Chapter 452: Unimaginable Joy

The song ended, and the entire venue was in an uproar.

The audience lucky enough to be at the Octopus TV New Year's Eve venue applauded vigorously, many with flushed faces, clearly having been hyped up by the performance.

The final line of the entire song, "This staff, shall make you vanish into dust—vanish," could be said to have pushed everyone's blood to a boiling point.

Looking at the song structure of this "Wukong," Luo Mo mainly sang the Dai Quan version, only interjecting the Sanskrit Sound and Opera parts from the covers by Zhang Qi and Bai Jugang.

Many in the audience might never have imagined before that, at their age, there would actually come a day when they would feel incomparably excited, even exhilarated, over a monkey!

That kind of intense emotional resonance is very hard to express.

After all, for the people of this country, the Great Sage is, in the end, different.

Backstage at the New Year's Eve Gala, Xu Guan and Li You were incomparably shocked.

The viewership ratings for Luo Mo's entire stage performance had been steadily increasing.

Now that the performance was over, the ratings actually hadn't dropped; they were still rising!

It was very clear that some viewers had "come for his reputation."

It was just that they were a step late; the live broadcast of Luo Mo's stage had already ended.

"Station Head, there is a great hope that our station's New Year's Eve Gala viewership peak value will take first place this year!" Li You said.

Luo Mo's "Wukong" stage was a full twenty percent higher than the peak viewership ratings of the three major satellite TV stations from last year!

Unless those three major satellite TV stations produced some heaven-defying programs this year, Octopus TV could finally hold its head high this year.

Hey, you all said our guest lineup was poor, and that having just Xu Chujing and Luo Mo was useless?

Well, sorry about that.

Although our average viewership rating is indeed not great, and indeed still can't catch up to you.

But the stage with the highest viewership rating this year is eighty percent likely to be ours!

Xu Guan nodded and said with a smile, "And I think this stage will have a huge follow-up impact."

Li You agreed with this; this final presented version was even more shocking and more fiery than the previous two rounds of rehearsals.

Some people's works are what you call non-flammable.

Some people's works are truly flammable and explosive.

What is called turning the tide? A stage of Luo Mo's caliber is called turning the tide!

For the major satellite TV stations, what they have to face tomorrow is not just the comparison of viewership ratings and live broadcast data.

There is also the word-of-mouth feedback from netizens and marketing accounts.

Under normal circumstances, during large-scale galas, the jokers will all come out in full force.

Some are being humorous, some are playing memes, and some are smearing you.

Having a few representative programs with explosive word-of-mouth is very important.

Therefore, in the eyes of Xu Guan and Li You, this year could be called a great success.

Octopus TV made an exception for Luo Mo, letting him sing a movie theme song.

Luo Mo felt a bit embarrassed, and having no good return gift, he just casually broke a record.

It's all breaking records anyway, isn't it?

………

………

The stage ended, and in the live broadcast, the netizens couldn't hear a word of what the hosts on stage were saying.

Most people were still immersed in "Wukong."

"Too fiery, damn it, it's too fiery!"

"Too awesome, upload it early, I want to download it!"

"Preparing to put it on loop for a few days!"

"I'll listen to this every time I wake up from now on, otherwise I'll be groggy!"

"I feel like listening to this, I could run two extra kilometers!"

The Music God looked at these bullet comments, took a deep breath, and began to think about how to write the music review.

In her view, this song had much to write about in terms of lyrics, composition, and singing.

"The lyrics are well-written, the music incorporates a large number of folk Yueqi, and as for the singing, how could an ordinary person sing it!" the Music God thought to herself.

She felt it was foreseeable that this song would become a must-order track for a large number of men at KTV.

It's just that the final effect presented would mostly be nothing but wailing ghosts and howling wolves.

Luo Mo's is a god-tier, legendary stage; you all are just purely acting like drunks.

"As for those two lines of text on the screen, I'm afraid they'll both hit the Hot Search," the Music God thought to herself.

"If I go and do not return, then I shall not return."

"This feeling, it describes it truly perfectly!"

As a professional music critic, the Music God is also a writer.

She felt that in her entire life, she could never write sentences with such artistic conception and such spirit.

"With those two lines on his screen, I feel like all the music reviews for this song will seem eclipsed," the Music God thought to herself.

