Am I a Kamen Rider or the real young master who was switched at birth?

When Ye Yang pushed open the heavy soundproof door of the rehearsal hall, the faint sounds of tuning and conversation inside seemed to have been paused.

The acoustic design of this rehearsal hall is quite sophisticated, with all four walls covered in dark gray sound-absorbing cotton, effectively controlling standing wave reflections.

A YAMAHA digital mixing console sits horizontally in the center of the room, its numerous faders and knobs gleaming coldly under the warm yellow spotlights.

Several blank sheet music pieces were already laid out on the music stand against the wall, and a TAMA drum kit was set up in front of the full-length mirror, the cymbals gleaming with a cold golden light under the lamp.

There were about a dozen people in the room. The electric guitarist was a guy with a buzz cut, who was bent over turning a tuning peg on the headstock of his guitar, polishing the body of his PRS Custom 24 until it shone.

The keyboardist was a girl wearing round-framed glasses. Her fingers hovered above the Roland virtual keyboard as she silently practiced her fingering, probably reciting some complex chord progression.

The bassist stood against the wall, one hand in his pocket, the other casually strumming the strings, producing a deep, muffled sound.

The percussionist sat behind the drum set, his two drumsticks crossed over the edge of the snare drum, and he was lightly tapping the bass drum with his toes, the rhythm as steady as a metronome.

The lead singer was a girl with a high ponytail named Fang Qing. She was standing in front of a full-length mirror, holding a pencil as a conductor's baton, frowning and deep in thought as she looked at the blank sheet music on the music stand.

She is recognized as the strictest member of the band; if someone is even a minute late for rehearsal, she will mark them with an X on the attendance sheet.

The moment the door opened, everyone's eyes turned to it.

They were summoned by the principal at the last minute, supposedly to rehearse with an "important person," but they knew nothing about who it was, what they would sing, or their skill level.

Fang Qing was the first to approach, politely extending her hand and saying in a frank tone, "You must be Ye Yang? The principal asked us to assist you with the rehearsal. I'm Fang Qing, the band leader, lead singer, and harmony arranger."

"We have a lead guitar, rhythm guitar, keyboard, bass, drums, and a few students who can sing harmonies. Time is tight, did you bring the sheet music? We need to look at the sheet music first."

Ye Yang handed her the folder in his hand. The sheet music inside was neatly printed, and each page was marked with a highlighter to indicate the roles of different instruments.

Fang Qing took the folder, opened the first page, looked down at it for a few seconds, and her eyebrows twitched up very slightly.

She looked up at Ye Yang and asked with a hint of curiosity, "Take Everything You Want—isn't that the new song that 'I'm Just a Passing By Online Singer' just released recently?"

"This song consistently topped the school's song request charts, especially the part 'everyone they see is just having fun,' no one in the cover section could sing it completely. How did you get the original sheet music?"

Ye Yang moved the magenta camera on his chest to the side, then gave a slightly embarrassed smile: "Because—I am that online singer."

The rehearsal hall was silent for several seconds.

The keyboardist's hands slid down from the virtual keyboard, their ten fingers dangling in mid-air, forgetting to fall.

The buzz-cut guitarist's hand jerked violently as he turned the tuning pegs, and the strings emitted a sharp, piercing hum.

The drummer places both drumsticks on the edge of the snare drum at the same time, producing a crisp and neat metallic clang.

The bassist, who had been adjusting the sound with his head down in the corner, raised his head and slowly straightened up.

Fang Qing didn't freeze like the others. She took the pencil off her ear and placed it next to the music stand, then kept turning the pages of the sheet music in her hand.

Her finger paused on a certain line of markings, then she looked up at Ye Yang, pointed to several marks circled in red on the score, and said with a hint of surprise:

"In the intro, you used muted notes on the electric guitar to simulate a heartbeat, lowered the BPM to 72, and used flowing arpeggios on the piano. You completely rearranged the instrumentation for the chorus. You added a dialogue between the piano and electric guitar. The piano takes the narrative approach, while the guitar takes the emotional one. This key change is risky live, but if you can handle it, the effect will be more powerful than the original. Who helped you with these changes?"

