Rock and Roll: Glorious Years

On a sunny afternoon during the Grain in Ear season, the temperature in Kunming, the "Spring City," was not as enviable as its name suggested.

The scorching sun baked the asphalt road, and the intense heat made the air thick and sticky, causing the scenery to appear distorted and swaying, creating a somewhat magical effect.

At the bottom of Jianshe Road, there is a five-story old building with white ceramic tile exterior walls. There is an inconspicuous glass room in the side passage, with a sign that reads: "Half-Mountain Coffee".

This is a spiritual haven for musicians in Yunnan Province!

The owner of the restaurant had just seen someone off and went up to the second floor through the glass room. He saw that the long-haired man who had been jumping around at the table by the window was now lying face down on the table, with an empty bottle of the Water of Life next to him that was particularly conspicuous.

"Bian Lang, what are you doing! Is it really that big of a deal? So what if Little Li doesn't want to hang out with you anymore? He's gone solo, you can just go home and take over..."

"You can drink the water of life like this? This could kill someone... Call 120... quick..."

The urgent shouts, accompanied by violent shaking, woke Bian Lang up.

"No, don't call 120... I, I'm fine..."

Bian Lang mumbled a reply, straightened up, rubbed his slightly dazed head, and looked around.

"Did I travel through time?"

Bianlang, originally from Earth, died of organ failure due to leukemia. Before his condition worsened, his band had just renewed their contract with Modern Sky and obtained tickets to participate in The Big Band.

With his band poised to go viral and have their songs nourish more interesting souls, lead singer Bian Lang must be dying with regrets!

With trembling hands, he lit a cigarette and brought it to his lips, taking a deep drag. The euphoric rush through his body made Bian Lang feel truly alive: "Being alive is fucking good!"

Subsequently, the memories belonging to the original owner of this body began to flood into Bian Lang's mind.

Bian Lang, 32 years old this year, is the rhythm guitarist of the Yunnan Province independent rock duo "Mask" and also works part-time as a ride-hailing driver.

Just recently, Li Yiliang, the band's lead singer and lead guitarist, was scouted by Magic Disc, a top-tier domestic music label, but Magic Disc only signed him and didn't want Bian Lang.

For a rock musician who has been in the rock scene for 10 years, spent 6 years in Beijing without making it big, and has to take a job back in his hometown just to support his musical dreams, this is a single-choice question with no other answer.

Therefore, without consulting the original record label, he directly signed with Magic Disc. At the same time, he also sold the copyrights of all the band's original songs, a total of 84 songs across 6 albums, to the new record label.

When Li Yiliang returned from signing the contract and confessed to the original owner, the original owner felt that the two beliefs he held most firmly in his life had collapsed at that moment.

Li Yiliang betrayed not only their belief in pursuing their own music, but also the original owner's belief in the word "brotherhood."

They were classmates in high school, went to the same university, and played in a band together for 10 years. According to the original owner's understanding, their relationship was that of half-brothers.

The two had a big argument halfway up the mountain, and it even escalated into a physical fight.

After much difficulty, the owner of Banshan, Tan Jiakun, managed to separate the two and took Li Yiliang downstairs to see him off.

When he turned around, he found that the original owner had drunk a bottle of the Water of Life and died drunk on the table!

"Stop smoking! Look how shaky your hands are. Do you still want to play the piano in the future?"

Bian Lang's face wasn't red, his head wasn't hurting, his heart wasn't racing, his throat wasn't dry, and his eyes weren't bloodshot; his trembling hands were all due to excitement.

Having been reborn, coupled with his original identity, he could easily embark on the path of pursuing his dreams after transmigrating.

Anyone in this situation would be a little excited or upset.

However, he died of leukemia in his previous life, which makes him quite concerned about his health now.

I'm going for a physical exam tomorrow.

"Why wait until tomorrow? Let's go now. Stop fussing, I'm calling 120..." Old Tan complained as he took out his phone to dial.

"I just wanted to get a checkup, why call 120? It costs over 200 yuan for a three-kilometer trip, and medical insurance won't cover it. What's the point? Besides, calling 120 is for emergency care, and medical insurance won't cover the pre-hospitalization emergency checkup costs either..."

Upon hearing this, Lao Tan burst out laughing.

He had known Bian Lang for almost 10 years. In his memory, Bian Lang was the kind of person who never looked at the prices at the supermarket or asked the prices at the market. He would never save a penny if he had a hundred in his pocket, so he wouldn't care about these trivial matters in life...

As for those strange points of knowledge, not only Bian Lang, but even his son, a doctor, didn't know them.

