Chapter 2: Got It!

Chapter 2: Got It!

His mind was in a mess all day, making Chen Feng feel out of sorts.

Luckily, his job as an apartment manager was simple and routine, needing no special skills. He just coasted through the day.

Also, Chen Feng had good luck today. No troublesome issues came up; he just handled a few minor things.

That afternoon, he went to the company for a monthly review meeting. He remained distracted throughout.

He racked his brain recalling everything from the dream, and the more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

As a “transmigrator,” to understand a world, of course, he first needed to understand its history.

In the dream, he had spent a lot of effort on this.

Using his own life’s time as a dividing line, he split the dream world’s history into two parts.

The first half of history completely overlapped with the real world. It was exactly the same.

After waking up, it occurred to him: since the dream was built on his own worldview, the first half naturally had to align with real history.

But what about the second half of “history,” set a thousand years in the future starting from now? Was it accurate?

Chen Feng had no confidence at all. The historical records he found about this future era were very general and had no real value. They were less detailed than a middle school history textbook.

A hundred years could be summed up in a single sentence; the jumps were too big. It felt like someone had deliberately covered it all in fog. There were no important events he could use to make a fortune.

Winning lottery numbers? Stock market trends? Major policy shifts? Resettlement and demolition plans?

None! Not! One!

New technologies?

Theoretical knowledge?

Predictions?

No! Nothing!

For some reason, some jerk had hidden it all away. He couldn’t see any of it!

During the dream, Chen Feng had found this utterly baffling.

Storing historical data wouldn’t take much hard drive space, yet there was none.

As he organized his thoughts after waking up, he pondered for a long time and reached a disappointing conclusion.

This “history” was fake. It was all just imagined dream stuff based on his own worldview.

Starting with just a dream, the content filled in by his brain—of course things turned out like this.

Since the history was all his own brain’s invention while dreaming, his fantasy of getting rich by knowing the future evaporated.

But the songs he listened to, the novels he read, the movies he watched, and the games he played while being a low-income earner in the dream—they each felt incredibly real and complete.

The sharp contrast between the detailed entertainment resources and the hazy historical records seemed downright bizarre.

Chen Feng absolutely didn’t think he had any creative talent himself. So how could the entertainment stuff his brain had ‘filled in’ be so detailed?

He couldn’t understand it.

He was ready to give up puzzling over it, throw himself properly into his work, and reclaim his real life. But then, he opened his apartment door and ran into Zhong Lei.

Before this, Chen Feng hadn’t known her at all—hadn’t known what she looked like, didn’t know where she came from. There was no way his brain could have invented her.

And yet, her name was firmly written in the brief histories of the dream world. She had been celebrated in the fields of art and entertainment for a thousand years.

Now she was right beside him!

Chen Feng found it hard to stay calm.

He started to consciously believe that everything from the dream was real.

In the dream’s records of Zhong Lei’s life story, there was no mention of Chen Feng—her former apartment manager and neighbor.

It could only be because their connection was too slight. Zhong Lei soared into the heavens, while Chen Feng couldn’t even manage to latch on enough to get his name recorded for posterity.

Chen Feng hadn’t known about it before, and he wasn’t one to seek out strangers.

But with this huge discovery now, how could he not want to make a move?

Honestly, if you were neighbors with Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, or Du Fu and you knew they’d be famous forever, wouldn’t your mind start thinking about possibilities?

Chen Feng was just an ordinary guy. Loftier, more high-tech ideas weren’t for him, and he couldn’t pull them off. But letting a golden opportunity like clinging to a rising star slip away? That would be plain stupid!

And this wasn’t just any ordinary “leg up” – this was Beethoven himself, living in his time!

They lived on different floors of the same apartment building, sharing the main entrance. It was practically like they were roommates! Being so close gave him an advantage. Chen Feng thought his chances were pretty good.

Zhong Lei was twenty-one now, a recent college dropout without a job. Her big success was still four years away.

Building a friendship when someone is still down and out makes the bond much more genuine.

He wasn’t necessarily aiming to become her boyfriend. Just making a solid connection would be useful sometime in the future.

He didn’t expect to become famous himself. Just getting a little helping hand from Zhong Lei when she made it big would be more than enough.

Having made this decision, Chen Feng started thinking about how to get closer to Zhong Lei.

He thought of many ways to start a conversation in his head.

