Chapter 412: Time to Change the Pace of Life (5k)

"Looks like you put a lot of pressure on them, Xiao Zhou."

As the "team leader" for the Chinese side this time, Wu Your Majesty, born in 1975, smiled at those several years her senior and teased.

Han Hong 1971, Sun Nan, Zhou Xiaou 1969;

Mo Wenwei 1970, Qu Ying 1971, Sun Yue 1972.

The entire Chinese singer team only had Zhou Hui, born in '77, and Zhou Yi, born in '81, who were younger than her, but relying on her solid personal strength and achievements in the arts, she still surpassed Sun Yue to become the "team leader" for this trip—

Since Zhou Yi had now joined the Musicians Association, he was, in a sense, half one of her own people, so Wu Your Majesty's attitude toward him was obviously more affectionate than toward others.

Zhou Yi handled the external face, while she was responsible for the internal stability.

In a sense, it could be considered a dual-leadership system.

"Sister Wu, actually, I'm quite nervous too."

Zhou Yi lowered his head slightly, his expression showing no change, but he smoothly included himself in the ranks of the nervous, joking, "I still have a lot to learn from you, Sister Wu."

Wu Your Majesty, a top-tier talent who has already established her own nickname in the field of singers, known as the "Oriental Nightingale."

Because of her actual height of less than 1.5 meters, when she first started on this path, Wu Your Majesty was looked down upon and advised to quit by many, but now she has become the "Oriental Nightingale" capable of representing the official side at various international events for artistic performances.

The effort and diligence invested in that cannot be told to outsiders.

Zhou Yi has always respected national team seniors who possess such tenacious will and super strength.

Although knowing this was merely a polite remark, hearing Zhou Yi say so, Wu Your Majesty couldn't hide the smile on her face: "When I perform abroad, after the people of those countries learn I am from China, many will blurt out your name—YiChou, Spike."

"For so many years, you are the first singer with such high recognition abroad."

She understood the simple principle that everyone helps lift the sedan chair, especially since this was fact, not fabrication.

"Sister Wu is too polite."

"This isn't politeness; look, who has come?"

"?"

Zhou Yi slowly typed out a question mark, then turned his head to look where Wu Your Majesty was gazing; a beautiful figure in a ladies' small suit immediately came into view—

Bright eyes flowing with a hint of a smile, shoulder-length short hair slightly curled, paired with a brown handmade tailored ladies' small suit, making the whole person look both free-spirited and capable.

Samsung's Little Princess, Li Yinxin.

Zhou Yi raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise.

Wu Your Majesty, sitting nearby, smiled as she rose from her seat and chose to leave under the pretext of having something to do. Others, such as Sun Nan, Han Hong, and Sun Yue, all cast strange glances back and forth between the two before tacitly choosing to see nothing and turning their heads to do their own things.

"Why are you here?"

Li Yinxin shrugged, casually tossing her handbag onto her seat: "KBS executives gave me a ticket during the previous dinner; just happened to be bored at home, and since I'm idle anyway, might as well come watch your performance."

"Then you are truly even more redundant at home than I imagined." Zhou Yi pursed his lips noncommittally.

"Likewise."

Li Yinxin wasn't angered; having known him these days, she was already immune to Zhou Yi's sudden sharp-tongued nature, and could even retaliate in kind: "You will have such a day too, when you grow up."

"Are you implying I haven't grown up yet?"

"Isn't that so, little brother?"

Li Yinxin, sitting in the chair with her legs crossed, stretched her right arm over the backrest, turned slightly to look at him, and raised two fingers of her right hand, waving them: "I am two years older than you."

Zhou Yi laughed; after his tongue quickly swept over his lips a few times, just as he was about to speak, the shout of a staff member came from behind, interrupting his spell-casting channel—

"I hope you have a good performance tonight; otherwise, I might publicly state on the media that you disappointed me."

Li Yinxin playfully jerked her chin toward the direction of the stage: "Others may fear you, may be wary of you, but I won't."

"I hope you can understand Chinese."

Zhou Yi, turning his back on her and pacing away, left those final words, along with the middle finger gesture expressing contempt.

The Chinese and Korean singers, acting as onlookers, were all surprised by the friendship between these two.

