Lu Chen had a dream—a very, very long dream.
In the dream, the world was both familiar and strange, with different people acting out different dramas, and yet he had actually lived through three entirely different lives in this world!
The first life belonged to a singer named Xu Bo. Bold, unrestrained, and wildly in love with music, Xu Bo possessed considerable talent but could never quite make it big, drifting about like a duckweed on the water.
In the second life, his name was Mo Ran. An actor, plain-looking, steady, and introverted, he had played all sorts of roles across many film and television productions, but they were always supporting roles. With exceptional acting skills, he remained forever someone else's foil.
The final life belonged to Fang Mingyi, a freelance writer who loved music, movies, travel, and food. Always wandering the ends of the earth with a backpack, he scraped together a living online with an irreverent writing style full of mockery and satire.
By a wonderful twist of fate, a chance gathering brought Xu Bo, Mo Ran, and Fang Mingyi together. Despite their vastly different personalities, they shared plenty of common ground and became true, close friends.
Later, the three of them set off on a trip together. On the winding mountain road leading to the Yulong Snow Mountain, they were suddenly struck by a mudslide. As countless tons of mud mixed with rock shattered the car windows and poured inside, a massive wave of terror and suffocation jerked Lu Chen violently awake, causing him to bolt upright in bed!
He panted heavily, his forehead covered in a fine layer of sweat, his eyes dazed and completely lost.
It took a long time for Lu Chen to pull himself together.
As his vision slowly focused, what came into view was his painfully familiar, squalid room. The dim light of a small desk lamp barely illuminated this cramped space of less than ten square meters. Aside from the bed he lay on, a set of worn-out table and chairs, and a wardrobe, there was not a single other piece of furniture.
Yet he still couldn't quite figure out whether he was Xu Bo, Mo Ran, or Fang Mingyi. The memories of all three were so vivid and lifelike that they were deeply and inseparably engraved into his very soul.
Lu Chen hastily threw on his jacket, stumbled into the tiny bathroom, and quickly turned on the faucet, cupping water in his hands to splash directly onto his face.
The sharp shock of the ice-cold tap water instantly cleared his sluggish mind.
Reflected in the mirror was a young face.
The bone structure was strong, with striking, chiseled features. He had sword-like brows, bright and deep-set eyes, a high-bridged nose, and thin lips carrying a hint of stubbornness. Yet between his brows lingered an indescribable sense of dejection and exhaustion, revealing a deep disappointment and bleakness toward life.
Lu Chen was finally able to confirm that he was still himself—a twenty-two-year-old young man who hadn't finished college and had been drifting in Beijing for nearly a year!
Beep, beep, beep! The cell phone left on the nightstand suddenly emitted a loud alarm.
Lu Chen shook his head hard, forcing himself to temporarily forget the chaotic thoughts in his mind, brushed his teeth and washed up hurriedly, then left his basement apartment to run off to work.
His current home was in the Jingming Community, located in Beijing between the Third and Fourth Ring Roads, specifically inside one of the dozens of partitioned rooms in the basement of an old building.
The rent for a tiny room of less than ten square meters was a staggering 1,200 yuan, but it had the advantage of an independent bathroom. It was also not far from where Lu Chen worked during the day, and just a five-minute walk to the nearest subway station.
In Beijing, a mega-city with a population of over thirty million, there were countless outsiders like Lu Chen, struggling forward either for a living or for a dream.
They were often called "Beijing drifters" or the "ant tribe," and some even self-mockingly referred to themselves as "drifting ants."
As one of these "drifting ants," Lu Chen dashed out of the residential complex and onto the sidewalk. Breaking through the morning mist, he ran briskly toward his workplace.
Everything was as usual, and yet everything seemed to have changed.
As the sun sank into dusk, Lu Chen dragged his exhausted body back to his dim and dreary little room.
He threw himself heavily onto the single bed, closed his eyes to rest for a moment, rallied his spirits, sat back up, and reached out to pick up the guitar leaning against the bedside.
This single-panel guitar was Lu Chen's most precious possession at the moment. The soundboard was made of white pine, while the back and sides were rosewood plywood. White pine is universally recognized as one of the best materials for making guitars; it produces a robust tone with an exceptional texture, and after a period of playing, it becomes even more sensitive to sound.
Even in his darkest moments, Lu Chen had never thought of selling this guitar, because it was an eighteenth-birthday gift given to him by Lu Xue.
Lu Xue was Lu Chen's younger sister, and buying this guitar had consumed all of her saved pocket money!
In three hours, Lu Chen would use this guitar to earn his second paycheck.
By day, Lu Chen was a part-time worker at a KFC branch. By night, he served as a waiter and on-demand singer at a bar in Beijing's Houhai. Working two jobs at once, his daily working hours exceeded fifteen hours.
Lu Chen didn't want to push himself this hard, but the mountain-like debts at home forced him to; otherwise, his sister would face the danger of dropping out of school, and numerous creditors would come knocking on his door.
Lu Chen also had an older sister who, just like him, was struggling to pay off the debts. As the only man in the family, what reason did he have to shirk his own responsibilities? Clutching the guitar, Lu Chen gently plucked the steel strings, and the melodious sound poured out like flowing water, filling the tiny room.
