Chapter 152: Such A Treasure—how Could You Know How To Use It?
Yu Wei had still underestimated the idols’ determination to band together for warmth. Four hours after the voting channel opened, the vote counts for the three passerby AIs and Chen Chen were comprehensively overtaken.
It was two o’clock in the middle of the night domestically, which was the peak period for fan circle fans and internet trolls to “commit the crime.” Many readers and netizens had already gone to sleep, so naturally no one could contend with them.
Yu Wei thought carefully and realized it was true. These people didn’t want to lose in the first place, and now winning also gave them a chance to select songs, so they would definitely go all out even more…
When he set the natives as the reward stage, although he resolved the opponent’s public opinion war, he also gave others a reason to go all out.
When beating monsters could drop gold coins, the nature of the game changed.
The stronger the AI songs, the more excited the opposite side became. These three songs were each easier to go viral than the last, and the several little idols’ eyes went straight after watching.
Heaven never seals off all paths. Seeing Yu Wei take on three at once, they all thought they were done for, but then realized it wasn’t right—this was the time when winning meant taking off directly?
Traitors couldn’t break them, and neither could Yu Wei. On the contrary, they would become even more united because of this, uniting their fans to brush votes fiercely.
Strive to advance all at once, then each getting one song—wouldn’t that be great?
Yu Wei really had one small oversight amid a hundred precautions!
……
“Aren’t you afraid these people will go crazy brushing votes, win, and select your songs?”
Qi Luo An could naturally think of such an obvious reason. Losing to AI was embarrassing enough already, and now there were rewards—people were bound to explode with effort.
Train soldiers for a thousand days to use them in one moment. This time, these fan circle little idols were probably going to invest heavily; even if brushing votes with money was a profit.
Money could completely be earned back with songs, but Yu Wei’s songs—songs they had already verified the quality of—once this village passed, there’d be no more store.
Stepping back ten thousand steps, being able to secure a representative work with a high probability of going viral for their own artist—it’s hard to guarantee the company behind wouldn’t step in…
In contrast, these few AI singers, although their songs had stronger hard strength than the opposite side, had neither fans nor capital.
Passerby voting was random to begin with. If people were really willing to splurge money, relying on scattered spontaneous passerby votes probably wouldn’t be able to compete.
Qi Luo An didn’t believe Yu Wei hadn’t thought of this. Since this kid did it this way, he definitely had some countermeasures.
“I’ve thought of it, but no need to worry.”
Yu Wei was definitely prepared. Was he going to hand the songs over to that group of little idols? How could that be?
“Then how do you plan to deal with it?”
Qi Luo An really couldn’t think of anything for the moment. AIs had no fans or capital—what could they rely on? Surely not netizens.
Although these few AIs were fused from netizens as material, the power of netizens was ultimately limited.
The vast majority were just watching for fun; the competition’s victory or defeat didn’t relate much to them. Relying on spontaneous netizen voting was a bit too optimistic.
It wasn’t that she looked down on netizens’ abilities or anything; it was just that purely hoping for passersby at a time like this was too much…
“You’ll know tomorrow. Go to sleep first.”
It was already eleven at night. Yu Wei still planned to finish the piano piece tomorrow; the little idols and such were minor matters.
There was an awards ceremony tomorrow night too. Who knew if Sound Mixer could snag any awards—better not to return empty-handed at least.
“Teasing my appetite, huh?”
Qi Luo An gritted her teeth; she really had no method for this. Yu Wei’s mouth was too tight—plenty of secrets, but impossible to pry out.
She returned to her room, lay on the bed, and thought it over, still feeling a bit uneasy. After all, they were Yu Wei’s works; even discarded drafts couldn’t be taken by those people…
Her sleep was intermittent. She could even clearly hear the hotel clock ticking in the silence. In this quiet, Qi Luo An finally fell into a deep sleep amid her fatigue.
Morning light appeared. Her consciousness wasn’t fully awake yet; her eyelashes trembled lightly. Her first action was to instinctively reach for the mobile phone on the pillow.
