Chapter 127: In the Name of the Father

To produce this song, Miss Luo Quan put in quite a bit of effort.

First, the song's intro is very long and possesses highly unique elements: a priest's prayer, an opera singer's vocalization, and a distinct accompaniment timbre.

To gather these details, Miss Luo Quan specifically made a trip to St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York, wanting to find professionals to record them.

However, the priests at St. John the Divine Cathedral only spoke English, while Miss Luo Quan wanted the prayer to be in Italian.

With no other choice, Miss Luo Quan had to settle for second best and find an Italian person to read the prayer according to the script.

Originally, Miss Luo Quan wanted to ask Gao Liang to help find someone at Universal Music Group, but unexpectedly, her father, who was nearby, heard her and happened to speak Italian as well.

Come to think of it, if this prayer were read by him as a father, it would be truly fitting.

Thus, Miss Luo Quan readily agreed. Seeing this, her mother excitedly wanted to participate as well, and Miss Luo Quan planned to let her sing the opera singer's part.

However, her mother had no talent for music; after trying several times, she ultimately gave up.

As for this part, Miss Luo Quan did not go looking for anyone else and took it on herself.

For this relatively short vocal segment, Miss Luo Quan did not use any props; she learned a little about the characteristics of operatic singing and managed to imitate it quite closely.

She spent an entire day producing this song, with Gao Liang, her father, and her mother all participating in the recording of the accompaniment. It could be said that this was a work created by the whole family.

After it was finally released, Eric was perhaps the most deeply moved person.

He had studied Chinese for a year or two in his early years in China and hadn't let it go after arriving in the United States, so his proficiency had been steadily improving; thus, he could understand the lyrics of this song.

From this song, he heard Miss Luo Quan's loneliness and sorrow, and also a little girl's longing for fatherly love.

The moment he finished listening to the song, Eric, with reddened eyes, said to his three closest kin:

"I have achieved nothing in my life. In my early years, I lived a dissolute life and left behind countless emotional debts. Neither Miss Luo Quan's nor Gao Liang's birth was actually part of my plan."

"The irony is that I now possess a beautiful wife and such outstanding children as you two. This is the Lord's greatest gift to me, and for me, it is also a tremendous torment."

"Whenever I see your faces, my mind flashes back to the scenes where I hurt you. The people I have wronged the most in this life are you and Alice (Gao Liang's biological mother). I am truly grateful that you could forgive me, this incompetent father and husband."

After speaking, Eric covered his face and wept like a child. Aunt Luo Ni hugged him, while Gao Liang and Miss Luo Quan stood side by side, their eyes both somewhat red.

Although they had never said it, they must have harbored resentment toward Eric as a father in their hearts, and Eric himself was aware of this.

But regardless, Eric was the siblings' father; no matter how great his mistakes were, that fact could not be changed.

Now, Eric had finally spoken of the things buried in his heart and was earnestly repenting, hoping his family could forgive him.

As his closest kin, what other choice did Gao Liang and Miss Luo Quan have besides forgiveness?

Miss Luo Quan herself had not expected that this song would bring the four members of the family even closer together.

Before this, everyone had more or less harbored some estrangement, but with the father's bitter weeping, all estrangement had ceased to exist. Perhaps this is the power of a divine song.

At 12:00 PM on the 28th, China time, Miss Luo Quan uploaded this highly anticipated song to Bilibili.

The video's photo was a family portrait of the four of them. Eric and Gao Liang had their arms around each other's shoulders, while Miss Luo Quan and Aunt Luo Ni held hands. Under the clear sunlight after the snow in New York, everyone's smiles were so genuine.

The camera froze this beautiful moment, and Miss Luo Quan shared this happiness on Bilibili.

However, today, this family portrait with off-the-charts attractiveness was certainly not the main point; the main point was Miss Luo Quan's song.

Titled "In the Name of the Father," it was six minutes long, making it Miss Luo Quan's longest song, and the accompaniment alone lasted about a minute.

The Italian prayer at the beginning came from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible, and its Chinese meaning is:

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."

Eric's devout and magnetic voice set the atmosphere in a mysterious and strange environment right from the start of the song. In the distance, there even came long, lingering vocalizations—those were the vocalizations Miss Luo Quan made using an operatic tone.

When the prayer was finished, the rhythm suddenly accelerated, the sharp high notes stimulating the listeners' eardrums and hearts, followed by a low and rhythmic rap.

This was Miss Luo Quan's first time rapping, but she handled every aspect perfectly. Compared to Gao Liang, who had "sprayed" his way through New York and was undefeated, she was a bit behind, but she definitely reached the passing grade for a rapper.

