Chapter Ninety-Two: Scion of an Illustrious House

After Liao Yuan advanced successfully, he received the organizer’s invitation to compete again one week later, along with the creative theme for the next round.

The following week, the third week of the tournament, the East Sea division would hold the Top Hundred round. The basic rule was to select the hundred best contestants according to the quality of their original piano pieces.

The fourth week would be the Top Ten round.

After that, the thirty strongest players from the three major Chinese divisions would automatically enter the knockout stage, the semifinals, and then the final.

Before the final, the entire One Emperor and Four Kings Piano Competition could only be regarded as an underground event.

Though it blazed across the internet with great fanfare, to true master pianists, a live contest organized by a private company was, by and large, not something fit for the public stage.

Strictly speaking, only the national final to be held at the Bird’s Nest would truly qualify for the public eye.

Only then would it be worthy of repeated coverage by state media and the media of countries around the world.

For many people, that moment would be the true center of all eyes.

Liao Yuan looked forward to that day.

Only, compared with himself, it seemed his younger sister, Liao Meiqi, had already found herself in that spotlight even sooner.

...

At six in the evening, Zhang Henge opened his tablet and began watching the latest episode of Creating 101.

As one of the Empire’s Seven Stars, a celebrity in today’s entertainment world whose name alone carried hundreds of millions of fans, Zhang Henge’s path to fame was much like that of many contemporaries. He had all once debuted in South Korea, that Asian star-making factory.

He had first made his living in a South Korean idol group, the only Chinese member in the team, and enjoyed considerable popularity there.

Yet unlike many idols who, after becoming famous, broke with their original agencies, tore up their contracts, and struck out on their own, Zhang Henge, after seven years in the industry, still remained under contract with his original South Korean company.

Still, because markets differed, although his name remained attached to that South Korean idol group, he himself had probably not taken part in any group performances for nearly two years.

Even so, the original company did not dare slight him.

Each of the Empire’s Seven Stars in the Chinese entertainment industry was extraordinary. An idol with hundreds of millions of fans could make money on a scale comparable to the most popular Korean groups, if not even greater.

Faced with such an idol, one who could at any moment pay his penalty and launch his own independent studio, the company treated Zhang Henge with exceptional deference, as though he were a treasured guest.

Recently, at the strong urging of his fans, the long-promised era of one album a year was finally approaching.

For this new album, Zhang Henge had to choreograph and compose himself, and he was also casting a wide net, reaching out to many lyricists and composers in the industry, hoping to find a few songs worthy of leading the record. To that end, he personally went to meet and interact with them, but more often than not he left full of hope and returned drenched in disappointment.

Many people wanted to work with this top-tier star, but the pieces they offered could not even catch his eye. Every one of them was all name and no substance, bigger in reputation than in ability.

The reason he had reached this position was not only his own talent and the connections of his company, but above all his painstaking, exacting work ethic.

He would never show up to a performance halfheartedly, never waste any role he obtained, and never fill a new album with mediocrity merely to make money from the public and deceive them.

Such professionalism was one of the reasons he had been able to remain at the very summit of the entertainment world.

The recently explosive hit Creating 101 had also drawn the attention of Zhang Henge’s team.

First there was Han Yu, also known as one of the Empire’s Seven Stars, who had actually gone on Weibo to curse out the show’s production team in public, firmly backing his junior sister, Xie Yuqi.

Then came an obscure small streamer, who posted a furious attack on Han Yu while loudly supporting his biological sister, Liao Meiqi.

One stone stirred a thousand ripples.

To outsiders, the streamer’s antics looked no different from an ant trying to shake a tree, ridiculous beyond measure.

But after Zhang Henge’s team investigated carefully, they were all shocked.

Soon after, once Zhang Henge himself received the news, he took advantage of his free time and watched every one of the five episodes that had aired since Creating 101 began.

He focused especially on Liao Meiqi, and the more he watched, the more addicted he became.

As for those three songs, After the Rest of My Life, If There Is Another Life, and Memory, their quality was unquestionably above standard. But that was not what had truly startled Zhang Henge.

According to his team’s investigation, Liao Meiqi came from an illustrious family. The famous lyricist and composer Liao Yuemin was actually her father.

One should know that Liao Yuemin was one of the few lyricists and composers whom Zhang Henge’s team had long wanted to collaborate with, yet had never once managed to elicit a response from.

As the saying went, like father, like child.

Liao Meiqi’s brother, Liao Yuan, had also surprised Zhang Henge with those three songs, giving him a glimpse of hope for the title tracks on his new album.

Most of his album consisted of dance music.

But beyond dance tracks, folk and pop were also among his favorite styles, and according to the latest news, Liao Meiqi’s brilliant new performance song in the latest episode, Nobody, was also a dance track.

What was more, a preview edited and released just one week earlier had set the entire entertainment world ablaze.

The hypnotic chorus of Nobody swept across the internet, and the song stayed in the top ten of Weibo’s trending searches without budging.

Today, with the latest episode of Creating 101 arriving, there were countless viewers across Asia sitting in front of their computers just as Zhang Henge was, watching the show.

And the true frenzy over Nobody also began, after this new episode aired, to gradually engulf the entire subculture scene.

"I want nobody, nobody, but you..."

"Congratulations to Liao Meiqi’s team!"

"Congratulations to the Miracle Girls!"

After watching the more than hour-long video episode in one breath, Zhang Henge could not help laughing aloud. That bastard Han Yu had gone out of his way to protect his junior sister, yet she was nowhere near a match for the Liao siblings.

Smiling, he shook his head, then slid his finger across the screen and froze the image at the moment when the Miracle Girls took the stage to perform Nobody.

After thinking for a moment, he pressed play.

"I am like a wounded rose

needing your tears to water me

you hide this sorrow

not even daring to look back

like a withered soul alone for three long years..."

The addictive melody returned once more, and Zhang Henge felt an indescribable excitement. He took a deep breath. After watching the girls dance through the performance, he again slid the screen and froze the image just before Liao Meiqi and the others took the stage.

Then he widened his eyes, leaned close to the screen, and carefully examined the song information bar below:

Song title: Nobody
Singer: Miracle Girls
Composer: Anonymous
Lyricist: Anonymous
Arranger: Seagull Band

Zhang Henge laughed, laughing very happily. Anonymous? How could it possibly be anonymous? Wasn’t that just a crude attempt to conceal the truth? This Liao Yuan was genuinely interesting.

Then he called his agent. "How’s the investigation going?"

"About Mr. Liao?" the agent replied. "We found his phone number, WeChat, and address. But Mr. Liao’s current situation is rather sensitive. The uproar over Han Yu’s fans surrounding East Sea Radio a while back caused quite a storm. Mr. Liao disappeared from public view after that. His phone and WeChat are both set to refuse calls from strangers, so we can’t reach him for now."

Zhang Henge smiled. "Then go to his house."

"Now?" The agent was somewhat stunned.

"If not now, then when?" Zhang Henge tossed the tablet onto the sofa and headed toward the dressing room to change. "Forget it. Send me his address. I’ll go myself."

"No, boss, there’s no need for you to go personally. You’re Zhang Henge, after all," the agent said. "Tomorrow morning I’ll send people to wait for him. I guarantee we’ll invite him here in one piece."

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