Chapter 48: Eliminated

Never heard of it, this name is too unfamiliar.

Just like in Jiang Mengyuan's dorm, many college students with time on their hands saw this song appear in their playlists.

They clicked in to listen and found, "Huh? It's actually pretty good," but upon checking the lyricist, composer, and singer, they would fall into deep confusion.

Xu Heng and Liu Yiyan, who are they?

Some opened Baidu to search, but found nothing at all; they asked friends around them, and no one had heard these two names either.

Some clicked into the music software's homepage for Liu Yiyan and found it completely blank, with only the song "The Wind Rises" hanging lonely beneath her profile picture.

Others looked at Xu Heng's, which was also completely blank, with the same "The Wind Rises" hanging beneath his profile picture.

The key was that the profile pictures both used were those very plain system-default ones, not uploaded front-facing photos of their faces; no one knew what they looked like, which only added a veil of mystery to the two.

Are they just-emerged rookie singers? They've got something going for them...

It must be said that in an era like 2007, where excellent works appeared frequently, "The Wind Rises" could still rank in the top fifty or even top thirty.

This excellent work had been uploaded for less than two days and had already gained over hundreds of thousands of plays on major software platforms, with over six hundred comments, almost all of which were glowing reviews saying the song made them think of their beautiful youth.

If it weren't for the fact that NetEase Cloud Music hadn't come out yet, there would probably already be a pile of sentimental short poems and stories pinned to the top of the comment section.

The rapid fermentation of "The Wind Rises" also benefited from Xu Heng's marketing tactics; starting from paying for playlist placements, he then spent money to buy five hundred news articles.

Not the kind of news in physical newspapers, but rather advertising news on internet software.

This included the likes of Baidu, Sina, and 360.

This kind of unsystematic internet news is extremely cheap, twenty yuan for a five-hundred-word piece; Xu Heng knew that the people who took the orders would continue to subcontract them to the part-time writers under them, likely for seven or eight yuan a piece, with the middleman still earning over half the profit—simple and crude.

Of course, Xu Heng had no thoughts about these internet editors; no matter how much money they could earn, it couldn't compare to a single hair of true capital.

From start to finish, including recording the song, buying traffic, and buying news hotspots, he spent a total of over twenty thousand on "The Wind Rises," but it was all worth it; "The Wind Rises" proved its strength, climbing into the top fifty of the soaring charts on major music platforms like Kugou and QQ in just two days.

The increase in popularity also allowed "The Wind Rises" to spread widely across major campuses, and the student body remained the main force supporting the song.

They were generally under twenty years old; although songs like "Autumn Won't Return" and "Love Transfer" were good this year, they only listened to them because it was the trend, and they couldn't grasp the charm within them at their age, but "The Wind Rises" was different. This song depicted the beautiful youthful love stories between boys and girls, and every student could see their own shadow in it to some extent, even including those middle-aged people in their thirties and forties who had walked out of their student years, who could also recall that "her" in their hearts from the past because of this song.

For a time, "The Wind Rises" began to gain momentum from university campuses, even showing a trend of sweeping across colleges nationwide.

In these two days, Xu Heng took Liu Yiyan to visit almost all of Jinling; they told the dorm that their family had come and they were going out with family, but the actual situation was that they went out to exercise with Liu Yiyan during the day and exercised in the hotel at night.

Before leaving, Xu Heng bought her some gifts and handed her the printed script for "Love is Not Blind," telling her to study it well and saying the movie would start filming by the end of this year at the latest.

After flipping through the script, Liu Yiyan opened her mouth wide and asked in disbelief, "Hubby, are you really planning to shoot a movie?"

"Is it not real or fake?" Xu Heng said while rubbing the two bunnies in her arms, "If you know any somewhat famous seniors, you can help introduce them to me."

"Ah? Oh... okay."

On September 6th, Liu Yiyan left with the script and bags of clothes, feeling very dazed.

At the tail end of this summer, she took her first step as a singer with Xu Heng and received the first script of her life, but she didn't know what kind of achievements she would attain because of this.

Only years later, when recalling the past, would she sigh in front of the camera that if she hadn't met Xu Heng back then, she would probably still be an obscure drifter in Beijing.

But these are stories for later...

Once Liu Yiyan left, Xu Heng and his brother could finally catch their breath and return to normal life.

"Hello judges, I am Li Shanshan from Class 1, Ancient Literature major, School of Liberal Arts. My performance is the song—'The Wind Rises'."

"Walking along this road..."

After Li Shanshan finished singing, several seniors in their sophomore and junior years immediately applauded.

"Sang well, your program has passed."

As a contestant, Xu Heng was stunned watching from the side.

It couldn't be said that Li Shanshan was tone-deaf, but she was basically off-key the whole time.

Can this level get into the Welcome Gala?

Are those judges using their eyes instead of their ears to judge whether a song is good or bad?

At this time, Fan Xi whispered a reminder beside him: "One of the judges likes Li Shanshan and has already tipped off the others in advance."

Li Shanshan was indeed a capable "tea sister"; after hitting a wall with Xu Heng at the start of the semester, she immediately turned her target to others.

A boy from the Literature and Art Department of the Student Union in his junior year couldn't resist the temptation, fell into her "tea" schemes, and confessed to her.

Regarding this confession, Li Shanshan just smiled and politely declined: "Senior, I don't plan to date in college. Why don't we start by being good friends?"

The result was predictable; all sources of evil start from being friends. When the junior senior agreed to Li Shanshan's request, he had already begun to be gradually hollowed out by her, from his money to his heart.

Xu Heng couldn't help but frown upon hearing this.

In all fairness, this kind of using public office for private gain is the norm in society, but when placed in a school, the impact is inevitably a bit malicious.

Especially since Jinling University is still a top-tier double-first-class university in the country, this kind of thing shouldn't happen at all.

"Don't think too much. Anyway, when the time comes to go on stage, the one who will be embarrassed is his girlfriend, not us." Fan Xi saw what Xu Heng was thinking, pushed him, and laughed, "Hurry up and go up, you're next."

Xu Heng nodded and went on stage with his guitar.

He played and sang the old song "Ten Years" from several years ago; he had sung this song at the Welcome Gala and during military training last year, and it was a song he was very proficient in.

But after listening, the few selection judges were listless and told him to "wait for further notice" before letting him go off stage.

Xu Heng shook his head slightly; having spent so many years in the workplace, he knew the subtext of this sentence was that he had been passed over.

There were only twenty program spots for the Welcome Gala in total, and there were too many song programs; to make room for Li Shanshan, filtering out other song programs was truly normal.

Xu Heng wasn't very disappointed about this; he had originally found performing on stage troublesome—it was purely a thankless task.