Chapter 98: Starting a Business

Chapter 98: Starting a Business

Chen Feng stayed in Zhonghai for a few more days, mainly to help Zhong Lei produce songs.

He did not participate much in the nearing completion of “Monotony”. Instead, he devoted most of his energy to producing the accompaniment for “Baptism of Fire”.

He was copying, yes, but out of a sense of responsibility, he had to ensure this song was completely identical to the future version, with no room for error.

In the original Timeline, it did not take Zhong Lei long from writing the lyrics to completing the arrangement for “Baptism of Fire”. However, the part where he played the hero saving the beauty did not happen in that middle process.

During that time, the thing that affected Zhong Lei the most and touched her the deepest was probably Meng Wanyue’s fatal car accident.

She believed she bore the main responsibility for Meng Wanyue suddenly going into shock while driving.

Back then, she was likely drowning in self-blame. At the same time, she understood the feeling of Meng Wanyue sacrificing herself to chase her dreams. Finally, touched by this feeling, her inspiration exploded, and she completed the arrangement for “Baptism of Fire”.

Chen Feng was not sure if, after losing this life experience, Zhong Lei’s inspiration and creative level could still meet the standard of “Baptism of Fire”.

What if she thought on her own that a certain melody was not quite right, changed it, and made it not as good? Then Chen Feng would have tried to steal a chicken only to lose his rice.

He really did not want to mess up this extremely important army song. So it was best for him to oversee it personally, explaining the creative motivation behind each scale to Zhong Lei note by note, dissecting the secrets of “Baptism of Fire” like a skilled butcher parting an ox.

Of course, he himself did not have that level of skill. But countless music critics in history spent nearly a thousand years pondering this song.

Just analyzing the rhythm, scales, and lyrics of “Baptism of Fire” gave birth to a sub-discipline within the great field of musical appreciation, called “Bath Studies”.

In his spare time, Chen Feng had read the monographs of these Bath Studies scholars.

Chen Feng said, “There’s a repeating chord here. But it only seems like a repeat. Compared to the previous section, the tempo of the repeating chord is 17% faster. The base of each scale is the same, but the duration is shorter. The purpose is to create a stronger sense of urgency, further raising the audience’s inner resonance.”

Zhong Lei asked, “Why 17% and not 15% or 20%?”

Chen Feng said, “Savor it. Savor it carefully. Let’s listen to the three versions at 15, 17, and 20. Which version do you think has a stronger flavor?”

“17%!”

“That’s right.”

…

Chen Feng said, “This 4411 segment is a classic blues chord progression. Let’s embed it here, using it as a background sound to add depth of field.”

Zhong Lei asked, “Can blues also be used as background sound?”

“Yes, it can. There is an area in the human brain called hMT+. It’s responsible for tracking moving visual objects, and its neural responses reflect the motion and frequency of auditory signals. This hMT+ area is more developed in blind people, and they have a stronger acoustic response to moving objects.”

“What does that have to do with this chord progression?”

“Research data shows that a biological enzyme in the hMT+ area, which determines neuronal response, will vibrate violently and its activity greatly increases when struck by sound waves of a specific frequency. The 4411 background sound we are embedding here will blend with the brighter accompaniment and your singing, forming a resonance that just reaches that exact frequency.”

Zhong Lei was shocked. “Is there such acoustics research? How come I didn’t know? And how do you know that after I sing, it will exactly meet the condition you described?”

Chen Feng: Ummmmmm…

“Anyway, if I say it’s like this, then it definitely is. Don’t argue with me.”

This was the research result of that genius scientist from the Xuanwu Institute over nine hundred years later, written in that person’s music review.

Chen Feng could explain a ghost of it!

Next time, he should make it sound more mysterious and not talk about such theoretical stuff.

Chen Feng warned himself inwardly.

Four days later, with his personal involvement, he finally explained the score he wrote himself thoroughly to Zhong Lei.

The way Zhong Lei looked at him changed again.

She used to think that Chen Feng, a music producer not formally trained, was somewhat lucky in his creations, purely relying on talent to overpower others.

After hearing his analysis this time, Zhong Lei realized that inside Chen Feng’s head was an artistic understanding she could hardly hope to match.

He even combined science and art!

What an achievement that was!

When she personally tried singing it using electronic arrangement and confirmed that every point Chen Feng mentioned was indeed perfect, she could hardly believe it. But it was the truth.

How could someone in the world ponder music and the human body’s neural responses so deeply!

“Why don’t you go into research and write papers?”

Chen Feng shook his head. “Actually, a lot of what I said are just my conjectures. They can’t be proven. It’s the same principle as when Planck proposed quantum physics theory; even now it cannot be fully verified.”

Zhong Lei expressed confusion; she didn’t understand.

That evening, the two returned to Hanzhou together.

At nine in the morning the next day, two singles were released consecutively on Q Music.

“Night Has Grown Deep” and “Monotony”, both written and composed by Chen Feng, were performed by the famous rock singer He Jiaqi and the rising star Zhong Lei respectively.

When Chen Feng woke up and saw this situation, he was speechless.

What was this? Competing with himself?

He immediately contacted Q Music’s music director Ma Tianhua to inquire and learned this was a last-minute promotional plan decided by Q Music.

The two songs seemed to compete with each other, but since Chen Feng was the creator of both, it could create synergy.

Q Music simply bundled Zhong Lei, He Jiaqi, and Chen Feng together to build them into one IP.

