Chapter 35: What Kind of Music Is This?

Garen paced over to Aya’s side, waving to the audience as he softly sang, “A rainy night!”
“A street so familiar!”
At that moment, the members of the Super4 girl group entered from both sides of the stage. They wore headset mics, but these were merely props—the harmonies had already been recorded with the backing track, so they didn’t need to sing live. Their presence on stage was purely for show.
“All those feelings!” Garen continued, while Super4’s harmonies gently followed, “aren’t as passionate as before!”
“A rainy night!”
Aya immediately followed with her line, and Garen, together with the harmonies, sang, “The pain in my heart!”
“A fleeting glance!” Aya sang.
“In the dark night, snow falls from the sky!” By now, Super4 had reached a spot about a meter to the right of the duo. Instead of approaching, they stood in a line, and like magicians, each produced an umbrella from nowhere as snowflakes began to drift down from above.
This stage had been equipped with a snow machine for the occasion. To achieve the perfect effect, Garen had coordinated with Old Wang and the stage manager, resulting in this remarkable scene.
Although the effect was less pronounced in daylight, the audience was nonetheless delighted and felt the group’s sincerity.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking! Still that same place, that same street!”
“That night we parted! That tender place! Has the balance of love already tipped?”
“I know exactly what you’re thinking, still that place, that street!”
“The place we met! Where it all ended! I understand love isn’t everything you want!”
At this point, Garen suddenly shouted, “Please welcome! Alpha Kai!”
“One! Two! Three! Go!”
With Garen’s countdown, Kai leaped onto the stage directly from the first row below.
The entire audience was caught off guard, staring wide-eyed at the newcomer.
He wore his baseball cap backwards, sunglasses on his face, and a baggy jacket—a look straight out of the underground music scene, exuding cool defiance.
While the audience was still in shock, Kai launched into his rap:
“Uh! By the roadside, the red fire brigade! We always gather for a meeting! Oh! Hey! Playing wild cockfights! Party! All for a piece of vanilla-flavored chocolate—”
“Yeah~ so sweet! My favorite! It’s like you and me and he and she! Then back to me! Talking and talking! Hey, what’s the point! Back to my people, people, people, people! Big Cross, no luck!” (A kind of hand game from the city)
“Fighting! It’s every boy’s favorite game! Playing around, always my old story! The boy next door! He always covers for me! Speaking of which! I really miss him!”
“Thanks to those childhood buddies! The time we spent together was so great! I want! I want to go back to the old days! The alley was a bit noisy! Number 87, Avenue de Chapei!”
While Kai delivered this rap, Garen and Aya kept repeating the chorus, with Super4’s harmonies flowing continuously. They intentionally held their mics further away, lowering their volume, to spotlight Kai’s rap.
At first glance, this segment seemed chaotic, but a closer listen revealed not a hint of discord.
Moreover, Kai improvised the tempo and delivery of his rap on the spot. Had he followed the original melody in Garen’s mind, the speed would have been off and the fusion awkward.
“Whoa… is this even a song?”
“Is this rap? I can’t believe this kind of music can blend together!”
“Damn! I’ve never heard such an alternative style before. Who did this arrangement?”

“No one arranged it, didn’t you hear what Aya just said? Garen wrote this song in the city dialect, and that section of city rap is incredible! It feels so familiar!”
“Yeah! Reminds me of stuff from my childhood!”
“Wow! Such talent! I never thought the city dialect could be used for rap!”
“I’ve heard rap in the city dialect before, but it was all insults, never anything this musical!”
…

Meanwhile, in the green room where first and second-tier celebrities were waiting.
Zhang Peiyu, hearing the music from outside, suddenly perked up, surprised, “Who’s singing out there?”
“Yeah! What are they singing? I can’t understand a word!” Her assistant, who was also from the island, naturally couldn’t understand the city dialect.
A nearby makeup artist, a local, laughed, “That’s the city dialect! It must be a city rap… Wait, rap? But I hear singing too!”
“Exactly! And the singing is clearly softer than the rap—could someone be crashing the show?”
At this, everyone in the room sensed something was off. Zhang Peiyu, along with the makeup artist, manager, and assistant, hurried out.
Upon reaching the lobby, they saw that many others had already come out, all drawn by the music on stage.
“What’s going on? Is someone challenging the performers? Who’s going to check?” Huang Daming and his assistant were also present—the assistant kept urging the staff, but didn’t go himself.
Nearby, Gao Zishan and Yao Xiaotong were whispering; everyone seemed to have the same suspicion, thinking that an underground rapper had come to stir up trouble.
Just then, the door to the innermost room opened, and a woman in a lavish stage costume stepped out. Her flawless figure, upright posture, long legs, and exquisite face would normally captivate the room, but everyone present instinctively lowered their heads, not daring to meet her gaze.
“Sister Liu! Why are you out here?”
The backstage manager rushed over to greet her obsequiously.
“Don’t talk!” The woman, known as Sister Liu, gestured for silence, listening intently to the music outside.
At her command, the lobby instantly fell silent, leaving only the music echoing.

