Chapter 361: Feeling Wu Chen’s Magic

Chapter 361: Feeling Wu Chen’s Magic

An Menglan stared at him, blank-faced.

He could play the violin too?

“A hobby. I studied it a while,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

That line again.

She went on staring. After everything he had already shown her, she found herself wondering what “a hobby” and “studied it a while” actually meant when they came out of his mouth.

Surely it couldn’t also mean…

No. Impossible.

A person’s time and energy had limits.

If Wu Chen were forty, and he played both piano and violin extremely well, at master level, then as astonishing as that would still be, it would at least be comprehensible. He was a genius, after all.

But at twenty-two? Out of the question. He had only just graduated from a top university, which meant he had only recently come through years of heavy academic demands. If his spare time had gone into piano, there was no way he could have practiced violin to the same extraordinary level as well.

So…

he probably just knew how to play. That was all.

“It’s hard to sing with your head tilted like that, isn’t it?” Wu Chen said.

To play the violin you had to rest it on your left shoulder and hold it there with the side of your chin. Tilting your head was unavoidable.

“Then… I’ll trouble you,” An Menglan said. Her expression had largely settled as she handed him the violin and bow.

Wu Chen took the instrument and looked it over. An antique, made by a renowned nineteenth-century luthier, nearly two hundred years old. A violin like this was naturally extremely expensive, and as Wu Chen knew, An Menglan’s mother had bought this one for her as an eighteenth-birthday gift.

Acquired from a collector for a million U.S. dollars.

An Menglan treasured it.

She loved it dearly.

Relatively speaking, her violin was far better than her piano, mainly because a violin was easy to carry. She traveled often and could bring it anywhere, practicing whenever she had a spare moment.

“We can start,” Wu Chen said once he had the violin settled into position.

“All right.” She nodded.

Wu Chen drew the bow across the strings.

A bright blues rhythm came out, full of pastoral ease. The rhythm softened and loosened, then surged after a modulation into something vast and epic.

An Menglan was stunned.

Utterly, completely stunned.

The introduction passed.

And she forgot to sing again.

Wu Chen stopped, smiled at her, and said, “Miss An, you drifted off again. Are you too tired? Would you like a break?”

“Ah… sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Um… one more time…” She apologized over and over, smoothing her hair back awkwardly, her eyes avoiding his.

Her heart was pounding.

She had the sense of having discovered something impossible, something outside common sense, outside what human beings were supposed to be capable of.

An Menglan could feel the “magic” around Wu Chen now.

Music was the one thing she loved above all else, and the musical gift Wu Chen had displayed simply did not seem like something a human being should possess.

Her thoughts were in chaos.

Her heart raced.

She looked at the computer and forced herself to focus. After two more deep breaths she said, “I’m ready.”

Wu Chen drew the bow again.

The same melody. Pastoral to epic, gentle to soaring.

An Menglan began to sing. Her opening notes were extraordinarily high, almost operatic in character, though in fact it was still pop technique, requiring falsetto and an exceptionally wide range.

The song was enormously difficult.

But in singing alone, An Menglan was nearly flawless. The accompaniment was perfect, and it successfully drew out every feeling she needed.

An ancient court.

A woman rising from the ordinary into splendor, growing gradually imperious.

The song was called Queen. It was not about love between a man and a woman but the brutal struggle for power in an ancient court, the story of an extraordinary person cast down into an ordinary life and then returning to where she belonged.

A good song usually let the listener feel the story behind it.

Wu Chen’s Queen did exactly that.

The song was not merely suited to a woman’s voice. It was suited to An Menglan in particular.

As the reigning queen of the music world, she had confidence and command enough to bring out its true flavor.

Five minutes later.

The song ended.

An Menglan fell silent, breathing hard, her face slightly flushed. She still looked swept up in it. The song was simply too difficult, especially the chorus with its string of high notes. Even she felt exhausted after a single run.

Exhausted, yes.

And exhilarated.

Utterly satisfying.

“This song… I think it could be the lead single,” she said, still breathing hard as she looked at him.

They had not even tried the remaining songs and she had already decided.

Because this one felt that good.

“No rush. We should at least try them all first,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

He knew Queen would hold enormous appeal for her.

He also knew that one of the songs still to come was the one that truly belonged to her.

During the thousand-year loop it was precisely through that song that Wu Chen had, inside a single day, come to have an unspeakable story with An Menglan.

“All right…” She nodded without objecting.

Next came Castle.

Wu Chen set down the violin, returned to the piano, and began the introduction.

Castle was country music. Its themes were childhood and memory. Put plainly, it told the story of a little girl playing on a beach. Every girl was a princess, and every girl had a castle of her own somewhere inside her.

The whole song was light and simple. Simple melody, plain lyrics.

Songs like this usually spread easily because they were easy to learn, nearly the sort of catchy throwaway anyone could sing along to. But Wu Chen’s lyrics were too good for it to feel cheap.

Please Don’t Look Back was punk rock, and extremely cool in a woman’s voice.

Galaxy had a more science-fiction flavor and worked in rap. The chorus held a pure female rap section, though it could also be sung by a male voice to create a duet. Either approach worked.

Then came The Final Chapter.

Folk.

The rhythm was exceptionally gentle, the female vocal soft. Its themes were dreams and remembrance. The themes themselves were common, and An Menglan had sung them before, but folk was a style she had never sung.

This was the one.

With her rich, magnetic voice and relaxed delivery, she gave an almost perfect first performance.

The moment she finished, she gestured for him to play it again.

So they went through it a second time.

Then a third.

A fourth.

An Menglan’s eyes reddened.

As she sang, tears began sliding down her cheeks.

She had thrown herself into it completely and sung herself to tears all over again.

The first time she sang Sound the Bell she had cried for the story in the song and the people inside that story.

This time she cried for herself.

Anyone chasing a dream met setbacks, and met people who did not understand.

An Menglan wanted to sing for the rest of her life. Achieving her musical dream did not mean she wanted to stop.

The reason she intended to leave the industry was, naturally, her family. Her clan.

She could not remain only a singer forever.

Her family supported her treating entertainment as a passion. They did not support her singing indefinitely. With an enterprise that vast, she would eventually have to inherit part of it.

After the fourth run-through her feelings slipped out of control. She apologized again and hurried out of the piano room.

She had gone to dry her eyes.

This time she came back quickly.

The tears were gone, though her eyes were still faintly red. She had composed herself. Coming back into the piano room, she gave him an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wu. I’m a little… today…”

“I understand,” Wu Chen said, cutting in with a smile. Then he asked, “Have you decided? Which song are you buying?”

“I have.” She nodded, and her expression turned suddenly serious. “I want all of them. I’m going to make these seven songs into an album.”

Wu Chen was not surprised in the slightest.

All seven could become hits in a single day. There was no chance she would turn any of them down.

“Then…” He smiled. “What about the lead single?”

“The Final Chapter,” she answered at once, without needing to think.

She genuinely loved Queen, but set against The Final Chapter, the latter reached far deeper into her.

“I’m thinking of calling the album The Final Chapter as well,” she added.

“That suits it rather well,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

“There’s one more thing…” she began, then hesitated.

“What is it?”

“Mr. Wu, I owe you an apology.” Her expression was entirely serious.

Wu Chen’s eyebrow rose.