"I revised it myself. People have heard the original version a lot, and it can get boring to perform it live. I moved the emotional peak of the chorus back, so that the whole song has a clearer narrative arc—from suppression to explosion to relief, instead of staying at a high level all the time."

As Ye Yang spoke, he pointed in the direction of the drummer with his finger, "For the drum section, we don't need the regular rock rhythm pattern for the climax. If it's too explosive, it will overpower the vocals."

The drummer looked down at the sheet music, turning the two drumsticks over and over in his hands several times.

He was silent for a moment, then suddenly struck a short rhythm on the snare drum and hi-hat with both hands, before abruptly stopping and nodding vigorously at Ye Yang: "Understood."

Fang Qing turned back to the first page of the sheet music, then bowed slightly to Ye Yang and said sincerely:

"Idol, please guide me. But—sheet music is sheet music, and singing is singing. Do you know where the hardest part of this song is—that part, 'Everything seen is just for fun, sold at a special price regardless of its price, one after another, row after row, being counted and eliminated, and when the door closes, we're even.'"

"The lyrics are extremely dense, and the rhythm is syncopated with dotted notes, with vocal runs jumping between the words. We've tried covering it several times before, but no one could sing it completely. Since you're the original singer—would you like to demonstrate?"

More than a dozen pairs of eyes in the rehearsal hall were focused on Ye Yang at the same time.

The short-haired guitarist hugged his guitar to his chest and played the intro. Pointing at Ye Yang, he said, "My idol, please play a tune. I've been wanting to hear a live version for a long time."

The keyboardist clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture, saying she also wanted to hear it, as she had practiced this part at home many times but still couldn't sing it.

Fang Qing put the sheet music back on the music stand, stepped back, and gave the stage to Ye Yang.

Ye Yang simply leaned against the mirrored wall, raising one hand to gently pat his thigh in rhythm. (No further information provided.)

The tongue-twisting lyrics that have become a mess in the mouths of countless cover singers sound like magic in his voice, and he sings them effortlessly.

The "one after another" transitions complete three pitch changes in less than a beat, as smooth as pulling silk from your fingertips.

The rehearsal hall was silent for several seconds before everyone started clapping at the same time.

The short-haired guitarist placed his guitar next to the music stand, raised his hands above his head, and slapped them hard several times: "Amazing! My idol! How exactly do you sing that 'jie' sound with the vibrato?"

The keyboardist pushed up his round-framed glasses several times, saying that the transition was completely theoretically sound, and the smooth switching between the three notes in two beats was textbook-level breath control.

The drummer crossed his two drumsticks and tapped them together, then slowly nodded to Ye Yang.

Lin Ying sat on a folding chair in the corner of the rehearsal hall, and her eyes lit up when she heard Fang Qing say, "Take everything you want."

She leaned forward slightly. She had listened to this song on repeat countless times in her room.

Lin Xingran also leaned over to take a look at the sheet music. She frowned, flipped through several pages, then obediently closed it and shoved it into Lin Ying's hands: "I don't understand it. These aren't musical notation sheets, they're codes, right? Big sister, can you understand them?"

Lin Yumin glanced at it sideways, then said in a flat tone, "I don't understand. We'll just listen."

Just then, the rehearsal hall door was gently pushed open a crack from the outside.

A student wearing a baseball cap poked half his head in, glanced around the rehearsal hall, and then quickly withdrew.

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor, followed by suppressed but barely suppressed screams of excitement: "He's over here! The rehearsal room! It really is him! The online singer! I saw him!!!"

Someone must have leaked the news. In a very short time, the corridor outside the rehearsal hall was completely packed with people.

