CH 88

Chapter 88 – Ambiguous Undercurrent

Doomed to defeat

After setting the date for the release of the summer album for July, Kaleido grew busy making the mini-album at the company every day.

Compared with regular albums, mini-albums only included one main song and three non-main songs, and this time, the main song had been bought by the company from a composer abroad, and one of the three non-main songs was to be the one Fang Juexia had created before.

After all, it was a follow-up mini-album, so there wasn’t as much pressure, so everyone was relatively relaxed. Their attitude while participating in the production of the mini-album was one purely of playing around at music. Summer was a season filled to the brim with sunshine and romance, so the style of the music was also positioned in this way this time. Compared with their previous albums, which had been full of strong feelings, this album’s requirements were towards adding more elements concerning love.

This was why Chen Zhengyun, the producer and boss, was not as at ease for Pei Tingsong to write the lyrics of all the songs as he had done before.

“Xiao Pei’s lyrical style is too intense, it’s not gentle enough.” Chen Zhengyun discussed at the meeting, “This time, we need to have the feeling of summer love.”

Fang Juexia, who had never raised any objections during meetings, quietly refuted this statement in his heart. Pei Tingsong could actually be very gentle; he could coax a person, even read poems to him, and also buy flowers and candy for him.

He was the most qualified person in the world to refute this statement.

Others could only see the thorns present all over Pei Tingsong, only Fang Juexia can feel his soft heart.

“How am I not gentle?” Pei Tingsong was not satisfied with this evaluation, so he directly slapped the table in the meeting room and challenged the boss as usual.

Everyone burst out laughing. “Do you call that gentleness?”

He Ziyan said with a smile, “Other people may write love songs with ‘I love you, you love me’ or something, but when it comes to Xiao Pei, he directly mentions you stepping into the skies and breaking the heavens.”

Ling Yi called out, “Bros, spam the barrage with the word ‘fear’!”

Lu Yuan rubbed his chin. “The fierce man is gentle, hahahaha!”

Jiang Miao, who had never involved himself in any group snarking activities, also glanced at Pei Tingsong and said, “Maybe after Xiao Pei dates a bit, he can write lyrics with more of a love song atmosphere.”

Pei Tingsong extremely wanted to refute them. “No, you guys…”

Fang Juexia pursed his mouth and cleared his throat. His expression was like that of a little hamster with a bulging mouth; his cheek pouches were filled with secrets.

Alright ba. Pei Tingsong gave up. He decided not to be just a giant of language; he needed to prove that he could really write love songs with his actions.

“You guys wait. I definitely can do it.”

“Okay,” He Ziyan teased him, “Is there ever a time when Xiao Pei can’t do it?”

Pei Tingsong was too lazy to mind them. He held the pen in his fingers and spun it skillfully. Chen Zhengyun showed them all the selected songs one by one, and everyone discussed the appropriate arrangement styles.

Fang Juexia looked up seriously and listened carefully. Suddenly, he felt something touch his leg. He lowered his head doubtfully, only to see that it was actually a foot in a purple AJ, which had stretched out to his leg. He had just come out of the practice room and was still wearing loose dancing slacks. The tip of that AJ covered foot had already lifted up his slacks to lightly poked against the skin of his leg twice.

As soon as he looked up, Fang Juexia saw Pei Tingsong’s head tilted towards him. His eyes were deep, and he was still twirling the pen in his hand.

He was probably blaming him for not speaking up for him, thought Fang Juexia.

He pulled his legs back, not accepting Pei Tingsong’s covert blame.

“We have also been discussing cooperating with some of this year’s summer dramas, and it is possible that one of the non-main songs will be used as an interlude in an episode of a TV series.”

Cheng Qiang was still talking, and Fang Juexia tried to concentrate and listen carefully, but there was something that kept distracting him. As soon as he retreated, Pei Tingsong would draw closer.

Pei Tingsong liked to play with fire, and without any blushing or fast-beating heart, teased him in front of so many people.

“So, we have to speed up the pace soon. After making the demo, we have to send it to the drama department, so that they can choose the songs.”

However, Fang Juexia had never been a little white bunny who would let himself be bullied by others. When dealing with Pei Tingsong, his temper was especially large.

