Chapter Three: This guy is seriously amazing!

Unexpected, yet somehow not unexpected.

When the door opened, the first person to step inside was Gao Xiaosong.

He was probably considered to be on the folk-music side of things. Whatever he would become later, for now, in the capital’s music scene of that era, he really did count as a figure of some importance.

The younger Gao Xiaosong was not ugly.

Zhang Peiren stood up and introduced everyone.

Gao Xiaosong. Xiao Ke.

To be honest, because he had spent his previous life bingeing out of sheer competitiveness, Lin Jianlu had indeed covered many old songs from twenty or thirty years ago, and had even looked up all sorts of background information to clear up his confusion or use as small talk during livestreams. So the name Xiao Ke did feel somewhat familiar to him, but if you asked him how well he knew the man, that was simply impossible.

He was not Gao Yuanyuan, Fan Bingbing, Liu Yifei, or Liu Shishi.

Fortunately, Xue Zhongding spoke up in time and cleared things up for Lin Jianlu.

Gao Xiaosong was currently with Great Earth Records, a Hong Kong-funded record company founded by the famed Hong Kong rock band Beyond’s chief lyricist, Liu Zhuohui, a very well-known musician in Hong Kong. Beyond’s famous song "The Earth" was written by Liu Zhuohui. The record label he had founded a few years earlier had simply been called Great Earth. In 1992, Great Earth Records was acquired and mainly shifted its focus to the mainland.

The albums Great Earth Records had previously released in the mainland, "My 1997" and "Campus Folk I," had both become instant hits upon release, with legitimate cassette sales reaching hundreds of thousands of copies. "Campus Folk I" was Gao Xiaosong’s work.

"Your Seatmate," "Brother Sleeping in My Top Bunk," and "Longing for the Dust of Time" were all his signature pieces.

Right now, he was said to be preparing his own label, called Wheatfield Music.

A real industry heavyweight.

As for Xiao Ke, he was currently with another capital-based record company called Red Star Music Production Society. He was both a signed singer and a producer. His first album had only just been released on December 1 a few days ago, and it was titled simply "Xiao Ke."

Yes, Red Star Production Society also focused mainly on rock. Its leading artists were said to be Zheng Jun and Tian Zhen.

Lin Jianlu stood up and shook hands with them.

Gao Xiaosong was warm and outgoing; Xiao Ke was a little more shy.

After a few words of praise like "Your songs are really great" and "You sing pretty damn well," Gao Xiaosong immediately hurried to call out, "Make the calls, make the calls! Old Zhang has found another treasure! Xiao Ke and I were just listening outside the door, and damn, this song has style the moment you hear it. Get people here. Tonight Old Zhang has to treat us!"

Then, without the slightest sense of awkwardness, he plopped down in the only office desk in the room, pulled the telephone over, and started dialing, all the while assigning tasks to the people on the other end.

News travels too fast when passed from one person to another.

And this era’s capital seemed nowhere near as huge as it would be in later years.

So people arrived at remarkable speed.

After everyone had sat down and chatted for only about twenty minutes, Lin Jianlu was still somewhat dazed when people began arriving one after another. In less than ten minutes, the little hotel room could no longer fit anyone, so Xue Zhongding quickly borrowed a conference room from the hotel. Everyone then moved over there to drink tea, crack sunflower seeds, and chat.

Xue Zhongding bustled about entertaining the guests, all smiles, while Zhang Peiren also put aside the feeling of having won something back only to lose it again, and the thought that "they're not really here for me." Whenever someone arrived, he helped with introductions.

But it soon ceased to be his job. Gao Xiaosong was especially lively, and he knew everyone in the capital’s music circle quite well, so before long he had turned the conference room, which was not exactly spacious either, into his own stage.

By then, Lin Jianlu could barely keep track of all the names.

Dou Wei, Zhang Chu, He Yong, Liu Huan, Lao Lang, Zheng Jun, Tian Zhen, Song Ke, the Bai Jiajie Forty-Three Band, the Tang Dynasty Band, the Reincarnation Band...

There was also Guo Chuanlin, Brother Guo Four, the manager of the Black Panther Band, the Reincarnation Band, and Zheng Jun.

And there was another man named Xu Wei, currently just an unremarkable little creator at Red Star Production Society, with no chance yet of releasing an album. Basically a gofer.