Drummer Lao Zheng twirled his drumsticks and gripped them tightly again. "Since the audience's here, let's give it a proper performance. It'll have to be shown sooner or later anyway, so why not test the waters today? Don't lock the door—let the people outside hear it too. Music is meant to be heard."

The news spread like wildfire, and the corridors quickly filled with students.

The band members quickly got into the zone.

The buzz-cut guitarist placed the sheet music in the most convenient position on the music stand, the keyboardist pushed his round-framed glasses up a bit, and the drummer twirled his drumsticks between his fingertips before gripping them tightly again.

Ye Yang walked to the center of the rehearsal hall and pulled the microphone off its stand.

He looked down at the sheet music in his hand, then looked up, his gaze sweeping over everyone in the rehearsal hall who was watching him.

The corridor was crowded with students who were standing on tiptoe to peer inside, and several girls in the front row had already raised their phones.

He recalled hearing Hu Yanbin's legendary performance on the Singer stage back on Earth, and the famous scene where David Tao sang "Hu Yanbin, you made me cry" to Hu Yanbin at a concert, which made the whole audience laugh and went viral online.

Those songs, those iconic moments, those nights that made the entire Chinese music scene boil over—they're all gone from this world.

He lowered his head and chuckled softly, then raised his head and said in an extremely arrogant tone something that no one but himself could understand: "Today—'I'm just a passing online singer' only wants to make you cry."

The rehearsal hall was silent for a moment, then erupted into uproarious laughter and even more frenzied screams.

A boy shouted at the top of his lungs, "Hu Yanbin, you made me cry!" His companion quickly pulled him aside and asked who Hu Yanbin was.

The boy began explaining very quickly: "It's 'I'm just a passing online singer'! He released two versions of 'Black Orange' before, the second version was really abstract, with a lyric that repeatedly says 'Hu Yanbin, you made me cry'!"

"We've all studied them. Those two versions aren't from the same period. The second one was clearly written after some kind of trauma!"

"Everyone online is speculating about who Hu Yanbin is and how he made the online singer cry. Some say Hu Yanbin is his ex-girlfriend's brother, while others say he's a bad friend who owes him money and won't pay it back!"

The classmates next to him, who didn't know the joke, were stunned for a moment, then they all had an "aha!" look on their faces and joined in shouting, "Hu Yanbin, you made me cry!"

As Ye Yang listened to the repeated cries of "Hu Yanbin, you made me cry" echoing down the corridor, he sighed silently.

This world has no Hu Yanbin, no David Tao, no Jay Chou, no other names and voices that once illuminated the Chinese music scene, only he remembers.

He held the microphone to his mouth, took a deep breath, and then nodded slightly to the keyboardist and guitarist.

The keyboardist's hands fell on the piano keys, and piano notes flowed from her fingertips.

The electric guitar's muted sounds mimic a heartbeat gently thumping in the low register, while the drummer's bass drum pedal creates an extremely light and steady rhythm, and the snare drum's rimbeats punctuate the gaps in the rhythm.

The bassist's fingers glided smoothly along the strings, creating a low-pitched line, while his body swayed gently to the rhythm.

The air in the rehearsal hall began to warm up.

Ye Yang placed the core chorus at the beginning, using the most impactful section to stun the audience.

"Once, twice, three times, until you can't defend yourself anymore—" He opened his mouth with a strong mixed voice, and the sound pressure bounced back directly from the soundproof wall of the rehearsal hall, making the bangs of several students in the front row flutter.

A guy in the audience who was drinking water choked and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, saying, "The chorus comes right off the bat? Is it really necessary to be so explosive!"

The buzz-cut guitarist's fingers flew across the strings, keeping up with Ye Yang's rhythm.

The keyboardist's ten fingers flew across the piano keys, her glasses reflecting the notes on the sheet music, her expression one of complete submission.