But not long after, he began to feel frustrated.

Because of his somewhat unusual family background, he had always been pretty isolated. He wasn’t good at socializing and only had a few real friends.

Making him actively approach the opposite sex was difficult, even if his intention wasn’t romance.

Chen Feng felt troubled inside. Oh well, he’d cross that bridge when he got there and figure it out on the spot.

The meeting ended. Chen Feng grabbed a quick meal outside and headed home.

He arrived home around seven-thirty. Opening his door, he saw Zhong Lei coming downstairs. They crossed paths again.

She still seemed a bit disoriented, probably from sleeping the whole day.

She had a touch of makeup on. Who knows where she was planning to go?

Their chat that morning had been awkward. Giving a slightly embarrassed smile, Chen Feng said, “Good evening.”

Startled by the sudden greeting, Zhong Lei seemed uncomfortable. She turned her head to look at him.

The air hung silent for about ten seconds.

“Oh. Good evening.”

Zhong Lei’s tone was flat and emotionless, like a robot.

Chen Feng was still satisfied with that. At least they had managed their first proper exchange of words.

Having taken that crucial first step, he needed to strike while the iron was hot. Chen Feng asked again, “Hey, by the way, where are you heading out so late?”

Zhong Lei paused for a second. Then, she suddenly looked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. Her expression turned cold as she replied rigidly, “None of your business.”

She shot him a fierce glare, even pursed her lips, and walked off on her own.

This chat was even more awkward than the morning one.

Chen Feng froze on the spot.

Something didn’t feel right, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

Several minutes passed before Chen Feng managed to recover his composure.

Returning to his room, he was still confused.

As for Zhong Lei, after leaving, she hailed a taxi to an upmarket bar downtown in Hanzhou City.

Because she dropped out of college, she had a big falling-out with her family.

This meant that from now on, she had to learn to survive on her own.

So she found a job as a resident singer at a bar.

She did not like this job at all.

As a graduate of a traditional musical arts college, she was very proud and arrogant. She considered bar singer work to be very low-class and saw it as a disgrace. But life had to go on. Even though she loathed it, she had to hold her nose and accept it.

So when Chen Feng asked her earlier where she was going, he actually touched a sore spot in her heart.

Even though Chen Feng’s expression was sincere, she felt as if he had seen through her job. His smile seemed to carry mockery and teasing.

He was deliberately making fun of her, implying that her late nights out and early mornings back were for an improper job.

That was why Zhong Lei reacted so strongly. She was still sulking with anger even while sitting in the car.

Naturally, Chen Feng could not know or imagine this series of thoughts that Zhong Lei had.

His plan to latch onto her success had just begun and already met with a Waterloo, which made Chen Feng feel somewhat discouraged.

Zhong Lei’s personality was too strange, moody, even more solitary than his own, and extremely difficult to deal with. It was like trying to bite a pumpkin with a cow’s mouth—no place to start.

“Maybe I should just give up?”

Chen Feng muttered to himself, feeling a bit regretful.

She was one of the top hundred figures in a thousand years of art history!

Don’t look at today’s booming entertainment industry with stars as common as dogs and big shots everywhere. None of that mattered.

In the first half of the 21st Century, worldwide, actors, singers, composers, directors, painters, and writers were as numerous as fish in a river. But in the thousand-year history of art, only Zhong Lei and a few others could rank in the top hundred!

That was truly great.

One or two of them weren’t even born yet. Chen Feng couldn’t exactly go approach their parents in advance.

Even if he could, by the time those people achieved fame, Chen Feng himself would be pushing seventy or eighty.

A few others were already famous for years. Chen Feng knew of them, but they didn’t know him. He had no chance to get close.

There were also some painters who were currently down on their luck and easier to approach.

But with painters, as everyone knows, they live in obscurity and only gain recognition after death.

For example, the one Chen Feng knew about, people finally recognized his artistic achievements a full three hundred years after his death.

Three hundred years was too long for either Chen Feng or the painter himself.

So after thinking it over and over, the only one with practical value was truly just Zhong Lei.

Chen Feng cursed himself. When he went back in time before, why wasn’t he more driven? Why didn’t he seriously copy something useful? If he had, he would already have it all figured out now. Why would he be in this situation?

But there was no medicine for regret in the world. Who would have thought that being lazy in a dream could lead to lifelong regret?

