Chapter 233

"A singer who doesn't want to be a world-class composer is not a good chef."

This was Miss Luo Quan's answer to herself. Giving it a title was a way to stick to today's theme.

The content of the answer was:

"Since my debut, I have been under constant attention and scrutiny. I have always been cautious and diligent, doing everything I can to the best of my ability.

With my limited talent and shallow learning, I have only written about thirty songs in a year and won a few insignificant awards and achievements. In the eyes of the experts on Some Zhihu, this is naturally not worth mentioning.

However, even a 'failure' like me hopes for the day I can become a world-class composer. I don't have that strength yet, but after all, I'm only nineteen, and there is still a long time ahead for me to work hard.

A while ago, I wrote 'Time to Say Goodbye,' and I don't know if it can catch the eyes of the keyboard warriors. If not, I will work even harder and strive to write more for everyone to critique in the future.

As for those seniors who mean well, I want to say thank you here. I will keep your teachings in mind; humility and respect have always been my principles in life.

Finally, I want to tell my fans: please don't compare me to domestic singers anymore. Just quietly follow my work. Music is not a tool to be used to compare who is better or worse."

With this answer, Miss Luo Quan first mocked the keyboard warriors and then showed respect to those well-meaning but misguided seniors.

Finally, she reminded her fans not to use her to provoke hatred anymore.

She had said her piece; if those fans continued to act on their own, there was nothing she could do, as this wasn't something she could control single-handedly.

Soon, this answer became a highly-upvoted post and reached the top of the question.

The comment section was quite complimentary of Miss Luo Quan's wit and sincere attitude. Those keyboard warriors who felt insulted were naturally unhappy and continued to be snide in the comments, but they were soon besieged by fans and passersby.

Miss Luo Quan's explanation effectively nipped the storm in the bud, and the public opinion about her on the internet remained mostly positive.

People's attention was focused more on Miss Luo Quan's new song.

It was 'The Wanlichangcheng,' which was used as the BGM for the 'Down-to-Earth' series. The complete version of 'The Wanlichangcheng' was grand and imposing; the combination of orchestral music and piano gave people the feeling of listening to a symphony.

Of course, a two-minute piece of pure music still couldn't be compared to a real symphony.

However, the fact that Miss Luo Quan could write such a piece showed that she had already taken a step forward on her musical path.

It's just unclear how much longer it will take for her to bring out even more stunning works. In any case, Weibo was blowing Miss Luo Quan's praises out of proportion.

It's no wonder; the answer she just wrote could only be seen on Some Zhihu, which was probably the place with the fewest 'brainless' fans of Miss Luo Quan.

She didn't want to offer any more explanations. As a 'talent-based' artist, she didn't need to explain.

Facing doubts, she only needed to bring out good songs time and time again to slap them in the face.

If you insist on pieces at the level of Beethoven or Mozart, no one in the world can do that right now. But if the scope is broadened to the pop music scene, she is quite confident.

And in the midst of this storm, 'Creation Young' seemed to be the biggest winner.

With Miss Luo Quan trending so frequently, few people in the country could match her exposure. As long as they were young people who often went online, they would always see news pushes about Miss Luo Quan through various channels.

Except for those who disliked her at first sight, those who saw her name often would eventually be curious enough to click and take a look.

It's fine for girls, but there are almost no boys who don't fall for her after one look.

And once they fall for her, besides looking for her music resources, they will also frantically search for her pictures and videos.

This is the early stage of boys chasing stars. Perhaps they will feel bored after a few days, but in those first few days, they can be even crazier than girls.

And currently, the videos where Miss Luo Quan appears most often, besides the vlogs she films herself on Bilibili, are only on 'Creation Young.'

So these passersby indirectly provided a considerable amount of clicks and heat for 'Creation Young.'

During the days when Miss Luo Quan's popularity was at its peak, the click count for 'Creation Young' hit new highs day after day.

By now, 'Creation Young' had completely become a national-level variety show.

As the show progressed, the competition among the trainees became increasingly fierce. People were eliminated every episode, and the number of fans and passersby participating in the voting increased day by day.

