The next day, Yu Hai indeed received a call from the Music Association.
The caller first congratulated him on his work winning the gold prize in the competition and asked if he had time to attend the awards ceremony in five days.
For a newcomer in the music industry, the awards ceremony and the banquet that followed—where officials would invite major music companies as well as numerous musicians and singers—were a rare opportunity.
Especially for the author of the winning piece, it was a chance to receive olive branches from many large corporations.
Yu Hai turned it down without much thought, citing physical inconvenience as the reason for his inability to attend.
His physical inconvenience was a fact; attending an awards ceremony on crutches indeed looked rather unseemly.
Moreover, Yu Hai felt that he was still a student and was not in any rush to join a company.
He still had plenty of time to slowly understand the entertainment industry and properly plan his future.
Rushing headfirst into this dyeing vat of an industry would easily leave him battered and bruised, suffering heavy losses.
Yu Hai had always been accustomed to making deliberate plans before taking action.
The absolute primary reason, however, was that Yu Hai had mild social anxiety. He had always been extremely resistant to networking events like banquets.
He had suffered from mild prosopagnosia since childhood and often struggled to remember people's faces. This led to many people he had met once or twice greeting him, while he failed to react at all because he didn't think he recognized them.
After too many instances of this, the adults in his childhood all felt that this child lacked manners and wasn't very likable.
As he grew up, many people called him aloof and arrogant.
Unfortunately, his personality was not the smooth and sociable kind. He couldn't bring himself to pretend he recognized someone when he clearly didn't.
Once a single lie was told, countless more had to be fabricated to cover it up, and being exposed was extremely awkward.
Therefore, profound lessons had taught Yu Hai to rarely lie. His strategy was to remain silent when he could not be entirely honest.
Trust me, human imagination has no limits and no principles.
When faced with certain questions you are unwilling to answer, you only need to frown and wear an expression of hesitation. The other person will automatically fill in the blanks with their own assumed answers.
Then, most people would return an understanding smile.
Thus, to avoid exhausting himself and complicating his life, Yu Hai had grown accustomed to avoiding gatherings with unfamiliar people as much as possible.
Just like now, he subconsciously rejected an opportunity that might have been more beneficial to his future.
Of course, another very important reason was that Yu Hai liked to secretly develop his skills and then amaze everyone.
He wanted his first appearance before the public to be relatively flawless.
The attributes currently displayed by his system had not yet reached his goal of astonishing everyone.
The staff member on the other end of the phone did not know whether to believe his explanation. Without dwelling on it, they asked for his bank account and shipping address, stated that they would mail him the winning certificate, and smoothly hung up the phone.
Many creators had their own quirks; some could be high-profile enough to dance seductively on stage, while others could be low-profile enough to want to crawl into a sewer at the sight of someone. What did it matter?
When talented people did it, everyone called it personality.
Just as he hung up the Music Association's call and before he could even put down his phone, it rang again.
"Hello?"
"Hello, may I ask if this is Mr. Whale Fall?"
"Yes."
"Hello, this is the music department of Xingyao Entertainment. Our company sincerely invites you to join our composition department..."
"I'll consider it."
Yu Hai hung up the phone. Two seconds later, it rang again.
"Hello, Mr. Whale Fall, we at Nanling Media Co., Ltd. would like to invite you..."
Hung up. One second later, it rang again.
"Excuse me, does Mr. Whale Fall have some time?"
"Mr. Whale Fall, we have a collaboration..."
...
In just a few minutes, Yu Hai received calls from several entertainment companies. He hurriedly hung up and turned off his phone, which finally brought some peace and quiet.
Yu Hai guessed that these people must have found his number through the contact information he filled out for the competition registration—information that entertainment companies could easily obtain from the Music Association.
For the next period, Yu Hai holed up at home to recover, waiting for the trial of Su Yucheng's case while occasionally keeping an eye on the aftermath of the songwriting competition.
From time to time, he would consume emotional fruits to boost his appearance, vocal conditions, and singing skills.
After a massive harvest, the ripening time for subsequent fruits noticeably slowed down. Yu Hai had anticipated this long ago.
Checking the gold coins stored in his system, he found he had over a dozen, enough to redeem a song.
However, Yu Hai didn't choose any for the time being.
He planned to check the Music Association's website later to see if there were any song bounty tasks. Perhaps completing one would earn him some extra cash.
The official website of the Music Association had many practical features for musicians.
For instance, it contained a song auction pool.
Many composers could upload demos of songs they had written, and singers or music companies could pick and choose the ones they wanted for bidding.
Prices varied, depending entirely on the level of competition.
In addition, the official website also featured a bounty wall.
Many film and gaming companies that couldn't find satisfactory musical works would post their requirements on this bounty wall, offering varying rewards. Many composers would take on the bounty tasks listed here. Copyrights and royalties were all open for negotiation.
The relevant rules were formulated in great detail, and with the official Music Association acting as a safety net, the risk of being scammed was practically nonexistent.
Naturally, compared to specially commissioned works, the rewards here were generally a bit lower.
