Love Variety Show: The despised me exploded in popularity

Lin Wanzhou hesitated for a moment, then clicked on the Penguin Music link shared by Xu Qingyan.

She had been wasting time these past two weeks, as the company intentionally had her attend some meaningless events. Commercial performances were both tiring and troublesome, and it was normal to work non-stop for a week.

After loading for a while, the app crashed abruptly. With no choice, she had to exit the chat and open the Penguin Music app. After waiting two seconds, the homepage loaded, and she glanced over it.

Huh? There was no "Qing Tian," nor any promotional recommendations for Pei Muchan and the like. With Pei Muchan's fame, she shouldn't have failed to secure a prominent homepage feature.

It was highly likely that she hadn't signed an exclusive deal, so there wasn't even a new song recommendation.

She searched for "Qing Tian," and after a while, several related songs popped up. "You're A Big Qing Tian," "After Qing Tian," she had to scroll down to find Pei Muchan's new song "Qing Tian."

Lin Wanzhou was not surprised, as this indeed happens without an exclusive contract. But once the new song's metrics improved, its ranking and relevance in search results would rise as well.

Correspondingly, if the new song became a hit, it would receive support despite not having an exclusive deal.

Simply put, Pei Muchan's new song was in a cold start state.

She clicked on the song "Qing Tian," but before the intro even started to play, Lin Wanzhou paused it. She didn't care whether the song was good or not, she was more concerned about something else.

She clicked on the song details, Lyrics and Music: Xu Qingyan.

After finishing, she exited back to the main screen and there was Pei Muchan's album portrait. The backdrop was a classroom window corner, sunlight falling onto her profile, outside the window stood a leafy banyan tree.

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It was just a portrait, yet the heat of summer seemed to hit her face as if she could hear the cicada's song amidst the dense foliage.

In the back seat of the car, she straightened up and examined Pei Muchan's portrait more carefully. It was clear a lot of thought had gone into it, the details were well handled.

She gently pressed the play button, and the intro to "Qing Tian" followed a common chord progression, the dissection of the 6415 chords, very classic.

What's rare and commendable is that the guitar sound was very clean.

Every singer has a different interpretation of summer, without a standard answer. But in the instant the song's intro played, Lin Wanzhou felt a strong sense of recognition.

The summer she remembered was indeed clean and bright like this.

Pei Muchan's voice was unique, her breath control steady and her singing technique excellent. The first line she sang immediately captivated Lin Wanzhou, "Little yellow flowers from the story, drifting from the year they were born."

The lyrics flowed one line at a time on the phone, echoing off the walls of the Buick. The beat was leisurely, the entire song depicted rain without being sad in the slightest.

The classroom, the large playground for evening strolls, and the banyan tree beside the school's football field. The eaves where they took shelter from the rain, the shy first love, the glances at him one could barely manage to avoid.

Damp rainy days, little thoughts slowly blooming.

"Once upon a time, once upon a time, there was a person who loved you for a long time, but unfortunately....."

Lin Wanzhou's thoughts became increasingly cluttered, as she recalled some past events. Xu Qingyan was very popular in school, having friends in every class of the grade.

In Qinghe where it often rained, the middle school's rural playground would swell up like a muddy pastry. Even with pebble-strewn ground, it was still spotted with puddles, muddy and soup-like.

Back then, she was frail and had to run exercises with the boarding students at six in the morning to prepare for the high school entrance physical exam.

In the south, six o'clock in winter was pitch dark, and the grounds were somewhat wet. She, unfortunately, took a fall. A boy offered her his jacket, Xu Qingyan happened to pass by and promptly helped her ask for leave.

On that test day, she missed an exam and Xu Qingyan topped the class.

At the time, the girls in the class teased Xu Qingyan about it behind his back, and the boys were even more direct, joking with him outright.

No matter how Lin Wanzhou tried to explain to Xu Qingyan, the teasing didn't stop.

If she hadn't taken leave that day, hadn't gone home to change and take medicine, perhaps the following exam, even all the exams of that day, would have been affected.

The distance between her and the person she liked seemed close, yet she had never drawn any nearer.

"Qing Tian" was now at its climax, "But unfortunately, the wind gradually blew the distance so far.... Yet at the end of the story, you still said goodbye."n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

After listening to the entire song, Lin Wanzhou felt somewhat choked up, she saw the shadow of her own youth within this song.

She recalled another dusk of parting, the basketball hitting the three-pointer marking, also crashing down on her youth that had been shaking for many years. Even covered in dust, it was lively and vivid because of someone.

Remembering the sunny days from ten years ago, walking on the rudimentary stone path of the sports track during physical education class. The temperature was mildly hot, with the person she liked not ten meters away. Looking up at the sky, it was a pure blue.

Sighing softly, Lin Wanzhou once again reviewed the song's details.

Undoubtedly, it was an extremely excellent song, whether in terms of lyrics and music or performance, it was top-notch.

Her fingertips lingered on the screen, hovering over the words "Lyrics and Music: Xu Qingyan." She couldn't help but think, if she had bought this song herself, would she have sung it better?

Lin Wanzhou was momentarily disoriented, then she opened WeChat and found Xu Qingyan's chat interface. Pressing the record button, she slowly began, "Little yellow flowers from the story..."

At the edge of the parking lot, Qi Ting squatted in an unoccupied corner without a hint of ladylike demeanor, smoking a cigarette.

It wasn't that she wanted to smoke, but working in this industry was indeed about selling one's physical strength. Burning the midnight oil and driving overnight were routine; not chewing betel nuts was her last line of defense for her body.

After each cigarette, she anxiously checked her teeth, already showing considerable restraint.