The style of the entire song was relatively mournful, and in the middle of the song, a series of gunshots appeared abruptly; this was the part that made people's scalps tingle the most.

Just as Miss Luo Quan had said, the style of this song would be relatively dark, and not everyone would be able to accept it.

But the lyrics were not as negative as the accompaniment; instead, they were quite profound, deeply analyzing sin and punishment, repentance and regret, gain and loss. This was precisely one of the essences of the song "In the Name of the Father."

Three hours after the song came out, it exploded—it exploded in every sense of the word.

No one could have expected that the quality of the song Miss Luo Quan brought out could reach such a level; even looking at the entire Chinese pop music scene, it was a rare existence!

Bilibili and Weibo simultaneously topped the trending search lists. The heat on the Zhihu trending list reached over 50 million, and the Baidu trending search term "In the Name of the Father" was also prominently listed. Interestingly, there was no relevant entry on Baidu at all; searching for it yielded a blank page.

Among the many answers on Zhihu, everyone was trying their best to use flowery language to praise this divine song that could be called unprecedented. This was also the only song that, no matter how much people hyped it, no one voiced a dissenting opinion!

The famous domestic music critic Li Zhang wrote this:

"A pinnacle work of Chinese pop music; it has never appeared before, and it will be very difficult for it to appear again!"

"I never thought a song could be rich to such a degree. I used to often say that the biggest gap between Chinese songs and Western songs was the richness of musical elements. Miss Luo Quan used her talent to tell us that Chinese songs can also be just as full of musicality as Western ones!"

"The arrangement of this song is simply stunning to me: the Italian priest's prayer, the opera singer's vocalization, the accompaniment with unique timbres, the low shouts of unknown meaning, the deafening gunshots—Miss Luo Quan used god-like techniques to fuse these elements together, creating a song full of dark style."

"Such arrangement technology cannot be found in the entire country of China with two hands, and what is even more commendable is that she was actually able to gather so many unique timbres and use them flexibly."

"As everyone knows, the musicality of a song is determined by the variety of the melody and the uniqueness and richness of the timbres, and the song 'In the Name of the Father' basically performed all these factors to the extreme. In my decades in the industry, this is the first time I have seen a song with such a varied style."

"Moreover, its lyrics also contain a considerable degree of deep meaning, but time is limited, and I can only see a glimpse of it for now. At least based on the information I know so far, this song should be a tribute to the movie 'The Godfather'; other things will require me to interpret it for a while longer."

Besides Li Zhang, other music industry professionals also expressed their views:

"Without a doubt, Miss Luo Quan's 'In the Name of the Father' has already helped her establish her place in the Chinese music scene. It is no exaggeration to say that this song is a work that many domestic musicians could not write in their entire lives."

"Its depth, the height of its thought, and the richness of its music have already exceeded its peers by a dimension. I very much agree with Li Zhang's words; this song is the pinnacle work of Chinese pop music!"

"There are few songs that can be like 'In the Name of the Father,' possessing such three-dimensional storytelling and such a strong sense of imagery. Many lyrics are also extremely philosophical. My favorite is this line: 'Behind the glory is carved a loneliness!'"

"No one knows how much painstaking effort Miss Luo Quan put in when writing this song. Perhaps she was only thirteen or fourteen at the time, or perhaps this was just a flash of inspiration, a work obtained by chance?"

"But regardless, this is a work worthy of being forever remembered by Chinese music history, a chapter worthy of being written about separately in textbooks."

"Just as she said, this is her best work so far, and perhaps she will never be able to write a better song in the future."

"The moment she wrote 'In the Name of the Father,' Miss Luo Quan probably already understood how great the energy it contained was—so great that with her heaven-sent talent, she might never be able to surpass it in her entire life."

"But I think, she is only eighteen this year; she still has a long time to grow and create. Perhaps a work better than 'In the Name of the Father' will appear in her next flash of inspiration!"

"At this moment, I can no longer hide the joy in my heart. After so many years, I have finally waited for the moment when the Chinese music scene regains its glory, and Miss Luo Quan is the person who made the glory reappear with her own strength."

"A leading creator of the new generation, Miss Luo Quan is well-deserving of the title!"

The two professional musicians spared no effort in their praise, filling the crowd of onlookers with admiration for Miss Luo Quan.

Because of the limitations of their own musical knowledge, many people did not know exactly where "In the Name of the Father" was so awesome, but most people could still intuitively feel its difference from other Chinese songs.

And the professionals who knew the brilliance of this song were also doing their best to analyze for the public exactly where "In the Name of the Father" was brilliant.

This was not fans' blind hype, but true substance, with reason and evidence!