Chapter 140: Unintentional Success

Chapter 140: Unintentional Success

You might dodge the first, but not the fifteenth.

Around a little past nine that night, Zhong Lei returned home.

She didn’t go directly to her bedroom upstairs. Instead, she knocked on Chen Feng’s door downstairs.

“Come back earlier next time. It’s not safe for you to be out alone at night.”

Chen Feng didn’t ask many questions. He welcomed her in and poured her a cup of warm water.

Zhong Lei took off her mask, put it into a sealed plastic bag she carried, then took off her coat and hung it on the clothes rack by the door.

“It’s fine. I just bought a car and drove back.”

Chen Feng nodded. “That’s good. But you still need to be careful driving at night.”

“Mm.”

She didn’t speak next. Instead, she picked up the water cup and looked around for a moment.

Chen Feng’s small apartment was still kept clean and tidy by him, just like when he worked as an apartment manager before.

He still hadn’t hired a live-in maid, only a part-time cleaner.

The state of the room showed that his good personal hygiene and self-management hadn’t changed despite his change in status and position.

A slight difference from the past was that the soy sauce on his table had changed from a cheap bottle costing a few dollars to a mid-to-high-end product costing twenty or thirty.

But as for other things not so easy to replace, like the bedsheets, blankets, chairs, and stools, they were no different from before.

After a long while, she couldn’t help but let out a chuckle.

Chen Feng asked curiously, “What are you laughing at?”

Zhong Lei stretched, feeling especially relaxed. “I really don’t know if you are just frugal or too lazy to bother updating your things. If people outside knew that you, the respectable Teacher Chen, still live in a regular apartment for free and use bedding sets costing just tens or a hundred yuan, countless people would be shocked, wouldn’t they?”

Chen Feng shrugged. “If it works, it works. I’m too busy now to care about that much. But I wouldn’t say I’m frugal. I’ve been buying quite a few brand-name clothes lately.”

He pointed to his wardrobe.

“Those are all necessary clothes you had to buy for negotiations or formal occasions you need to attend.”

“Alright, that’s true. I’ll think about how to improve my life when I have time later. It’s quite good like this for now.”

Zhong Lei nodded. “Actually, I don’t quite understand something.”

“Don’t understand what?”

“You clearly should have a very easy-going personality. Now you’ve also gained huge wealth in an extremely short time. I think you should take a break. But you are always pushing forward desperately, always in a hurry, as if a fierce tiger is chasing you from behind. I find it hard to understand.”

Chen Feng fell silent.

After a long while, he asked, “Do I seem too anxious? Has it already affected you all?”

“No. I just… am a little worried about you.”

Chen Feng patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about me. You just focus on doing your music well. That is the greatest help to me. I ask for nothing else from you. I just hope you can stay single-mindedly faithful to your own dream and not forget your original intention. You possess precious talent. You should, and must, do your utmost to bring it out. You used to reassure me a lot, because I could feel your determination. What’s been going on with you lately? You seem shaken?”

This was what Chen Feng feared most.

Zhong Lei shook her head. “I don’t know either. And why do you always say how good my talent is? But compared to you, I feel my little ability is like the light of a grain of rice trying to compete with the bright moon.”

Chen Feng was stunned on the spot.

He had been so focused on showing off his own skills all day, not noticing that he had shown off too brilliantly, to the point of damaging the confidence of those around him.

Others were too distant. They only knew he was amazing but didn’t know exactly how amazing. Only someone like Zhong Lei, who had ability and comprehension herself and stayed by his side, could truly experience the abnormality.

It was a sense of disparity that felt almost despairing.

Chen Feng didn’t want this, but this was reality.

Lu Wei went from only singing her own songs to actively asking Chen Feng for a song in public.

Zhong Lei went from absolute confidence to now being shaken and distracted due to self-doubt. Both were Chen Feng’s fault.

It really couldn’t be blamed on her lacking willpower. It was just that Chen Feng copied too shamelessly and without restraint.

Anyone would find it hard to take.

Chen Feng realized that, without him noticing, the situation had reached a very critical point.

If not handled well, it would be over.

He slammed the table with a bang and stood up abruptly. “Simply absurd! Unreasonable!”

Zhong Lei was startled by his sudden anger.

“I…”

“What ‘I’! Do you know how disappointed I am right now?” Chen Feng put his hands on his hips, looking at her with eyes that showed anger at her lack of effort. “Who do you think you are? I don’t even know where you get the face. How dare you belittle yourself so!”

