Chapter Ninety: Weightlifting Champion
This round of preliminaries added thirty-six guest seats to the upper left side of the stage, and before the competition even began, all thirty-six singers invited for their skillful voices had already taken their places.
Once the contest started, the computer randomly assigned each contestant a singer.
The singers, in turn, improvised an a cappella performance at random.
Onstage, one pianist after another dripped with sweat as they accompanied the singers’ voices. Some pairings were exquisite, the strings and zither in perfect accord; others were like a road accident from the wrong direction entirely.
Among them, some advanced smoothly, while others were cruelly eliminated.
Yet after every piece ended, the applause of the thousands in attendance still rolled through the hall.
Soon it was the turn of the number one woman in the music category, Zero Zero Demon.
The randomly chosen singer delivered an a cappella rendition of River Bend, a folk song steeped in the feeling of summer. Its rhythm was gentle and pleasing, and Zero Zero Demon barely had to exert herself to accompany it with a canon-like compositional technique, her transitions so natural and fitting that it seemed a match made in heaven.
It was worth noting that the songs performed by the singers on site were for the most part original works, pieces never publicly released on the market. Even those that had been released tended to be obscure. This made the pianists’ improvisational accompaniment all the more demanding.
By the time Zero Zero Demon took the stage, the official livestream still boasted more than five million viewers.
Beyond that, the official livestream for the Northern Region had over four million concurrent viewers, while the stream for the Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan region was also hovering around four million.
That meant that at this moment, more than thirteen million people were watching the live broadcast of the One Emperor, Four Kings Piano Competition.
This alone was enough to demonstrate how deeply the piano had taken root among the public.
Especially since this was still only the preliminaries.
By past experience, once the regional finals and the world finals arrived, the livestream audience would have no trouble breaking one hundred million views.
And this year’s competition momentum was clearly stronger than in the previous two years. Major advertisers and investors came flocking, and on the overseas live-streaming site Jiligulu, nearly all five international regions had tens of millions of viewers tuning in.
This was a true battle for fame. Anyone who managed to stand out even a little in the regional rounds could essentially carve out a name for themselves.
Even some long-established pianists could not resist the temptation and personally entered the competition.
Soon, the next pair of contestants due for the head-to-head match appeared on the big screen:
"Asdfghj" versus "Tang Hong"!
...
“Your turn!”
After seeing the list, Fu Xiaoci immediately set her phone aside and jumped to stand beside Liao Yuan, beginning to knead and pound his shoulders. “Uncle A, go on—show them what the Emperor of the Piano can do!”
“The Emperor of the Piano?” Liao Yuan asked in confusion. “What does that mean?”
“It’s the nickname the old gentlemen in the livestream gave you!” Fu Xiaoci said with a grin. “They all say you’ve got the strength of the Emperor of the Piano!”
Liao Yuan gave an “oh” and paid it no further mind. After the results of the previous match were announced, he stood up, preparing to walk onto the stage.
But at that very moment, the entire venue suddenly erupted in thunderous cheers.
On the other side, the contestant Tang Hong also strode forward. When the cameras turned toward her, everyone went wild.
Fu Xiaoci stared hard, then blurted out in astonishment, “It’s her!”
“Who?” Liao Yuan asked.
Fu Xiaoci said, a little excitedly, “Olympic champion Tang Hong!”
Liao Yuan was stunned.
How could an Olympic champion be at a piano competition?
But after learning more, he grew solemn with respect.
At the world-famous Tokyo Olympics in 2020, China’s young women’s weightlifter Tang Hong went head-to-head with world-class women’s weightlifters from the United States, Turkey, Russia, and other countries.
She kept pushing the limits, and at the final moment she lifted a two-hundred-kilogram barbell, shocking the entire world.
What shocked people was not only that Tang Hong lifted a two-hundred-kilogram barbell, but the entire process itself.
Weightlifting consists of the snatch and the clean and jerk. After several rounds of competition and with the result still deadlocked, Tang Hong finally decided to challenge the limit and go for two hundred kilograms.
On camera, hundreds of millions of viewers could clearly see the veins on Tang Hong’s forehead, neck, and arms bulging and bursting as she performed the snatch. Even so, she still secured the barbell with absolute steadiness.
After the snatch came the clean and jerk.
When Tang Hong pushed beyond her limits and challenged the never-before-successful two-hundred-kilogram weight, the entire nation watched her with pride and anguish.
The moment she strained to lift the barbell, billions of citizens erupted in cheers, and audiences around the globe applauded Tang Hong.
She was the undisputed champion.
Even though when she stepped down, she was bleeding from all seven apertures and utterly spent.
Tang Hong was a powerhouse queen, a woman of immense strength, her body trained into solid muscle. And yet this very towering queen had appeared at a piano competition.
During the first match of the preliminaries, Tang Hong’s appearance had not attracted much attention. Only after she finished and successfully advanced did the audience belatedly realize what had happened and begin asking everywhere whether it was true. The news was soon officially confirmed.
In recent days, the trending topics on Weibo had been dominated by tags like “One Emperor, Four Kings Tang Hong” and “Athlete Tang Hong.” No one could have imagined that such a steel-and-iron tomboy of a woman could sit at a piano and play with such grace.
The eerie yet harmonious image made Tang Hong an instant sensation.
Of the seven thousand spectators who had come to the venue today, almost all of them had hoped to see Tang Hong compete in person.
But no one had expected that Tang Hong would end up facing Uncle A.
Even if one tried to imagine it with the soles of one’s feet, Uncle A’s skill was surely enough to crush Tang Hong completely...
At that moment, Liao Yuan felt a little awkward.
Under everyone’s gaze, after stepping onto the stage, he abandoned his usual cool demeanor and took the initiative to extend his hand to Tang Hong.
The audience roared with cheers.
Tang Hong froze for a moment, then happily shook his hand. “Uncle A, I’m your fan. It’s great to meet you!”
“I’m your fan too, Teacher Tang,” Liao Yuan said.
The host smiled. “All right, while I’d love to watch the two of you exchange polite praise, this is a competition after all. If you have anything to say, save it for after the match, all right?”
Tang Hong said with hearty frankness, “All right, all right.”
Liao Yuan also said, “We can begin.”
The host nodded and immediately had the computer randomly assign the corresponding singer and song to the two contestants.
The singer was a woman in her early thirties. From the information displayed on the big screen, she was a university teacher at Capital Music Academy, specializing in bel canto and choral music.
The song was called Sky.
Sky had no lyrics; it consisted entirely of the vocalist’s sustained singing, and the contestant would need to improvise accompaniment based on that vocal line.
For Liao Yuan, it was somewhat difficult, but since he had already prepared himself mentally, he did not take it too seriously.
Tang Hong, however, wore a face like a bitter melon. Clearly, such a wordless song sung in pure voice was even harder to accompany than one with lyrics.
Fortunately, Liao Yuan was the first to perform.
For the contestant who comes later, this is unquestionably an advantage, giving them time to learn and think.