Liu Xiayu—a name that immediately conjures the image of a pure, adorable, baby-faced beauty.
In reality, her features fit those descriptors, but her personality and temperament could not be more different.
Within the industry, she was summed up in just four words: cold and authoritative.
At twenty-seven, she had never had a boyfriend, never been involved in scandal, and was never seen close to any man; even her assistant, driver, bodyguard, and agent were all women.
Many suspected she preferred women, but no rumors ever surfaced about her with anyone.
On the contrary, those who worked with her frequently tearfully recounted their harrowing experiences after leaving.
By all rights, someone like her shouldn’t have survived in the entertainment industry.
Indeed, Liu Xiayu never considered herself part of it. She studied opera and yoga from childhood, signed her first contract at twenty-two with the renowned American Columbia Records.
In three years, she released three all-English albums and one in French, then terminated her contract, returned home, and founded her own label. In two years, she had only released one Chinese-language album, but it became the top seller in the country this century.
She held many firsts: the first Chinese artist to perform at the White Dove Palace in America, the first to win a Grammy for Best New Artist, the first officially registered female singer with over ten million fans…
These accolades spoke to her talent, yet her family background attracted even more attention.

Her father was Asia’s richest man, Liu Qingtian; her brother, the nation’s most famous playboy, Liu Xiahui…
On stage, as Kai finished his city dialect rap, he pointed to Garen, “Hey, Allen! Hand over to you!”
“OK!”
Garen instantly picked up with a Mandarin rap:
“That photograph brings back memories, the narrow corridor lined with old houses, every day smoke rising from their kitchens, hot noodles sold at the alley’s end, the scent drifting into the backyard! A stray cat sleeps soundly on the swaying swing, bathed in the setting sun, squinting its eyes!”
“We walked that street together again, I can’t remember the year or the day, those long and fleeting years—now we can’t see it, can’t go back. Maybe Number 18 on the Bund was where we parted, gazing at the sky through our fingers, growing more distant with every step!”
With everyone able to understand Mandarin, the audience gradually recovered from their initial shock. There were no swear words or crude lines in this rap—just nostalgia. Combined with a pop song, it felt seamless and complementary.
After Garen finished the verse in a single breath, he immediately transitioned back to singing, “All the chaotic feelings, the hopelessness, too many things, too many stories, too many painful reasons I can’t refuse!”
“I know exactly what you’re thinking!” Aya’s voice joined in, and Garen sang to her, “I don’t know!”
“Still that place, that street! Oh, oh, oh!”
“The place we met, that night we parted!”
At last, the backing music faded away, and the two sang the final line together: “I know love isn’t everything you want…”
It was over!
The last note hung in the air for a moment. The audience paused for several seconds, and then, as if on cue, thunderous applause erupted.

Back in the green room, Zhang Peiyu stared in disbelief. “My god! That was Garen singing?”
“You know that singer?” Yao Xiaotong asked offhandedly.
“We’ve chatted a bit—he’s a very talented young man,” Zhang Peiyu affirmed.
On the other side, Gao Zishan added, “He’s been in the news a lot lately, and the songs he’s written are really catchy. He wrote and performed the theme, interlude, and ending song for our TV drama.”
“Oh, so it’s him!” Yao Xiaotong suddenly understood. “I thought someone was crashing the show! I never expected him to fuse two styles of music together!”
“Exactly! I couldn’t understand the city dialect and thought the rapper was swearing. Only when I heard the Mandarin did I realize it wasn’t that kind of rap.”
“So is this rap or pop music?”
The three of them were actors, not musicians; none knew the answer.
At that moment, Gao Zishan looked over at Liu Xiayu, hesitated, then mustered her courage and asked, “Sister Liu, what kind of music would you call this?”
Everyone stopped talking and turned to Liu Xiayu. She was known for her icy demeanor, rarely speaking more than a word or two when asked, often only nodding or shaking her head. But what would she say this time?