Due to previous tracking reports by Korean media, news that the relationship between Zhou Yi and Li Yinxin was actually quite good could be said to be flying all over the news circles of both China and Korea; before seeing it with their own eyes, many people found it hard to believe these two could even become friends.

After all, one is a conglomerate family daughter, the other born of commoners.

But now it seems that is not the case; their relationship is obviously quite good.

Returning to the group and starting to follow Wu Your Majesty through the procedures, Zhou Yi also ignored those curious gazes, confirming his performance plan for two songs, the number of performers, props, and such with KBS television staff.

For a gala of this level, although no one would change songs last minute before the start, the necessary procedures still had to be followed.

"For the song 'Don't Listen to Slow Songs When You're Sad,' the band members finally decided to use our own people from the second rehearsal to avoid stage accidents caused by poor communication with the Koreans."

Qian Jiang, having completed all confirmation procedures, came over to report to Zhou Yi; the latter immediately raised his eyes to look at the three figures currently mixed among the musicians and backup dancers, waiting to go on stage as background—

The Fei Er Band.

A band just signed by Warner this year.

Of course, currently they were not yet the top-tier band that would debut at their peak. To build their reputation, upon learning that besides the new song "Ode to a Young China," Zhou Yi would also sing the old song "Don't Listen to Slow Songs When You're Sad" at the China-Korea Song Gala, Chen Ze Shan directly shoved these three people over.

Ostensibly, using our own people would be smoother; who knows what problems the Koreans might cause.

Originally, Zhou Yi hadn't yet decided which old song to use; songs capable of creating atmosphere like the rock version of "At the Plum Line" and "Spirit Dance Door" had all been tried by him.

But finally, after comprehensively considering the specific effects at the rehearsal site, for the old song, he still chose "Don't Listen to Slow Songs When You're Sad" to kick off the atmosphere.

The three members of the Fei Er Band respectively took on guitar, bass, and drums for this song, while he himself was the lead singer and also played guitar.

Honestly, if it hadn't been for this chance encounter, Zhou Yi really wouldn't have noticed that the Fei Er Band had already signed with Warner.

After everything was arranged, Zhou Yi found his seat in the guest section according to his name and sat down; diagonally across not far away was currently the hottest dance diva of the Korean side, Lee Jung-hyun.

The latter obviously noticed him too, smiling and nodding in greeting.

In the audience, Li Yinxin, who had come to watch Zhou Yi's performance out of envy and "jealousy," watched as the curtain of this China-Korea Song Gala was pulled open jointly by four hosts—honestly, if she hadn't seen the translation of Zhou Yi's song strike a chord with her, she really wouldn't have come here.

In her view, this group of singers was just so-so, even the so-called "Zhou Yi's nemesis," Lee Jung-hyun.

Lee Jung-hyun's few hit songs, such as "Wa" and "Ali Ali," in her opinion were simply too noisy. Listening a few or ten times was fine, but listening more made her feel abnormally noisy and irritable.

Who knows why this kind of electronic dance music became so popular to this extent; this was something Li Yinxin found very incomprehensible.

What confused her even more was that the Chinese female singer Sun Yue was still learning this style of music—and hadn't even grasped its essence.

However, she wasn't the only one unable to bear watching; Zhou Yi felt the same.

When Lee Jung-hyun and Sun Yue, hailed as the representatives of Chinese and Korean female singer-dancers, took the stage for a joint performance, he nearly lost his composure—

It wasn't that Sun Yue performed terribly, but rather that she simply didn't fit electronic dance music.

How to put it? Zhou Yi wasn't particularly impressed by her performance in the duet "Wa" with Lee Jung-hyun—the feeling it gave him was as if Na-young was swaying her hips while singing and dancing to "Eyebrows Flying, Face Dancing" in a KTV?

The young Lee Jung-hyun was bouncing and jumping, lively as a maiden;

Sun Yue, born in '72, was already over thirty. At her age, she could only twist her waist on stage, and the stiffness of her movements made her look inferior, her own smile turning somewhat awkward.

The only thing worthy of praise was the vocal pressure; Sun Yue still demonstrated her capability as one of the "involution kings" of the mainland. Upon realizing she needed to overpower Lee Jung-hyun's voice during the duet, she immediately held back her singing.

It could only be said that she was beyond saving.

If Lee Jung-hyun and Sun Yue were to duet "Wish You Peace," Lee Jung-hyun would similarly be utterly outshone in a very ugly way.

