Chapter 101: A Bun Dipped in Human Blood

After listening to Zhou Ran’s song, Chen Wenhua immediately had a clear sense of where things stood. If judged purely by the quality of the songs, his new track and Zhou Ran’s were actually not that far apart.

But Zhou Ran had one advantage that far surpassed Chen Wenhua: he chose to make a music video to accompany the song. That made it much easier for the audience to connect emotionally.

If people only listened to the music, then the meaning Zhou Ran wanted to convey would have to be imagined in their own minds, left to the listener’s imagination. But with a music video, it became far easier for the audience to understand what he intended to express. It was the difference between a closed-book exam and an open-book exam—two tasks of entirely different difficulty.

Chen Wenhua had also considered filming something to help convey his message, but in the end, because of his own beliefs, he was not used to expressing himself through music videos. That meant he lost to Zhou Ran at this crucial point.

Still, the final judgment of a song was never decided by Chen Wenhua alone, because what they were fighting for was the number one spot on the music charts.

In the end, the power of judgment belonged to the listeners on the various music platforms. Whether a song was good or bad would be decided by their choices. What Chen Wenhua and Zhou Ran had to do was simply make sure they did everything they could to perfect their own songs.

And on the major music platforms, once Zhou Ran and Chen Wenhua’s new songs were released, huge numbers of fans flooded in at once to listen. The play counts on both tracks soared in a near-vertical climb, terrifying many platform staff members, because the data was simply too frightening.

Yet on second thought, it was understandable. The showdown between Zhou Ran and Chen Wenhua had whetted the appetite of countless netizens. A battle between an old king and a new king—just the title alone was enough to push the topic to its absolute limit.

The instant Zhou Ran and Chen Wenhua finalized the release time of their new songs, countless singers who had planned to release their own songs on the same day either postponed or advanced their schedules.

No one wanted to compete with two monsters like them in terms of plays, because there was no way to win. The aftershock of Zhou Ran and Chen Wenhua’s battle alone would be enough to crush them. If they wanted to survive longer and get better sales, they had to avoid the release window of those two new songs.

As expected, both of Zhou Ran and Chen Wenhua’s new songs broke one million plays within half an hour, instantly setting a new fastest-record milestone across the major music platforms.

One must know that music-platform play counts are calculated only when a song has been listened to in full from beginning to end. In other words, only if you listen to the entire song without skipping even a fraction does it count as a play. Any skipping at all means it will not be included.

This alone showed just how terrifying the attention surrounding this showdown really was. Of course, the massive buzz their new song releases received this time was also inseparable from the extensive promotion leading up to it.

By the time their release date arrived, the major platforms had already been awash in rumors and news. It was hard not to know about it. And of course, the biggest factor was still the sheer popularity of Zhou Ran and Chen Wenhua.

There were also some maliciously hyped-up voices among the crowd, people who were deliberately trying to drive the heat even higher, waiting for one side to lose so they could stamp down hard on the fallen opponent and feast on the spectacle of another’s defeat.

After Zhou Ran and Chen Wenhua released their new songs, both tracks surged at terrifying speed straight into the top ten of the new-song chart, and they continued to leapfrog each other as they raced upward.

That speed left the singers already in the top ten stunned. They knew they would be surpassed, but they had not expected it to happen so fast. In the blink of an eye, those two songs had forced their way to ninth and eighth place respectively, not giving anyone even a moment to breathe.

Meanwhile, the internet was flooded with ever-increasing comments about Zhou Ran and Chen Wenhua’s new songs.

This also gave a rough idea of how Zhou Ran differed from ordinary newcomers. If an ordinary singer had faced Chen Wenhua in such a situation, there would have been only one outcome: utter collapse.

"I can’t keep going. Every day is so hard! What am I doing this for?"

Jian Wen was a senior in high school and a track-and-field athlete. During this period, he had been preparing every day for a sports competition, training day and night without rest.

This competition was extremely important to him. If he could place in the top three, he would qualify for admission to a school he had long hoped to attend. But how easy could it be to win that spot?

For Jian Wen, it was as difficult as reaching the heavens. He had to train again and again just to fight for that place, just to try to shave his time down by a hundredth of a second.

That one-hundredth of a second might mean nothing to others, but to Jian Wen it was the difference between heaven and earth. It might very well decide his fate.

So every day he trained desperately for that one-hundredth of a second, practicing until he was utterly spent before he would stop.

Under such relentless training, Jian Wen was reaching his limit. He did not know whether he could truly succeed. He had lost confidence. He wanted to give up.

Just as that thought surfaced, a song suddenly drifted into his ears.

"Now I stand ready, full of positive energy
I have learned to face the truth of life with strength
Success and failure are not measured by the result
Setbacks and hardship will only make me stronger
So what if I have endured humiliation and mockery?
The mission of victory still rests upon my shoulders
How free, how wild is the melody of youth
Set your heart alight and sing bravely and loudly!"

Jian Wen looked up and realized it was the school broadcast playing the song. He had been on the verge of thinking again about whether he should abandon the athletic life he had held onto for six years.

But as he thought, the lyrics he had just heard kept rising in his mind, as if asking him:

Are you really willing to accept this? Are you truly ready to give up? Are you afraid?

The moment Jian Wen heard those lyrics, his heart had already made its decision. He was not willing to give up like this at all. How could he quit without giving it his all to the very end?

Hearing the song, Jian Wen smiled. To hell with giving up—just run. If you can’t run to death, then run until you do.

The fastest update of "Entertainment Begins with a Sunny Day" by Xiaomu Bu Chixiangcai is provided to you. To ensure you can find the fastest update next time, please be sure to save the bookmark!

Chapter 101: "Human Blood Steamed Bun" Free to Read.