Chapter Eighty-Eight: Mist and Drizzle, Bitter and Dim [Four-Thousand-Word Bonus Update]

“It looks like we have to trouble everyone with overtime again…”

“No need, no need. Young Master Ren’s recording sessions always move incredibly fast. Besides, everyone here wants to witness his musical mastery. Last time we recorded Ascending to Heaven, we only caught a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg. Far from satisfying.”

Everyone chuckled. Lately, life had been very good indeed.

First of all,

they had used work as an excuse to stay away from the wives at home, who were every bit as fierce as wolves and tigers, and no longer had to endure daily scoldings.

It was common knowledge that people who pushed art to the highest peaks were often not especially gifted in emotional intelligence. At home, they tended to be awkward and clumsy, and inevitably earned themselves a barrage of rebukes and complaints...

When poverty presses, one seeks change. Everyone wanted to get out and breathe.

Second,

after going several days without paying their marital dues, these fellows seemed reborn, transformed from head to toe. No more dizzy spells, no more aching backs; even their steps felt lighter.

Once a man has restored his vigor, he naturally pours more enthusiasm into his musical pursuits.

Of course, in the eyes of many staff members, these lunatics, every one of them brimming with artistic cells, were scarcely different from mental patients.

Though they only needed to come in for two hours of rehearsal each day, they insisted on staying in the studio day and night, playing with manic abandon.

More than once, the staff had been shocked speechless by the raucous scenes inside the studio: a fat man with flowing hair and a thin, greasy-looking fellow with a frozen smile were actually trading licks and flirting with their eyes.

You play a phrase, I play a phrase, both delighted.

At times they even gazed at each other with mutual appreciation and exchanged glances like lovers.

They put on the air of “I hate that you were born too early, and you hate that I was born too late; how I wish we had met before either of us was married.” To the staff, this kind of musical communion was simply a kind of Platonic same-sex romance.

It was enough to give anyone goosebumps.

Later, the topic the staff would discuss outside became: “You can never imagine how insane musicians can get.”

“From now on, I will never let my children learn music. They’re neurotic, and their sexual orientation is horribly twisted.”

“I heard that when Boss Ren writes lyrics, he likes to run naked at home!”

...

“First, turn off all communication devices for me. Don’t ever let me run into that sort of thing again, where your wife calls in the middle of rehearsal and disrupts everything!”

Ren Qian dragged over a swivel chair and sat down heavily, warning the musicians in a stern voice.

He still remembered a henpecked saxophone player who, in full view of everyone, had actually blown himself out of breath. And the result was that, before dozens or even hundreds of people, he produced a string of lingering, melodious fart-like sounds.

It was hard to describe the sound. In any case, it was disgusting. Neither loud nor deep, and with a damp sort of quality to it. The moment it started, Ren Qian wanted to curse aloud.

Damn it, who uses a saxophone like that? Were they deliberately looking for trouble?

“Who? Step forward! Why did this happen?”

The saxophonist, red with shame, raised his hand and stammered out an explanation to Ren Qian. He was truly forced into it. His wife at home was strict beyond measure, and every hour or so she would call to interrogate his whereabouts, making sure he wasn’t fooling around outside.

So unless he was on a program, the saxophonist never dared turn off his phone. Being afraid of one’s wife to this degree could no longer simply be called cowardice.

Ren Qian struggled to hold back his laughter, and then, possessed by some ghostly impulse, he asked, “What kind of martial arts does your wife know?”

“Outer-school northern long fist. It’s fierce enough to floor me in seconds...”

“My woman learned southern boxing at seven, and she’s blended the essence of the Liu, Hung, Choy, Lee, Mok, and Wing Chun schools. At home I don’t even dare speak loudly...”

...

The moment Ren Qian said that, dozens of people present could not help pouring out their grievances.

Only then did he learn that the empire had once issued a law: girls over the age of seven were to learn the basics of martial arts, and women of fourteen were even required to become proficient in one style of boxing.

So if you just pulled any woman off the street at random, she would be the kind who could knock down a grown man with one punch.

Ren Qian did not know whether to laugh or cry. No wonder the nurse girl was so formidable, and no wonder that, after so long in this world, he had never once seen a man dare offend a woman. It wasn’t that gentlemen were especially virtuous; it was that they did not dare.

Seeing that the concert was about to turn into a grievance-sharing session, Ren Qian quickly silenced the discussion.

“Fifteen minutes to familiarize yourselves with the score. While you’re getting acquainted, I’ll briefly explain the mood of the piece.

“I want everyone to create, to the fullest, that hazy beauty of ‘drizzling rain in the season of Pure Brightness, travelers on the road with hearts nearly broken.’ One part sorrow, nine parts melancholy.”

The musicians all nodded.

Hazy atmosphere? Easy enough to find. They propped up the score Ren Qian had arranged in front of them and studied it carefully.

