Don't call me a singing god, I just want to go back to doing scientific research.

Zhang Minghui stood on the stage, with a stand-up microphone in front of him.

Zhuo Tongyu sat up straight, looking at the empty, somewhat rudimentary stage, and raised an eyebrow: "Oh? Ready for a stationary, stand-and-fight style attack?"

Xiao Ruqian, standing next to him, also looked surprised behind his glasses: "The stage is very clean, there aren't even any backup dancers. They've put all their eggs in one basket with the performance itself. Zhang Minghui's vocal ability was proven in the last round, but this kind of purely static performance places too high demands on the song. It either has to be catchy or emotionally explosive, otherwise, on a competitive stage, it's just a sitting duck."

Zhuo Tongyu smiled noncommittally: "Let's see what goodies Luo Mu has prepared for him."

The stage lights suddenly dimmed, leaving only a spotlight shining on Zhang Minghui. His eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling slightly, as if he were gathering something.

A low, story-filled guitar arpeggio slowly rises, like a melody drifting from an old-fashioned radio, carrying the weariness and alienation unique to urban midnight.

The Nameless

Singer: Zhang Minghui (Chen Xueran)

Lyrics: Luo Mu (Tang Hanxiao)

Composer: Luo Mu (Tang Hanxiao)

  

The intro was so short it was almost negligible, and Zhang Minghui started singing almost immediately.

"The lights of the city at dawn"

There are always halos that eventually fall.

Imitators one after another

Unwanted role

... "

His voice was no longer as earth-shattering as it was in "Never Left," but instead carried a deliberately suppressed, grainy hoarseness.

It's like whispering to a stranger, and to yourself, on a street late at night.

The moment the song began, the huge LED screen behind Zhang Minghui lit up.

The camera shoots from 10,000 meters above the ground, showing the empty city streets at three in the morning. Neon lights reflect long streaks of light on the wet road, creating a scene of loneliness and coldness.

The camera slowly pans down, eventually focusing on the entrance of a 24-hour convenience store on the street corner.

Under the warm yellow "Open for Business" sign, a delivery rider in a uniform is looking down intently at his phone. The cool light from the screen illuminates his young but tired face as his fingers fly across the order page, afraid of missing any order that could earn him a few dollars.

The screen switched, and the last light in the office building went out with a "snap," freezing the moment in the frame.

"Burning magnificent fireworks"

One bloom is enough.

What do you want?

......

At the transition between the verse and the chorus, a dense series of triplets breaks the steady rhythm, and the string playing technique changes from legato bowing to spiccato and staccato bowing, creating a sudden tension in the atmosphere.

Before the audience could react, Zhang Minghui changed his singing style and became more emotional.

Who am I, the nameless nobody?

It doesn't matter who I forget.

Who doesn't fight tooth and nail to reach the end of their life?

... "

On the screen, the image is split in two.

On the left are construction workers sweating profusely under the scorching sun, their dark skin glistening with sweat as they tie steel bars on a high-rise building at the construction site.

To the right, a single lamp shines in an office building late at night. A young white-collar worker rubs his sore eyes, with a proposal that has been revised countless times and an empty coffee cup in front of him.

Two seemingly unrelated scenes slowly merge as the camera rotates and interweaves, forming a wondrous "crossroads of life".

Finally, the scene freezes on the moment when the two look up at the window at the same time—the worker looks at the signal lights of the tower crane at the construction site, and the white-collar worker looks at the small moon cut off by the buildings.

Under the same sky, different breaths, but the same exhaustion and perseverance.

What's even more striking is that lines of lyrics, written in handwriting, slowly emerge from the bottom of the screen.

When the three characters "拼了命" (meaning "fought with all one's might") appeared, the strokes were cracked, indicating that each forceful stroke exhausted all the strength in the body.

"Pretending to be enthusiastic while being indifferent"

The shackles of feigned freedom

What did you eventually become?

......

At this moment, in a nearby city, Lin Ran had just been forced to go through the resignation process and was taking the subway back to her rented apartment.

The company needs to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and a number of people have already been laid off.

He always thought that with ten years of service, he was a veteran, but he never expected that the knife would eventually fall on his head.

He was holding a cardboard box in his arms, which contained ten years of his youth, but now it felt light as a feather.

My mind is filled with thoughts of huge mortgage and car loan payments.

My wife was recently laid off and is unemployed, our child is still in school, and we need to support both sets of parents.

Each item felt like a mountain, pressing down on him and making it hard for him to breathe.

My phone vibrated; it was a photo from my wife. It was a drawing my daughter had made out of cardboard—a crooked picture of the three of us.

The wife added a smiley face: "Look at our daughter, she got her hands-on skills just like you!"

It was supposed to be a heartwarming scene, but Lin Ran's hands were trembling violently.

"Maybe I'm very tired and disheveled"

Perhaps a humble and unproductive life

Perhaps I will never become your glory.

... "

On the TV screen in the subway, a boring video called "GG" was playing.

The phone of a young girl next to him was playing loudly, and the shrill sound hurt his eardrums.

"Young lady, is your earphone broken in public?" an old man next to her frowned and reminded her.

"Sorry, sorry, I didn't realize my headphones were broken."

The girl blushed and quickly apologized, frantically trying to turn the volume down as low as possible, but Lin Ran, sitting next to her, could still hear the sound coming from the cheap speaker.

The distorted singing voice, however, was like a sharp awl, precisely piercing Lin Ran's heart.

He suddenly raised his head.

Who am I, the nameless nobody?

It doesn't matter who I forget.

Who doesn't fight tooth and nail to reach the end of their life?

... "

On stage, the music suddenly surged! The drumbeats were like heavy hammers, striking everyone's hearts one after another.

Zhang Minghui's voice broke free from all restraints and erupted completely, like a volcano that had been holding back for too long spewing out scalding lava! The veins on his neck bulged, and every word seemed to be roared out from his chest!

The images on the screen suddenly switched at a rapid pace.

An intern with dark circles under his eyes squeezes onto the first subway train in the early morning; a dishwasher still washing mountains of dishes late at night; a salesperson being verbally abused by a customer but only able to apologize over the phone; a young doctor so exhausted that he falls asleep against the wall under the operating table...

Each scene, each frame, is a microcosm of the most inconspicuous aspects of the city.

They were silent, they were exhausted, they were like forgotten specks of dust, living with all their might on their own paths.

The singing, though not loud, clearly reached everyone's ears in the subway car.

The old man, who had just been looking impatient, fell silent. He turned to the girl and said, "Miss, could you turn the volume up a bit?"

The girl paused for a moment, not quite reacting, when a tired-looking white-collar woman next to her, who had just finished her night shift at 3 p.m., whispered, "Yeah, could you turn it up a bit? It sounds really good."

More and more people looked over, and the girl was somewhat flattered, so she quickly turned the volume up to the maximum.

"But it's almost over."