When it came to that difficult lyric that had driven countless cover artists to despair, Ye Yang's approach was bolder than the original. He added speed variations to the entire fast-paced section.

He also added very brief pauses at several key pronunciations, turning the lyrics, which were originally delivered at a steady pace, into a rhythmic game with a sense of breathing.

Next comes one of the most ingenious adaptations of the song—"Those who once loved were insatiable, but let's leave some dignity for the past; if we're breaking up, let's be clean."

All the instruments stopped at that moment, and only Ye Yang's voice remained in the rehearsal hall.

The students below the stage held their breath. No one spoke or coughed. Even those who had been chattering about who Hu Yanbin was in the corridor fell silent.

Then the drummer's bass drum pedal falls again, the electric guitar slowly cuts in from the bass register, and the keyboard arpeggios surge back from all directions like a tide, with all the instruments reuniting on the same chord.

This technique of abruptly stopping and then bursting back up in a "vacuum" style of accompaniment appears repeatedly throughout the song, each time precisely pushing the emotions from one peak to another.

Then, after "one after another, row after row," the band explodes, completely transforming the song from its original electronic feel into a theatrical stage performance.

Then Ye Yang took a deep breath, leaned back slightly, and held the microphone a short distance from his mouth. A bright, clear high-pitched voice burst forth from his throat—"We're even!!!"

His voice still had a husky, grainy quality, and a very subtle tearing sound was added at the end of the note, pushing the emotions of the whole song directly to the critical point of collapse and rebirth.

The buzz-cut guitarist sprang up from his chair, clutching his guitar and yelling at the bassist beside him, "A sudden, abrupt turn! No breaths! No transitions whatsoever! That's a hard transition! Very few people dare to sing like that live!"

The bassist was so excited he could barely hold the pick: "And he lowered the key! It's not just showing off his technique, he completely redesigned the vocal range of the entire song!"

After the keyboardist finished playing the last chord, he lifted his hands off the keyboard and said in a still-shocked tone, "The first chorus starts with pure breathy vocals, the second chorus adds pharyngeal sounds, and the third chorus turns into a tearing sound. The emotional curve keeps rising, giving the listener no chance to get tired of it."

The drummer struck the snare drum with both drumsticks at the same time, producing an extremely loud bang, and then stood up and clapped vigorously in Ye Yang's direction.

"The pause he made after 'counting and eliminating'—that half-beat of silence was more powerful than any drumbeat. That's the mastermind behind his arrangements."

The students in the corridor had completely lost control.

A boy in sportswear, who had just run over from the training field, raised his hands above his head and waved them vigorously, shouting in a low voice along with Ye Yang, "We're even."

A girl with pigtails buried her face in her friend's shoulder, her tears soaking a large patch of her friend's school uniform shoulder.

"The original version felt like, 'I've given you so much, how could you leave?' But this version feels more like letting go. When the high note 'We owe each other nothing' came out, I felt completely numb."

Another girl next to me rubbed her eyes with a tissue and said she started crying from the a cappella part of "Once Loved's Insatiable Love". The sound was so pure, without any instrumental accompaniment, like he was talking to himself. When the band came back in, she felt like her heart was hit.

A tall boy in the front row took off his glasses and wiped them several times with the back of his hand. He turned around and noticed that everyone in the room had red eyes. He said in a tone that was both admiring and unwilling, "We are all music students. How come they can come up with this kind of arrangement?"

Ye Yang held the microphone, his gaze sweeping over every face in the rehearsal hall ignited by the music.

The song ended. Ye Yang put the microphone back on its stand, and there was a very brief silence inside and outside the rehearsal hall, followed by a deafening roar of cheers that almost cracked the soundproofing panels.

The students in the corridor shouted themselves hoarse. Some shouted, "Ye Yang, you made me cry!", some shouted, "Idol, sing another song!", and some shouted, "Hu Yanbin, who are you?"

In the rehearsal hall, all the band members had stood up, clapping and wearing undisguised smiles of excitement.

