Chapter Nineteen

  At nine o'clock in the morning, the sunlight is just right.

  The sheets sent to the laundry room were all taken back, each one stretched out and hung on the balcony, with the warm wind blowing over them, like a white silk canopy. Li Jin was hanging up the sheets while chatting idly with Luo Fei in the house when his phone suddenly buzzed in his pocket, he answered it casually, and to his surprise, it was Bai Fu Ming.

  "Li Jin..." On the other end of the phone, Bei Fuming's voice was tinged with a hint of arrogance, but it sounded somewhat unconvincing. He called out Li Jin's name, almost nervously.

  In the past few days, Bei Fuming has been in frequent contact with him by phone. After all, Lu Fei's participation in the competition is largely due to Bei Fuming's recommendation, and after smoothly passing the sea selection, he also repeatedly reminded them of some details of the competition.

  "Chinese Star Voice Generation" adopts the sea election system, setting up four major competition zones across the country. Each zone selects ten people to gather in P City, becoming the national top 40. The top 40 will uniformly enter the new star academy hosted by Xinhuo Weishi for a 20-day training period and undergo assessment after the training period ends to select the national top 20.

  New Star Academy is located inside the Raffles City hotel next to the Xinhuo Satellite TV building, with the top two floors of the hotel reserved for contestant activities and a check-in area set up in the lobby. Contestants are required to report to New Star Academy within one week after the national auditions end, or they will be considered to have automatically given up their qualification for the competition.

  Tomorrow is the first day of reporting, and it's not strange for Bai Fuming to call at this time. As one of the core directors of the program or as the person who discovered Luo Fei himself, he has to remind him once again today. After all, if Luo Fei can become popular overnight, it will be a hundred benefits and no harm to Bai Fuming's future career development.

  Li Jin was unexpectedly surprised that such a straightforward person would become hesitant and tongue-tied.

  "What's wrong?" Subconsciously, Li Jin felt that something must have gone wrong somewhere.

  "Before Luo Fei, didn't you sign a five-year entertainment contract with Xing Hua Media?" Bei Fengming asked.

  Li Jin's heart skipped a beat, and he honestly replied: "Yes."

  "Are you privately taking advertisements, breaching the contract, and Xinghua Media is unilaterally terminating the contract with you, and pursuing a breach of contract penalty of 500,000 yuan per person, totaling 1 million yuan?" Bei Fengming asked again.

  "Right." Lei Jin subconsciously glanced at Hong Fei, who was sitting on the bed, flipping open the green "Pass" card for countless times, as if to deeply imprint every word and sentence in his heart. "What's wrong?"

  "Can this money be returned within a week?" Bei Fuming's voice was somewhat urgent, "No need to return all of it, just returning the portion for Rong Fei is fine. You know, this audition has a huge following and is a great opportunity to promote new people, many contestants have backers. However, there are only forty spots available for advancement, and the artist that Xing Hua's side was mainly promoting got cut off..."

  What followed was left unspoken by Bai Fu Ming, but Li Jin understood it anyway.

  Xinghua Media wants to get its own artists into the top 40, and under the premise of not violating the competition rules, they can only kick out one of the existing students. Coincidentally, Luo Fei had a breach of contract lawsuit with them, and they calculated that Luo Fei couldn't afford to pay back, so they kicked him out.

  "I remember that the competition did not specify that flying horses were not allowed to participate," said Lai Kam.

  "Li Jindai, at this point, no matter how you try to distort the rules, it's useless." Bei Fuming was getting anxious. "Even if we let Luo Fei into the top 40 now, Star Painting will inevitably make a fuss about this later on, and by then, it won't just be Luo Fei's reputation that's damaged. The program team might even get dragged in. So I'm saying, either you return the money or... let Luo Fei withdraw from the competition."

  "Lu Fei is impossible to withdraw from the competition!" Li Jin almost gritted his teeth, "I also... don't have that much money."

  "What do you want me to do?" Bei Fuming said helplessly.

  What do I want?

  Li Jin turned his head and looked at Luo Fei.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, still unaware of what had happened, and heard himself gritting his teeth saying something about "withdrawing from the competition", which left him stunned, staring straight at himself.

  He trusts himself very much.

  Let him learn English, he would memorize 100 words every day no matter how tired or sleepy he was before going to bed; let him go to a bar to perform, he would still stand on the stage with his guitar even if he hated those mouthwatering songs; let him participate in a singing competition, he would be so nervous that he couldn't sleep well for many days, but kept comforting himself and telling himself to relax.

  So if he lets himself retire, he will listen.

  He will listen even without an explanation.

  "Director Bei," said Li Jin, turning his back and taking a deep breath. "Can I trouble you to drag this out for me?"

