Chapter 111 - Getting Closer

Sky Forum is one of the largest BBS forums in China, with more than 1.5 billion registered users.

It is known as the online home of Chinese people all over the world, opening up nine major sections, such as news and current events, people’s livelihood, film and television gossip, gossip chat, literature reading, fashion hotspots, Emotional Home and so on, with up to 50+ sub-sections.

Among them, the international outlook, domestic vision, entertainment gossip, anecdotes and other sub-sections are extremely popular. Active users are often in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. The forum has been established for 20 years, and a lot of network hot events and network celebrities have emerged.

Therefore, Sky Forum has also become one of the important battlefields for online promoters.

The post that Wang Jiashi opened pointed out that “Super Singer” does not live up to its name. It was posted in entertainment gossip section. The poster’s ID is called Stray Cat. It has been a hot post with more than 1 million clicks.

The Stray Cat ID is very famous in the entertainment section of Sky Forum. Stray Cat’s identity is quite mysterious. No one knows what’s his occupation is or if he is a man or a woman. His daily stories in the entertainment section explode all kinds of materials in the entertainment circle. (TN: For now, Stray cat is a he, until his gender is known.)

For example, a certain star is cheating, a certain idol scolded fans, a certain big shot is gay…

Stray cat posts have a common feature, that is, his words are meaningful, the materials are often genuine and real, rarely make groundless accusations or fabricate facts. So, it is regarded as the guiding light of the entertainment section by the forum netizens.

His posts are often followed very closely. Within just a few hours after posting, his post has already reached the top of the list, with more than 10,000 comments.

On Monday morning, a 10,000+ responses were amazing.

In this post, Stray Cat criticized the popular variety show “Super Singer” of Xiangnan Satellite TV, and the incident that caused the explosion was Lu Chen, who was eliminated in the audition! (TN: Explosion = buzz)

Lu Chen, male, 22 years old, a Beijing drift singer, used to sing in a Houhai bar.

With just these few pieces of information, only a few people will know who Lu Chen is. Within the population of more than 30 million in Beijing, at least 10 million are Beijing drifters. Unknown singers are simply as many as the hairs on an ox. If each of them throws a brick at Houhai Sanlitun, they can turn it over several times.

But Stray Cat also pointed out Lu Chen’s other identity.

Lu Chen is the songwriter of the three songs of the wandering band “In Spring”, “Reason To Be Strong” and “I Want to have a Home”. He is a talented pop music songwriter!

What? You said you haven’t heard these three songs?

Then you’re really Out. Check out the official website of the China Music Chart. “In Spring” firmly occupies the top position in the 3rd and 4th week of July! (TN: “Out” here was in the raw. Which mean “out of date”.)

And “Reason To Be Strong” is currently ranked No. 7, and “I Want To Have a Home” is No. 12. The Wandering band’s album “In Spring” has climbed to No. 2 on the album hit list last week.

As a small album with only five songs, having such a high ranking in the music chart is considered to be going against heaven’s will. Because the Wandering band is a new group that just debuted.

But those who are not blind should know that their success is completely inseparable from the three songs written by Lu Chen!

And such an outstanding songwriter was actually eliminated in “Super Singer” audition?

That’s simply the biggest joke in the world!

Stray Cat also mentioned in the post that Lu Chen not only has outstanding creative talent, but his playing and singing skills are so excellent that there is no possibility of him failing the audition due to poor performance.

To prove his point, he attached two Youshi links. (TN: Think of it as YouTube links)

The first link is a clip of Lu Chen’s singing in the “Singing China” qualifying round, and the second is the live video of Lu Chen winning the first place in the top 16 of 32.

And the songs Lu Chen used to participate in the competition were all his own original works!

In response to this, Stray Cat commented: We always say that domestic original works nowadays is not enough, and most of the idol stars can only sing and imitate pop music from Europe, United States, Japan and South Korea. That good creators are getting fewer and fewer.

But in fact, Jiangshan has many talented people, and has excellent creators, but they just don’t have the opportunity.

“Super Singer” should have been the most suitable stage for Lu Chen to play his talent, but because of some people’s malicious suppression, he was forced to go to “Singing China” to fight for his own honor, which is really a pity!

This is also the sorrow of the domestic pop music world.

Stray Cat finally said that the reason why he broke the news in the forum was not because he received money to speak for someone.

He did not know Lu Chen, and he did not have any dealings with him. It was someone who had informed him first. And he was also deeply moved by the songs written and sung by Lu Chen, so he took the initiative to take a shot at Xiangnan Satellite TV.

The two favorite songs of Stray Cats are Wandering Band’s “In Spring” and Lu Chen’s “You Who Sat Next To Me”.

This post is very long and contained a description of Lu Chen’s elimination from the audition of “Super Singer”, his appreciation of the song “In Spring”, and his strong criticism on domestic pop music scene.

And there’s evidence, there is a video that has the truth!

At the end of the post, Stray Cat added: “Super Singer”, Lu Chen throws Ling Xiaoxiao at least three blocks! (TN: He’s just saying to “Super Singer” that Lu Chen is much better than Ling Xiaoxiao.)

It took Wang Jiashi more than half an hour to finish reading the entire post, including, of course, watching two live videos. He read it very carefully and even browsed a lot of responses.