She suddenly realized and said, "This is smashing our rice bowls!"

The Music God reached out to touch her slender waist, which she could hold in her hand and had not a single ounce of excess fat, then proceeded to touch her slender, long, fair legs, thinking to herself: "Are you going to let a person earn their meal money or not!"

On the other hand, in the live broadcast bullet comments, it's unknown which netizens took the lead, but they expressed: "I'm going to watch 'Monkey King: Hero is Back'!"

The thoughts of these viewers were very simple; they were watching purely for the song "Wukong"!

A good theme song is still very important for a movie.

This phenomenon of going to watch a movie for the sake of a song is real.

Back when *Big Fish & Begonia* was released on Earth, there were quite a few people who entered the cinema because of the song "Big Fish."

Many audience members began leaving comments one after another: "+1!"

"Count me in!"

"It's just a movie ticket, isn't it!"

"For the sake of Huang Lun and this song, I have to go watch it!"

In reality, up until now, most of the audience still didn't feel that the target demographic for *Monkey King: Hero is Back* was adults like them.

They still retained their stereotypes about domestic animated films, feeling that this movie was mainly aimed at children.

But, so what?

Even if it were truly relatively childish, what would it matter?

"We are willing to be children watching Sun Wukong one more time."

………

………

Beijing, Siheyuan.

Tong Qinglin and the others were sitting in the living room, watching the Octopus TV New Year's Eve Gala.

Luo Mo's Liu Shixiong, Liu Gongming, and Luo Ba and Luo Ma were also here tonight, all watching together.

After the song ended, everyone couldn't help but turn their gaze toward the elder Tong.

Tong Qinglin smiled and said, "Sung well, and written well too!"

This Opera master, whose hair was already gray and who had age spots on his body, imitated a line just like a child: "【Call out—Buddha!】"

And don't even mention it, the word "Buddha" sung by him had a very authentic flavor.

The elder Tong looked at the night scene outside the window and couldn't help but think of that gray, drizzly day, and the day he took Luo Mo as his apprentice.

Such a small child, on a rainy day, singing with incomparable seriousness on the opera stage.

He asked him why.

The child said, "I like it."

A single "I like it" can sometimes surpass everything else.

Following that, the child also said in an old-fashioned way: "Besides, I know the rules! I understand the rules!"

"The ancestors have a rule: once an opera singer clears their throat to start, they must finish singing, regardless of whether anyone is listening!"

Once the opera begins, the eight directions listen. One direction is for people, three directions are for ghosts, and four directions are for gods.

Regardless of whether there is anyone under the stage, one must sing well. Because if mortals don't listen, it doesn't mean the departed don't listen.

If the audience doesn't listen, it doesn't mean ghosts and gods don't listen.

This child who once had no audience can now stand on the stage and promote and publicize Opera culture.

Tong Qinglin could tell that although Luo Mo was currently flourishing in the music industry, he absolutely had not let his Opera Basic Skills slide. The few notes he sang just now were not at a level that could be achieved by being slack in his daily life.

He kept every one of his master's teachings in mind.

Xu Chujing would often see Luo Mo taking time early in the morning to practice his Basic Skills, and hearing him sing opera there, Xu Chujing wouldn't say things like "You're in the pop music industry now," claiming he was doing something meaningless.

On the contrary, she would even get mesmerized listening to it from time to time.

What truly moved Tong Qinglin and made him take on an apprentice again was this very temperament of Luo Mo's.

At this very moment, Liu Shixiong, Liu Gongming, was holding his phone and shouting something, interrupting the elder Tong's memories.

"Master, look, look at what the netizens are saying about our little junior brother!" Liu Gongming handed the phone over with both hands.

Tong Qinglin looked at a comment, an incomparably gratified smile appearing on his face; as he smiled, his eyes even turned a little red.

Don't forget, this gaunt old man had said with misty, drunken eyes during his birthday celebration:

"Master wants you to stand on the big stage and sing opera."

"Master wants to see you become a star performer once."

And the comment with over ten thousand likes that the elder Tong was looking at now was:

"So this is the joy of being a fan of a star performer!"

(PS: First update, asking for monthly tickets.

By the way, when I wrote chapter forty, I wrote the "Ancient Teachings of Learning Art," and I didn't expect it to make it onto this year's Spring Festival Gala; it feels quite magical.)

(End of this chapter)