Chapter 62

Chapter 62

After the third public performance of "The Voice of Heaven," Xu Beizhou remained at the venue without leaving.

He paced back and forth in the contestants' lounge every two minutes, losing count of how many laps he had made, until he finally saw Su Xingyao.

"Mr. Su..."

After Lance corrected him on the meaning of Misssu, he had learned his lesson this time.

Hearing Xu Beizhou address him so formally for the first time, Su Xingyao felt a bit unaccustomed.

He halted and turned to face Xu Beizhou.

Apart from their interactions during the show, this was their first off-camera encounter.

Seeing that Xu Beizhou had specifically waited for him, Su Xingyao was somewhat surprised.

After Su Xingyao stopped, the confident and assertive Xu Beizhou from the stage had vanished. His face was now etched with guilt and unease.

After a furtive glance at the little fox's eyes, he finally spoke to Su Xingyao in person, finishing what he hadn't said during the live broadcast.

"I deeply apologize for what happened today."

Xu Beizhou knew very well that if Lance hadn't stepped up to vouch for him tonight, he would have caused Misssu significant trouble.

Even though the other party had eventually confirmed his identity, in that emotional state, he would have insisted on eliminating him.

At this thought, Xu Beizhou felt a wave of fear.

After admiring someone for so many years, they had finally met in such a terrible way.

Xu Beizhou was overwhelmed with regret and remorse.

But beneath the guilt, his fervent admiration for the other still burned.

"Honestly, I still feel like I'm dreaming. I've been following your work for years, and I never imagined I would actually meet you in person."

Xu Beizhou knew that rather than viewing Misssu as a fan views an idol, it was more accurate to say that Misssu embodied his pursuit and fantasy of pure music.

Before this, he couldn't even imagine what kind of person Misssu might be.

But today, all those imaginings had materialized.

This incredibly talented singer stood right before him.

After hearing Xu Beizhou's words, Su Xingyao met his gaze through the mascot costume and asked with a smile, "Did the real me disappoint you, Mr. Xu?"

Xu Beizhou was taken aback, clearly not expecting such a response.

But then a surge of overwhelming emotion washed over him.

"No," Xu Beizhou replied resolutely.

Before meeting Misssu in person, he had made many mistakes.

Including gender, including nationality.

But even though he got so much wrong, there was one thing about Misssu that he never misunderstood.

Misssu is truly talented.

Even more talented than he had imagined.

Not just limited to creation, Misssu's love and pursuit of music are equally pure.

So Xu Beizhou sincerely told Su Xingyao, "You surpassed all my expectations."

Before finding Su Xingyao to apologize, Xu Beizhou's mood was very complicated.

But Su Xingyao didn't hold the stage incident against him, and a single sentence seemed like a spring breeze turning into rain, making him feel grounded from his previous state of uncertainty.

With his emotions back to normal, Xu Beizhou finally felt much more at ease and, like any fan who has successfully met their idol in person, cautiously asked Su Xingyao.

"Mr. Su, can I take a photo with you..."

Su Xingyao really couldn't get used to this title, so he said to Xu Beizhou, "Mr. Xu, you can just call me as you used to."

Xu Beizhou immediately corrected himself with a good attitude.

"Okay, Cat Teacher..."

Su Xingyao, now called Cat Teacher: ...

Knowing that the title "Teacher" was here to stay with Xu Beizhou, Su Xingyao didn't bring it up again and simply stood next to Xu Beizhou.

Seeing this, Xu Beizhou quickly took out his phone to take a photo with Su Xingyao.

Looking at the extremely close-up photo of the two on the screen, Xu Beizhou was so excited that he couldn't help but ask another question he had always been concerned about.

"Cat Teacher, why haven't you updated Tirs recently?"

Su Xingyao, who was about to make a peace sign for the photo, was stunned.

"That account... was hacked..."

Xu Beizhou, who had imagined countless reasons but never this one, almost dropped his phone.

...

No wonder he never received any replies to the many messages he had sent...

Turns out he had been confessing and talking to no one for the past few years!

After taking the photo, Xu Beizhou immediately posted his picture with Su Xingyao on Weibo that evening.

On Weibo, he captioned it with:

"Star-chasing success, Cat Teacher is the GOAT [heart]"

At the same time, the scene of Lance cheering for Su Xingyao on the spot was also captured by the resourceful netizens.