Zhong Lei was speechless for a while.

Although she had long known Chen Feng had high regard for her, in their past interactions, Chen Feng was mostly very calm and almost never lost his temper.

Only now, with his sudden uncontrollable rage, did Zhong Lei understand more deeply.

So he wasn’t just being modest out of politeness. He truly had such confidence in her.

Since officially debuting, Zhong Lei had received praise from countless people.

But she never cared and wasn’t smug about it. At this moment, however, her heart was pounding wildly like a galloping horse on the prairie.

“Thank you. Thank you for the encouragement.”

She said word by word, breathing a little heavily.

Chen Feng saw the look in her eyes was off and felt a thud in his heart.

Oh no, wasn’t I scolding her?

What’s with this moved expression of yours?

“I don’t want your thanks! I wasn’t encouraging you at all! I was stating facts! Now, search your conscience. Using your professional expertise and artistic sense, think carefully. What level is the song “Baptism of Fire” you wrote the lyrics for? What level is “Self-Combustion” that you independently created? Compared to the songs I copy… oh no, I wrote, where are they worse?”

A long time passed. Zhong Lei gradually came back to her senses, seeming a little shy and ashamed, and muttered softly, “They… they are all about the same.”

“Pah! Search your conscience again and think carefully!”

Zhong Lei raised her right hand and pressed it against her chest.

Chen Feng swallowed secretly and looked away.

Alright, quite well-endowed.

“They are… a little bit better than the vast majority of the ones you wrote.”

“Isn’t that it? The level of a person’s artistic creativity lies in the quality of their work, not the quantity! Ten thousand mediocre works can’t match one timeless classic. I wrote many, and I wrote quickly. Does that really mean my talent is higher? You don’t understand such a simple truth? Can’t see the wood for the trees? You really disappoint me so much.”

Zhong Lei was stunned at first, then nodded gently. “You’re right. I’ve decided!”

“Decided what?”

“I want to study abroad.”

Chen Feng: “Huh? Study abroad?”

“Yes. I need to more systematically improve my musical literacy. I should settle my heart and reforge my own abilities. I can’t always rely on sudden bursts of inspiration, creating by luck. I should train that instinctual sense of sudden inspiration into a skill I can stably master. Only this way can I have both quality and quantity. Actually, I don’t completely agree with your view.”

“A single classic can indeed basically determine my height. But if one has the ability, why not write more classics? The birth of each song has its specific background, contains different emotions, can move and inspire different people in different scenes, or can evoke different memories in people. As long as it’s a good song, it has its own meaning and value. Leaving behind more value is what makes life worthwhile. I’ll go make arrangements now, aiming to leave by next week at the latest. When I come back, I’ll definitely make you see me in a new light.”

Having said that, Zhong Lei went upstairs.

Chen Feng stood there for a long time.

This time, pumping her up seemed a bit too forceful, almost launching her into the sky.

What should I do now?

Chen Feng sank into thought and began to recall Zhong Lei’s creative trajectory after the last time he went back.

In the previous Timeline, after creating “Self-Combustion”, Zhong Lei slowly produced songs at an average rate of about two to three per year at most, or sometimes one song every one or two years.

The quality of her later works was not poor; they still matched her standing among the top hundred of the millennium. But it wasn’t until ten years later that she wrote another peak-level work on par with “Baptism of Fire” and “Self-Combustion”.

In her entire life, she wrote a total of six works of this caliber, with an average gap of six or seven years between each one.

Based on the first two alone, “Baptism” and “Self-Combustion”, she could firmly secure a place among the top hundred of the millennium. Including all her later works, she ultimately ranked among the top ten of the millennium in many major evaluations.

But as the saying goes, in literature there is no indisputable first, just as in martial arts there is no indisputable second.

Everyone has their own Hamlet in mind. Whether it was Zhong Lei or other regulars in the top ten of the millennium selections, each sparked much debate and discussion.

Even with the controversies, Zhong Lei’s achievements remained astonishing.

Although Zhong Lei pursued creativity, deep down she wasn’t competing for posthumous fame, only seeking a clear conscience and a life without regrets. Yet she and her works should be seen as a complete whole.

If history is considered a past composed of countless accidents, it was precisely because she first became that kind of person.

Her “Baptism of Fire” was ranked in that position in the music database. Through coincidences in different periods, time and again, it was heard by researchers from the predecessor of the Xuanwu Institute—different in identity and name but similar in role—and each time it became humanity’s battle hymn.

