Chapter 421: The First Song to Go Viral in a Single Day

Chapter 421: The First Song to Go Viral in a Single Day

“Hm?” Wu Chen looked at Yu Xiaohu with his habitual smile. “Yes. I wrote it.”

Yu Xiaohu had only been making sure. He didn’t want any misunderstanding.

There was none. This outrageously arrogant song really had been written by “Morning Mist.”

Yu Xiaohu’s expression soured. His eyes shifted to An Menglan, but in the end he said nothing. He looked away and turned back to the pages in his hands.

If one of the singers or songwriters under him had turned in something like this, he would have torn them to shreds long ago. He wouldn’t have held back in the slightest. He’d have blasted them on the spot.

But Morning Mist wasn’t his subordinate in any sense, and they barely knew each other, so he wasn’t about to lay into Wu Chen to his face.

That was also out of respect for An Menglan, of course.

Yu Xiaohu went through the manuscript again, carefully. This time he didn’t just reread the lyrics. He studied the composition too.

He could tell there was real skill behind it.

The composition was extremely accomplished. Yu Xiaohu didn’t deny that.

Even so, his view of the song stayed negative.

It would be fair to say he loathed it.

The lyrics were practically a challenge to the entire Chinese-language music world. They opened fire on everything without a single dirty word, and still managed to insult every musician working today.

Cynical.

Insufferably arrogant.

Line after line began with “I,” all in the first person, all about how incredible “I” was and how worthless everyone else was.

Yu Xiaohu read it twice and was so angry his head began to ache.

To be fair, songs on this kind of theme weren’t unheard of.

There were quite a few, in fact.

Most were written by online singers.

And generally speaking, songs written just to attack people were garbage.

At heart, they existed to grab attention.

Yu Xiaohu had come across songs this boundlessly arrogant before, now and then, and they had never made him angry.

There was no reason to be. Some nobody garbage singer writes a garbage throwaway song to get noticed.

You ignored it, and that was that.

But he couldn’t ignore Wu Chen.

Because “Morning Mist” was already famous online. He had released only one song, but precisely because there was only one, and because it had exploded the moment it came out, his reputation online was extraordinarily high.

Everyone called him a musical genius.

That was exactly why a song like this from Morning Mist made Yu Xiaohu angrier still. Fine, the online fans praised you. Maybe it went to your head. Maybe you got smug and started showing off. All understandable.

But to write a song hailing yourself as a genius superstar while belittling every other musician? Wasn’t that going way too far?

Arrogance pushed to its absolute limit became a joke.

One hit song, and he already dared to be this arrogant. The Chinese-language music world was full of superstars who would never dare boast about how great they were. And he dared?

It was easy to imagine how many people this song would offend once it went online.

For a non-celebrity singer who hadn’t even formally debuted and had only just made a name online, doing something like this was practically asking to die.

At the other end of the eleventh-floor corridor was the rehearsal room.

An Menglan’s rehearsal room and private recording studio were on the same floor as her president’s office. The rehearsal room had originally been hers alone, though others could use it when rehearsing material connected to her.

Without quite noticing, the four of them had arrived outside its door.

They could already faintly hear an ensemble playing inside. The melody was “Queen.”

They were about to push the door open.

An Menglan suddenly stopped.

“Mr. Wu… Teacher Morning Mist.” She looked up at him. “Are you sure? This song… is it really all right?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Wu Chen asked back with a smile.

“It’s just… the lyrics… they’re really…” She didn’t even know how to put it.

She could hardly call Wu Chen “arrogant” to his face.

“If even you feel that way, that proves this song is definitely going to work,” Wu Chen said with a laugh.

“That… isn’t necessarily true,” An Menglan said.

She knew that, as a rule, even when a song like this, one that attacked people, caught on, it stayed niche. It might even turn the internet against its singer.

Especially now, with fan-circle culture everywhere. What celebrity didn’t have fans? The core fandom of any first-tier singer could be astonishingly combative.

This song was going to draw an enormous amount of hate and abuse.