There was a clattering sound, and Fang Juexia’s pen fell to the ground beside his elbow. He apologized in a soft voice and bent down to pick it up. He reached for the pen that hadn’t been capped in the first place, directly grabbed the leg that Pei Tingsong had stretched out, and quickly drew an X on his exposed ankle.

Then he quietly sat up and put his pen on the table.

No one discovered the ambiguous undercurrent flowing under the table, and there was no evidence besides that little X.

Although everyone had teased Pei Tingsong at the meeting, after the demo of the main song was given to them, it only took Pei Tingsong two days to complete writing lyrics for it, which was much faster than what the other lyricists, arranged by the company, managed to achieve during the same period. Chen Zhengyun carefully compared the two sets of lyrics; Pei Tingsong’s lyrics were both more vivid and poetic. It wasn’t simply a grab bag of assembly line lyrics where no matter what you’re singing back and forth, it’s always just ‘you love me and I love you”.

With the main song decided, the six people from Kaleido entered the studio to record. They had learned from their previous experience, and this time, they were very careful in keeping the demo and the completed song absolutely safe, for fear that another accident like the previous one would occur.

During this period, Star Chart and Kaleido’s official Weibo also released a notice on Weibo. Although they didn’t even post a picture of the album, with the message containing just the words “coming soon”, the excited mood of fans on seeing this was hard to express, and forwards and comments soon soared. 

Everyone had guessed that with the popularity and lasting power of “Break Through”, Star Chart would definitely strike while the iron is hot and release a follow-up album, but they hadn’t expected it to come so soon.

Halfway through this period, Fang Juexia and Pei Tingsong also went back to film ‘Escape For Your Life’, and the popularity of the program grew increasingly higher and higher with each episode, and after the broadcast every Saturday, you would find the TingJue CP trending on the Hot Search list.

As a result, the program group’s budget also increased. They directly built a small planetarium for a new episode. After filming, the several guests got together to eat as usual. After eating, the ZiXi pair, who had things to do, left first, but Shang Sirui insisted on going to a KTV, so the rest of them continued their evening activities.

“Hey, we have to take a group photo this time, make a preemptive strike ah.” Shang Sirui joked about He Ziyan’s scandal from last time, “Or else suddenly they’ll say I have a girlfriend.”

Zhai Ying replied with a smile, “Dream on.”

Pei Tingsong teased, “Fire Ge has received many scripts for idol dramas nowadays, a blessing found within misfortune.”

They began to chat as they played around. All of these people were willing to talk, and they’d more or less have something to say about themselves in every get-together they had. Fang Juexia was always a member of the audience at such occasions, but he hadn’t expected Zhai Ying to talk about Astar’s matters at this particular gathering.

She first mentioned that their group’s comeback had been delayed, and only after Shang Sirui asked why did the rest of them find out about the big conflict at the upper levels of Astar, and how there were two factions pulling at each other.

Although Fang Juexia was no longer in Astar, he had heard about most of this when he was still a trainee. Astar had originally made its fortune in the early days by relying on several popular singers and groups. One of them, Li Luo, a veteran national singer, had also become one of Astar’s shareholders. However, the boss at the time had supported Jin Xiangcheng when he was retiring to a higher supervisory position, thus making him the new boss. However, Jin Xiangcheng’s means of doing things were more low, and even though he managed to promote many popular groups through his own methods, he also ended up making many enemies.

He remembered that Ling Yi had casually mentioned the fall in Astar’s stock. Apart from Pei Tingsong’s older sister causing difficulties, it must have something to do with the high-level infighting.

Pei Tingsong asked casually, “Why should high-level infighting delay your guys’ comeback?”

Zhai Ying took a sip of beer. “Because we are a group designed by President Li.”

Fang Juexia asked, “Li Luo?”

“Yes. There is also another more key problem.” She shrugged. “I’m Li Luo’s sister-in-law. In other words, he’s my brother-in-law.”

Shang Sirui suddenly realized. “Oh! No wonder you could debut after only having trained for such a short time!”

“I’m very strong myself, okay? Or do you think being the ace in a girl group is so easy?”

It was only then Fang Juexia realized that Zhai Ying was actually an airborne; no wonder he hadn’t seen her when he had left. And even though she knew that he and Astar, who had been friendly once, now hated each other, she didn’t care about it all that much; everything made sense now.

