Chapter 111: A Very Strange Person

Like many netizens, the staff at Ninety-Nine Music opened Everyday Music the moment the news broke.

With the outside world in such an uproar, and with a song their own company had rejected somehow turning up in the hands of a rival, it would be a lie to say they were not at least a little curious.

They were also eager to hear just how bad this song really was.

But compared with watching Xu Man become a joke, they preferred watching Everyday Music make a joke of itself.

Nothing made people happier than laughing at a competitor.

Only minutes earlier, they had still been gathered together with their colleagues, joking about whether Everyday Music would be driven out of the market entirely after this.

As a music platform, if it did not even possess the most basic sense of taste, if it could not even tell whether a song was good or bad, what value did it have at all?

"Relax! They'll be the ones who destroy themselves!"

"Their market share was already the smallest among the five major platforms. After this, even if they aren't eliminated, they'll probably just be waiting to die."

"Hahahaha, I almost pity them."

They laughed and jeered, certain that Everyday Music had no way out.

They still had great confidence in their own company. Since the company had refused to release the song on its platform, that was proof enough that the song was not all that good.

Once they opened Everyday Music, the large and eye-catching poster on the homepage immediately caught their eye.

They clicked straight into it.

A few colleagues who were still busy with work saw the scene and, almost instinctively, put down what they were doing and leaned halfway out of their chairs to look toward the coworker who had already opened the poster.

The music began to play very soon.

All of them wore faint smiles, relaxed, disdainful, or mocking.

But after listening for only a short while, those expressions slowly froze.

Half a minute later, every smile had vanished, replaced by a heavy, lingering seriousness.

Then, the world went quiet.

In barely more than three minutes, the building that had moments ago been full of noise and laughter was suddenly plunged into dead silence.

The staff stared at one another with their mouths open, wearing expressions of utter disbelief.

They could all see the disbelief in each other's eyes.

They were stunned.

They could not laugh anymore.

Their minds went blank.

No one knew how much time had passed before a colleague noticed that Content Director Xiao Hang had hurried out of his office in a panic and, with visibly rushed steps, knocked on the door of the general manager's office.

Clearly, he had been summoned by the general manager.

A few minutes later, many people heard furious roars coming from inside that office.

Very few knew exactly what had happened in there, but the staff at Ninety-Nine Music knew that another ten minutes later, the general manager's office had personally drafted an article and posted it on the company's official microblog to answer the flood of accusations pouring in from outside.

In that article, Ninety-Nine Music first expressed its sincere apologies to Miss Xu Man, and then explained the entire sequence of events.

It said that the reason Xu Man's new song had been rejected was Xiao Hang's personal fault as content director. It said that he had even rejected it without listening to the song at all. It said that he had already been demoted and had his salary cut, and so on and so forth.

It looked quite sincere.

After seeing that post, not only were the media and netizens outside stunned, even the staff at Ninety-Nine Music were dumbfounded.

He rejected it without even listening to the song?

Wasn't that a little too outrageous?

However, the netizens who were already deeply suspicious of Ninety-Nine Music's professionalism were not buying it, and many of them even mocked them directly.

"A temp worker, huh? We get it!"

"That scapegoat was thrown so badly I can hardly watch."

"If your business skills are lacking, just admit it. Stop making up so many excuses."

Most people sneered at that explanation.

A personal reason on the part of the content director?

Whether it was true or false aside, even if it were true, did Ninety-Nine Music deserve sympathy?

Missing out on Xu Man's new song was not something that could be blamed on one innocent person in the higher ranks of Ninety-Nine Music. Hardly anyone there could claim to be blameless.

In the end, this was still a problem with the company's own rules and systems, so there was no need to come out here pretending to be pitiful and trying to win sympathy.

...

Not long after the official microblog post from Ninety-Nine Music, the major music platforms quickly adjusted their mindset.

What had been lost was lost; no amount of regret could change that.

Xiao Hang's fate was not worthy of even the slightest sympathy.

They had no time to sympathize anyway, because they had more important things to do.

Deng Ziqi.

Ordinary listeners might not pay much attention to the lyricist and composer, but for music platforms, such information was especially important.

Once the senior management of the major platforms recovered their senses, they immediately arranged for people to investigate the personal information of this Deng Ziqi.

The name meant nothing to them. She was probably a newcomer who had only just entered the industry. If that was true, then she might still have other works in her hands.