The result of this internal self-competition was attracting all the listeners Zhong Lei had drawn with “Dullness”, He Jiaqi’s original fanbase as a veteran rock singer, and the semi-industry insiders who were very curious about how Chen Feng’s new works turned out.

In the end, this promotional campaign forcefully turned the off-season into a fiery sensation of top stars releasing songs en masse.

That night, the statistics came out.

“Monotony” stood proudly above the rest with a crazy record of 300,000 paid downloads on its release day. Its popularity was almost twice that of when “Dullness” was released.

Chen Feng’s share ratio for this song was still 70/30, meaning it earned him over forty thousand on the first day of release.

“Night Has Grown Deep” also achieved a high number of paid downloads, reaching 260,000 times.

A historical record was broken.

Before this, the highest record in the Chinese Music Industry was a single released by a mega-star after polishing it for five years, with 170,000 paid downloads in a single day.

The market’s heat was fiercely pushed higher by the internal competition among Chen Feng’s works.

This was healthy competition, enlarging the pie together and ultimately creating a win-win situation.

Of course, the real big winner was Chen Feng.

In just one day, the name of music producer Chen Feng jumped out of the small circle of the professional field and entered the view of the general public.

The miracle of him creating six songs in one night a few days prior also appeared in the promotional materials, astonishing everyone. It further whetted everyone’s appetite and also created pre-release buzz for Chen Li and Ou Junlang, who were making new albums. It was killing many birds with one stone.

Fortunately, Q Music did not have Chen Feng’s portrait rights. The promotional feature only had his name and a randomly made black silhouette.

Q Music officially called it maintaining a sense of mystery, but it actually saved half of Chen Feng’s life as a “celebrity”.

If people discovered that this genius music Master Chen Feng was also the culprit who caused the chain-reaction car accident on the Zhonghai airport expressway, things would have been a huge mess.

Regardless of his motives, whether he ended up saving people or harming people, whether he fairly reached compensation agreements and understanding with everyone, and whether the final settlement was truly legal and compliant—none of that would matter.

The news would definitely write it as a big shot in the music industry pulling strings, causing a major accident and using power to settle things. Then Chen Feng’s not-yet-launched celebrity career would have died halfway on the spot.

In short, the situation was still under Chen Feng’s control. More and more people were eagerly wanting to contact him to buy songs from him.

Chen Feng didn’t even dare to turn on his phone; he couldn’t handle the calls.

His Weibo private messages exploded even more severely. His business cooperation email received thousands of emails daily.

He simply couldn’t keep up and had no ability to distinguish which emails were genuine cooperation requests and which were purely jokes.

It was time to start the company plan.

On this day, under Ou Junlang’s eager anticipation, Chen Feng appeared at the company headquarters Ou Junlang had just finished integrating.

After swallowing Zhou A’s business, Ou Junlang, this life winner who won while lying down, effortlessly became one of the banner holders in the entertainment industry in Jiangnan Province and even eastern China.

Although he himself was completely unprepared for this mentally, still only thinking about singing, the elite personnel he borrowed from the Ouhe Group allowed him to have no worries.

“Master, what do you think of my company? The atmosphere is okay, right? I believe in your strength, Master. Let me take a gamble. I’ll give you thirty percent of the shares, valued at two hundred million. Later, when we have dividends, or when we go public and the value increases, you can cash out and pay me back. As long as we have songs written by you, we’re sure to make money.”

While leading Chen Feng on a tour of the company, Ou Junlang whispered.

Chen Feng smiled. “You’re not wrong to believe in my strength. Your judgment is also accurate. But I can’t agree.”

“Why?”

“No reason. Just let this company develop on its own, and then you come to me yourself.”

“Uh, okay.”

As they chatted briefly, Chen Feng finally understood why in multiple Timelines, Ou Junlang ended up living as a spendthrift.

He wasn’t stupid and had great boldness.

But his problem lay precisely in this boldness. Because he was optimistic about Chen Feng’s potential, he offered 30% of the shares in one go, showing a shockingly high appetite for risk.

When his father was holding him down, his boldness might have been an advantage, since there was always someone to back him up.

But when his father fell ill and no one could rein him in anymore, letting him steer the giant ship, it was easy for him to sail it into a huge whirlpool.

Chen Feng firmly refused Ou Junlang’s proposal. It wasn’t that he was stupid enough to refuse money someone offered.

His energy was limited. He couldn’t, for short-term gain, easily tie himself, who possessed astonishing resources, to another company as a shareholder.

“Let’s not talk about this for now. I’m here to help you record your songs. Chen Li’s new album is coming out next week. You should aim to release these three singles simultaneously. Let’s have another synergy event! By then, ‘Night Has Grown Deep’ and ‘Monotony’ should still be high on the charts. Add your new songs and Chen Li’s new songs, I want the top eight spots on the music chart to all be my songs! I want to dominate the chart!”

Chen Feng declared grandly.

Ou Junlang asked, puzzled, “Zhong Lei is also producing ‘Baptism of Fire’ at my branch company. If we release that together then, shouldn’t it be the top nine?”

Chen Feng nodded. “Yes!”

“Why not write one more song to make it ten?”

A woman’s voice sounded behind them.

Chen Feng turned around. It was Lu Wei.

“Okay, I’ll write one more.”

“Monotony” once belonged to Lu Wei, and Chen Feng took it from her.

This time, since he owed her such a big favor, it was time to repay her once.

He would copy… oh no, write another classic slow song of Zhong Lei’s for her: “Endowed by Heaven”.