She must also not be pleased with Jin Xiangcheng.

Fang Juexia said, “Based on Jin Xiangcheng’s style, he will not let you guys stage a comeback until he has established his position. You doing well is tantamount to fueling President Li’s prestige within the company. Besides, your group’s popularity is so high, so the numbers shouldn’t be bad.”

“That’s why I’m hoping we don’t do a comeback, I’m afraid that he’ll deliberately give us bad songs. He’s already done something like that before, which greatly damaged our group’s vitality.” Zhai Ying sighed and spoke, “After all, we’re not like you guys, who create your own songs.”

Fang Juexia smiled. “We are a small company, so we have no other way.”

After the gathering, they all left separately. Fang Juexia was still thinking about Astar on his way back to the company. Back when he had entered Astar, one of his interviewers had been Li Luo, and it could be said that Li Luo was the one who had led him into Astar. During his trainee period, Li Luo had also helped him a lot, which was why everyone thought that he would be able to debut with a new boy-band soon.

That was until Jin Xiangcheng snatched the planning and execution of “Seven Luminaries” from Li Luo.

Things were hard to predict; he was already no longer a member of Astar, but such open and secret struggles still hadn’t stopped.

However, Fang Juexia kept getting a bad feeling about it, and he was even worried about Liang Ruo. Although he had already said that he would not be involved with anything concerning Liang Ruo in the future, he still didn’t want that person to become the victim in a struggle of interests.

Or, in other words, he didn’t want anyone to be a victim.

Besides completing their personal events, their daily job was to come to the company to prepare for the album. Although there was no need to do promotional shows, future fan meetups and variety shows would still require a stage. Therefore, Fang Juexia and Lu Yuan started choreographing, and this time their style was more natural. After grinding out choreography details all afternoon, Lu Yuan was half-starved and dragged Fang Jjuexia to go eat.

Thinking that Pei Tingsong was still writing lyrics in his small studio, Fang Juexia was absent-minded the whole time he ate, and then Qiang Ge called Lu Yuan away.

“Take your time eating ah. I’ll go first.”

“En.” Watching Lu Yuan leave, Fang Juexia put down his chopsticks, packed a shrimp seed noodle dish and mung bean ice drink, then went directly to go find Pei Tingsong.

The studio where he usually wrote lyrics was next to the piano room, opposite the vocal music room, and it used to be a small exercise room. In the beginning, Star Chart had only occupied the first floor of this large office building, and resources were scarce, so even such a small room had been equipped with mirrors. Later, with gradual development, Star Chart took over all the five floors, which meant that there were more training rooms, and pretty much everyone stopped using that small room, so it gradually became a storage room.

The little demon king had quarreled fiercely with Chen Zhengyun, saying that he had to have a place to write his own things, and only then did they arrange that one room for him.

Fang Juexia exited the elevator with the food he had packed. It was actually his first time coming to Pei Tingsong’s small studio.

When he got to the door, Fang Juexia hesitated again. He knocked on the door, but got no response, though he could hear the sound of an electronic piano from inside.

Could he not hear him? Fang Juexia raised his hand to knock on the door again, but suddenly the door opened, and his hand was left hanging there in the empty air. 

“You came?” Pei Tingsong took his raised hand and pulled him in. His expression had changed very quickly; he had originally looked impatient at being disturbed, but when he saw that it was Fang Juexia who had come, he immediately showed a childish smile. His face changed faster than the time it took to turn the pages of a book.

“If I told you to go eat, you wouldn’t go.” Fang Juexia carefully pushed the door closed behind him and handed Pei Tingsong the food he was carrying. “I just went to go eat, so I brought you some.”

The room was really not that big, but it had everything inside. The wall on the left side of the entrance had a row of desks and musical instruments. On the right side was the original large mirror, and the floor was carpeted, with several lazy-boy sofas placed around. This kind of environment was very consistent with Pei Tingsong’s American style of leisure.

Seeing that Fang Juexia had even remembered to bring him food, Pei Tingsong happily took hold of the bag, then cradled his waist and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You’re being so good to me.” He wore a cream white short sleeve shirt with a pair of glasses, and his hair was tamed, so he really did give off more of a college student feel right now. 

