A grand feast for the Chinese entertainment industry

Chapter 45 "The Era"

Intuitively, Taiwan is much quieter than Hong Kong.

Although Lin Chien-lu always stays at the same hotel he visits whenever he comes to Taiwan, there are always paparazzi stationed downstairs – Lin Chien-lu himself has even spotted a few suspects.

However, compared to the frenzy of paparazzi in Hong Kong, it still feels far inferior.

This feeling lasted for about an hour.

While having lunch at the hotel, Zhang Aijia's connections in Taiwan over the years led Lin Jianlu to receive a message—a group of paparazzi had moved into the room next to his!

very nice……

I want to swear, but then I think it's unnecessary—which is naturally one of the costs of making money.

That afternoon, he refused to return the room, so he went to another hotel two blocks away and booked a room there, which made him feel a little better.

Then...get to work.

His current task is to record four songs: Chen Shuhua's "Nao Hong Hong", "Summer Wind" and "So Many People in This World", as well as Richie Jen's cherished song "Too Softhearted".

Richie Jen is still busy promoting his work in Hong Kong and hasn't returned yet; he's recording with Chen Shuhua first.

Several days later, Chen Shuhua still couldn't help but laugh whenever she saw him, blushing as she laughed, which puzzled Lao Li and the others. "Hey, talk about love after work! It's during work hours!"

He even banged on the table, looked at Lin Jianlu, and gestured to Chen Shuhua, saying, "Take care of this!"

Everyone's here to see how Lin Jianlu creates art; nobody wants to see you two showing off your love.

Sensing everyone's dissatisfaction, Chen Shuhua quickly apologized to them.

She still didn't dare to look at Lin Jianlu, as if afraid that she would blush and laugh again.

On the contrary, as soon as she started working, she quickly put aside her complicated thoughts and became serious all at once.

However, in reality, Lin Jianlu's job was very simple.

He has been in the industry for a few months and has been to Taiwan more than once. He has gradually learned about the basic model of other people making music, but he doesn't care. He still follows his old habits. With Chen Shuhua's voice, as long as you help her sort out her emotions and find the right feeling, it will be perfect every time she records!

Without exaggeration, if you put all the active male and female singers in the entire Chinese music scene together, Chen Shuhua's singing skills, even if they don't make it into the top three, are definitely in the top five—singing skills that even Wakin Chau admires!
Before time travel, Lin Jianlu shared similar views with many online opinions at the time, believing that the more ancient the singer, the less skill they had. It was as if singing was something that was constantly evolving, and that the series of techniques developed by Western singers, such as chest and head resonance, and soft and strong mixing, were incredibly profound. But in reality, after time travel, listening to many singers from this era live, their "techniques" might not have been that "advanced," but almost every sound they uttered was so harsh!
Those are skills they've honed over many years, skills they've unearthed from their already exceptional talents—skills are never necessarily better the newest they are!

For example, Chen Shuhua has an extremely stable voice with excellent resonance. Her voice is clear, crisp, and mellow. Moreover, she has been singing for over thirty years, and her breath control is so good that you can hardly hear any breathing sounds when she sings seriously.

In just one afternoon, Chen Shuhua managed to record "So Many People in This World," a song she had initially thought would be the most difficult to record. However, upon hearing the recording through the monitoring headphones, even Chen Shuhua herself felt that she had sung it well enough.

The pace is incredibly fast, and the efficiency is astounding.

The people at Rolling Stone were absolutely astonished—they had never seen such a recording speed before! They had only heard about it before, but now they had actually witnessed it!

The key point is that when they recorded the recording, they didn't try any possibilities at all. They directly told Chen Shuhua, "Do it like this, do it like this here, do it like that there, remove that vibrato, add a little power here, sing it crisper there..."

Completed!

I was already extremely surprised at work, and when we had dinner together that night, we talked about it and seriously discussed whether there were any other possibilities. Old Li then swore several times.

On the contrary, Chen Shuhua spoke very little, completely unlike the lively and radiant Lin Jianlu had when they first met.

After the meal, everyone said their goodbyes in tacit agreement, and they all made strange remarks.

"I'm sorry to have kept you from enjoying your French meal!"

"Actually, it won't take any time. It's still dark, so we can light the candles."

"The guy who was picking up girls paid the bill and left!"

Lin Jianlu didn't bother to refute them at all. After they left, Lin Jianlu called out to Chen Shuhua, "Hey girl! Go pay the bill, so they won't say I'm hitting on you!"

Chen Shuhua chuckled again and obediently went to pay the bill.

Paparazzi could be seen lingering outside the restaurant, but when Lao Li and his group of seven or eight left, the paparazzi didn't bother them, clearly still waiting for a big fish.

Ugh, it gets really annoying after a while.

