Chapter 322: 《Ode to the Lotus》

Behind the scenes of *Masked Singer*, Ke Ming watched the close-up of Luo Mo, observing his intense eye acting, and couldn't help but think:

"Good grief, he's come to me to polish his acting skills!"

Nowadays, the internet says Luo Mo's acting ranks first among the young idols and is still improving rapidly; Ke Ming felt he had witnessed it firsthand.

"This kid, he's fucking good at acting!"

But as the General Director, he felt these few close-up shots could become iconic variety show moments.

Once the 【Superstar】 unmasks, netizens will surely dig these shots up and edit them into a 【Luo Mo Performance Special】.

By then, many viewers will watch the Semi-finals all over again just for these few frames.

In terms of variety show impact, it was maxed out.

At this moment, the 【Superstar】 on stage had already reached the chorus.

His voice still gave people a warm and Gentle feeling:

"【A pot of clear wine, a body of dust and ash.】

【A single thought back and forth, spending the rest of my life without regrets.】

【A span of spring and autumn, the vanity of life and death, right and wrong,】

【Waiting for the flowers to bloom to get drunk once more.】"

Judging by the song's style, it should lean towards Wuxia or Xianxia. Of course, it could also be the recently popular Xian-idol style.

This made the professional judges find it even more interesting.

As everyone knows, the *Celestial Sword 5 Qixia Zhuan* that Luo Mo directed, wrote, and starred in was a huge hit, and the songs from it are still hanging on the Hot Song Chart to this day.

Singing this type of song in front of him, it is inevitable that there will be much heated discussion after the Semi-finals air!

By then, I am Afraid there will be many people with ulterior motives who will take them out to compare them, or praise one while stepping on the other.

When the song ended, the host came on stage and first asked everyone to vote.

Luo Mo naturally cast his vote without a second thought.

Anyway, the votes of the guests on this program are consistent with those of any audience member on site and will not sway the overall situation.

After the voting channel closed, the host began calling on the on-site guests and professional judges to provide commentary.

As a result, everyone's gaze shifted in unison toward Luo Mo.

Luo Mo gave a dry cough, picked up the microphone slowly, and said, "The song is good, and the singing is also good."

"I personally quite like this song; the style should be leaning towards Xianxia or Xian-idol."

"The song title *Untainted*, plus the fact that the lyrics contain a lot of content related to flowers, instinctively makes me think of the lotus."

"Rising from the silt without being stained, washed by clear ripples without being seductive."

"I just voted for this song," Luo Mo said.

Many audience members on site widened their eyes after hearing his commentary.

"Rising from what without being stained, what what without being seductive?" many on-site audience members wondered.

The sudden appearance of classical Chinese content left the audience stunned.

This world does not have the famous *Ode to the Lotus*, so when the on-site audience heard this classical text—which most people would be able to recite, excluding those "Nine Leak Fish" who slipped through the net of nine-year compulsory education—they couldn't react to the content directly.

The host was completely dumbfounded and said, "Luo Mo, I heard 'rising from the silt without being stained' clearly, but what was the 'seductive' part after that?"

"It's not 'what seductive,' it's 'washed by clear ripples without being seductive,'" Luo Mo said with a smile again.

The host immediately gave him a thumbs up.

Isn't this high-quality commentary right here!

Using classical Chinese to critique a traditional-style song, wonderful, wonderful!

If nothing goes wrong, just this piece of commentary alone could make it onto the Hot Search.

After Luo Mo finished his commentary, Lv Yi picked up the microphone and said with a laugh, "We shouldn't have let him comment first. Now it's great; if we comment now, it definitely won't be as good as what he said. Won't it make us look uncultured?"

After finishing, he added, "Luckily, I have a thick skin, so I'll follow Luo Mo and offer a few words of praise."

Under Luo Mo's lead, a group of professional judges analyzed the entire song from the perspectives of Lyricist and composition.

Ke Ming watched this scene from behind the scenes and was overjoyed.

He felt that after this episode of the Semi-finals aired, the effect would definitely be full!

The new weekend arrived quickly.

For many people, the weekend is pleasant.

"*Fog Hill of the Five Elements* is finally updating its second episode!"

"There's the Semi-finals of *Masked Singer* to watch!"

The second episode of *Fog Hill of the Five Elements* is called 【Wrath Beast Peacock】.

In this episode, elements of 【Greed Hatred Ignorance】 are integrated. The reason this peacock is called the Wrath Beast is precisely because it can incite the hatred within people's hearts!

The fight scenes in this episode are still incredibly cool, and paired with the accompaniment, it gives people a very burning feeling.

At the same time, it also revealed the village's biggest secret—they are using Xiao Qilin to make medicine!

Xiao Qilin is actually in the village and is already covered in wounds.

Once the episode ended, the screen was still filled with " 【You've worked hard】" comments.

After watching the short and powerless *Fog Hill of the Five Elements*, many people turned to watch *Masked Singer*, where Luo Mo serves as a guest.

With the addition of Luo Mo, a Top Traffic star, the overall data for this Semi-finals episode can be said to have skyrocketed.

There's no helping it; as soon as he arrives, the topic popularity instantly surges.

