Chapter 46: Neglecting One’s Own Courtyard

Chapter 46: Neglecting One’s Own Courtyard

Now it was Chen Feng’s turn to look at her warily. He had a feeling this woman might be trying to pull some sleazy trick to get ahead by hooking up with him.

But that wasn’t Chen Feng’s intention. He didn’t want to become the kind of person he had once utterly despised.

“Do you know any of He Jiaqi’s songs?”

“Yes.”

“Try singing one for me.”

On the campus, under the tree-lined path, a very distinctive female singing voice rang out.

It was a rare alto, full of charm, with perfect pitch and rich emotion.

Frankly, Chen Feng was stunned.

He had already mentally blacklisted this girl who seemed polished on the outside but was secretly quite foolish, yet he never expected such a chance encounter would turn up a gem.

With such skilled singing, such a distinctive alto voice, if she could just sing a suitable song, she should at least have achieved some success, if not nationwide fame.

“Brother Feng, Brother Feng, how was my singing?”

“It’s… pretty good, I guess.”

Actually, Chen Feng wanted to ask her, why haven’t you become famous yet? Why would you never become famous later?

Why, after listening to so many songs a thousand years from now, had he never come across her name?

What happened in the latter half of your life?

“So am I qualified to have babies with you—oh no, I mean, am I qualified to sing your demo for you?”

Chen Feng shook his head. “Not qualified for babies, but okay for the demo.”

“Yay! Thank you! I love you!”

Completely ignoring that they were in public on campus, Qin Lu grabbed Chen Feng’s hand and shook it back and forth.

Chen Feng yanked his hand away with force. “Can you act normal!”

“I am being normal!”

“Normal my foot! You’re a woman, where’s your reserve?”

“Brother Feng, you don’t get it. You really don’t understand the sorrow of us who have no creative talent. I can’t help my admiration for you. Think about it—my vocal skills combined with your creative talent, how amazing would the little baby that comes from that be!”

Chen Feng was driven mad by her.

He roughly figured out why Qin Lu never achieved much in her life.

Too silly, too foolish.

She never even considered that if he were just a coincidental namesake, or even using a fake ID, she could be completely scammed.

“Do you act like this with every songwriter?”

“Of course not! I’m usually quite proud and aloof.”

Chen Feng was speechless. “Alright, be serious. Let’s go record the song, and keep your hands to yourself! Otherwise, take me to your counselor, and I’ll find someone else.”

“Don’t be like that, good brother. I really don’t act this way with everyone. Believe me…”

“Shut up! Let go!”

“Aren’t you afraid I might be boasting? That I’m tricking you?”

“The moment you pulled your hand away, I knew you were reliable.”

Chen Feng: “…”

He really shouldn’t have been the nice guy. He should have taken advantage of her properly; that might have sobered her up a bit.

In the end, Chen Feng still signed a confidentiality contract with Qin Lu, had her sing the song, and paid her five thousand yuan as a fee.

Qin Lu initially refused the money.

She declined like this: “Brother Feng, you don’t need to pay me. Having the chance to record a demo for you is an honor. If you really feel bad, just have a baby with me.”

“Get lost!”

Although dealing with Qin Lu was mentally exhausting and made Chen Feng very tired, the final demo turned out surprisingly good.

Chen Feng even thought that if Qin Lu weren’t so short on money and could afford to buy his song, and if he hadn’t already promised He Jiaqi and didn’t want to go back on his word, then giving “Night Has Grown Deep” to her to sing might have made her famous too.

Chen Feng sent over the demo and waited only half an hour before He Jiaqi personally called, deciding to buy the copyright for the song and raising the offer from pre-tax five hundred thousand to post-tax eight hundred thousand yuan.

Overall, the difference between pre-tax and post-tax amounted to nearly an extra four hundred thousand on top of the base five hundred thousand.

Post-tax eight hundred thousand for one song—this was already infinitely close to the price of a top-tier producer in the entire industry.