This was also the confidence that allowed Yu Hai to reject the awards banquet without a second thought. As long as he had works in hand, he wasn't afraid of failing to make money.
Sorting the bounty amounts from highest to lowest, Yu Hai was about to select one to redeem a song when he suddenly noticed a pinned announcement on the Music Association's official website.
Call for Global Games opening theme songs for 2022.
Yu Hai subconsciously clicked on it.
He carefully read through the detailed contents and requirements. After pondering for a moment, he felt he could give this a try.
However, the submission window lasted over a month, ending on October 1st, so there was no rush. He bookmarked it first.
Yu Hai returned to the previous page and continued browsing the bounty listings.
He quickly selected a suitable and relatively simple task. The main draw was that the pay wasn't cheap.
One million for a single song.
For an ordinary composer, this was already the price ceiling.
The brief contained only a single requirement: a song written for an ex-lover.
Well, there was plenty of material for that.
Yu Hai flipped through the system's redemption interface and finally redeemed 《Let's Go Our Separate Ways》, with lyrics by Zhang Chuqiao, composition by Wu Lecheng, and originally sung by Renee Chan.
Listening to this song after a heartbreak would probably break anyone's defenses.
Yu Hai muttered to himself and closed the webpage.
Over the next two days, Yu Hai waited until his phone finally received a bank transfer notification of over eighty thousand yuan, which was the competition prize money after tax.
He had money now.
Yu Hai first calculated the uses for this money.
First was next year's tuition, and given his current situation, staying on campus wasn't very convenient; he needed to rent a place nearby, followed by the expenses for renting a recording studio.
Calculating it this way, he didn't seem to have too many places where he needed to spend money.
Yu Hai fell into contemplation.
He might as well buy a musical instrument; as a musician, not having a single instrument at home seemed rather unjustified.
Whatever was left could just be saved for now.
No longer fretting over living expenses, Yu Hai felt he had truly settled down in this world and happily decided to take a nap.
Then he was startled awake by a nightmare.
Feeling the cold sweat on his forehead, Yu Hai couldn't help but consider visiting a psychologist again to get some medication.
The depression in this body was quite severe; it wasn't something that would magically get better just because he changed his mindset. Making a full recovery would still take quite a while.
The doctor had previously suggested that Yu Hai take medication, but Yu Hai knew that antidepressants had heavy side effects, so he had refused.
Yu Hai touched his left wrist, where the wound had already scabbed over, leaving an ugly scar.
He should buy a few wristbands to wear when he had time.
It wouldn't do to scare the children looking like this.
To keep himself from being too idle and overthinking, Yu Hai got up and booked a recording studio online. With great efficiency, he recorded the demo of 《Let's Go Our Separate Ways》 that very day, uploaded it to the Music Association, and left it alone, waiting for them to contact him.
Then he began searching online for apartments near the school.
At this point, there were only a little over ten days left until the start of school in September. Finding a place and moving in early would prevent any trouble caused by rushing things at the last minute.
Meanwhile, the post-production for the film 《Goodbye, Ex-lover》 was mostly complete.
However, the director and his team were still agonizing over the movie's theme song.
The lead actors in this film were not the wildly popular young idols of the moment; their acting skills were good, but their fame was indeed lacking, which was very detrimental to the film's promotion. Therefore, the film's director Wu Xiaoshan had always wanted to find a song that could explode in popularity to serve as the promotional track.
A song that could make people want to step into the cinema just upon hearing it.
Unfortunately, after sending out requests to several music companies, the results he got left him unsatisfied.
In the end, he had no choice but to post a bounty on the Music Association. An offer of one million was certainly not enough for those gold-medal composers, but Wu Xiaoshan still wanted to try his luck.
Regrettably, after a few days, the quality of the songs received was even worse than what the music companies had provided.
"If nothing else works, we might as well use that song 《Daring to Love and Hate》 composed by Teacher Lu Feng," the producer suggested.
Wu Xiaoshan frowned. Although 《Daring to Love and Hate》 sounded pleasant and would likely have good mainstream appeal, it didn't quite fit the atmosphere of the movie.
Just as everyone was hesitating, the assistant's computer suddenly chimed with a message notification.
He quickly looked up at the director: "It's the Music Association's official website, someone has submitted a piece."
Wu Xiaoshan's brow remained furrowed, holding out little hope as he simply said, "Play it and let's listen."
Before long, Yu Hai's pleasant voice echoed through the office:
"Hold me close"
"Just pretend we were never together"
"Is that alright?"
"There's no time left for explanations"
Barely two hearings in, Wu Xiaoshan sat straight up, pricking up his ears as a dawn of hope surged across his face.
When the minute-long demo ended, Wu Xiaoshan had completely shed his previous look of distress: "Not bad, this song is a perfect fit. Let's go with this one."
The other heads nodded in agreement, and Wu Xiaoshan asked the assistant, "Whose composition is this?"
The assistant glanced at the computer screen and replied, "Whale Fall."
A question mark popped up over Wu Xiaoshan's head: "Whale Fall? Never heard of him."
The assistant checked the author profile displayed on the computer: this year's composition competition gold prize winner.
Wu Xiaoshan's realization dawned.