Life countdown begins, ice queen bursts into security room

Monday night at 11 p.m.

Jiang Fan lay on his bed in the apartment, staring at the ceiling.

The phone screen lit up briefly.

Li Cheng: "Are you asleep?"

Jiang Fan: "No."

Li Cheng: "I'm keeping an eye on it from the studio; it's reached 9900 million."

Jiang Fan: "Staring at it won't make it rise any faster."

Li Cheng: "Can't you just give me a little excitement?"

Jiang Fan did not reply to the message.

Twenty minutes later, my phone vibrated three times.

Li Cheng sent three messages, each containing only one character.

"break"

"100 million"

"了"

The next thing was a screenshot.

The total number of plays stopped at 100,073,841.

Jiang Fan replied with four words: "Well done."

They were probably so angry they smashed their phone, because there was no message for the next fifteen minutes.

Jiang Fan was about to turn off the lights and go to sleep when a new message popped up on WeChat.

Xu Qingya.

At midnight, this diva was still awake.

Xu Qingya: "Congratulations."

After a few seconds' pause, another message came in.

"How far is 'Sorrow' from my 'Red Bean'?"

Jiang Fan opened the backend and took a look.

"Still a long way off."

Xu Qingya: "That's good."

Jiang Fan could imagine the expression on her face when she sent those two words.

Another message popped up.

"Remember this: if you surpass me, I'll make you pay."

Jiang Fan replied with a thumbs-up emoji.

Xu Qingya didn't say anything more.

-

The next morning, news spread throughout the industry that Jiang Fan's three songs had surpassed 100 million views.

It didn't spread slowly; it exploded like a pot boiling over.

Penguin Music's internal weekly report listed Jiang Fan as "the most commercially promising newcomer of the quarter".

At noon, while Jiang Fan was eating takeout in his studio, Li Cheng walked over with his phone in hand.

"Take a look at this."

It's a self-media article with a rather sensational title: "From Security Guard to Singer with Over 100 Million Yuan in Sales: Jiang Fan's 30-Day Myth".

Jiang Fan glanced at it twice, and it thoroughly examined his resume.

He worked as a security guard at EE-Media, got fired, sang in bars, participated in Tomorrow's Star, won the championship, wrote songs for Xu Qingya, and was involved in the Shen Nian copyright case—he knew the timeline better than he did himself.

The article concludes, "Every year in this industry, people shout 'A genius has arrived,' but most so-called geniuses are merely products of capital. Jiang Fan is different. He has no management company, no capital, and not even a decent publicity team. He relies solely on one great song after another. If you insist on asking me if there is still hope for the Chinese music scene, my answer is—listen to Jiang Fan."

Jiang Fan returned the phone to him.

Who wrote it?

"An account called 'Midnight Music Hall' has over 20 million followers."

"Okay. Give him an extra chicken leg."

Li Cheng glanced at him and swallowed his complaints.

Anyone would post a Weibo to thank their fans for breaking 100 million views, but this guy didn't even put down his chopsticks.

Jiang Fan continued eating his boxed lunch.

He took a bite of his chicken leg and mumbled, "Su Yuyan is coming tomorrow. Have Zhou Yutong tidy up the meeting room."

"And—" Jiang Fan swallowed the food in his mouth, "take her phone away tomorrow."

Zhou Yutong's previous offense is still fresh in everyone's mind. If she does something like this again, Jiang Fan probably won't live past the end of the month.

"Whose phone are we taking? Su Yuyan's or Zhou Yutong's?"

"You dare accept Zhou Yutong's? And Su Yuyan's?"

"Too."

-

Wednesday at 2 PM.

Su Yuyan arrived ten minutes earlier than the agreed time.

Wearing a baseball cap and with exquisite makeup, she had a layer of glitter on the beauty mark at the corner of her eye, making it look like she was born with it if you didn't look closely.

She wore a beige suit jacket over a black camisole, with her collarbone and the area below it subtly visible.

Zhou Yutong's phone had been taken away by Li Cheng, but her eyes couldn't be put away.

He lay sprawled on his workstation, his gaze following Su Yuyan from the doorway to the conference room, his neck turning nearly 180 degrees.

Li Cheng made a throat-slitting gesture behind her head.

Zhou Yutong only pulled her head back in after the conference room door closed.

Su Yuyan took off her coat and draped it over the back of the chair before sitting down and starting to discuss the music arrangement with Jiang Fan.

She tapped one of the paragraphs with her fingertip.

"Is the electric guitar riff the main theme here, and the brass section the rhythm?"

"Your voice is sweet and sexy, and the contrast is striking when the hard arrangement supports it. It's captivating."

Su Yuyan bit the pen cap and thought for a while.

"My initial idea was a funk base with a string arrangement."

"It's too heavy. Your fanbase is predominantly young, and funk has a narrower audience. The brass section retains the rhythm and is more likely to go viral on short video platforms. A good song is one that grabs your attention within fifteen seconds."