  On the other end of the phone, Bei Fuming paused for a moment, sounding somewhat tired: "What do you want to drag on? I can help you drag it out until the last day of registration at most. Five million, you can get it in a week?"

  "I don't know." Li Jin stretched out his hand and tightly grasped the bed sheet that was still damp, "But we have to try anyway."

  "Alright then, good luck." Bei Furen hung up the phone.

  "What's wrong?" Luo Fei walked over, "What withdrawal?"

  Li Jinsong opened his hand and let go of the fabric, took a long breath, turned around, and looked at him as calmly as possible.

  "Our former boss is using the penalty as a pretext to force you to withdraw from the competition..." This matter can't be hidden anyway, so Li Jinchao told him the truth.

  Unexpectedly, after hearing this, Luo Fei's expression remained calm as usual.

  Li Jin thought he would go mad with rage or clench his fists and demand a final accounting from the boss of Xinghua, but he didn't.

  He quietly walked back into the room and sat down on the bed as before, continuing to fold up his scattered clothes one by one.

  "Xiao Jin, we can't even take out 50,000, let alone 500,000," he said.

  Li Jin knows.

  "So, let's withdraw from the competition." He shrugged his shoulders and took out all the spare clothes from his backpack. "Anyway, even if we really participate, it's not necessarily possible to become famous. Why bother risking everything? Let's continue to sing at the bar, maybe we'll meet a better record company and release a good album, that way we can still become famous."

  "What if you can't find a good company or even if you release an album, it won't be popular?" asked Lai Kam.

  "Then... just go home." Luo Fei raised his face, forcing out a huge and insincere smile. "It's not like you can only make music if you're a star. You can do it at home too. You can hold your guitar and sing at home, right? If you're really itching to perform, just go to KTV with friends and have a high time, that's great too."

  "Then when you're old, sitting in a rocking chair, are you going to tell your grandson that the way you achieved your dreams was by pressing buttons on a KTV machine?" Li Jincheng strode several steps forward, using almost all her strength to snatch the detestable garment out of Luo Fei's hands and fling it violently to the ground. "Don't be ridiculous! Singing in a bar? Do you really want to sing for those idiots who only care about having some accompaniment when they're getting drunk and don't give a damn what you're singing? When you're on stage swinging your hips and singing 'Rong Hua Yi Duo Duo', didn't you ever want to smash the guitar right into everyone's face?"

  "If you're so capable, then don't keep holding onto this card from morning till night and reading it a hundred times! Lí Jǐn raised the card high and slapped it on the bed, "Go home, go back now! Listen to mom's words, study hard, work hard, every day dealing with endless tasks and overtime. Finally get a chance to K-song with colleagues, but they turn a beautiful love song into a mess. No one cares if you understand music or can sing, they don't even know you raised the key by 3 notes in that song, using falsetto. They just shout at the top of their lungs, and if you can't do it like them, then you're not part of the group. What do they know about music? When you play guitar at home, they'll call the police to complain about noise pollution, they won't even give you one second to listen to what you're playing! Luó Fēi, if you're willing to go back home and waste the musical talent God gave you, living a mediocre life like anyone else, then I'd say the person who shone on stage is already dead."

  He slightly raised his head and took a deep breath: "I will be the one who promised you that day, the person who fought for their dreams until the last second is already dead."

  "I don't want to either." Luo Fei bent down, carefully picking up the card and smoothing out every crease, as if this thin piece of paper was his last dream. "But what can we do? Five hundred thousand, where are we going to get it from? Xiao Jin, maybe this is all fate, I'm destined not to stand on stage and sing for many people."

  What's wrong?

  Li Jin closed his eyes.

  What a simple and light word.

  Life

  When you can't do it no matter how hard you try, when you're about to succeed but fail at the last moment, when you're knocked down by a sudden blow, you can use this all-purpose word to comfort yourself.

  It's all fate, it's God's arrangement.

  But I don't accept it, I refuse!

  Why is my life like this! Why did fate choose me, that poor little thing?!

  Why is it that some people can sail through life smoothly, while I have a road full of twists and turns?

  If everyone can be successful, then my life won't be ruined by these bastards' frustrations. My life is just circling around others, running faster than them, and paying more.

  So...

  "Lu Fei, do you want to stay and participate in the competition?" Lí Jǐn opened his eyes.

  Luo Fei's eyes were red and swollen, he rubbed them awkwardly, and the tears on his fingertips only made it more obvious.

  "I do," he replied, "very very much."

  "Then give me your credit card." Li Jin stretched out his hand.

  Luo Fei was taken aback for a moment, then obediently pulled out his credit card from his bag and handed it over to him: "What do you want to do?"

  "I'll think of a way to keep you here."