In Zhou Yi's view, Sun Yue was simply not suited for this kind of singing and dancing.

As the so-called goddaughter of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, this woman had actually discovered back at the end of the last century that she couldn't compete with Tian Zhen and Na-young, so she took a different path, starting to learn Korean dance-pop styles, changing careers mid-stream to become a singer-dancer and attempt to overtake on a curve.

As a result, her popularity declined year after year.

Finally, she discovered that her own comfort zone was still the original set of things.

If not for the title of "Ambassador of Sino-Korean Friendship" and "Goddaughter of the Former South Korean President," it's hard to say whether Sun Yue would have appeared at the Sino-Korean Song Festival—Na-young was suppressed and withdrew, while Han Hong stepped back to the "second tier."

At this period, Sun Yue still harbored the ambition of one last desperate struggle.

Unfortunately, in the end, she was like mud that couldn't be plastered onto a wall—

Later, Na-young withdrew from the entertainment industry for many years due to relationship issues, yet upon her return, she was still able to reclaim her Queen's crown based on the quality of her songs;

Han Hong, on the other hand, directly made herself the undisputed number one female singer of the mainland within the following two years.

Only Sun Yue hyped herself up for ages, yet didn't get a single hair out of it—hailed as the goddaughter of the former South Korean President, yet she couldn't even speak Korean, and finally, disheartened, she retired into seclusion.

"Has Zhou Yi not arrived yet?"

In the audience, Li Yinxin watched as singers from both China and Korea took the stage one after another to perform—such as Han Hong singing "That Sea," Sun Nan singing "Salvation," and the duet of the theme song for "My Sassy Girl," etc. —her brows furrowing slightly as she turned to ask her personal female bodyguard.

"Soon, Young Lady. He is the finale."

"..."

As the biggest star of this gala, Zhou Yi's performance was pinned to the position of the second-to-last or third-to-last song.

In fact, after he finished singing, he could simply stand on stage without leaving, because the final grand chorus would involve singers from both China and Korea singing "Friendship of the Earth, Eternal."

However, whether the Korean side did it on purpose or by accident, Zhou Yi's performance order was arranged exactly right after Sun Nan.

After Sun Nan and Shin Seung-hun from South Korea finished singing the theme song of "My Sassy Girl," "I Believe," the host finally began introducing the upcoming Zhou Yi—

"Next, let us welcome the young singer from China, Zhou Yi..."

Backstage, Zhan Wenting, who was so nervous she had started taking deep breaths repeatedly, tightly gripped the bass guitar in her hand. Originally positioned as the band's lead vocalist, she was holding a bass tonight; beside her, the guitarist A Qin, also a member of Flyer Band, had hands that were trembling as well.

"Don't be nervous, relax, just follow the feeling we had during rehearsal."

Chen Jianling, the leader and keyboardist of Flyer Band, appeared quite steady, even having the mind to guide his two teammates. Tonight, he would be responsible for the drums on stage.

"But..."

As the three were exchanging words, Zhou Yi, now changed into a long trench coat, appeared before them—

"Brother Yi."

"Brother Yi..."

Even though all three were older than Zhou Yi, only Chen Jianling, who was ten years his senior, had the qualification not to call him "Brother."

After all, before establishing Flyer Band, he was already a senior music producer in the industry.

"Good luck."

Seeing the three of them, Zhou Yi didn't say much, simply smiling and offering encouragement: "Just follow the feeling from rehearsal."

"Mm."

Facing the "affability" of this true god of the company, A Qin and Zhan Wenting exchanged a glance, forcibly suppressing the chaotic thoughts in their hearts, and nodded heavily.

One minute later, after the host finished the introduction, the lights at the entire Sino-Korean Song Festival venue dimmed simultaneously.

The next second, an alarm sounding like a siren rang out at the venue—

Following that was the red warning lights in the hall beginning to flash and rotate continuously!

"???"

In the audience, Li Yinxin, who had reviewed the song "Don't Listen to Slow Songs When You're Sad" quite early on, had a few expressions of bewilderment surge between her brows—

What's going on?

Did the original song have this opening?

Was it specially adapted?