Laughing so hard he couldn't stand up straight, Old Tan put his arm around Bian Lang's shoulder and then uttered a question from the depths of his soul: "Ha...ha, I'm saying you...you've never even had a proper job a day in your life, and you actually have medical insurance?"

"Everyone has health insurance, right? My sister bought it for me through her company..."

"You're amazing! Are you sure you're really alright? I'll have my mom put you in the ward at their hospital tomorrow!" Old Tan said, but in his heart he was thinking, "Could Bian Lang have been drinking fake alcohol? Maybe it was some kind of 'miracle water' mixed with Erguotou?"

"No need to trouble you, Auntie. That relationship is only for emergencies. I can go by myself tomorrow."

"Bian Lang, your personality has changed too quickly, hasn't it? You've actually become somewhat human after just one big drinking session..." The original owner not only spent money extravagantly, but was also very arrogant, and few people could get a kind word out of him.

Bian Lang didn't respond to that. He sorted through his memories of Lao Tan again before continuing, "Lao Tan, I'm really sorry about this. I truly had no idea what was going on. How much did you lose?"

Old Tan is 45 this year. A decade or so ago, he was a leading figure in the rock scene.

After the band disbanded, he returned to his hometown of Kunming and opened Banshan Coffee. Given his vast and complex network of connections in the industry, he is considered the patriarch of independent musicians in Yunnan Province.

Six months ago, he helped the band start preparing for their first solo concert for a thousand people. The concert was scheduled to start in a week, but now this upsetting thing has happened.

"This has nothing to do with you. Didn't I misjudge the situation too? Just now downstairs, Little Li told me that Magic Disc gave me 300 tickets to sell as compensation, and then I should hand over all the arrangements for the show to them, as a farewell performance for your band."

"It's just that Magic Disc Store is a big company, and I can't afford to mess with them. If it were a small company, I, Old Tan, would definitely teach them a lesson."

Don't be fooled by how casually Lao Tan speaks; Bian Lang is acutely aware of the frustration he feels.

On the surface, these 300 tickets are a compensation of 3 yuan. But the effort Lao Tan put into this performance and the favors he owed cannot be measured by this amount of money.

Moreover, Old Tan would definitely want a share of the money.

Old Tan lit a cigarette, turned his head to look out the window, and continued, "I know, you're the biggest victim in this whole thing. You finally managed to put together a decent show, but then Magic Disc took over and turned it into a farewell performance. The worst part is that you were betrayed by your best brother behind your back..."

But what could I do? Just quit and walk away? Then Magic Disc could still gather the original team and get back to work, and I, Old Tan, would be the subject of gossip behind my back. This whole thing with Leonardo DiCaprio... how come I never realized he was that kind of person before?

After listening, Bian Lang stubbed out his cigarette and asked seriously, "Old Tan, how much do you think Magic Disc paid him?"

Old Tan hesitated for a moment, took a deep drag of his cigarette, and then said, "The copyrights for so many songs should be worth around a million, but the cash you can actually get won't be much. Magic Disc must have exchanged some of its resources with him."

Having understood the market situation, Bian Lang continued his analysis along Lao Tan's line of thought: "It's probably only enough for his living expenses for a year. If he still can't produce results, then we'll have to let him run wild."

In its previous life on Earth, this was also a basic practice of capitalism. It wasn't just ordinary, unknown musicians who didn't break into the mainstream; many well-known musicians encountered this kind of thing in their youth. They invested a tiny, insignificant amount of money upfront in exchange for a bunch of songs to fill the company's copyright library. Later, if either the song or the artist became popular, the profits would be enormous.

Bian Lang felt a tightness in his chest when he thought about how the original Earth Teacher couldn't just sing the songs he wrote for his own band, but every time the copyright was sold to someone else to cover, and they would use his name as a gimmick for marketing.

"He just told me downstairs that he wouldn't force me to go to the performance if I didn't want to. He said there was nothing he could do about it; if he kept going like this, he wouldn't be able to support himself anymore, so how could he talk about his music dream? That's true, but things just don't work that way for him."

Bian Langxin believes this. In the original Earth's rock scene, very few independent bands or musicians who don't break out of the mainstream can support themselves through music.

During the worst period of the economic climate, Peng Kuzi worked in children's animation, Zhao Ciwei was a programmer, Aunt Liang was a beauty blogger, and Bian Lang even set up a stall at the night market...

But that's not a reason why Li Yiliang could do that.

As a time traveler, Bian Lang doesn't care about the copyright of the band's songs.

But as a rocker from two lifetimes, he couldn't care less what the original owner thought, but he, Bian Lang, couldn't tolerate this.

"Old Tan, do me a favor. Talk to Magic Disc and ask them to give me a song's worth of time during the performance. I want to sing a new song myself."