“Whether it works or not, we’ll know once it’s out,” Wu Chen said, still smiling.

There was no way he could explain the details to her.

Many things were hard to explain before they actually happened.

And he could hardly tell her that “Genius Superstar” was the first song he had created during the thousand-year loop to go viral in a single day.

That had been more than “nine hundred years ago.”

By then Wu Chen had written hundreds of songs, one after another. He had gone from complete novice to singer-songwriter, but the one-day loop meant he could never build up a following. Of the hundreds of songs he’d released, the overwhelming majority had made no splash at all. Only a dozen or so had enjoyed some modest popularity, to one degree or another, for a single day.

At the time, he’d had something to prove.

Really, he had only been killing time, so he kept setting himself goals and raising the difficulty. He was determined to write a song that could explode in a single day.

He had even fallen into the mindset of a pearl buried in dust. After being knocked down hundreds of times in a row, it was only natural to start thinking the music scene was garbage, flooded with garbage work, and that even the listeners were garbage, too dim to appreciate anything good.

It was in that frame of mind that Wu Chen wrote “Genius Superstar.”

He hadn’t even imagined it could catch on. He only wanted to vent and have some fun. He was trapped in the same day, looping over and over, after all. Nothing he did would have any consequences.

The result was the last thing he expected.

“Genius Superstar” took off.

It went viral online in a single day and set off a huge controversy. After that, something clicked for him. He understood that for an unknown singer to break out, a song needed one or more distinctive “traits.”

And by traits, he didn’t mean controversial lyrics.

It was something else.

An Menglan hadn’t yet sensed where the real hook of “Genius Superstar” lay.

Neither had Zhuang Xiaodie, nor gold-medal producer Yu Xiaohu. They had all been caught by those domineering, outrageously arrogant lyrics. Their attention had been led astray.

“This… all right.” In the end, An Menglan said nothing more. Whatever happened, Wu Chen had chosen this song, and she would see to it that it was released.

The door opened.

They went into the rehearsal room.

Eight people were playing inside: Menghua Music’s backing band. Piano, bass, guitar, drums, violin, and more, all of it represented. They worked almost exclusively for An Menglan.

Nearly every song released in the Chinese-language music world these days used computer-generated accompaniment, simulated rather than played by a real band.

Synthesized music had become very good. In timbre and other respects, it already came remarkably close to a live band recording.

But a small minority still held to the highest standard.

Mostly because they had the money and were willing to spend it.

Every one of An Menglan’s songs was made that way.

The moment the four of them walked in, the music stopped.

“Boss.”

“Boss.”

All eight musicians greeted An Menglan. The drummer and pianist, who had been seated, stood up too.

“Thank you for all your hard work, everyone. How far along are you?” An Menglan asked with a smile.

Just a question or two.

The band was rehearsing the accompaniment for her new album. Each instrument’s track would be recorded separately later, but they had to rehearse together so the overall rhythm, even the “emotion,” would fit.

After a quick word about their progress, An Menglan said, “I may need you all to keep working this hard for the next few days, right up until the album comes out. Also… set your current work aside for now. I’d like to introduce Teacher Morning Mist.”

She formally introduced Wu Chen.

All eight looked at him. The younger ones nodded and greeted him as “Teacher Morning Mist.”

The somewhat older ones couldn’t quite get the words out.

Because he looked far too young, naturally. They had also realized Morning Mist was the online singer behind “Antidote for the Soul.”

They were all a little thrown. Teacher… Morning Mist?

“Teacher Morning Mist needs to record a new song, and he needs you to accompany him. From now on, follow his lead,” An Menglan added.

The eight musicians were thrown all over again.

They all knew how urgently her new album had to come out. With things this rushed, they were supposed to stop and record a song for Morning Mist?

Wasn’t that getting the priorities completely backward?

The band couldn’t make sense of it. Yu Xiaohu went straight past confusion into alarm.

“Miss An! Wh-what’s going on?” He hurried forward two steps, so agitated he actually stammered.