"You cried too tiredly, you were hurt too deeply, you loved too foolishly

"You cried as if the apocalypse was coming~"

When a beam of strong light hit the exact center of the stage, the siren sound immediately stopped. Zhou Yi, wearing a purple-black long trench coat, stood alone in the center of the stage, an electric guitar slung over his shoulder, holding a microphone stand with one hand, snapping his fingers with a slightly jazzy, flamboyant flair—

A more soothing piano prelude accompanied the man's low, chanting, monologue-style singing. Under the white light, Zhou Yi looked like a gentleman with a touch of playfulness and childlike innocence—

"OH~, Yeah~~"

With the end of the finger snaps, Zhou Yi, having just finished singing the first verse, continued snapping his fingers with his left hand. His whole body seemed immersed in some slow jazz rhythm, gently swaying, looking exactly like a "King of Gu," bewitching the fangirls below the stage into screaming!

"Aaaaaah!!!"

"Zhou Yi! Zhou Yi!! Zhou Yi!!!"

"..."

Regarding the sudden outburst of screams and cheers from below, a slight upward curve appeared on the corner of Zhou Yi's mouth. His left hand, still snapping fingers, slowly pointed toward the stands facing him, and the direction of that finger happened to be the area where Li Yinxin was seated—

"So you listen to slow songs, very, very slow songs, until your heart feels like it's being cut by a knife.

"Isn't it time to change the rhythm~

"OH~Yeah~~"

The song was clearly titled "Don't Listen to Slow Songs When You're Sad," yet this solo, jazz-infused arrangement's slow opening left the entire audience stunned—

Then, the singing stopped, the snap of fingers paused, as if someone had hit the pause button.

In the blink of an eye, the red siren wailed again, and the flashing alarm lights instantly turned the venue into a sea of "blood red"—

The strobing light from the disco ball swept over Zhou Yi, who was walking backward while holding the microphone stand with one hand, giving the impression that he had committed a crime by singing a slow song and was now heading to turn himself in.

Until, he suddenly slammed the stand onto the floor beneath his feet!

This seemed like the signal for a carnival to begin; the addition of cymbals, a staple in rock music, made the entire audience perk up—

Chen Jianning, seated beside the drum kit, struck the cymbals, then the drumbeat he unleashed directly challenged the audience's eardrums; in an instant, the guitar and bass, brimming with rhythm and catharsis, joined in, creating a stark contrast to the earlier slow jazz!

The highly popular pop-rock style exploded instantly, conquering the audience's sight and hearing in this very moment with its extreme contrast between before and after; many who couldn't understand the lyrics swayed left and right along with the passionate guitar and drumbeats!

"You've cried too hard, you've been hurt too deeply, you've loved too foolishly

"You've cried as if the apocalypse were coming!

"Oh~oh!"

It was the same lyrics as before, but now Zhou Yi's vocal delivery carried a distinct rock texture; his body movements were no longer limited to snapping his fingers. After finishing this verse, he directly strummed the guitar strings, sweeping away the gloom from the audience's hearts—

"Stop asking who is right and who is wrong

"Who is right, who is wrong, and who owes whom!"

Zhou Yi, with the electric guitar strapped on, jumped forward in place and pointed his hand toward the audience area ahead: "Anyway, I was wrong, anyway, I lost, anyway, I'll keep myself company and be happy!!"

And it was precisely that jump that reignited the audience's enthusiasm after a long absence!

Li Yinxin, who was also shaking her head and swaying her body to the rhythm, watched the figure on stage that seemed to be shining with freedom, her face beaming with joy!

This song was exactly her inner voice, the voice she wanted to express to her parents and her family—

Stop asking her who was right and who was wrong when netizens scolded her, stop asking who was right and who was wrong, and stop mentioning who owed whom in this family.

She didn't want to think about anything now, didn't want to do anything; she just wanted to empty her mind—

Whether it was wrong or a loss, anyway, not many people in this world cared whether she was living happily anymore; her parents, her older brother and sister, had all become slaves to interests.

Since no one would keep her company, she would keep herself company, because happiness was the most important thing!

Just as this song sang: It was time to change the rhythm of life.

She also wanted to change the rhythm of her life.

Watching the man on stage freely unleashing the charm of pop-rock, Li Yinxin witnessed for the first time what true freedom looked like—that man named Zhou Yi was recklessly unleashing that captivating freedom!

(End of this chapter)