In the latest episode, the number of votes for the first-place contestant, Jiang Jiang Yuner, had reached over twenty million, and her Weibo followers had exceeded five million.

Other trainees, such as Kong Yue Wei, Xu Yuehan, Luo Luo Chu Yi, and Yanagi Junko, also had over ten million votes, and their Weibo followers had exceeded three million.

Among the many talent shows in the last decade, only 'Creation Young' trainees could gain so much fan attention before the show was even halfway through.

And only 'Creation Young' could obtain such a massive amount of financial investment from fans with only one way to spend money.

This is much more profitable than the 'Super Girl' text-voting days!

It is foreseeable that the further the show goes, the more enthusiastic the fans' spending will be.

The current intensity is far from fierce; only a few people are eliminated each episode.

After three or four more episodes, that will be the real moment of cutthroat competition!

After recording the next episode, Miss Luo Quan did not take the same flight back to the capital as Seeing Wen Xia.

After finishing the procedures, Miss Luo Quan had already bought a ticket to London, England, and she had also skipped the recording for next week's show.

There was no help for it; the audition for Director Claire Ford was too important.

In the waiting room, Miss Luo Quan looked at the British travel guide distributed by the airport. The book was full of food with British characteristics, and the names were also very distinctive, because they were all: English roast beef, English fish and chips, English trifle, and English scones.

Miss Luo Quan suspected that French specialty food was just changing the prefix of these dishes.

However, judging from the pictures, these delicacies were still enough to whet her appetite.

Last year, in order to keep her figure, she mostly ate vegetables and drank porridge, rarely eating any meat.

She used to be a person who couldn't live without meat, but for the sake of her image, she forcibly changed her diet.

As a result, after persisting for three months, she really couldn't keep it up. On a dark and windy night, she ate three servings of steak by herself, directly breaking her diet.

Since then, she had never deliberately tried to eat any diet meals, and she accepted all fatty and lean meat alike.

Her weight also soared from just over ninety jin to one hundred and five jin.

But interestingly, her waist and face hadn't changed at all from before, as if these extra fifteen jin didn't exist.

The scale wasn't broken; it's just that this weight had grown in all the right places—places that made Seeing Wen Xia incredibly jealous.

After looking at it for a while, Miss Luo Quan closed the book, fearing she would start drooling if she kept looking.

At this moment, her mother called.

"Is there anything else you haven't told me, Mom?" Miss Luo Quan was a bit helpless. She had already told her parents she was going to England early.

Then the couple took turns talking to Miss Luo Quan on the phone for over half an hour, treating her like a kindergartner, saying whatever came to mind.

Now that she was about to board the plane, they still had to call to say a few more words.

"There's one thing I need to tell you. Your brother, Ma Er, is also flying to England. He's already on the plane. Calculating the time, you two will arrive one after the other.

If there are no delays, you should arrive first!"

This was an important matter. Miss Luo Quan nodded: "Got it. When I arrive, I'll wait for him at the airport and send him a message."

"Good. Once you two meet up, go straight to your grandfather's place. Don't stay outside for too long."

"Why?" Miss Luo Quan was very confused.

Aunt Luo Ni said seriously: "I forgot to tell you earlier. In recent years, England has accepted many refugees from the Middle East, and public security isn't as good as it used to be. Although there are many patrol officers, there are always places they can't look after, so you must keep an eye out for everything."

Miss Luo Quan said confidently: "With your daughter's skills, two or three ordinary big men won't be able to get close to me!"

Aunt Luo Ni said irritably: "Those people come in groups. Can you fight ten or twenty of them at once?"

Ten or twenty………… That was indeed a bit difficult. Although Miss Luo Quan had good skills, she hadn't reached the level of a sword saint like Yanagi Zensai.

Besides, even a sword saint would only have one path—to run away—when facing a siege by ten or twenty big men.

"Alright, I know. But I'm afraid I can't go to Grandpa's place for the time being."

"Why?"

Miss Luo Quan replied: "A big Hollywood director asked me to audition for the female lead in his new movie. This trip to England early is for this matter."

Aunt Luo Ni frowned: "A movie…… auditioning for the female lead?"

"Yes."