Two usually very low-key musical geniuses, both domestic and international, were fanboying over the same person on the same day.

As soon as this title was revealed, even casual viewers who weren’t following the show started to pay intense attention to the person singing in a mascot costume.

Especially those marketing accounts that love to ride the wave of popularity quickly edited and exaggerated Su Xingyao’s legendary performance from that night.

In those days, whenever netizens opened any major short video platform and casually scrolled through videos, they would hear the familiar line, "Pay attention, this man is called Cat Cat, he is currently..."

Apart from these marketing accounts, many professional musicians analyzed Su Xingyao’s three performances on *The Voice of Heaven*, breaking them down piece by piece for everyone.

After comparing the original song *Mist* to Su Xingyao’s adapted version, everyone finally understood the power behind Xu Beizhou’s statement, "If it’s not plagiarism, I can give you full marks for the arrangement."

With such intense attention, everyone naturally grew more curious about who LostTide really was.

After all, the songs he casually wrote under his revealed identity became hit OST tracks.

The small account he revealed was even a favorite of two famous singer-songwriters.

Yet, this person stubbornly refused to take off his mascot head.

The more the truth remained unknown, the more curious people became.

"Wearing the cutest mascot costume, singing the most incredible songs."

"Gradually twisted, darkly insane—how can someone be so amazing? I’ve experienced Cat Cat’s strength Nnnn times, and now I’m just desperate to know what Cat Cat really looks like, ahhhhh how can someone be so powerful yet so mysterious."

*The Voice of Heaven’s* Weibo was flooded with comments, tagged by netizens every day.

"@The Voice of Heaven, let us see what Cat Cat looks like in the finals."

"@Song Yingming, just one look."

"@Song Yingming, if you reveal it, you’ll be the top variety show director in domestic entertainment, never to be outdated."

The show’s production team only focused on releasing various videos of contestant 78, capitalizing on the traffic and popularity, but they refused to say a word about his real identity or appearance.

No matter how much everyone threatened or tempted them, they played dumb.

With nothing to dig up from the show’s side, netizens began to take matters into their own hands.

They had already thoroughly searched the *misssu* account, finding only the author’s published works and Xu Beizhou’s small account.

So, they turned their attention to the only account that had been revealed, LostTide.

The works under Su Xingyao’s name had already been mostly uncovered, but now they wanted to dig up other information about his real-life persona.

Some wanted to understand his personality, to see if he had ever posted his own photos or other information.

Others wanted to dig up his dark history, trying to prevent his rise.

However, despite all efforts, they found nothing except that he had written songs for others and sung two songs himself in the early days of the creative circle.

No matter how hard fans or haters tried, there was no trace of his real-life information online.

The experience of suddenly popular individuals being exposed with dark histories simply didn’t apply to him.

Such a talented person, yet with all traces on the internet being spotless, naturally made everyone even more curious.

Finally, netizens who couldn’t find anything had to return to the LostTide account, starting to dig through his mutual followers.

Their efforts paid off, as they actually found something slightly different from the rest.

LostTide doesn’t have many mutual follows, and one of them, a netizen named "Ahhh I'm So Scared!!!," stands out especially.

Because in the photos he posted, there’s a pair of cats and dogs that look exactly like the mascot costumes LostTide wore in the previous two episodes of the competition.

"This 'Ahhh I'm So Scared!!!' might actually be the cat himself! Look at these photos he posted—definitely a second-generation rich."

"He is indeed a second-generation rich, but he cheered for and voted for the cat during the show, so he probably isn’t the cat himself."

"Even if he’s not the cat himself, they must be really close. I now strongly suspect that our sunset dog and coral cat are based on his pets."

"I feel like we’re getting closer to the truth, but not knowing anything is really frustrating."

"Hey girls, I found out that this 'Ahhh I'm So Scared!!!' actually stood up for Su Xingyao against Jiang Zihang last time."

"Damn... this second-generation rich has some guts."

"Does anyone know who this second-generation rich is?"

"My new online crush’s brother."

"What? Who’s your new online crush?"

"Lu Jiuxu."

"Take a look at the latest financial news—the newest heir to the Lu Group."

As netizens dug deeper, the conversation started to drift.