This is not just because of his personal popularity, but also because before the donation incident occurred, many people called 【Earth】 the second Luo Mo.

Now that Luo Mo himself had arrived on set to listen to a song written by "Earth," the thought alone felt interesting.

At the same time, many clickbait accounts, in order to grab attention, did not shy away from comparing the works of these two cutting-edge songwriters.

Some who understood music theory and lyrics even spoke with great conviction.

In reality, Luo Mo had not written many songs leaning toward Folk before; only a few songs on the album he gave to Tong Shu carried a slight Folk style.

With different styles, there was actually nothing to compare.

But there was no help for it; who told these two people to be so popular right now!

Fortunately, the "Strangers" were relatively laid-back and didn't like to argue with others. If they were combative fans, they would likely be whipping up a frenzy on the internet right now: "What's so great about 'Earth'? Isn't it just our Luo Mo going to the scene to critique his song?"

If such a flame war were to break out, it would be quite awkward once the identity of "Earth" was revealed.

After the update time arrived, a large number of viewers began to watch "Masked Singer" on time.

As soon as Luo Mo appeared, the screen was flooded with bullet comments.

"Huh, he cut his hair short; he looks even more spirited."

"Ah, so he cut his hair short. No wonder I had a wet dream last night and dreamt his hair was poking my thigh."

"Luo Mo, the god forever!"

"Not bad, carrying the entire show's level of attractiveness all by himself."

After Luo Mo took his seat, the masked singers took the stage one by one.

As the audience listened to Luo Mo's critiques time and again, they all felt a sense of goodwill toward him.

The reason was simple: Luo Mo did not play dumb when giving critiques.

The audience felt that many professional judges and guests were just Actors hired by the production team, putting on a moved expression even when it sounded bad, and clearly able to guess the singer's identity but pretending they couldn't hear it.

Luo Mo was different; he was sometimes humorous, sometimes sharp.

Yet, he was indeed qualified to critique every singer present, including Chun Xiao, the "Heavenly Queen in Disguise"!

Wang Shisong's wishful thinking was well-calculated, but it was a pity that the show's popularity was all on "Superstar" and "Earth." Although Chun Xiao was masked, she still hadn't gained many fans, and her level of attention wasn't very high.

Despite maintaining the "good result" of second place throughout the show, she was like a transparent person; everyone's curiosity about her didn't even reach one-third of that for the behind-the-scenes figure, "Earth."

With her Contract nearly expired, Chun Xiao had been troubled lately, and her heart was wavering on whether or not to renew with Pineapple, which made her overall state on the show quite average.

One masked singer after another took the stage, and finally, it was "Superstar's" turn.

The song title appeared—"Unstained."

Listening to the singing, the audience immediately recognized this as an ancient-style song.

Luo Mo was more than qualified to critique this type of song!

One had to know that Yuan Hewen, this so-called Great God of ancient-style music, was merely someone who had been defeated by him.

It was unknown who started it, but the bullet comments were suddenly full of: "At least it's better than Yuan Hewen!"

Far away in Shencheng, Yuan Hewen, who was preparing new songs for the singers of Magnetic Dragon, never expected that he would be dragged out by netizens to be lashed again for no reason.

But in reality, many singers at Magnetic Dragon wanted to release new albums during the gap while Luo Mo was filming.

Therefore, the songs written by Yuan Hewen would likely clash with "Superstar" recently.

Fortunately, although "Superstar" was hot, it wasn't as exaggerated as Luo Mo was last year.

"As long as it's not Luo Mo, anyone can be challenged on the charts!" Yuan Hewen was very confident.

As the song "Unstained" ended, it was time for Luo Mo's critique segment.

A single line, "Rising from the mud without being stained, washed by clear ripples without being seductive," made the audience instantly admire him to the point of prostration.

"A cultured person's critique is just different!"

"Damn, the artistic conception of this sentence is strong; it instantly elevated the lotus flower!"

"Amazing, is he showing off his Lyricist skills?"

"It's flowery, but I feel like he exudes infinite charm when he says this."

"Ah! I smell the fragrance of culture!"

Throughout the entire critique segment, Luo Mo mostly used words of praise.

His thinking was particularly pure: "Coming is Coming, why not praise it well?"

Am I blowing my own trumpet?

Of course not!

I'm afraid that if I don't praise vigorously, praise with effort, praise with all my might, my critique will be taken out of context by those with ulterior motives, and then create internet conflict!

I am doing this for the bright and clear sky of the internet environment!

The semi-finals ended, and "Superstar" took first place again, successfully advancing to the finals.

Luo Mo's critique also made it to the Weibo Hot Search, making people in the cultural circle incredibly envious, yet helpless.

The audience began to look forward to next week's "Masked Singer" immensely.

"Next week we'll know who 'Superstar' really is!"

"Maybe the identity of 'Earth' will also be revealed!"

At the same time, the finals of "Masked Singer" adopted a Guest Singer system.

That is to say, every masked singer could invite a Guest Singer who was also participating in the show under a mask.

And Li Junyi's Guest Singer was...

His boss, Luo Mo.

(ps: Second update, begging for monthly tickets!)

(End of chapter)