An Expert Is actually By My Side - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: The First Step into the Music Scene?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
“Oh my God… What a kiss-a*s.”
“Authorize? Contract signing? Filling in the lyrics? Dream on…”
Looking at the string of red dots in his private message inbox, Cloud Hao spat in disdain. With a drag of his finger, he selected multiple messages and clicked the ‘block’ button.
From the second day after he had uploaded the piano version of “The Fleeting Fireworks”, he began to incessantly receive private messages in his inbox.
People were asking him for his contact information.
There were also people who asked him for the music authorization.
There were even more shameless people who straight up offered 10,000 yuan to buy the entire copyrights to his song. They also demanded to delete the song from the Yinke platform.
Ten thousand yuan…
Are you brushing off a beggar!
And you actually want to buy the whole copyrights. Dream on!
As long as the message was about writing the lyrics and authorization, he simply didn’t bother replying at all and just blocked them.
What a joke. The lyrics and the singer were all ready, so why would he allow others to post the lyrics version before him?
Liang Ziyuan’s character was actually not too bad. At least, he was a man of his word and would not renege on something he had promised.
Although this guy’s personality was a bit disagreeable once in a while, he could still be trusted.
As for those strangers whom he had never met before, Cloud Hao didn’t dare to gamble on such a tiny probability.
He hadn’t even taken the other party’s hidden potential stat and grooming value into account…
Therefore, he ignored all those private messages.
Thankfully, Country Xia’s copyright laws were stringent. Otherwise, with his “arrogant” attitude, a remake version and even a plagiarized version would have been flying all over the Internet by now. At that time, the original singer might not even be as popular as the cover singer.
To be honest, Cloud Hao was delighted to see so many people listening to his music.
As a beginner who was playing the piano for the first time, to be able to achieve such results, apart from the fantastic composition, half of the credit went to his talent, right?
However, the only thing that surprised Cloud Hao was that he ultimately still overestimated Liang Ziyuan.
Even if he had already cooked the meal and put it beside this idiot’s mouth, he remained immersed in his own world, ignoring everything happening outside.
Cloud Hao was caught between laughter and tears as he looked at the creator’s backend page. He really didn’t expect that before Liang Ziyuan could discover his song, his work would gain popularity in the music producers circle.
In less than three days after uploading, the number of views had exceeded 500,000!
Moreover, the momentum was unabating!
Although 500,000 might not sound like a lot, it was considered phenomenal to produce such a result in the niche circle of music producers.
After all, the whole Internet knew how picky the Yinke users were.
In addition, most of the users here were musicians, so the threshold for taste and professionalism was relatively high. It was even more difficult to stand out as a newcomer…
[The author is super talented!]
[Ooh, it sounds incredible!]
[I hear a trace of sadness and melancholy in the song. I’m sure the composer is someone with a story!]
[Author, can you reply to your private messages when you’re free? *Sobs* Don’t ignore your fans!]
[I want to hear the lyrics version! I feel like if there’re lyrics, it will sound sensational!]
[Yes, yes, yes. I don’t know why, it’s obviously a piano piece, yet it has that Chinese feeling!]
Cloud Hao was lying on his bed and swiping on his screen to look through his page on Yinke, feeling a little emotional.
About a few minutes ago, he had received a reminder from the administrator.
As the quality of the song met the website’s standards, he had been awarded the gold label of [Original Musician].
That was the gold label that Liang Ziyuan yearned for!
Even in his dream, Liang Ziyuan would probably never have thought that something which he had been relentlessly chasing for three years would only take a few days for the person sleeping on the other side of his bed…
In actuality, Cloud Hao didn’t care about all these reputations. His motto was to quietly make a fortune.
Moreover, the melody was not composed by him. It came from another parallel world.
However, coming back to the topic.
Thanks to the song’s popularity, Liang Ziyuan finally discovered this song on the charts. After downloading the music score, he tried to play it twice on the guitar.
Cloud Hao had to admit that as long as this guy didn’t open his mouth and randomly sang, his guitar skills were not half bad.
However, what made Cloud Hao speechless was how he began to improvise and start singing those indiscernible sentences again after just strumming two strings on the guitar.
“Can’t you not open your mouth?” Zheng Xueqian finally lost his patience. He stopped moving the pen in his hand and said with a pained expression, “As long as you don’t open your mouth, we’re still brothers.”
Zhou Xuan, who had dropped by from room 401, nodded in agreement and advised him with all his heart, “That’s right, that’s right. The moment you open your mouth, my gosh, you managed to cure my buddy, Wang Ziyi, of the blood clot in his brain that had been there for ten years.”
Zhu Kening hadn’t returned to the dormitory yet, so he didn’t join in the roasting. Otherwise, he definitely wouldn’t sit out of it.
Ever since the frequency of Liang Ziyuan’s guitar playing changed from every half an hour to a steady output until lights out, he was returning to the dorm room later and later.
“What do you guys know?”
Liang Ziyuan glanced at these “ordinary folks” and shook his head. He then continued to immerse himself in his own world.
Only when someone from the opposite room came knocking on the door to protest did he put down the guitar in his hand, still unsatisfied.
