"When you are old and your hair is gray,
And full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars."
These melodious vocals flowed like a gentle stream into everyone's hearts, weaving a tapestry of longing and adoration. From the moment Qin Tian opened his mouth, the audience's emotions soared on a roller coaster, plunging instantly from high-energy euphoria into deep nostalgia. Interestingly enough, Qin Tian had a little secret: fearing that the lyrics of his new song were too subtle for the audience to grasp, he had projected them onto the stage background. This served as a literal reading-comprehension feast for the spectators, allowing them to gaze at the words while losing themselves in the music.
When Qin Tian sang the song once more, tears glistened in the eyes of several people in the audience, and even Sister Na's eyes flushed red. Qin Tian muttered to himself inwardly: "Could this voice of mine be a fake 'The Voice'? Why do I feel like I'm competing on *I Am a Singer*, while Sister Na looks like she wandered onto the wrong set and would be much better suited as an actress?" That crying performance was far too deeply acted!
After the performance concluded, the result was a foregone conclusion. Qin Tian seized the opportunity to share his creative inspiration, while not forgetting to modestly show off his extensive reading volume. To be honest, the depth of this song hardly seemed like something written by someone of Qin Tian's age. Naturally, some people had suspected ghostwriting, but looking at Brother Kun's "The Answer", Sister Na's "Silence", and then Qin Tian's humble family background—well, presence and style were things you simply could not fake. Besides, hiring a ghostwriter required money!
In the end, the four mentors believed in Qin Tian's creative talent. After all, who would be foolish enough to hand over such high-quality work to someone else when they could have published it themselves or sold it for a fortune? Furthermore, during the arrangement discussions, Qin Tian always hit the nail on the head, offering profound insights that left all the mentors looking at him with newfound respect—especially mentor Liu Zhuo, who considered Qin Tian a rare, once-in-a-lifetime genius.
...
After entering Sister Na's team of four, the pace quickened. Because the other mentors still had to hold their respective four-strong matches, a waiting period was required. After about half a month of preparation, the team finals would take place. This time, Liang Bo would represent Sister Na's team in the finals.
For Qin Tian, winning the championship this year was not an absolute certainty. He lacked both powerful connections and deep financial backing, but he remained unfazed. After all, he possessed a decade of accumulated knowledge from his past life, boasting a catalog of over a hundred works. Even if he failed to win the championship, he could still carve out his own path through sheer ability. Besides, this wasn't even his peak period of popularity yet.
As for when he would be eliminated and when he would release "Xiang Chou", Qin Tian already had a carefully laid-out plan aimed at maximizing his impact. Following the conclusion of the second round, the assistant assigned to Qin Tian by Canxing finally arrived. She was a soft-spoken and utterly adorable young girl from Sichuan named Li Yu. To be frank, however, Qin Tian had no actual need for an assistant at the moment, leaving Li Yu with virtually no concrete duties. Canxing's gesture was merely a way to demonstrate how much they valued him. For now, Qin Tian's primary task was to prepare his competition song choices, while all other activities were temporarily shelved.
A minor interlude occurred in the meantime. Sun Qian, the manager arranged by Canxing, had already submitted "The Young China Speaks" to the Spring Festival Gala production team. Although preparations for the Gala had only just begun, the production team had already given a preliminary promise to include the song in the initial selection pool. This news left Qin Tian both pleasantly surprised and full of anticipation.
At the same time, I had instructed Sun Qian to contact the Mahua FunAge team. This year, their stage play *Goodbye Mr. Loser* had just been freshly released, generating quite a favorable market response. One had to remember that back then, Mahua FunAge was still just a fledgling little company.
Founded in 2003, Mahua FunAge was a team dedicated to the creation, arrangement, and performance of stage plays, musicals, and children's theater, making them a rising star in the art world. It was not until the broadcast of their Spring Festival Gala sketch *I Want Happiness* that they truly stepped into the public eye.
As for their soaring success, that would have to wait until 2014, when Mahua FunAge decided to adapt *Goodbye Mr. Loser* into a film spin-off. The result was a box office blockbuster that instantly skyrocketed their market value to over a billion yuan.
People might not fully understand Mahua FunAge's current developmental standing, but Sun Qian had conducted a personal investigation. She discovered that the company held a considerable number of original copyrights, making them veritable "minor plutocrats" in the copyright world. Back then, Mahua FunAge hadn't even thought about dabbling in the film industry—they simply "didn't dare to dream of it." Ultimately, however, Sun Qian managed to secure the film adaptation rights for a meager 300,000 yuan, on the condition that they would have priority in casting actors from Mahua FunAge. Qin Tian had shelled out this money entirely from his own pocket, earned directly from selling those four songs to the four mentors.