However, when Chen Shuhua returned, there was actually a slight awkwardness between them being alone—mainly Chen Shuhua was embarrassed. She didn't say a word, and within seconds her face turned red again.

"I'm warning you! I'm a womanizer, so protect yourself! Don't overthink things!" She laughed again, but her expression returned to normal, and she remained noncommittal to Lin Jianlu's words. "There seem to be paparazzi outside. Shall we go out together? I was thinking of driving you home!"

"Forget it! I'll just call a taxi! I'm getting a little scared, this is too much of a hassle!"

"It's all your own fault! You're famous, and every year new people become famous, but no one has ever been like you. Everyone says you can spout witty remarks without even trying, and interviewing you is like listening to a stand-up comedy show! The paparazzi love you so much that they're always chasing after you, so you can't have a moment's peace wherever you go!"

Lin Jianlu was speechless.

After a moment, he sighed, "Ah, I miss home! The capital is still the best!"

…………

I heard that Lin Jianlu is homesick and wants to finish her work quickly so she can return to the capital. Meanwhile, Chen Shuhua's recording progress is frighteningly fast, which has prompted Richie Jen to abruptly end his promotional activities in Hong Kong and fly back ahead of schedule.

"Too Softhearted" is extremely important to him.

With the phenomenal success of "Cold to the End," "Lemon-tree" has once again set a precedent!

I'm not selling my own album "Reliance" anymore; I want to record "Too Softhearted" first!
Surprisingly, it was all done in one day.

Richie Jen was extremely guilty. "Luhan, do you want us to record it again? I feel like I didn't sing well enough, and some parts weren't handled perfectly!"

Lin Jianlu was too lazy to redo it. "Fine! I'm not the producer of your new album. If you don't like it, just talk to Brother Xiaochong. You can record a new version!"

Richie Jen immediately shut up.

…………

It's actually impossible to go back that soon.

Lin Jianlu still has a lot of work in Taiwan. As her work increased, Lin Jianlu gradually began to understand why, in martial arts novels and storytelling, when a martial arts figure wanted to retire from the martial arts world, he had to gather all his relatives and friends, hold a banquet, and hold a ceremony to publicly announce his retirement from the martial arts world.

There's no other way, because as long as you're involved in this, all sorts of things will always happen.

Even though he felt he was already financially independent, he always felt that he was just making easy money, and it would be a shame not to. Besides, he still had so many songs in his head, enough for thirty years in advance. If he didn't record a few more albums to make money, wouldn't it be against all reason?
Who would mind having too much money?

While recording Chen Shuhua's conversation, Lin Jianlu also made a special phone call to Zhang Fei, inviting the Zhang brothers out for dinner. He included Chen Shuhua in the invitation.

Lin Chien-lu knows quite a few people in Taiwan, but he is mainly familiar with people from the Rock Records group. Apart from that, he is also close to the Zhang Fei and Fei Yu-ching brothers, whom he met when he worked on the show "Dragon Brothers and Tiger Brothers". To be precise, the friendship is limited, but it is more about mutual appreciation.

Sure enough, we got along very well.

It's quite fun to exchange hobbies, interesting stories, and gossip.

Privately, these two aren't actually that mischievous, especially Fei Yuqing, who is quite a refined person.

The next day, he invited Yu Chengqing, Zhang Yan, and Wu Zongxian, whom he met when he went to record the show "Super Sunday". They had a good relationship. He was indifferent to this industry and did not plan to work in it for a long time. He was relaxed, dared to speak his mind, dared to do things, and did not compete with others. Therefore, he had many friends.

Of course, his immense popularity also plays a role.

On July 6, the American Time magazine interview team arrived.

It had been arranged beforehand; they intended to do an exclusive interview with Lin Jianlu, the kind that would be on the cover of a magazine—of course, the Asian edition, the American edition. Unless it's an important leader at the government level or a prominent figure in international affairs, it's very difficult for foreigners to be on the cover.

But in the industry, appearing on the cover of an Asian magazine is already a super big deal.

"You will be the third Chinese artist to grace the cover! Before you, there was only Ms. Zhang Qiang and your mainland film queen, Gong Li! You are the first male artist and the first male singer!"

Okay, let's go then.

There was none of the arrogance I'd heard about. They arrived at Rolling Stone Records at the agreed time for the interview and photos. The interaction actually went quite well.

Zhang Aijia accompanied her throughout the entire process.

The next day, I visited her home again and finally met my "brother-in-law," Wang Jingxiong, for the first time.

He's from Hong Kong, a businessman, and has a good personality.

There's a story behind this. The two met and fell in love in 85. In 90, Sylvia Chang gave birth to a child out of wedlock. In 91, Wang Jingxiong finally divorced and married Sylvia Chang.

Unfortunately, their son is already six years old and not so easily fooled; he refuses to call them "Dad."

(End of this chapter)