Su Yuyan put down her pen.

"Have you always been so accurate in your market predictions?"

"It's not that I have accurate judgment, it's that I know what kind of voice attracts people."

Su Yuyan thought about the online data of "Sorrow" and swallowed back the rebuttal that was on the tip of her tongue.

A few seconds later, she took a document out of her bag and pushed it over.

"What is this?"

"The revenue-sharing agreements for 'Poisonous Perfume' and 'The Wind Blows.' I had my lawyer draft them; please take a look at the terms."

Jiang Fan flipped through it.

The lyrics and music copyrights belong to Fanyin, Su Yuyan receives 60% of the performance rights and streaming revenue, and Jiang Fan receives 40%. The terms are clear and there are no hidden pitfalls.

His gaze fell on the author's signature section.

"How about we change the author's name for 'The Wind Blows'? Hmm... let's just write 'Anonymous,' what do you think?"

Su Yuyan tilted her head slightly, and the beauty mark at the corner of her eye twitched.

"Is this because you're afraid Xu Qingya will find out?"

"She said that for every song I write for you, I have to repay her with two. I already owe her two songs; if I keep writing, I won't be able to do anything else this year."

Su Yuyan burst out laughing.

"Empress Xu is quite nosy about you."

"So anonymity is better for everyone. You avoid one problem, and I avoid paying off two debts."

Su Yuyan thought for a moment, then picked up a pen and drew a circle next to the signature column.

"Okay, I'll do as you say. But 'Nameless' sounds awful, let's find something better."

"You decide."

Su Yuyan wrote two words next to it: Fan Yu.

Jiang Fan glanced at it.

Fan and Yu.

She separated the two people's names and then put them back together.

"That's it?"

"What, doesn't it sound good?" Su Yuyan tilted her head to look at him, the pen cap touching the corner of her lips, her smile not quite serious.

Jiang Fan didn't respond to that.

You can use any pen name you like.

Su Yuyan took the contract back and got up to tidy her things.

"We'll go with your arrangement plan. I'll go back and have the production team make a demo, and then I'll give it to you for approval."

"OK."

She picked up her bag, then put it down again.

"Come have dinner with me tonight. It's at six o'clock. I've made a reservation; I'll send you the location in a bit."

Su Yuyan stood up and put on her coat. As she passed Jiang Fan, she tapped him on the shoulder with her finger.

"Six o'clock, don't be late."

She opened the conference room door and walked out.

A flurry of footsteps came from outside the door.

Su Yuyan walked to the door, put on a hat and mask, and smiled at Zhou Yutong, who was still pretending to type on the keyboard at her workstation.

"Little girl, don't eavesdrop next time."

Zhou Yutong's face turned red from her neck to her ears.

Su Yuyan pushed open the door and went out.

Li Cheng walked over from the tea room with two cups of coffee, glanced in the direction Su Yuyan had left, and then looked at Jiang Fan, who was sitting motionless in the conference room.

He went in, closed the door, and placed a cup of coffee in front of Jiang Fan.

"They only chatted for twenty minutes?"

"The arrangement plan is confirmed, and the contract has been negotiated. Twenty minutes should be enough."

Li Cheng took a sip of coffee and hesitated for a moment.

"Jiang Fan."

"Um."

"Actually, I've always wanted to ask you a question."

Jiang Fan looked up.

Li Cheng's expression became unusually serious.

"What are you after these women around you—Xu Qingya, Su Yuyan—?"

The office was silent for two seconds.

"I'm not saying you have character flaws," Li Cheng added, "but you've always been very clear-headed and calculated every step precisely. The only thing I don't understand is your logic in this matter."

He leaned forward.

"Xu Qingya is one of the Four Heavenly Queens, and so is Su Yuyan. Either of them alone, if you were to get involved with them, would be a nuclear bomb. You're simultaneously... let me be careful with my wording—maintaining two relationships at the same time isn't walking a tightrope, it's dancing on a knife's edge."

Jiang Fan leaned back in his chair and looked at him.

What am I after?

Tu Ming.

Xu Qingya has kept him alive from the first day until now; without them, the grass on his grave would be three feet tall by now.

But he couldn't say that.

What do you think?

Li Cheng shook his head.

"I don't think you're the kind of person who'd be blinded by a woman. But what you've done certainly does."

"Humans are very complex."

Jiang Fan picked up his coffee and took a sip.

Li Cheng stared at him for five seconds, but couldn't glean any extra information from that face.

"Alright." He stood up, picked up his cup, and walked out.

I paused at the door.

"Do you need me to fabricate an alibi for you? Just in case Empress Xu asks."

"unnecessary."

At 5:30, Jiang Fan picked up his phone and opened the location sent by Su Yuyan.

A famous private restaurant on the Bund.

He put his phone in his pocket, grabbed his coat, and went out.