The short-haired guitarist spoke earnestly, "Idol, could I record all the guitar parts for your songs from now on? I won't charge you. Playing your songs is the best reward in itself."

The keyboardist nodded vigorously beside her, pushing her round-framed glasses up several times.

"My keyboard is always ready. Your transposition design made my palms sweaty when I played it. But after playing it, I felt that the most enjoyable score I've ever played was the one you wrote."

The drummer didn't say anything, but simply crossed his two drumsticks and tapped them together, then gave Ye Yang a thumbs-up.

Fang Qing took the pencil off her ear and placed it next to the music stand. With a happy tone, she said, "Idol, I'm convinced. From now on, you can arrange the harmonies however you want. I'll sing whatever you want me to sing."

In the corridor, several students who hadn't calmed down from their excitement were shouting at Ye Yang, asking what the line "leave our dog" in the lyrics meant. They had been discussing this line in their dorm for several nights without any result, and today they finally met the original singer. They wanted their idol to give an official explanation.

Some people asked him how he sang the high note after the line "Everyone he sees is just having fun," and whether he really has iron lungs because he didn't collapse from lack of oxygen after singing that part.

Ye Yang smiled as he looked at the questions coming one after another at the door.

He leaned against the full-length mirror, his fingers unconsciously touching the magenta camera on his chest.

"There's no transition in the middle of that high note, that's called a hard transition. But I can't sing it with that feeling. I met a guy named Hu Yanbin in my dream—he's a master arranger and also a dog-saving hero."

Lin Yumin placed her phone horizontally on her lap and replayed the part where Ye Yang sang the high note. Then she selected all the videos she had just recorded in her phone's photo album and saved them with encryption.

Lin Xingran stood at the doorway, shouting with extreme pride to the crowd still screaming wildly in the corridor, "See that?! That's my brother! From the Lin family! My own brother!"

Then she grabbed a junior student who was squeezing into the rehearsal hall and said in a sales pitch that there was no need to push while queuing for autographs, that she was his second sister and could help pass them on.

Several PE students who had just run over from the training field cast envious glances at her, complimenting her on the fact that her younger brother was actually an online singer.

Lin Xingran put her hands on her hips and raised her chin high: "That's called being modest! I wouldn't go around showing off just because my brother is a singer—although he is now."

Someone immediately said that she was showing off, but she said confidently that it wasn't showing off, but stating the facts.

Lin Ying sat in the front row of a folding chair, watching Ye Yang on stage, high-fiving the band members and discussing the arrangement details.

She suddenly remembered the way he taught her to play the leaf flute by the river that night.

Lin Xingran glanced back at her from the doorway, then chuckled several times.

Lin Yumin glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, and Lin Xingran quickly covered her mouth with her hand, pretending to cough.

In the rehearsal hall, the band members had begun packing up their equipment to leave, but the excitement from the rehearsal had not completely faded from everyone's faces.

Ye Yang leaned against the full-length mirror, put the microphone back on its stand, and gestured to Fang Qing and the buzz-cut guitarist that they would continue tomorrow.

Fang Qing put the sheet music into a folder and said in a serious and expectant tone, "Today is just a rehearsal. The official performance will be in a few days. I hope that Teacher Ye Yang can sing it to the same effect as today, or even higher."

The short-haired guitarist put his guitar back in its case, turned around and shouted to Ye Yang, "The bassist might bring recording equipment tomorrow. They're all regretting not recording the whole rehearsal today."

Ye Yang smiled and said, "See you tomorrow," then turned around.

Sunlight streamed obliquely through the windows of the rehearsal hall, casting a long shadow on the anti-static carpet.

He suddenly sighed softly to himself. Of all the names and voices that had once illuminated the entire Chinese music scene, only he remembered them.

But he can sing their songs; he can bring those melodies that have made countless people laugh and cry to this world.

This is enough.