…
Late at night…
Cloud Hao climbed into bed after washing up and logged in to take a look at his account. To his surprise, among the pile of private messages, there were actually three from Qian Yuan.
Indeed, there was a term called “awesome”.
This aloof idiot had finally bowed before his talent.
Qian Yuan: [Sorry, I didn’t see your message.]
Qian Yuan: [Lyrics-Attachment]
Qian Yuan: [I tried to fill in the lyrics for that song on your homepage. Can you help me look at it?]
Seeing these three messages, Cloud Hao instantly felt elated.
Oh wow, he’s so realistic?
You blocked me previously, but now you’re being thick-skinned and coming to me without even an apology?
Forget it.
I shall not stoop to his level.
Even if it were not for the father-son friendship between roommates, he had to give the system some face.
Cloud Hao couldn’t even be bothered to open the attached lyrics. He tapped on the screen with his fingers to type a message and sent it.
[Bro, your lyrics are a little rough around the edges.]
[Why don’t you take a look at mine?]
[Lyrics-attachment]
After sending the message, Cloud Hao furtively glanced towards the other bed.
The expression on Liang Ziyuan’s face hadn’t changed much; it was the same as usual.
However, from the light of the mobile phone, Cloud Hao could vaguely see his face loosening up a little.
His intuition told him that it was probably a look of shock.
Furthermore, it was an amazed kind of shock…
After a while, a private message came in.
Qian Yuan: [Great lyrics…]
Somewhere Deep in the Clouds: [Are you interested in singing?]
Qian Yuan: [?!]
Somewhere Deep in the Clouds: [I am asking if you want to sing it?]
Somewhere Deep in the Clouds: [I’ve seen your work and think that the timbre should be OK. If you want to sing it, I can authorize you to give it a go.]
After clicking send, Cloud Hao suddenly regretted it, wondering if he was too eager.
Perhaps the effect might be better if he acted more aloof?
The private message window remained silent for a while.
Just when Cloud Hao waited till he was about to fall asleep, a message came in.
Qian Yuan: [I want to!]
Qian Yuan: [Thank you, Expert!]
The moment Cloud Hao read these two messages, he became invigorated.
It was not only because this b*stard Liang Ziyuan was finally doing things right, but also because at the same time, a floating system notification popped up in front of his eyes!
[Mission: The First Step into the Music Scene]
[Requirement: Liang Ziyuan’s Yinke account must exceed 100,000 followers!]
System mission!
However…
Isn’t this a bit unexpected?
Cloud Hao initially speculated that the requirement would at most be the number of views on a single or topping the charts. He didn’t expect it to be getting more than 100,000 followers!
To be honest, with the quality of “The Fleeting Fireworks” itself, it was not difficult to gain 100,000 fans. However, the problem was that Brother Ziyuan’s self-composed songs sounded so darn terrible!
Was the song really sung by a human?
This is going to be difficult.
Not only did he have to pray that this idiot would be able to sing better, but he also had to find a way to get him to delete his past works.
If Liang Ziyuan didn’t, even if he attracted fans using “The Fleeting Fireworks”, they would all unfollow him!
He had to at least get him to remove them for a few days…
Just as Cloud Hao was having a headache, the other end of the bed suddenly shook.
Thinking that it was an earthquake, he turned off the system screen and looked up, only to see a dark shadow holding the ladder and vigorously climbing down.
He knew who it was without asking.
Cloud Hao froze for a moment. Then, he looked at Liang Ziyuan and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Chasing my dream.”
“???”
Liang Ziyuan coolly threw a sentence that no one understood, put on his clothes, and flung the guitar on his back. He didn’t waste any more time chatting. He directly opened the door and left, leaving behind the dumbfounded Zheng Xueqian and Cloud Hao, who were still awake.
“Was I too harsh with my words and triggered him…?” Zheng Xueqian said guiltily, “But I didn’t lie. This fool really sings terribly…”
Cloud Hao stared at the closed door in a daze and slowly shook his head.
“It shouldn’t be… That guy Zhou Xuan said things harsher than yours.”
If this guy really cared about what others said, he would have canceled his Yinke account a long time ago.
Although I’m thrilled to see him working so hard, how should I say this…
Isn’t it too goddamn late at night?
Zhu Kening still didn’t jump in on the conversation. He had fallen asleep the moment he came back. He turned his body over and continued to snooze.
“Snore… rumble… zzz…”
In the entire 401 bedroom, the calmest person was this dorm room head.
He fell asleep punctually at eleven o’clock. The thunder couldn’t shake him, and he wouldn’t wake up even if the sky fell.
Listening to the rhythm of his snoring, Cloud Hao guessed that Brother Kening was probably driving a tank in his dream, using his nose to rev up the engine, and rushing off to cure his athlete’s foot.
Cloud Hao and Zheng Xueqian didn’t have the heart to wake him up and b*tch together. They looked at each other and quietly lay back down in unison.
Hopefully, nothing happens to that guy…
It was best to stay away from people when practicing his singing. It was a trivial matter to be caught by the dorm supervisor or the security guard, but it was another thing to suffer a beating.
Hearing Yellow’s faint howl coming from downstairs, Cloud Hao sighed. He then shrank into the quilt and closed his eyes.
Tonight was destined to be another sleepless night…
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