With Xu Man's new song causing a sensation across the entire music scene, whoever found her first might very well possess the miracle cure needed to revive the industry.

Unfortunately, to their great disappointment, the staff searched everywhere and still found nothing about her.

...

Xu Man's studio.

Xu Man sat quietly on the sofa in the lounge area, silently watching her team rush about in tense, busy motion.

Her heart was full of emotion.

She had not felt this sensation of being watched by the whole world in a very long time.

Her studio had also not been this busy in a long time.

It had been more than half an hour since the new song was released, and in that half hour, the phone in her studio had practically never stopped ringing.

All kinds of collaboration requests came flying toward them like snowflakes.

Major television stations, commercial performances, advertisements, interviews...

The doubts, criticism, and ridicule that had once surrounded her were wiped away in an instant, as though they had never existed at all.

Watching the constant stream of praise from the outside world, the corners of her eyes suddenly grew moist.

Even she could sense that her emotions were a little unstable.

To be honest, this outcome had been completely beyond her expectations.

When she first received Light Years Away, she did think the melody was good, and although Chen Qi had said with great confidence that this song could reach the top of the chart, she had remained cautious and never placed too much hope in it.

The higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment.

She had already fallen hard once before.

Before release, before the market had tested it, there were far too many unstable factors. Having learned that lesson, she would never again be so blindly confident.

Though she had seemed calm and unruffled in recent days, the truth was that she had also been extremely nervous. She had simply never shown it.

For some reason, Xu Man suddenly felt the urge to cry.

Perhaps it was because she had waited too long for this day. Or perhaps it was because the glory that had once belonged to her had finally returned.

At that moment, her phone rang again.

Another music platform was calling.

Letting out a long breath, Xu Man quickly adjusted her mood and then answered the phone with a smile.

"Director Liu?"

"Thank you, thank you so much. It's nothing, really. Yes, yes, yes, all right. If there is a chance, we'll work together again next time."

"Deng Ziqi? She's a friend of mine, yes. Oh, I'm sorry, she specifically asked me not to reveal her personal information. I really am sorry..."

Two minutes later, Xu Man smiled again as she hung up.

This was already the third call she had received from a music platform.

In truth, she knew very well that all of these so-called congratulations and apologies were fake; what they really wanted was information about the lyricist and composer of Light Years Away.

Of course she did not tell them.

In fact, aside from knowing the name Deng Ziqi, she knew nothing else.

She had once asked Chen Qi about it out of curiosity, but he did not tell her. He only said that this was a friend from his hometown.

To be honest, she did have a little suspicion about the identity of the song's writer and composer.

That day, when she saw Chen Qi revise the song again and again, she could not help but doubt it.

If he was not the songwriter, then how could he know what the final effect of the song would be?

That made no sense at all.

What made even less sense was that if he really had written the song, why would he hide it?

He had previously filmed and produced Never Expected It, so it was obvious he was also planning to develop in the entertainment industry. There was no reason at all for him to reject fame and the halo that came with it.

Xu Man could not make sense of it, and in the end she could not be bothered to think about it anymore.

Let it be.

Speaking of Chen Qi, she was also a little puzzled. He had taken part in the tedious work of revising and recording the song these past few days, yet today, when this new song was being released and the occasion was so important, he had not come...

What a strange person.

But there was no denying that Xu Man was very interested in him.

After being in the industry for so many years, she had seen and heard plenty of bet contracts, but someone as bold and reckless as him was truly a first.

Judging by the current situation, she was definitely going to have to pay that five million for the song.

But... she was willing.

For a song of this quality, she would take as many as came.

...

The rental apartment.

After sleeping until he woke naturally, Chen Qi also glanced over the results of Light Years Away.

Mm. Just about as he had expected.

After roughly looking at the comments from netizens, he leisurely went out to buy groceries and prepare lunch.

What he did not know was that by then, two music platforms had already found out that he was the copyright holder of Light Years Away.

When they saw the name Chen Qi Studio, those two music platforms were also a little stunned.

That name was unfamiliar too.

Only after looking into it carefully did they learn about this rising star, Chen Qi.

Then, through various channels, they spent a long time and finally managed to get his contact information.

Once they had his number, they called immediately.

And then... there was no then.

His answer was much the same as Xu Man's: his friend did not want to be exposed.

After saying that, he hung up the phone...