Chapter 197: First Strike After Landing
“Xi, can we reconcile?”
Hearing that he was to be sacrificed as Zhou Mumu’s opponent, Huang Chuyang suddenly wanted to back out a bit.
Although he did want to lose gloriously back then, exiting with dignity, that was then and this is now…
He didn’t know about the song library reward at the time. After hearing that beating the AI could exchange for songs, Huang Chuyang still harbored some unrealistic fantasies.
That was Yu Wei’s song. It could serve as a representative work for a lifetime without issue. How would he know he couldn’t do it without trying?
“Shall I swap it for you then?”
“No need.”
Although he still harbored fantasies, Huang Chuyang was self-aware. If he had the ability to beat the AI, he wouldn’t be here.
Now that the competition had progressed this far, the number who could beat the AI could be counted on one hand. The good-for-nothings had basically been wiped out.
Chi Leying relied on connections, Tong Yulu on abstractness—what could he rely on?
The AI’s high win rate wasn’t because the AI was strong, but because Yu Wei’s songs were strong. He knew he couldn’t withstand two moves from Yu Wei. Taking this opportunity for a glorious funeral was pretty good too.
It could also be considered not forgetting his original intention.
Seeing Huang Chuyang “generously going to his death,” Yu Wei couldn’t help but think a bit higher of him. This kid was pretty good—knowing gains and losses, understanding advance and retreat.
He wouldn’t reward him openly, but he’d secretly give him some reward points…
The afternoon practice still made no progress. Tian Jun had actually tried his best, but he clearly hadn’t unlocked the singing talent tree. He couldn’t add points even if he wanted to.
Some people are just born unable to sing well, no matter how much they practice—not to mention the short time before the program recording.
Yu Wei wouldn’t make things hard for him, but passively awaiting slaughter was impossible. It was fine if he didn’t sing well, but slacking off wasn’t allowed. He had to prepare two plans.
A good work couldn’t be wasted. Since it was decided to use it, it was better to treat it seriously.
That evening, Yu Wei released the second update of the novel. With opponent Huang Chuyang’s performance plot ending, the competition voting officially began.
The two contestants’ songs were released one after another. Almost the instant they saw the video titles, netizens clicked in to watch. Everyone had gone too long without hearing Yu Wei sing a proper song.
It was hard to imagine that Yu Wei’s last time singing in public was The Ordinary Road. Everything after that, not a single one was sung by him—all AI sung.
The songs were good, but hearing AI voices too much made everyone tired of them. That stuff had no emotion. It was novel at first, but hearing too much made them all the same.
It was said that in the ninth episode, Yu Wei arranged two songs, but they hadn’t aired yet, so everyone could only wait dryly. Lately, they were counting on this The Answer to get by…
Perhaps out of absolute confidence in Yu Wei’s song, Zhou Mumu’s video was very simple, with an extremely single scene—just an ordinary recording studio.
Zhou Mumu sat alone in front of the camera, her expression very focused. Not to mention finding traces of the mysterious male singer, there wasn’t even a shadow of anyone else in the video?
The moment the intro started, her voice flowed like a trickle through everyone’s ears.
“There’s a simple question
What is love
Is it a flavor or a gravitational pull.”
Though from an acting background, Zhou Mumu had very good vocal conditions. These lines were sung clear and sweet, just like an innocent girl curiously asking.
If everyone hadn’t been online, they might really believe it. They talked about it passionately, but the question was “What is love,” huh? As if everyone had been in love…
Just as the audience was immersed in the sweet singing and secretly complaining, a low, magnetic male voice suddenly joined, forming a stark contrast with Zhou Mumu’s clean voice, yet harmoniously blending.
“From the day of my first love, first it’s sweet
Then right after comes wind and rain.”
The mysterious male singer had made his move, but the video still only showed Zhou Mumu. Seeing this, even the most oblivious realized that this guest singer had no intention of appearing on camera at all…
Why not show his face?
Netizens were still planning to play detective and peel back the layers, who would’ve thought he’d go completely invisible, not giving a single chance.
This fully proved one thing: this person truly had no intention of revealing himself, not some deliberate hype.
As the song entered the climax, the male and female voices intertwined and rose, as if conducting a musical dialogue across space.
“Love is like blue sky and white clouds
Clear skies for miles, then sudden storm
Nowhere to hide, always catching people off guard.”
Two completely different voices intertwined, producing a wonderful chemical reaction, inexplicably creating a very sweet feeling.
Actually, this song wasn’t a sweet song. Though the first line of the opening was about love, listening through, it was clearly a love novice asking a veteran: What is love?
Compared to a couple, the song’s content was more like a question-and-answer between juniors and seniors about love, thereby exploring love’s “answer.”
Only real lovers could sing this song with a sweet song feel—that was the effect Yu Wei wanted to achieve: not resembling in form, but in spirit.
Actually, at a time like this, netizens would definitely first suspect Fei Hong. Everyone wasn’t stupid; there weren’t many male artists who’d dealt with Zhou Mumu.
But this voice was clearly different from Fei Hong’s, and the singing skill was much stronger. Whether it was or wasn’t, they’d have to keep listening.
“People are like having a bad cold
Sneezing, feverish, needing rest
Alternating hot and cold, joy and hesitation, tireless.”
The world-weariness in the masked man’s voice contrasted sharply with Zhou Mumu’s pure sweetness, yet perfectly complemented each other. Their tacit cooperation added fire to the performance.
