judging by those three conditions alone—blue, that model, brand-new—there might not be a second one like it in all of Donghai.

Song Xuan had never made a point of memorizing the plate number on Wu Chen’s Lamborghini, so she could only judge by its appearance. She had a feeling it probably was.

“Senior’s back and he didn’t even call me… Did he only get back today?”

Song Xuan peered out the window and murmured it, a touch of excited delight on her face.

Three days ago at noon, Song Xuan had finished all her preparations.

Before releasing the song she had called Wu Chen, because they needed to sign the revenue-sharing contract. They had settled that beforehand. Wu Chen was to take fifty percent of the song’s revenue, so of course there had to be a contract.

But Wu Chen told her to release it first. He said he had gone out of town, and that they could sign once he was back. It made no difference.

So Song Xuan released A Song for Me across all the major online music platforms.

A day later, by noon the day before yesterday, A Song for Me had broken onto the new-song charts, the monthly charts, the popularity charts, and others across the major platforms.

On Penguin Music alone it had gathered more than five thousand comments in a single day.

And it was still building, with every sign of an outright explosion.

Song Xuan was beside herself. In fact she had begun to find it hard to understand. How could Senior Wu write hit after hit? And not merely hits—impossibly explosive hits. He had not even studied music. He was a STEM guy, a computer science graduate.

Maybe… this was what people meant by a genius.

Song Xuan’s own road in music had been far too hard. Because she knew exactly how hard it was, the sudden explosion of A Song for Me struck her all the more forcefully.

By noon yesterday, A Song for Me had broken straight into the top ten of Penguin Music’s quarterly hot-song chart.

Only two songs in that top ten had been released by non-celebrity artists. Every other track belonged to a currently popular star.

By noon today, A Song for Me had climbed into the quarterly top three and settled at number two.

At the same time it had entered Penguin Music’s annual hot-song chart at number ninety-six.

It had made the annual chart.

The chart held a hundred positions, so ninety-six sat near the bottom. But A Song for Me had been out only three days. More than half the year was already gone—three days of momentum measured against nearly two hundred days for the other songs.

And this was only the beginning.

Word that Song Xuan’s new song had taken off had already spread through her circle, and according to some of the industry people among her friends, A Song for Me stood a very real chance of reaching the annual top ten eventually.

It might even contend for number one.

Though competing for first place depended on more than the quality of the song. It depended on what came after: marketing, promotion, and the rest.

For the past few days Song Xuan had been too excited to sleep at night. She also spent a great deal of every day replying to “fans” across the different platforms, keeping up a constant stream of interaction.

Besides answering fan messages, she had celebrated twice with friends over those few days and fielded more than a hundred phone calls—people from entertainment companies, talent agencies, and headhunting firms of every size, all of them calling her.

They wanted to sign her.

The success of A Song for Me could already be called phenomenal.

And judging by its trajectory, it was very likely to set off discussion across the entire internet and spawn memes of its own.

Signs of that had begun to appear. On some short-video platforms, more and more users were using the chorus as background music, and it was gradually becoming a trend.

There is one other point worth mentioning. Wu Chen was even more popular than Song Xuan.

Song Xuan and her friends had come out to celebrate today because A Song for Me had reached number two on the quarterly chart of Penguin Music, the largest music platform. And the song sitting at number one on that same chart—

Antidote for the Soul.

However popular A Song for Me became, its numbers still could not catch Antidote for the Soul.

Antidote for the Soul had been released three days earlier and had that much longer to build, and its numbers were far ahead of the rest. Now six days old, it stood at number one on the monthly chart, number one on the quarterly chart, number one on the New Voices Chart, and number one on the Original Music Chart.

It had also surged to number thirty-seven on Penguin Music’s annual hot-song chart.

It was almost a joke. Antidote for the Soul had gone viral faster than A Song for Me, on an even more phenomenal scale, and it had broken all sorts of records in Penguin Music’s history.

Fastest to pass one hundred thousand comments. Fastest new song by an unknown artist to clear ten million plays. And more.

In truth the success of Antidote for the Soul was abnormal. It had grown a little too popular. And A Song for Me was partly responsible.

Because both songs had been written and composed by Wu Chen.

Song Xuan had released hers under the stage name Song Xuan’er, while the lyricist and composer were both credited as Morning Mist.

Wu Chen had used that name when he released Antidote for the Soul first—lyrics, composition, and vocals all credited to Morning Mist. So Song Xuan had naturally used the same credit.

After A Song for Me came out, listeners noticed at once that the two songs exploding one after the other had both been written and composed by Morning Mist.

Both were hits. That produced a mutually reinforcing effect, each one widening the other’s reach.

And among the hundred-odd calls Song Xuan had taken over those few days from companies wanting to sign her—those entertainment companies did not want only Song Xuan. They also asked who Morning Mist was, asked for his contact details, proposed signing them both together, even asked which city she was in so they could fly over and talk face to face.

When Wu Chen registered his information before releasing his song, he had not entered his real identity. He had foreseen the consequences. He had no intention of entering show business, so naturally he did not want entertainment and talent agencies hounding him.

As a result, no one could find the suddenly famous Morning Mist.

They could only go through Song Xuan. They wanted to sign Song Xuan. And they wanted to sign Wu Chen.

Naturally Song Xuan turned them all down. She did not agree to sign with any company, and she did not disclose Wu Chen’s information on her own.

Of course this was something she needed to discuss with him.

There were two reasons she had not troubled him over the past few days to share the good news. One was that she had been extremely busy herself. The other was that she assumed Senior Wu must already know she had taken off. Since he had not been in touch, he was probably busy with something, and once he was back in Donghai he would surely call her.

After all, Senior Wu was so poor that a rich woman was keeping him. And he was so talented. Of course he wanted to make money, get out of that rich woman’s clutches, and make something of himself. They had not even signed the contract for his fifty-percent share of the revenue.

In the lobby, Song Xuan’s friends were still murmuring about Wu Yurong.

Song Xuan turned around suddenly and scanned the dining room, looking from one side to the other. She was searching for Wu Chen, checking whether he was eating somewhere out in the main hall. Naturally she did not find him.

“Xuanxuan, what are you looking for?”

Her close friend Wang Xiaomei noticed and asked.

“Senior.”

Song Xuan answered, then pulled out her phone, scrolled quickly through her contacts, found Wu Chen’s number, and called.

She raised the phone to her ear.

A few seconds later it connected.

“Hello, Student Song.”

Wu Chen’s voice came through, amusement in it.

“Senior, are you eating at Mingzhenlou? I saw your car.”

Song Xuan came straight out with it, her voice especially sweet.

“I am,” Wu Chen said.

“Senior, which private room are you in? Can I come and find you? Is that all right?”

She could hardly wait. She wanted to see him right now.