For some reason, he felt that his casual playing today was extraordinarily comfortable. His usually somewhat clumsy fingering had become incomparably deft, as though he had practiced thousands of times and reached a state of effortless mastery.
With a stir in his heart, Lu Chen straightened his spine and began to play earnestly.
He played and sang a song called "Flying Pigeon".
"Flying Pigeon" was a pop song composed more than a decade ago by the famous singer Tan Hong. With its beautiful melody, it was considered one of the best folk songs for guitar accompaniment, though it demanded a high level of skill in both fingering and vocal performance.
Lu Chen wasn't a music major, just an ordinary pop music enthusiast. He had studied guitar playing for a few years, and singing and playing by himself could charm quite a few young girls.
To put it bluntly, back then when his family was wealthy, Lu Chen merely used guitar playing and singing as a tool to show off. As for actually making a living, his amateur skills meant he could only be an on-demand bar singer—he only sang if someone requested a song, and if no one did, he would at best fill in the gaps, firmly at the very bottom of the hierarchy of bar singers.
Lu Chen had played and sung "Flying Pigeon" in the past as well, but lacking the proficiency to master it, he couldn't execute the precise fingering nor capture the artistic conception of the song, making a fool of himself by awkwardly imitating an expert.
Yet playing and singing "Flying Pigeon" once again, he found that all the technical difficulties in fingering had vanished. Opening his breath to sing softly and melodiously, the lingering sound echoed in the room with a uniquely captivating charm.
"Dreaming of becoming a pigeon flying in the azure sky, la-la-ah~"
When he finished, Lu Chen's fingers pressed against the strings, and he froze.
How could this be? Was this really sung and played by himself?
Tap, tap! The door to his room was suddenly knocked upon.
Coming to his senses, Lu Chen put down the guitar and said, "Come in, the door's unlocked!"
The door was quickly pushed open, and a tall, thin man wearing glasses walked in with an exaggerated smile, giving Lu Chen a thumbs-up. "Big pop star, absolutely amazing!"
Lu Chen laughed. "Then why don't you hurry up and tip me? Just a few thousand or tens of thousands will do!"
"Not a cent to my name, but you can have my life!"
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The bespectacled man wailed loudly, wearing an expression of stubborn defiance that made people want to kick him.
This bespectacled man was Lu Chen's next-door neighbor, named Li Feiyu. A native of Hunan, he had been in Beijing for three years and currently worked as a salesman at a car dealership.
The basement space was enclosed, and the rooms were partitioned with fireproof boards, resulting in very poor soundproofing. Thus, whenever Lu Chen practiced his guitar and singing in his cramped quarters, the neighbors could hear it loud and clear.
"Big pop star" was a nickname Li Feiyu had given Lu Chen—a sort of good-natured banter. Because the two were close in age and got along well, they had become friends, and the former often dropped by to visit during his free time.
Li Feiyu also loved to sing, but he was tone-deaf, and his singing sounded like ghosts wailing. However, he did have a bit of an appreciation for pop music, and having passed by just now and heard Lu Chen playing and singing "Flying Pigeon," he had been left completely dumbfounded.
"Seriously though, bro..."
After the joke, Li Feiyu said very earnestly, "Your singing really was fantastic. Although the style is a bit different from Tan Hong's, it's just as full of atmosphere. It's at least ten times better than those bubblegum pop songs you used to sing!"
He spread all ten fingers, looking as though he wanted to lift his feet as well to make up the number.
Lu Chen smiled. "Thank you!"
He knew that his singing in the past really hadn't been anything special.
"Well, that's just weird."
A mysterious expression appeared on Li Feiyu's face. He looked around left and right, lowered his voice, and said, "Brother, you wouldn't happen to have been possessed by the God of Songs, would you? A loser youth encounters a miraculous encounter, his cultivation surges, and from then on he steps onto the peak of life, wins a wealthy and beautiful bride, and carouses every night..."
Li Feiyu had another hobby: reading web novels online, which gave him an extremely rich imagination.
"Go to hell!"
Between laughter and tears, Lu Chen threw a flying kick in his direction, interrupting the other's ramblings.
Yet the memories of Xu Bo, the singer from his dream, instantly welled up in his heart—Xu Bo not only sang exceptionally well, but was also skilled at playing the guitar, handling both folk and classical guitars with uncanny mastery.
"I dodge!"
Li Feiyu nimbly leaped to the doorway and laughed, "Big pop star, if you can also write original songs, then coupled with your current playing and singing standards, I dare bet you'll definitely make it big!"
Definitely make it big? Lu Chen gave a bitter smile and shook his head, standing up to close the bedroom door.
Beijing was a gathering place of talents and the cultural center of the entire country. Among the millions of Beijing drifters, there were countless talented musicians and singers—how many actually made it big? To become famous, talent, strength, connections, and luck were all indispensable!
What did he, Lu Chen, have? And since when was original songwriting something so simple— Suddenly, a flash of inspiration seemed to streak through Lu Chen's mind, instantly lighting up his thoughts.
Original songs? Right, original songs!
He lunged toward the small desk, impatiently booting up his old laptop.
He was already used to the fifty-second startup time, but now every second felt like a year. Finally reaching the desktop, Lu Chen immediately moved his mouse and clicked hard on a software icon he hadn't opened in a long time.
It felt like opening a door that would change his destiny!