Chapter 46: Thoughts on Buying a House

Honestly, Liu Yiyan's singing ability is not exactly excellent; it can only be said to be barely passable.

However, her voice has a very distinct character; it is neither the cutesy tone of Dan Yuyue nor the slightly magnetic, deep quality of Ying Ziyun, but rather something ethereal.

It is somewhat similar to Wang Fei, though not as transcendent and otherworldly as Wang Fei, yet it has its own unique charm.

This kind of voice can fully bring out the strengths of the song "The Wind Rises," indirectly compensating for the weakness of her singing technique.

Xu Heng personally coached her for about an hour and helped her harmonize the high notes, after which she was able to reproduce the entire song perfectly on her own.

Of course, mere reproduction is not enough; if a song is not infused with emotion, it loses its soul and appears hollow and pale.

As a song that is like a story painting, "The Wind Rises" requires the singer to combine emotion with technique. To achieve perfection, Liu Yiyan spent half an hour brewing her emotions, and finally, just past ten o'clock, she managed to sing it with a good effect.

After finishing, she took off her headphones and looked at Xu Heng with deep affection.

Xu Heng couldn't help but have black lines appear on his forehead, and he gave her a flick on the head: "I told you to brew emotions, but you're brewing them for me, aren't you!?"

Liu Yiyan rubbed her head in pain and said, "You are the only object I have to brew emotions for."

"Can't you brew them for your mother?"

"Without you, my mother would already be resting in the ground."

Xu Heng's mouth twitched; Liu Yiyan wasn't wrong, but it sounded a bit strange.

He adjusted his waistband: "Fine, tonight I permit you to brew for a few more hours in bed."

Liu Yiyan: "?"

Another sleepless night passed. Xu Heng, having tossed and turned for most of the night, got out of bed with dark circles under his eyes. Their hotel room faced the banks of Xuanwu Lake, and the sunlight, carrying the warmth of late summer, shone into the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking exceptionally dazzling and beautiful.

"I'm going to pick up the finished song, want to come?" Xu Heng asked while putting on his clothes.

Wrapped in a blanket, Liu Yiyan shook her head, looking slightly exhausted. She didn't even open her eyes and said softly, "I'm so sleepy, you go alone, I'll sleep a bit more."

Xu Heng also knew he had been too vigorous last night, so he nodded and said, "Alright, then I'll bring you breakfast when I get back. What do you want to eat?"

"Duck blood vermicelli soup."

"Eat something healthy."

"Duck blood vermicelli soup with lamb rolls~"

"..." Xu Heng said speechlessly, "Can you not get around the duck blood vermicelli soup?"

Liu Yiyan rubbed her eyes, her long, dark eyelashes fluttering against her index finger.

"It's mainly because everyone says the Jinling duck blood vermicelli soup is very authentic. How does that saying go, um... no duck can leave Jinling alive."

"Actually, the duck blood nowadays is all an industrial synthetic product," Xu Heng said, stating a very realistic fact.

"Why do you have to shatter my beautiful fantasy about Jinling? Before I came, I thought even the soil in Jinling was fragrant." Liu Yiyan was on the verge of tears.

"Modu is much more developed than Jinling, right? Why don't you think the soil in Modu is fragrant?"

"Because I can't afford a house in Modu, while in Jinling, at least I can have a glimmer of hope."

Hearing this, Xu Heng fell silent; he hadn't expected Liu Yiyan to have such a grand ideal.

Unfortunately, if she didn't rely on him, with her own abilities, she probably wouldn't be able to earn enough for a house in Jinling in her entire life.

The next few years would be an era of explosive growth for real estate. Even the slightly better land in Jinling now only cost six or seven thousand per square meter. Ten years later, this number would increase fivefold, and as for Modu, it would be even more exaggerated, perhaps more than tenfold.

Isn't there a joke that someone had 100,000 in savings in 2008, was 50,000 short of a down payment for a house in Modu, and after earning money for ten years, they were 2 million short?

This joke isn't dark at all, because it's true. Ten years later, houses in the urban area of Modu were basically all over 6 or 7 million, reaching a point where ordinary people wouldn't even dare to dream of them.

Xu Heng had originally forgotten about buying a house, but after being reminded by Liu Yiyan, he began to consider the issue of buying property again.

It didn't necessarily have to be a house; he could first buy a large plot of land, build a few floors on it, and then register a company. When Jinling entered its development phase and it was demolished, he could reap a large amount of compensation funds and industrial land.

Leaving the hotel, he first went to the recording studio to get the files that had been mixed and tuned. After paying the final balance and production fees, it was announced that the song "The Wind Rises" officially became his property.

He didn't even think about releasing an album; it consumed too much manpower and material resources. It was better to just release it on the various music software platforms available today.

Anyway, in a few years, the album format would slowly exit the historical stage, and music software along with various short video platforms would become another fulcrum for the rise of internet songs.

When Xu Heng returned to the hotel with the USB drive containing the recorded song, Liu Yiyan was washing up in her thin pajamas.

"I put the duck blood vermicelli soup on the table for you."

After opening his computer, he uploaded the song "The Wind Rises" to QQ, Kugou, and Qianqian Jingting, which were the three major internet music software platforms at the time.

Just uploading wasn't enough; he specifically added a group that boosted positive reviews and play counts to buy a few thousand yuan worth of traffic for his song.

Even a good song fears a deep alley; spending a little money on marketing is nothing to be ashamed of.

"Hubby, have you eaten breakfast?"

"No."

"I can't finish it alone, let's eat together." Liu Yiyan excitedly carried the large portion of duck blood vermicelli soup over to Xu Heng. Seeing him busy with serious work, she smiled and said, "I'll feed you."

"I won't eat it unless it's fed mouth-to-mouth," Xu Heng said with a straight face.

Liu Yiyan's face turned red instantly, thinking to herself how this guy could say such improper things so openly and without changing his expression.

In her understanding, if other young men in their twenties were to flirt like this, even if they weren't too embarrassed to speak, they would at least have some change in expression. Yet, when it came to Xu Heng, he was like an old hand, with a face thicker than a city wall.

"If you're not going to eat, I'll eat it myself," Liu Yiyan huffed.

Hearing this, Xu Heng didn't continue to tease her, but instead tilted his head and opened his mouth, while his hand kept clicking the left mouse button to refresh the comments and play count for "The Wind Rises."

Today is Wednesday, and there aren't many high school or middle school students with free time to listen to music; at this hour, it's basically college students looking for songs on music software.

They have two ways of finding songs: one is to look at the charts, as songs on the charts are usually not too bad; the second is to look at playlists curated by others, as this method can accurately search for songs that suit their own tastes.

"The Wind Rises" had been released for less than half an hour and obviously couldn't appear on the charts, so Xu Heng spent a lot of money to find the creators of several playlists on QQ Music that had good play counts at the time, paying them to include his song in those playlists.

Therefore, when some college students clicked into these popular playlists, they would inadvertently hear this strange song they had never heard before.