The number of responses to this hot post is extremely high, and the comment area is refreshed very quickly.

“Hype again?”

“Orz, it’s actually a post by Stray Cat, oh my1!”

“Hahaha, are Xiangnan Satellite TV and Beijing Satellite TV going to tear each other up2? I already expected it.”

“This is a bit interesting. I’m curious about who these people are that are suppressing the newcomers.”

“”In spring”? Ah ah ah, my favorite song recently, it was circulated dozens of times last night!”

“I’ve listened to “In Spring”, but I didn’t expect that it was written by a peer. I thought it was originally written by the Wandering band.”

“I have seen the competition of “Singing China” top 32. Lu Chen’s song was very good, and I support him!”

“Stray Cat has made his move, a storm is about to set off on the rivers and lakes!”

“Can I say I like Ling Xiaoxiao?”

“Good stuff…”

The Sky Forum is mixed with fish and dragons, and there are all kinds of people who commented, some are curious, some are skeptical, and some are supportive. (TN: Fish and dragons = good and bad people)

And Wang Jiashi very much agrees with Stray Cat’s understanding and appreciation of the song “In Spring”. At the same time, he also thinks that Lu Chen, who wrote this song, is a very excellent songwriter.

If one take into account the performance of the latter in “Singing China”, it is not at all exaggerated to say that he is an outstanding singer.

However, Wang Jiashi could not imagine that a song like “In Spring” was written by a 22-year-old young man, shattering the impression he had previously built in his mind.

As for the inside story of Lu Chen being suppressed, Wang Jiashi had little interest.

Stray Cat is also said to be a marketing giant. He has seen a lot of gossip posts by the other party, many of which are true, and some of which are deliberately hyped. Even the people in his circle can’t fully tell the difference.

But just for the song “In Spring” itself, Wang Jiashi has too much to say.

He closed the webpage, opened his work software, and typed “In Spring” on the title.

He wrote:

I just returned from my vacation abroad. I’m still jet lagged, and today I went to work in the company.

Then I listened to a song called “In Spring”.

I think this song should be known and listened by many people, have their own experience and sentiment. It seems that I do not need to say anything more, just listen to the song.

But some words are stuck in my heart, not to mention that it’s very uncomfortable. I really want to share with others, so there is this article.

This is a song that seems to be relatively petty bourgeoisie3. It is about a hard-hearted person who already has a “credit card”, a “little princess, a “home with 24 hours of hot water,” and “the pain of the past has gone with the wind”. He yearns for the past of youth, which was once so difficult and “no one cared about”, as well as a kind of cry and worry about the unknown tomorrow,

All this can be seen in the lyrics of the song. The lyrics of “In Spring” are not complicated, but a simple three-paragraph structure. The first two main section of songs write about the difficult and happy days in the past, and the latter part of the song write about the days that are no longer difficult but sad and confused, and the overall climax is the worry for the future and the expression of the ultimate destination of life.

What touches me deeply was the intense emotion contained in this song!

…….

For the entire morning working hours, Wang Jiashi was writing the same article.

He wrote and revised again and again, word by word, and repeated several paragraphs 7 to 8 times because he was not satisfied with them. He struggled to write a recommendation article that only has a thousand words.

Because when Wang Jiashi struck on the keyboard, he also struck his stimulated emotion into the text.

In the small room, there was only the clacking sound of the keyboard.

At the same time, the post [Unworthy of the name “Super Singer”, the author of “In Spring”, Lu Chen, was eliminated because of behind the scene dealing!] was also forwarded to his blog by Stray Cat.

Stray Cat is not a Big V in the Inspur blog, but when he has a number of friends in the blog circle, it has been liked and reposted by Big V bloggers with hundreds or even tens of millions of followers. (TN: Big V = VIP)

Today is the first working day after the weekend, and it is the time when office workers and white-collar elites are busy, so posts are not spreading quickly on blogs and are not being forwarded much.

However, during the lunch break, the number of forwards brought about by several Big V suddenly increased sharply, jumping from dozens to hundreds at the beginning to more than 5000, and the number of comments also broke through 3000, forming a small hot spot.

But this is just the beginning, like a brewing storm, the wind makes small waves.

_____

TN: Just an explanation for the title: as the previous chapter is about a storm rising, now, its approaching.

TN: Forwarded can also mean reposted.

TN: Actual translation is “I top!” which In Cantonese, this is a swearing word. In general, there are three meanings. One is expressing surprise, the second is dissatisfaction, and the third is mantra.1

TN: “Tearing” is an internet language. It means preparing to tear someone’s face off and not feeling affection. The way I understand this is exposing the wrong doings of someone without holding back.2

TN: petty bourgeoisie (小资) – Petty is a Chinese vocabulary, pinyin is xiǎo zī. It is a popular term in the mainland of China since the 1990s. It was originally referred to as the ” petty bourgeoisie “, especially for young people who want to live in the West and pursue inner experience, material and spiritual enjoyment. The petty bourgeoisie should be a person who pursues the taste of life. Petty bourgeoisie is generally an urban white-collar worker. It has a certain status and wealth in society, and it is a certain distance from the ” middle class ” – mainly in the economic aspect.3