They had worked with Ren Qian for some time and knew he had particular habits. With other singers in front of him, a piece had to be rehearsed dozens or even hundreds of times before it was allowed onto the stage.

But when Ren Qian recorded songs himself, advance rehearsals with the band were rare.

At first, some of the musicians thought Ren Qian was being arrogant. But after spending some time with him, they discovered that his sense of music was nearly demonic.

As long as the musicians did not make mistakes, even without prior rehearsal he could land every note with absolute precision. Not half a beat too much, not half a beat too little.

That was skill, and that was talent. Heaven favors whom it will; there is no arguing with that.

Ren Qian sat quietly in the swivel chair, saying nothing as he watched the musicians tune their instruments and run through the song.

He fell into thought.

The song he was about to sing was an old one.

Very old.

Perhaps only people of a certain age, or devoted fans of Cantonese music, had ever heard it. Only those who knew this man would remember it, because this song had come from the golden age of Harbor City entertainment.

And whenever one spoke of the golden age of Harbor City entertainment, Leslie Cheung and Alan Tam could never be avoided.

The rivalry between Leslie and Alan was indeed dazzling. For a time, they became synonymous with Harbor City itself. Yet before the two of them, there had already been a superstar who rose to fame smoothly from the very beginning.

When the two were still unknown, that superstar was already blazing in Harbor City; and when Leslie and Alan were at the height of their glory, his brilliance remained undimmed.

He was Danny Chan, the first idol and talented singer-songwriter of the Harbor City music scene.

Noble and elegant, melancholic and restrained, he lacked nothing in either looks or talent. Like a beauty lost in a corrupt world, yet beauty is often short-lived, and great talent often dies young.

Just like Leslie Cheung, just like Roman Tam, he too left behind the sorrowful sighs that come whenever heaven envies genius.

Many said Danny Chan was the man with the strongest aristocratic air in all of Harbor City. Every gesture of his carried an intoxicating refinement.

That was also why his fans only grew in number after his death.

Ren Qian himself had once, for a period of time, become one of those fans, madly infatuated with classics like Passionately in Love with You, Waiting, and What Else Can I Ask For in Life.

...

On an autumn afternoon, one could brew a pot of warm tea, switch on an old-fashioned radio, and play a cassette that had been treasured for years. When Danny Chan’s clear voice drifted from the radio, along with those lingering melodies, the space within several dozen meters became a spiritual sanctuary, a spotless fairyland of the human world.

Who could have imagined that, in a foreign world, under utterly different circumstances and fate, he would once again hear a familiar melody?

It was much like, back in university, hearing a song by chance over the school radio and instantly falling in love with it.

You could not help but stop and listen for a long while.

You silently remembered a line or two of the lyrics, and in the days that followed you would occasionally hum them under your breath.

Perhaps later you even tried to find the song, only to come away empty-handed.

After graduation, the song gradually sank into the depths of your heart. Once in a while, humming a few bars would brighten your mood immensely.

Perhaps even you never realized that the age in which one could be moved by a single song had been sealed inside that very song.

Decades flashed by, and everything was long since changed beyond recognition.

One day, as you wandered aimlessly down a noisy street, your heart suddenly stirred: could this song be that song from back then?

How coincidental—to meet again after ten years. You were left speechless, while time, glistening like gold, slipped by like frame after frame of film.

That joy was no different from encountering an old friend in a foreign land.

Day after day,

it layered itself into unfamiliarity and regret...

At last, at last,

silently distant, too far to draw near again...

In the prelude, the violin was delicate, like a lover’s fervent embrace, creating a sorrowful and dreamlike reverie on the edge of life and death, as though dragging one into the long, lonely rain-soaked alley of Duan Wushu’s verse, where the air itself seemed to breathe one sigh after another.

Under the eaves of Jiangnan houses, spiderwebs were dotted with tiny beads of water, trembling in the cool breeze.

Unlike the scene described in the lyrics.

Ren Qian’s articulation at the end of each line was especially heavy, like a great bead of water a spiderweb could no longer bear, falling with a plop and startling the ants below.

“Misty rain, desolate and blurred, keeping me company as I walk alone.

“On the dim street, you drift near me like a dream...

“Hold you close, my breathing growing deeper...

In Ren Qian’s deeply affectionate Chen-style vocal delivery, the graceful Bai Suzhen on West Lake came vividly to life.

Her long hair was faintly damp, and she held a small white paper umbrella against the gentle wind and drizzle.

Along the embankments of West Lake, the tender willow branches were too fragile to endure, softly spreading ripples across the water.

Her steps were neither hurried nor slow, yet each one tugged at the heartstrings and set the spirit trembling.

At that very moment, a small mishap suddenly occurred on Ren Qian’s side, and all the instruments faltered for an instant on the line “my breathing growing deeper.”

Because Ren Qian had suddenly slipped off the beat!

Everyone present was utterly puzzled.

