Chapter 56

"The second track of 'The Coming-of-Age Ceremony,' Chinese version — 'The Wind Is Rising' — is now officially released!"

At eight o’clock the next day, Luo Quan’s second new song arrived as scheduled; fans who had been waiting for it immediately clicked play, and this time it was yet another new experience.

Yesterday’s song was about first love; today’s song celebrates youth — that fleeting yet unforgettable youth.

No language can describe this period of prime years.

It may be everyone’s most beautiful and carefree time, when we didn’t have to worry about daily bread and salt, when our hearts always carried poetry and distant horizons; even if we were hurt by naive emotions or immature relationships, we quickly forgot the pain — until years later, alone at night, we remembered and shed tears of nostalgia or regret.

Love is part of youth, but youth is not only love — it’s also friendship, family, the scratchy sound of chalk on the blackboard, the school bell that woke you from your afternoon nap, and the faces of those you spent every day with, only to eventually part ways; years later, they feel both familiar and strange.

This is a memory every adult carries — perhaps not entirely beautiful or flawless, but certainly the hardest to forget; 'The Wind Is Rising' is exactly such a song that awakens everyone’s memories.

As yesterday, the song’s reception exploded again; due to its lyrics, the acceptance among Chinese listeners surpassed even 'Firstlove,' and topping the music platform charts was the clearest proof.

Everyone posted comments filled with nostalgia — for their own youth, or for the youth they were currently living — and the buzz was even louder than yesterday.

From a compositional standpoint, 'The Wind Is Rising' is slightly inferior, but this is China; when the quality gap isn’t large, Chinese songs are naturally more popular.

Moreover, the lyricism of 'The Wind Is Rising' is unquestionably top-tier — no excessive, meaningless ornate phrases, no self-indulgent whining meant only to move oneself; every line sings the voice of the people, resonating with every listener.

With the release of 'The Wind Is Rising,' the last traces of doubt about Luo Quan finally faded, for they had no foundation left to support their claims — the first two songs of her album had already slaughtered every major music platform and short-video app, and these were only demo versions!

If this album were cheaper, domestic pre-orders would have shattered records long ago; many domestic albums far inferior to 'The Coming-of-Age Ceremony' still sell over a million copies, even at just ten or so yuan per album.

It’s only because Luo Quan debuted in Japan that she suffered from the language barrier; had she written in English, who knows how wildly they’d have praised her.

Zhihu, once one of the strongest anti-Luo Quan strongholds, has now abandoned its resistance and joined the ranks of those praising Luo Quan.

Although the Q&A about 'intellectual tax' has vanished from the trending list, the highly-upvoted answers are still being dug up and publicly ridiculed — many people delight in exposing and mocking such hypocrisy, ironically forgetting they themselves were once among those who deserved the mockery.

Those who wrote the highly-upvoted answers received more attention, making them easier targets; yet these flip-floppers were originally the root of anti-Luo Quan sentiment, now turning into righteous allies — it’s deeply ironic.

Two days later, Luo Quan reappeared on Zhihu’s trending list — but her treatment was completely reversed.

As China’s most academically prestigious comment platform, Zhihu users have always prided themselves on high-quality, high-caliber responses; when they attacked Luo Quan, their remarks were brilliant and eloquent — but when praising her, they became monotonous and repetitive.

Under 'How do you evaluate Luo Quan as a singer?' the same phrases repeated endlessly: 'genius,' 'rising star'; the slightly more flowery ones called her 'the hope of Asian pop music, the leading figure of the new generation of singer-songwriters!'

These terms were once slurs — anyone labeled with them became a target, like a bird sticking its head out, facing countless guns.

It wasn’t that those singers weren’t talented — they simply weren’t talented enough.

China’s music scene once had its own golden age: the first decade of the new millennium brimmed with kings, divine albums, and golden hits; that era had no shortage of talent, because every new-generation singer had talent!

But somehow, in the latter decade, the number of high-quality songs plummeted; mindless pop and soulless earworms took over the charts, and more and more amateur musicians began feeding their fans garbage.

Still, at least those songs were written by the artists themselves — even if their quality was poor, singing them domestically wasn’t shameful.

Now, plagiarism has become the mainstream of the music market; genuine songwriters have nearly vanished; translation and direct copying have become the golden keys to dominating the market — a phenomenon especially rampant on short-video apps.

A song can go viral and be exposed as plagiarized in less than three days!

Worse, many people even defend the plagiarists — some even go to the original artist’s page to insult them. In such an environment, producing a good song would be the real oddity.

So many veteran musicians say: today’s China has no music scene — only one plagiarized song after another, and they’re plagiarized terribly.

Thus, to most people, 'leading figure of the new generation of singer-songwriters' is a pure insult — no current young musician deserves this title; whoever claims it will suffer.

But Luo Quan shattered this unwritten rule; when someone on Zhihu applied this title to Luo Quan, almost no one questioned it.

Though she has written only one Chinese song so far, for a creator-singer, compositional talent is the most vital gift; judging from her released tracks, every melody is top-tier — translate them into Chinese, and they’d still be massive hits in China.

With the talent Luo Quan has shown, producing another high-quality Chinese song like 'The Wind Is Rising' might be a stretch to call 'effortless,' but with modest effort, she could certainly create another.

Therefore, 'leading figure of the new generation of singer-songwriters' is utterly deserved — no one is more suited to this title than Luo Quan.

Under the question 'How do you evaluate Luo Quan as a singer?' the most upvoted answer was this:

'Finally... finally! We no longer have to sift through garbage on every chart looking for good songs — stick to the name Luo Quan; for the next decade, this name will shine like a diamond!'

Interestingly, the person who wrote this answer is the same person who, just days ago, believed Luo Quan would burn out quickly.