Finally, a secretly taken side-profile photo of Lu Jiuxu by a netizen ended the discussion.

As night fell.

The man in a black suit inside the top luxury car had narrow eyes, handsome and composed.

The cold moonlight seeped through the half-closed window, casting on his beautifully contoured profile.

The man lowered his eyes, lips tightly pressed, exuding an aura that could make anyone swoon at a glance.

After seeing the photo, the onlooking netizens all exclaimed the same thing.

"Damn, he’s so hot."

*

Lu Tianyan passed away early this morning.

After seeing the news, Su Xingyao sent a condolence message to Lu Jiuxu.

But a whole day went by, and still no response from Lu Jiuxu.

Taking out his phone and glancing at the pinned avatar, Su Xingyao realized it was already the umpteenth time he had checked his phone today for no reason.

But no matter how many times he looked.

On the chat screen, aside from his latest condolence message, Lu Jiuxu’s last reply was still from three days ago.

The first one came through when he advanced: "Congrats."

The second one came an hour later: "Take care of Sunset and Coral for me these few days."

Su Xingyao only saw it after the show recording had ended.

So, he naturally missed the chance to talk to him.

Before, coming home always meant seeing Lu Jiuxu, and Su Xingyao hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

But these past few days, with Lu Jiuxu gone and no messages, he felt like the big house had suddenly become empty.

It was just one person gone, but everything felt off.

Recently, with Lu Tianyan's death, news about the big shake-up in the Lu Group was everywhere.

Su Xingyao knew Lu Jiuxu was super busy. He sent a message but got no reply, so he didn’t send any more.

He figured Lu Jiuxu might be too swamped to even check his messages.

Not just Lu Jiuxu, but these days he couldn’t even get hold of Lu Zhiyun.

In the novel’s storyline, he didn’t know much about Lu Jiuxu, but he vaguely remembered that after Lu Tianyan died, many people wanted to grab a piece of the pie from Lu Jiuxu.

But what happened to Lu Jiuxu after that, how he dealt with it, he had no clue.

Su Xingyao felt a little regret.

During his coma, why hadn’t he learned more about the storyline involving Lu Jiuxu?

That evening, following Lu Jiuxu’s message, he took Sunset and Coral out for a walk.

After feeding, bathing, and grooming the cats and dogs, Su Xingyao, with Coral dozing in his arms, opened the game Lu Jiuxu had asked him to test.

In the official game version, the dungeon they’d played together was now live.

But the dungeon’s difficulty in the official version was way lower than during the test.

Su Xingyao, who couldn’t beat it before, now cleared it solo on his first try.

After climbing a long ladder to the spot where he and Lu Jiuxu had watched the fireworks before.

Su Xingyao happily jumped around for a bit, only to find that after exploring the whole map, he couldn’t trigger the fireworks.

With no fireworks going off, he couldn’t see the English letters formed by them afterward.

Su Xingyao tried for a while but couldn’t find the switch, thinking the game had a bug, so he reported it to customer service.

"Sir, this level does not have a firework effect set~"

Hearing this, Su Xingyao was stunned for a while.

No fireworks?

But he clearly saw it with Lu Jiuxu.

"Meow~"

The cat in his arms woke up, squinting up at Su Xingyao.

Su Xingyao reached out and petted Coral’s head, "Sorry, did I wake you?"

"Meow meow~"

Coral shook her head, stretched, and then pawed at Sunset, who was sleeping next to Su Xingyao.

The little ears of Luori perked up, glanced at the sky through the floor-to-ceiling window, and then jumped off the sofa.

Shanhu also jumped down, landing right on Luori's back.

He watched as the little dog carried the little cat back to their cozy pet bed.

Su Xingyao, "abandoned" by the two little animals, sat alone on the sofa, deep in thought.

As the cat and dog settled back into their pet bed to sleep, he glanced at the wall clock in the living room and realized it was already midnight.

The little animals were exhausted, but Su Xingyao, who had just finished playing the game, couldn't sleep.

Usually very regular in his routine, he decided to break his routine just this once.

He went back to his room to get his drawing board and painted a peaceful sleeping watercolor of both Luori and Shanhu.

Once he finished the painting, he gazed at it for a while.

Finally, he wrote a line at the bottom.

I’ve been taking good care of both Shanhu and Luori.