Earlier, everyone was busy guessing and didn’t notice, but Yu Wei’s song was pretty interesting.
Though exploring love, the lyrics were very relaxed, even lightly humorous, completely without that life-or-death tone of other love songs, and no deliberate dog food.
Comparing love to blue sky and white clouds, beverages, even colds—somewhat abstract yet very fitting. His metaphors had always been spot on…
The reason this song was sweet was thanks to the two guests’ innate CP sense, but Yu Wei’s clever deconstruction of love was equally unignorable.
The answer to love—how did he know so much?
“So how long is forever
Forever brief, forever full of regret
Everyone has their own different experience.”
As the song progressed, Zhou Mumu and Fei Hong stopped even pretending to act.
Not only was their cooperation increasingly smooth, the immersed emotion also grew, as if they were really using this song to find the answer.
After one song finished, everyone felt somewhat unsatisfied. The song was good, their cooperation great. They could clearly feel real emotion, not cold mechanical sound.
Sure enough, Yu Wei’s songs still needed real people to sing them.
The song’s popularity rose quickly, but even in the official version’s male singer field, it was still marked as “Mystery Guest.”
“So, who exactly is this?”
“So sweet, can’t rule out real couple feeding dog food.”
“Isn’t Fei Hong a contestant too? Contestant guest singing contestant, huh?”
“Fake competition stuff—you care so much?”
Netizens really weren’t dumb. Almost the instant they finished listening, they locked onto Fei Hong, but because of timbre and singing skill, it wasn’t nailed down yet.
The two had practiced this song for over a week, during which Yu Wei had specifically guided several times. It was also him who told Fei Hong to sing deliberately with a world-weary feel.
After all, the original singer Yang Kun’s voice was very rough—considered a restoration.
Deliberately avoiding and then adjusting with tuning, the male part did sound different from Fei Hong. Yu Wei’s purpose wasn’t to make it completely unguessed; he wanted that uncertainty.
As long as this person was ambiguously like and not like, even with 80% possibility, Zhou Mumu’s fans would turn a blind eye and deaf ear.
They hoped more than anyone that this person wasn’t Fei Hong. As long as the result wasn’t announced, they could stay stubborn to the end.
Fan circle fans were like that—even with ironclad evidence, as long as the main person didn’t confirm, they’d still believe firmly. Even if official stepped in, they’d think their idol was wronged…
In the novel, Yu Wei had used “impressive strength” several times to describe the mystery male singer. Would Zhou Mumu fans admit Fei Hong had impressive strength?
Fei Hong’s performance in this song was indeed good, clearly putting in hard work, but those who disliked him wouldn’t admit it.
As video popularity rose, content creators on major platforms joined the guessing game.
Frame-by-frame analyses and chit-chats abounded, but the hottest were videos extracting and analyzing just the male voice part, with playback volume rising fast.
There were even some playing with memes pretending to be him, with tag “#Yes, I made my move” spawning many lip-sync videos.
Netizens increasingly felt they’d been schemed by Yu Wei. The song was called The Answer, and now everyone was really searching for that “answer”…
In just one hour, “Zhou Mumu The Answer” rushed onto the trending search list. Five hours later, total video playback volume across the net broke 50 million, related topics read 300 million.
Besides the song’s own quality, Zhou Mumu’s company clearly did a lot of marketing. They wanted to make The Answer Zhou Mumu’s representative work.
At this critical juncture, fans were even less likely to admit the mystery singer was Fei Hong. They only wanted to see Zhou Mumu soar and rise in status, then conveniently kick Fei Hong away.
Yu Wei secretly checked Zhou Mumu’s Super Topic and found her fans’ self-hypnosis ability extremely strong—they were already finding reasons to exclude Fei Hong themselves.
“The turn of sound in the second chorus is so natural—could Fei thing do that?”
“Fei thing’s mom really knows how to seek sense of presence. Our Mu Mu is ascending—you’re over there singing and dancing, stop leeching.”
“I know Fei thing is sour as hell—no need to emphasize.”
This was real hate, black nicknames one after another. In Zhou Mumu’s Super Topic, Fei Hong didn’t even deserve his proper name.
Entertainment industry rivals were true kill-on-sight enemies. Many, even after unfollowing and quitting the circle, still had to curse rivals a couple times when mentioned.
Zhou Mumu fans now had only one thought: first sword upon landing ashore—slay the heartthrob first.
With this song’s current data, Mu Mu advancing further was nailed down. A bottom tier actor still dared to come climbing high?
Many fans’ remarks had evolved to “Dragging your girlfriend down with you—what kind of man is that” and “Don’t hinder Mu Mu from becoming better” levels, wishing for mutual destruction and breakup tonight.
“Mom fans are still too violent.”
Yu Wei even felt a “snobbish female parent” déjà vu from Zhou Mumu’s fans. Where did this poor boy come from—worthy of my daughter?
They weren’t against Zhou Mumu dating, but if dating, it had to help her career.
Fei Hong wasn’t even as good as Mu Mu. Dating him would be pure bloodsucking—they didn’t want to see Mu Mu suffer with him.
Mature fans would find reasons themselves to believe the guest singer wasn’t Fei Hong. Yu Wei soon found a highly praised comment.
“Probably the male singer didn’t show face to avoid unnecessary scandals. Said guest singing, just guest sings—no leeching popularity. Could Fei thing do that?”
He really could…
Though fan circle toxic solo fans’ remarks were disgusting, their meltdown moments were undoubtedly even more delightful.