Her “Self-Combustion” was played by the system during Dr. Sergey’s occasional breaks.

Chen Feng now felt somewhat lost.

His original plan was to further interfere with Zhong Lei’s life, having her perform reverse creation based on the content of the Golden Record sent into space in 1977. He wanted her to write a song completely opposite to “Song Beyond the World”, then see if he could use Zhong Lei’s crowning masterpiece to ignite people’s hearts and eliminate the infiltration and interference of “Song Beyond the World”.

But if he did this, the burden Chen Feng would place on Zhong Lei’s shoulders would be too heavy.

She might not…

It was almost impossible for her to succeed.

Or even if she eventually did, this song might consume her lifelong talent.

So would her historical status rise or fall?

If it fell, would her songs still appear in the right places?

Could that heavily tasked song, meant to resist infiltration, be passed down and celebrated by the world five hundred years later?

There were too many unknowns and variables about the future. Even though Chen Feng had now traveled back and forth several times and had become an old hand, he still dared not draw conclusions about the impact his actions might have on the future.

He could only rely on guesses and keep trying and making errors.

When the future has not yet happened and variables are not fixed, no one can truly predict the future.

Chen Feng always wondered if, in one of these journeys, a terrible butterfly effect caused by his unintentional mistake might eventually make humanity face the apocalypse ahead of time a thousand years later. Or maybe humanity wouldn’t even last until that moment—who knew?

If humanity perished within five hundred years, then what should he do a thousand years later?

Chen Feng wasn’t sure.

But he knew he absolutely could not allow such a situation to occur.

Chen Feng constantly reminded himself: as someone who could influence the future, he must maintain a sense of fear. Only then could each step be taken steadily.

So now, he didn’t know what to do about Zhong Lei either.

This confusion lasted for several days, and Chen Feng remained unable to free himself from it.

But time did not stand still because of his indecision. It kept moving forward firmly, step by step, day by day.

The tides of the era reached a new turning point a week later.

On this day, four major events occurred in the global music scene:

1. Qin Lu, an artist under Star Peak Entertainment, released three pre-release singles from her debut album. All ten songs in the entire album were created by Chen Feng, causing a sensation.

2. The rising star in Folk Music, Ou Junlang, released a pre-release single from his second personal album. Its never-before-heard dreamy folk style was eye-catching. Moreover, all ten songs in Ou Junlang’s album were still created by Chen Feng.

3. First-tier young diva Lu Wei released her second single within a month. This song was again crafted by Chen Feng.

4. Chen “All Are Me” Feng announced that Star Edge Entertainment’s total creative song library had exceeded thirty songs. All interested buyers and producers, you can make your move now.

These songs for sale covered various styles, in both Chinese and English. Interested buyers could make requests themselves, providing their preferred music styles and past works. Star Peak Entertainment’s music production department would choose accordingly, offering suitable songs to appropriate singers. Of course, the bid price and contract terms’ favorability were also important references for Star Peak Entertainment in selecting buyers.

All four major events happened on the same day.

The entire global entertainment industry and social media were flooded with news of Chen Feng.

Along with it, Star Peak Entertainment’s valuation skyrocketed.

In just one day, its market value jumped from the previous thirty billion to sixty-five billion RMB, equivalent to ten billion USD.

The ability capital relies on for survival is its sense for value.

The creative ability Chen Feng personally demonstrated was truly terrifying.

Their noses couldn’t possibly miss it.

Chen Feng was just methodically doing what he should do, not deliberately pursuing anything. Yet his value became clearer and clearer.

The most obvious change was that Ou Junlang’s father, Ou Guohua, was now very uncomfortable.

In the study of the Ou Clan Villa, Fatty Ou was chuckling.

Ou Guohua’s face was expressionless.

Somehow, he just felt his hands were a bit itchy, wanting to spank a kid to cover up his awkward mood.

“Dad, not to criticize you. How could you have the nerve to value my Master at ten billion? Look, how long has it been? It’s increased more than sixfold. You have no idea how much I had to explain to my Master that you really weren’t mocking him, just that you didn’t know the market. Ten billion… tsk tsk… that’s just too…”

Ou Junlang grew more unrestrained, wildly walking the line of getting beaten.

The Fatty was feeling great right now.

In all his life, this was the first time he saw his old man at a disadvantage. Truly a great joy in life.

Ten seconds passed.

“Ouch… ow…”

Fatty Ou’s joy turned to sorrow.