A little awkward... but Lin Jianlu still shook his hand earnestly.

"Like You Once Were" was definitely going to be copied, and very soon at that!

He did not care. Someone as gifted as he was could lose "Like You Once Were" and still bring forth "Like Her Once Was." If he did not copy songs, how was he supposed to make money?

Everyone was very warm.

In the music circles of the capital at this time, there seemed to be no great factional divide. People from many different labels, including even the bosses of record companies, knew one another extremely well.

They had all been summoned by Gao Xiaosong’s one phone call, and they had all come to hear the newcomer and listen to the new songs. Mainland pop music and rock alike had gotten off to a relatively late start, and to put it mildly, perhaps half of the so-called "popular music scene" on the mainland was already here.

Of course, they were all independent operators.

Those tied to the system, or to put it another way, those who spent the year living off the Spring Festival Gala, seemed not to belong to the same circle.

For them, probably once you came into this line of work and truly had skill, you were already a kindred spirit and a good friend. They had an especially fierce enthusiasm for newcomers who could sing and for new songs that sounded good. If they heard about something, they simply had to come and see and listen for themselves.

As for rank and seniority, who was first-tier, who was second-tier, who was super first-tier—sorry, none of that existed. Right now they were all thirteen-tier nobodies in a state of chronic hunger.

There was an unnameable roughness to them, a wild and unruly air.

Oh, right. In the midst of all this busyness, Lin Jianlu realized that Dou Wei had come, but the Black Panther Band itself did not seem to have come.

Yes, I understand.

Not long before ten o’clock, while everyone was still chatting, some people had already started urging him to sing. Then, suddenly, another big name arrived late to the party—ah, this one needed no introduction: Cui Jian.

A string of people followed behind him, and Lin Jianlu did recognize one familiar face: Zang Tianshuo.

A little later, another band arrived, called the Knight Band, with a female lead singer named Sichen Gerile.

...

Then he sang.

They had all come to listen to songs and make friends, after all.

At this point Wang Banbi was still a green youngster, currently serving as the main songwriter and lead singer of the Forty-Three Band on Bai Jiajie Street. So he sang "Brave Heart."

Xu Wei was here, so he sang "Like You Once Were."

Then he sang "The First Tear."

After three songs in a row, Lin Jianlu stopped to drink some water and rest a little.

By now the conference room was already packed to the brim. The door stood open, and even the doorway and the corridor outside were filled with hotel staff, yet not a single sound of cracking sunflower seeds or drinking water could be heard.

Everyone waited quietly.

Soon, Lin Jianlu picked up his guitar again.

He sang "Love Is Only One Word," then "Ten Years."

At last, he sang "Dusk."

These were all songs he had prepared for his entry into the pop scene, and all were chosen carefully.

First, they could not overlap. If he was not sure whether a song had already been written, or even if there was only the vaguest hint of it, he would not dare choose it. Second, they had to have already been huge hits. If he sang them now, they would still make money and still become popular. Finally, each had to have its own distinct style and direction. Who knew which direction would catch fire? Then he would do one song for each, with no repeats. As long as one of them became a hit, the album would become a hit too.

He was not afraid of being mocked for being a mixed bag.

As he sat there with his guitar and sang, there was a touch of that born-to-perform madness about him, his voice and condition hovering near their peak.

Inside and outside the room, the only sounds were the guitar and his singing.

The four, five, six, seven, or eight female attendants standing shoulder to shoulder at the doorway listened with rapt fascination, and more than one of them stared fixedly at Lin Jianlu’s face with the dreamy look of a woman utterly smitten.

At last, "Dusk" came to an end. Lin Jianlu set down his guitar once more.

"That’s all for now. Thanks for coming, everyone. Please criticize freely and give me your guidance! I forgot my pick, and now my hand’s starting to hurt!"

Some people laughed, but then the applause burst out all at once.

Warm. Fierce.

It was almost deafening.

Leaning against the wall on the corridor side, Cui Jian clapped with his back to the wall and said, "Damn, this guy is fucking amazing!"

At that moment, Dou Wei was standing to his left and Liu Huan to his right.

Both heard him. Almost at the same time, they turned to look at him, then almost at the same time nodded.

Dou Wei said nothing.

Liu Huan, his face solemn and shaken, said, "He really is amazing!"