Oh, right. After the second round ended, Qin Tian had also acquired Huan Ge's song "A Lifelong Journey". Huan Ge was extremely pleased with the arrangement, and the various mentors, eager to help Qin Tian advance even further, decided to reveal Qin Tian as the lyricist and composer after the competition concluded, while also featuring the song on his upcoming album.
Setting that aside for the moment.
Speaking of copyright fees, they weren't nearly as exorbitant back then. When did they start getting so expensive? Ah, it was the latter half of 2012, when that legendary piece of cinematic trash *Tiny Times* burst onto the scene, pulling in over 400 million at the box office, which subsequently drove up novel copyright fees. In this day and age, if you were writing urban entertainment fiction without bashing Xiao Si or complaining about *Tiny Times*, it practically amounted to a political crime.
Dear readers, there is more to this chapter; please click the next page to continue reading. The best is yet to come!
Getting off track—let's return to the matter of song selection for The Voice. Each mentor's team had to select one person to represent them in the competition, and that contestant had to prepare two to three songs. Choosing songs right now was a genuine headache, especially for an original singer like Qin Tian. If he suddenly stopped singing original tracks, his persona would collapse completely! I was a talented prodigy, after all—I couldn't afford to flip my car!
Flipping through his notebook, Qin Tian finally settled on three songs: "Lone Brave", "Sunset Avenue", and "Year-Ring". Hehehe, using magic to defeat magic by deploying "Sunset Avenue" against Liang Bo—how about that? Hhahahaha.
With the songs chosen, Qin Tian seized the time to contact a recording studio and prepare to lay down all three tracks. In the blink of an eye, everything was ready, waiting only for the program's notification.
"Xiaotian, you should pay more attention to Weibo in your spare time," manager Sun Qian said. "Your follower count keeps rising. By the time the second round ends, you'll probably break one million followers."
"Sister Qian, what age groups do my fans fall into?" Qin Tian asked curiously.
"All age groups," Sun Qian replied. "According to the data analysis, 92% of your fanbase is female. Among them, 25% are mom-fans, and the remaining 75% are primarily students—out of that 75%, college students make up 25%, and middle and high school students account for 50%. They've even set up a 'Sweet Circle Post' for you on Baidu Tieba."
"Sister Qian, we really need to pay attention to this," Qin Tian said. "We need to guide the fans properly, especially since there are so many minors among them. We don't want them led astray by certain people."
Sun Qian rolled her eyes: "The more I interact with you, Xiaotian, the more I feel like your age doesn't match your personality at all. Were you just putting on an act before? Do you really need to be reminded of something like this? For now, let them grow wildly! Once the competition is over, the company will have a dedicated team to manage your Weibo."
"Oh, right, Sister Qian," Qin Tian said. "I'm about to finish recording the team finals, and the grand finals are scheduled for a live broadcast on September 30th. Since I have a whole month, can the company start preparing an album for me?"
"Have you finished writing them?" Sun Qian asked in astonishment. "Aren't you supposed to write everything yourself?"
"They're already written!" Qin Tian said smugly. "One Chinese-style album, one unrequited-love album! Sister Qian, which style do you think I should release first?"
No more pretending! The cards are on the table! I'm just that awesome!
"Just how many have you written?" Sun Qian asked, shocked. "Did you stockpile these from before? What's the quality like?"
"Eight or nine songs per album!" Qin Tian declared arrogantly. "All the songs are ready! My inspiration for writing just gushes forth like an unstoppable spring! It's an absolute torrent!"
"Fine, fine," Sun Qian conceded helplessly. "Just get the songs written first. I'll have the company's music director evaluate them and figure out what to do."
Are all talented people like this? Weren't all those big shots in the past known for singing a single song for their entire lifetime? You couldn't buy songs even if you wanted to! Good music was priceless and unavailable!
"Sister Qian! Hehehe! I want to discuss something with you," Qin Tian said with a crafty grin.
"Ew! (?_?)? Speak properly!" Sun Qian broke out in goosebumps all over.
"It's nothing major," Qin Tian said. "I just want to shoot a few music videos for the album. I was hoping you could help me fight for that."
"Nobody even watches music videos for digital albums these days." Sun Qian retorted.
"This is my first one, though! Let's make one!" Qin Tian pleaded.
"Fine, fine! A young man with quite the vanity!" Sun Qian muttered curses as she walked away.
Hehehehe!!!
I'd better find a great female lead for that music video!