"What kind of movie is this? Is the director decent?" Aunt Luo Ni had lived for decades longer than Miss Luo Quan and knew a lot about the entertainment industry at home and abroad. She had heard a lot about things like 'unspoken rules.'

Those scumbag directors would rely on their status to deceive young girls who were new to the world. She was afraid her daughter would be deceived for the sake of a star dream.

Aunt Luo Ni said worriedly: "Daughter, you must not be easily deceived. If you really want to be a big star, I can have your father pay to produce a movie, and you can still be the female lead!"

When Miss Luo Quan heard this, she knew her mother had misunderstood: "Mom, what are you saying? This is a legitimate production team and a legitimate director."

"The more it seems that way, the more careful you need to be. In this world, are there few wolves in sheep's clothing?"

Miss Luo Quan was speechless: "I know, I'll be more careful. At worst, I'll just have my brother go with me."

Aunt Luo Ni nodded: "You must go together. I'll only be at ease if you two are together."

"Alright, I know. I'm about to board, so I'll hang up first." Miss Luo Quan didn't want to keep dragging this out with her mother, so she hung up the phone after saying that.

After boarding the plane, Miss Luo Quan, as usual, fell into a deep sleep.

Every time she slept on a plane before, because of her sleeping posture, she would always have a sore back and neck when she got off.

Fortunately, she learned her lesson this time and bought a first-class ticket. The space was large, the privacy was high, and the most important point was that she could lie down.

To prevent being recognized, Miss Luo Quan put on sunglasses in the waiting room.

Although this was a flight to England, she was an international star, and she had quite a few fans both at home and abroad.

Moreover, there were quite a few Chinese people on this plane. Miss Luo Quan observed in the waiting room that most of them were preparing to study abroad in England, accompanied by their parents. Miss Luo Quan didn't seem to have heard of the schools they were going to.

After searching online, they were all private universities with short histories and no fame, known for accepting foreign students. You could get in as long as you paid money, with tuition starting at 200,000 per year, and a bachelor's degree guaranteed upon graduation.

This kind of university has a unified name in China: 'diploma mill.'

Although it's not impossible to learn knowledge at a diploma mill, and many people work hard to get into graduate school every year, most people are actually just spending money to make their academic qualifications look better. As for what they learned in those three years, no one cares at all.

When domestic companies recruit, as long as they see someone is a returnee, they will treat you as the first choice, regardless of which foreign school you graduated from.

Clearly, among those who submit resumes together, there are graduate students from legitimate 985 and 211 universities who are much more professional than these returnees who just coasted through diploma mills, but they often can't compete with them.

No way, after all, they have 'drunk foreign ink' for a few years.

This is still the case now that national strength is becoming stronger and stronger. If it were twenty years ago, these returnees would basically be like people above others.

But the returnees of that time and the returnees of today can basically be considered two different species.

Speaking of which, Miss Luo Quan is actually a returnee, but she hasn't received a diploma from the University of Tokyo yet.

And in the eyes of the Chinese people, universities in East Asia seem to be naturally a cut below the West, as if the best university in Japan can't compare to any random university in the United States or England.

This phenomenon is actually not uncommon, and it can be seen in both young and middle-aged people.

It can only be said that Chinese people still need to invest more energy in opening their eyes to see the world.

If she were a pure scholar, she would definitely criticize this series of social phenomena.

However, her profession is just a singer and an up-loader, and the heavy responsibility of guiding the public doesn't fall on her.

Advocating correct values is something she can only do subtly in her vlogs at most. If she were to do it too obviously one day, she might be labeled by some as 'not attending to her proper duties and meddling in other people's business.'

Lying down on the plane, Miss Luo Quan didn't pull the curtain immediately.

Tilting her head, she saw the student she met in the waiting room who was going to study in England, along with his parents, right next to her.

The boy took off his shoes and curled up on the recliner to play games, while his mother fed him peeled oranges, and his father was arranging the luggage for the family of three.

Miss Luo Quan watched for a while, not knowing what to say.

In the end, it could only turn into a sigh.

Ps. Thanks to book friend Xiao Xiao Meng Gui for the reward, thank you!