“How could this be?”
She skillfully unlocked her mobile phone and opened the novel’s voting post. The idols who had been leading by tens of thousands of votes last night had surprisingly been overtaken by the AIs, and directly by over a hundred thousand votes.
Spontaneous passerby voting definitely wouldn’t be this efficient and precise; the increase wouldn’t be this exaggerated. The little idols were already brushing votes, but the natives’ votes were even more— that could only mean…
Someone was brushing votes for the AIs!
Qi Luo An flipped out of bed and ran to Yu Wei’s room without even washing her face. She seemed to have some clues and wanted to confirm.
“Coming.”
When Yu Wei opened the door, he was wearing a simple T-shirt and sweatpants, his hair slightly messy, but his gaze clear—he had obviously been up for a while.
He saw Qi Luo An outside the door and clearly froze for a moment. His gaze lingered on her messy hair and face for an instant, and the corners of his mouth unconsciously curved up slightly.
Qi Luo An was wearing slippers, her hair messily tied into a crooked bun, with a few strands disobediently falling on her forehead and ears, and even a small tuft stubbornly sticking up.
Her face still had pillow marks, with faint shadows under her eyes—clearly just struggled out of bed.
He didn’t expect Qi Luo An to have such a sloppy side… No wonder she wanted to see him sleep; it was because her own sleeping posture wasn’t good—projecting onto others.
Qi Luo An couldn’t care about being shy, or perhaps didn’t even realize her current appearance, and asked in one breath.
“Is it the contestants who already advanced brushing votes for the AIs?”
Yu Wei looked at her panicked, face-unwashed rush over, and found it somewhat amusing inside.
“Come in first.” He stepped aside. “It’s cool in the morning; don’t stand in the doorway talking.”
Just as Qi Luo An had guessed, at this time, those who wanted the AIs to win weren’t only the netizens as fusion material, but also other contestants.
After all, there were currently only five AI singers, with only five songs in the AI song library. Compared to the contestants, it was definitely a case of too many monks for too little porridge.
There weren’t enough to go around to begin with. The contestants in their advancement zone were still hungry for more, so how could they let the revival match ones fish in troubled waters? Would others agree?
If you select them, what do I select?
Like Tong Yulu and those who advanced, they were still waiting for Yu Wei’s songs to reverse their fate. How could revival match little nobodies covet the songs!
Let you win and you dare to win? Did you ask them?
Among those who had advanced to the second round, which of Tong Yulu, Chi Leying, Zhou Mumu’s fans were easy to mess with? Even Zhang Lingye’s fans and Qi Yuan’s remaining defeated soldiers still had fighting power.
Plus the fan circle idols who luckily advanced in the first round—plenty of people waiting to get songs from the AIs’ hands, so naturally they wouldn’t watch them succeed.
“I never understood the plot in cultivation worlds where old monsters see juniors get treasures and want to rob them, until I saw a dog carrying a hundred-yuan bill in its mouth.”
Qi Luo An was amused by Yu Wei’s phrasing.
Haha, such a treasure—you don’t know the method to use it. Better hand it to this old man; you can still exchange it for half a starch sausage as benefit.
The current situation perfectly matched this plot. The advanced ones hadn’t gotten treasures yet, and seeing the revival match ones seizing the initiative first, they could only “kill and seize the treasure.”
This time it was truly within Yu Wei’s calculations, because he had specially asked Tong Yulu and the others, and the responses were all that they would intervene.
Novels didn’t lie—seeing good stuff meant wanting to rob it…
Qi Luo An finally breathed a slight sigh of relief. It seemed she really didn’t need to worry; Yu Wei was still shrewd.
He was so shrewd, so he must have seen through what she wanted to do long ago—playing dumb while knowing full well, confirmed.
If it were someone else, they’d probably be internally conflicted wondering if the other didn’t like them, but Qi Luo An was the opposite. She insisted on being rebellious.