Ren Qian counted as a musician with standing and reputation, and should have received professional musical training. He could not possibly make such a low-level mistake!

If this had been a live concert, it would already count as a fairly major disaster!

So why would Ren Qian make such a basic error and fail to land on the correct beat?

Wait!

It seemed Ren Qian had done it deliberately.

He sang through two choruses, and not only did he fail to clash with the band, he even seemed to form a subtle, ingenious connection with it. The two sides, combined, were close enough and yet far enough apart to astonish anyone who heard them.

The misty, desolate rain feeling... the hazy beauty... travelers on the road with hearts nearly broken...

All of it rose in fullness through that gentle moment of misalignment.

The subtle sense of discord only deepened the beauty of Jiangnan’s mist and rain.

Ren Qian’s off-beat delivery was like a singer’s cracked note at a concert: seeming like a flaw, yet in truth making the emotion all the richer.

It was like one of Wang Xizhi’s deliberate imperfections in the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion, appearing to stray from the overall structure, yet precisely because of that single flaw, the whole composition became interlaced, graceful, and vivid.

In truth, Ren Qian had merely had a sudden inspiration—

Since he wanted to evoke the emptiness of misty-rain Jiangnan, where white fog shrouded the city, then a strict, methodical, perfectly on-beat performance would only weaken that mist-like, wind-like, cloud-like momentum.

So he simply decided to go all the way and change the entire mode of interpretation.

Singing in a way that drifts away from the strong beat is rare; it requires immense skill, and ordinary people cannot learn it.

One music authority said that only people from the rural American South can, without training, accurately strike the weak beat. And the Chinese music godfather Li Zongsheng was one of the few musicians skilled at using this technique.

This style has a beauty that is difficult to describe. If you do not believe it, go listen to Li Zongsheng’s Sailing Across the Seas to See You and Mountain.

Only then will you understand what it means to strike directly at the weakest point of your emotions through technique.

Having lived two lifetimes and possessed extraordinary musical talent, Ren Qian had, by a stroke of coincidence, mastered this extremely difficult vocal technique.

And now he was bringing it out to make a show of himself.

“Muddled... the world is growing dark!

“And the cold rain flies down, soaking through my body~

“Shivering hands,

“Come mend this heart that has been utterly wounded!

“The tear mark at the corner of my eye still holds confusion and doubt!

“Come, draw nearer!

“Forget yourself and kiss me once more, recklessly and fervently!”

To the experts, the true craft revealed itself.

Ren Qian’s performance gave the professionals a fresh understanding of his style. That noble temperament, that sense of a beauty lost in a corrupt world, carried more of the flavor of antiquity than a rigid, by-the-book rendering of an old-style song.

The lyrics were not ancient in wording, nor was the melody ancient in form, yet all the virtues of the ancients seemed to have been gathered into Ren Qian’s hands. In other words, he had grasped the essence, seized the spirit and backbone of the old masters; no matter how varied the outer form became, he still brought out an elegance of scale and the refined charm of the highest art.

It was indeed eye-opening once again. This was the kind of formidable talent who could use Western instruments and still conjure Chinese flavor from them. Whatever came into his hands would be “localized.” That was true mastery!

...

The entire band cut off all at once.

Ren Qian gave a signal to the cameraman and the lighting crew. The band members reluctantly set down their instruments, all saying they still wanted more.

Although accompanying Ren Qian on one song was, in spiritual terms, far more nerve-racking than accompanying several other singers on ten songs,

to play for Ren Qian was like the meeting of high mountain and flowing water with a true kindred spirit. No matter how exhausting, it was exhilarating. As the saying goes, one who meets a kindred spirit over wine can never drink enough; when one meets a kindred spirit in music, one would gladly share a bed and give each other every last saving.

“Want to do another one? We could record Snow-Falling on the Plum Blossoms, or Terrace of Chrysanthemums. We’re idle anyway.”

Someone looked at Ren Qian with burning eyes, eager to try.

“No need. If I record too much now, wouldn’t that cut off the income of those singers? Let’s wait a while and let their fame rise to the maximum. I want the ratings for the second episode to go even higher. Besides, the replacement singer is coming soon, and I need to go take a look.”

Ren Qian waved a hand, declined everyone’s enthusiasm with a few words, and then walked out of the studio.

A note: it is necessary to clarify that Grand Song God was first published on Qidian. Readers on the QQ Book City and Creation platforms do not need to tip while reading. A tip of 1,888, for example, makes my heart ache just looking at it.

For one thing, I do not receive it.

For another, when it comes to reading online novels, a subscription is already more than enough to make me grateful, and tipping is a little too much to know how to respond to. Better to buy a fun and readable literary book and leaf through it instead. Yes, that is all. Online books are, in the end, only seasoning. If you want to support Lazy Book, just come to Qidian and give a subscription then, or leave a review.

That will be enough.