“They say genius and madness are separated by a thin line. Zhong Lei achieved such great things, so having some eccentricities in her personality shouldn’t be too surprising, right?”

Thinking this, he shrugged his hands. Fine, whatever. He would think about it more carefully later.

Since the direct approach of getting close wasn’t working, he’d change his strategy and take a roundabout route.

Chen Feng tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep.

After careful consideration, he slowly came up with a new plan.

He decided to forcibly copy songs.

After all, the whole year spent in the dream was wasted. He was fooling around all day, just enjoying entertainment like TV shows, movies, novels, games, and songs. He might as well make use of this useless knowledge.

Just thinking about forcibly latching onto others for success was wrong. He needed to discover his own advantages.

First, he would make himself strong. Then, the future star in her early stage would come to latch onto him on her own!

The works he had experienced in the dream were his advantage!

So what should he copy?

Movies and TV series were too big in scale and difficult to monetize.

Novels?

Too many words. He mostly only vaguely remembered blurry plots. He couldn’t recite them even if he tried.

Trying to write a novel based on vague plots?

Don’t be ridiculous. So many words. Writing novels was too tiring. And in this current time period, it might not even become popular. The input-output ratio was too low.

Besides, with his lousy writing skills, even he found it painful to read.

Chen Feng knew his own limits. At least for now, he wasn’t cut out for this.

The same applied to screenplays.

As for developing games, that was even more absurd. The investment required was not small, and with the current technology level, he couldn’t develop those high-end games he used to play anyway.

Therefore, considering many factors, the simplest and easiest thing to monetize was copying songs.

The only pity was that Chen Feng didn’t come from an arts background. He had never learned music before.

Even though he had listened to those songs many times, now he could only barely recall parts of the melodies, hum a few broken lines, and even then, he went off-key.

But he had to give it a try.

Chen Feng made a plan. First, he would rack his brains to recall the songs that left the deepest impression. At the same time, he would learn basic music theory and try to recreate the songs as much as possible using the simplest tunes.

This process was certainly difficult. But compared to an ordinary person with nothing, he at least had some hazy finished songs in his head.

Copying songs had another benefit that couldn’t be ignored.

After all, Zhong Lei lived upstairs.

Right now they were still strangers, which was why getting close was so difficult.

But if they became comrades with a common goal, you wouldn’t be so fierce anymore, right?

They were neighbors upstairs and downstairs. They could learn and progress together. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Chen Feng didn’t sleep anymore. He jumped out of bed, turned on his computer, and began typing furiously.

He decided to write down the most core, memorable lyrics from the songs he remembered most deeply, the ones he could sing right away. He would hum them a couple of times now so he wouldn’t forget later.

Ten minutes later, he stared at the seven or eight lines of lyrics in front of him, frozen.

How did I end up copying her song without realizing it?

The song title was “Dullness”.

This was Zhong Lei’s early work.

The lyrics and melody were both quite immature. But under her wonderful voice and perfect emotional delivery, they were very moving.

The creative level of this song wasn’t high. Its impact relied entirely on the singer’s excellent performance.

When Chen Feng first listened to it, it seemed to sing out the loneliness and isolation of a humble common person in real life. He was deeply moved.

Who would have thought, after more than half a year, the first song he remembered was “Dullness”.

Was the first song I’m going to copy actually Zhong Lei’s song?

Isn’t that a bit too much?

Would she have already written it but not released it?

Wait!

If she hasn’t written it now but will in the future, could this song represent her state of mind during some upcoming period?

If I write it and have her sing it, it should make her feel like we should have met sooner, right?

Would she see me as a kindred spirit?

When she becomes famous singing my song, would she be grateful to me or hate me?

Frankly, she should hate me. But who told you to keep glaring at me with hostility?

Also, she seemed to have just moved in, probably not long after dropping out.

Right now she goes out at night and comes back in the morning.

She doesn’t seem like the type who enjoys hanging out at bars. So based on her background, is she working as a resident singer at a bar?

After singing at the bar for a while, she grew tired of life, so she wrote “Dullness” with the bar as the story setting?

Then she definitely hasn’t written this song yet!

Chen Feng started thinking hard, deploying reasoning skills on par with Conan’s, analyzing the situation frantically. Surprisingly, through a fluke, he guessed many things correctly.

So I’ll start writing now and show it to her in a few days!