Likes pretending? Wait until tonight after the awards ceremony and bet results come out, he’d be honest…
“Good as long as it’s fine. Going back to catch up on sleep.”
Qi Luo An yawned and, pushing the door to leave the room, happened to bump into the agent outside preparing to report work to Yu Wei.
Liu Ning watched Qi Luo An, with disheveled hair and only wearing pajamas, walk far away, and couldn’t help her pupils shrinking sharply. Sigh, young people…
She pushed the door in. The piano Yu Wei asked her to contact had been found and could be practiced anytime.
“Thanks, Sister Liu.”
Yu Wei planned to write out the piano piece plot first, then redeem and practice it in advance. After all, it was an international stage; he couldn’t be too casual.
……
In the afternoon in Leuven, Belgium, sunlight filtered through ancient window frames, spilling onto the floor of a secluded piano shop.
Yu Wei lightly touched the piano keys, and Schumann’s “I Hear the Loved One’s Song Again” poured out like flowing water.
He had originally just rented the piano room to practice, preparing for the upcoming Louvain International Film Festival cultural performance, yet unaware that his piano sound had already penetrated the soundproof door, lingering throughout the piano shop’s corridors.
This was originally the fourth piece in Schumann’s vocal suite “Women’s Love and Life,” an art song, but adapted into a piano solo version in Sound Mixer.
At first, only a few people stopped sporadically. A silver-haired old gentleman who had been tuning his violin suddenly set down the rosin and listened attentively.
A student in a plaid shirt unconsciously held his breath; the recording light on his mobile phone quietly lit up.
Yu Wei was oblivious. He had only learned simple forms of music from film and television dramas, but even so, this bold adaptation still drew quite a bit of attention.
“Women’s Love and Life” could be called Schumann’s “love diary,” but in Sound Mixer’s adaptation, this joyful melody faintly carried a dangerous aura, directly used at the murder scene.
The piano shop boss, Mr. Jacques, had been balancing accounts at the counter. Hearing the sound, he took out his treasured recording equipment and gently pushed open a crack in the piano room door.
Schumann was a 19th-century European composer, a representative figure of Romantic music. It was hard to imagine that such a subversive adaptation of his work came from a young man from China.
This was also why several judges praised Sound Mixer’s musicality endlessly; they were somewhat curious about Yu Wei.
The piano sound swelled gradually, and the crowd quietly gathered.
The corridor couldn’t hold them; latecomers leaned on the stair railings, holding their breath to listen. A mother put her finger to her lips, signaling her bouncing child to be quiet.
Those who usually came to the piano shop knew a bit about piano. Just as they were listening intently, the piano sound abruptly stopped.
The short film only had this segment; Yu Wei knew so much…
The crowd exchanged glances, unsure what sudden issue had interrupted his performance.
They were still unsatisfied and wanted to leave, yet heard a new melody from the piano room: Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata in G minor, third movement.
Originally a cello and piano duet, Sound Mixer retained only the piano part. This was the piece the protagonist played at the start of the competition and at the film’s ending murder scene.
Able to serve as a piano competition entry, this piece wasn’t easy; the piano sound didn’t interrupt due to the attention but grew even fuller.
The notes were like a dense swarm of bees yet not chaotic, with dynamics perfectly balanced. It made listeners hold their breath in concentration, unconsciously immersed in the piano sound.
But good times didn’t last; the piano sound stopped once more, like a film stuttering at the climax—leaving them unsatisfied and inexplicably puzzled.
Was this person really not doing it on purpose? With such outstanding piano skills, yet stopping at key moments—it was somewhat disappointing.
Thinking this, the crowd couldn’t help drawing closer, wanting to see just who this eccentric performer was.
Yu Wei was completely unaware. As expected, these two piano segments alone weren’t enough to support a full performance…
But he had already figured out what piece to use for tomorrow’s performance. Finish writing the novel and redeem it first!
The piano room door was slowly pushed open by curious passersby, and they finally got to see this young man from the mysterious East as wished.
At this point, he had closed the piano and was sitting nearby typing on a laptop computer.
?