Fang Juexia pushed against his chest. “Don’t…”

“Don’t worry, the surveillance in here has been removed by me.” Pei Tingsong said casually while picking Fang Juexia up and seating him down on his desk. He then put his own hands on the table, surrounding him.

Fang Juexia’s heart jumped up violently. The temperature of the air conditioner in the small room was clearly very low, but he still felt hot. “What are you doing dismantling the surveillance?”

“I’m not comfortable with surveillance here, and I can’t concentrate on my work.” The corners of Pei Tingsong’s mouth quirked up, and he took off his glasses with one hand. “But now it seems that I am very prescient.”

After that, he kissed Fang Juexia. There was absolutely nowhere for Fang Juexia to duck in order to avoid it, so he took a bite in revenge, but because he was reluctant to use his whole strength, he ended up causing the opposite effect. Pei Tingsong pretty much felt that this was flirting.

Just like the X he had drawn on his ankle.

Fang Juexia’s teasing was always unconscious, so much so that even he wouldn’t discover it himself.

The hot kiss made Fang Juexia dizzy, and he couldn’t see anything besides Pei Tingsong’s handsome eyes. He started mistakenly sucking in air, and his reason became intermittent. He wandered between resistance and obedience, all his thoughts covered in hot fog.

He thought that Pei Tingsong’s clothes were so white and so clean.

Clean.

This gave him a tenable reason.

“Don’t… I’ve danced, and I’m dirty, I’ll dirty your clothes.”

Pei Tingsong chuckled and separated from him for a short time, but his eyes were still staring at those moist shiny spots on his lips. “How many times have I dirtied you? It’s the perfect time for you to return the favor.”

After having gotten physical, Pei Tingsong used more dirty talk than before. Originally, Fang Juexia had thought that he was a guy with no lower limit. Now he thought that he might be lower than the lower limit he had imagined before.

This short pause allowed Fang Juexia to look up, but as soon as he looked up, he saw a row of mirrors on the opposite wall, and reflected on them were his red neck and ears, making his heart pound against his chest.

“The noodles will get cold in a bit.” Fang Juexia pushed him away and came down from the table. His movements showed his hurry, and he brought down a lot of Pei Tingsong’s manuscripts with him, all of which floated to the ground like snowflakes.

When Pei Tingsong saw him crouch down to pick it up, he wanted to pull him back. “Don’t worry about that, it’s all scratch paper, I already don’t want them. Come and sit down, keep me company while I eat.”

Fang Juexia wasn’t willing. “You eat first, I feel uncomfortable with all of this all over the floor.”

Alright ba, who let his family’s little white flower have obsessive-compulsive disorder? However, Pei Tingsong also didn’t bother listening to him, squatting down to pick it all up with him. Fang Juexia collected all of the scratch paper, and afraid that Pei Tingsong would make trouble and not eat well, he took the stack of paper and went to the lazyboy sofa in the corner. Rather than have Pei Tingsong continue what they were doing before, he forcefully changed the topic. “Is this the scratch paper for the lyrics?”

“Not all of them ba, some of them were just written in a daze while practicing calligraphy.” In fact, he didn’t have much of an appetite, so he stuck a straw into the mung bean smoothie, and started drinking with the cup in his left hand while casually playing a few notes on the electronic piano with his right hand.

Fang Juexia didn’t have the habit of looking through other people’s manuscripts, but he simply felt that the words on the top-most sheet were good-looking. Line by line, each one of them was beautiful, and the handwriting was flowing and coherent. At first glance, it looked to be the product of abundant inspiration. It didn’t look like some lyrical scratch paper, but on the contrary, more like a modern poem.

So he read it silently in his heart.

[Love turns man into a contradiction of stupidity

Head all confused, happy in degeneration, like me

Want to use the safest hug in the world

To wrap your fragile bones and dreams

Sleep well ba, I’m a loyal night watchman

Your smoothly beating heart is in my hands

And the whole world is in my hands

But I thought again, in the unguarded middle of your night

On your soft shoreline

To start up the most dangerous campaign

Burn up a whole night’s worth of the smoke of gunpowder

Doomed to defeat, I will put the last bullet

Into your body]