Finding the right person to sing the demo, being able to showcase the song’s quality more perfectly while exposing as little content as possible, naturally achieved a 1+1 greater than 2 effect, meeting Chen Feng’s expectations.

He was very satisfied with the price and agreed on the spot.

That evening, Mai Hui bought a plane ticket and flew back to Hanzhou to sign the contract in person and transfer the funds. Chen Feng handed over the handwritten complete score.

Unconsciously, the total amount in his bank account exceeded one million yuan.

This day was destined to be his wealth day.

Given the overwhelmingly positive market response to “Dullness,” Q Music temporarily adjusted the payment cycle. After being on sale for just over two weeks, Chen Feng’s personal traffic dividends broke through two hundred thousand yuan post-tax, and Q Music transferred it all together.

Returning home alone, Chen Feng lay on his bed staring blankly at the total amount of one million two hundred forty thousand.

It was such a long string of numbers that he felt a strong sense of disbelief.

This was…

Too unreal!

He took a deep breath, and an inexplicable feeling of jealousy welled up in his heart.

Through cheating and plagiarizing others’ work, he had so easily turned his life around in just three months.

In Hanzhou, over one million two hundred thousand in cash meant he could make a down payment on a two-bedroom apartment in the city center.

What he was jealous of were those with real talent.

He had cheated, used shortcuts, to get where he was today.

But those truly talented people didn’t need to cheat or use shortcuts; they could achieve all this purely through their own abilities.

Chen Feng was jealous of others’ talent.

So God was never fair. Mediocre people always comforted themselves by saying even geniuses had to work hard to reach the peak.

But that was just self-deception by the mediocre.

Truly remarkable geniuses only needed to put in one-third the effort of ordinary people to achieve ten times the progress.

Some geniuses didn’t even try very hard; they just played around, left a little something behind while having fun, and easily secured their place in history.

Like real business geniuses—never mind having over a million in their pocket; even with just a few thousand, they could work wonders and live exciting, fulfilling lives.

But now, without even realizing it, Chen Feng had earned over one million two hundred thousand, yet he felt completely lost about what to do next.

If you asked him for investment ideas, the only thing that came to mind after much thought was two words:

Buy property!

Other than that, he couldn’t think of any business that could earn money steadily, reliably, and without much effort.

After much deliberation, Chen Feng decided to temporarily stop pondering this troubling problem.

For now, he would focus seriously on copying songs, trying to improve his copying efficiency, and quickly handle the other three songs by Zhong Lei and three by Liang Yuan, turning them into money in his pocket.

He didn’t have enough money yet, so he was overthinking things. But once he had several million in his pocket, he could take out one million to try something, find something to do for himself—surely that would work.

Even if he ended up losing everything, it wouldn’t be a devastating blow.

Chen Feng wondered again: given how mediocre he was, why was fate so favorable to him?

As someone utterly untalented, forced by fate to cheat, able to borrow others’ talent, yet his thinking remained so passive and calm, even involuntarily jealous of others.

How did someone like him deserve this golden finger?

Could it be that he wasn’t meant to be mediocre? Should he be doing something about the Doomsday and disaster a thousand years from now?

He lay in bed thinking for most of the night again.

In the end, he still had no plans.

He simply couldn’t do anything about it.

A thousand years in the future, Private Chen Feng didn’t have a good background either; he was just an insignificant reserve soldier, starting from a very low point.

He only had one year left. No matter how capable someone was, they couldn’t make any significant changes to the era in that one year, help humanity bridge the technological gap, or close the distance with that indescribable, unstoppable enemy.

He gave up thinking again, deciding to continue being selectively passive. First, he would obsessively study music and copy songs, but next time he would speed up the pace even more.

He was about to dream again soon, so his task for the remaining week of this month was to sell the other six songs, even if at a lower price.

He couldn’t be too picky about buyers either.

Next time, Chen Feng set his own standard: copy at least ten songs!

First, be shameless, aim for his own prosperity, then consider such grand matters.

After all, if you can’t even sweep your own room, how can you sweep the world?