Chapter 136

Chapter 136

◎Who's More Concise?◎

Meng Qi wrote down the lyrics for "Chinaberry" on paper, then sang it a cappella twice for Wang Boyuan. Wang Boyuan said it was enough; he could sing it now.

Such insight, such musicality—if this isn't a born lead vocalist, what is!

On receiving the instruction, Meng Qi quickly opened the back camera, shuffled about to find the best shooting angle for Wang Boyuan, then proudly gave him an OK gesture while saying "action." Wang Boyuan began singing "Chinaberry" a cappella while reading the lyrics.

After the recording finished, Meng Qi said sincerely, "Brother, you sing better than me. Ren Suiyi signing you is a sure thing."

He hadn't heard his idol Ran Ming's voice in a long time. Wang Boyuan's timbre was somewhat similar to Ran Ming's—if you didn't scrutinize the differences between them, these few lines Wang Boyuan sang a cappella could easily pass for Ran Ming himself.

So he added, "I declare myself your first fan. I'll make you the next Ran Ming!"

A faint smile tugged at Wang Boyuan's lips. "I can't dance, I can't play guitar, I'm just a completely untrained voice. My competitiveness is too low. Whether Ren Suiyi makes money or not is debatable, but if you're a fan of mine, disappointment is guaranteed."

Meng Qi shook his head and waved his hand. "Ahhh—why put yourself down, Brother Boyuan? I say you can do it, and you can. It's just that you weren't into Ran Ming before and never sang his songs. Otherwise, if you uploaded a cover video online, 'Ran Er Ming' would be yours for the taking. It wouldn't be anyone else's."

Thanks to Meng Qi, Wang Boyuan actually knew about this "Ran Er Ming."

A web artist who went viral by covering Ran Ming's songs.

At first, it was just the voice. But as his traffic grew and attention increased, he simply changed his name to Ran Er Ming, and also molded his appearance to resemble Ran Ming. In the end, he turned a young man in his twenties into a lookalike of a middle-aged man in his fifties, which left Wang Boyuan utterly stunned.

He didn't want that.

Thinking about it, Wang Boyuan asked Meng Qi, "I wonder if that Ran Er Ming can ever live as himself again? He can't call himself Ran Er Ming forever, can he?"

Meng Qi first replied "Who knows," then turned his head toward the window and said listlessly, "Brother, don't you think we're just like 'Ran Er Ming'? I'm a bit better—I can still use my own name. You can't even use yours. No one knows you're called Wang Boyuan except me. If I want to call you Brother Boyuan, I have to do it sneakily, guarding against this one and that one, like I'm stealing something."

Wang Boyuan also turned his head toward the window. After a long while, he sighed. "Just now I was thinking that after I enter the entertainment industry, I absolutely won't become the next 'Ran Er Ming.' Since I've already decided to break into that world, I have to take it seriously with all my energy. I need to create my own original works, so everyone clearly remembers who I am. When a certain song is mentioned, the first person they think of should be me... But who am I? Qi Yun? Wang Boyuan? Does the work I create belong exclusively to Qi Yun or to Wang Boyuan? Does it have uniqueness?"

"Brother..."

Meng Qi regretted saying that paragraph. He had barely managed to spark Wang Boyuan's enthusiasm for life here, and now—not even two minutes later—he had poured a bucket of ice water on it. With a splash, the passion was extinguished, dreams shattered like bubbles... What the hell was he doing? Meng Qi was so self-blaming he wanted to slap himself.

But this time, Wang Boyuan only moped for a short while before looking at Meng Qi with bright eyes and making a proposal: "Mengmengqi, what do you think of me giving myself the stage name 'Wang Boyuan'?"

That was absolutely fantastic!

Meng Qi, who had also been in a melancholy mood, immediately jumped up at Wang Boyuan's words. It was like the clouds had parted and the sky had cleared. "I've got a great idea too, Brother Boyuan! When everyone's here, I'll tell them you want to be a singer in the entertainment industry, and you've already picked a stage name—Wang Boyuan! And to help you get used to your new name sooner, I'll make them all start calling you Wang Boyuan from now on!"

That way, they would still be themselves, not "Ran Er Ming" and not anyone's substitute.

Wang Boyuan was visibly happy. He nodded emphatically, approving Meng Qi's idea.

Meng Qi was also happy, and even more impressed with his own brain.

He sat back down on the bed, opened WeChat, and planned to send the video he had just recorded of Wang Boyuan to Ren Suiyi.

During the time he had been chatting with Wang Boyuan, Ren Suiyi hadn't sent him any messages. The chat box between him and Ren Suiyi was completely empty, as if the chat history had been deliberately cleared.

From this, it was obvious that the 99+ notifications were entirely from Ren Suiyi personally liking each and every post. Meng Qi scrolled down his own Moments, and as far as he could see, every post had a little heart with Ren Suiyi's name under it.

He really didn't mind the trouble...

Meng Qi exited Moments, returned to his chat with Ren Suiyi, sent the video he had recorded of Wang Boyuan, and then carefully crafted a message:

Brother Sui, Qi Yun doesn't want to sign a contract for now. He wants to focus on his studies first. Besides, he doesn't like his current major and plans to apply for a transfer. I'm not sure how long that will take. Could you wait a few months? Once he's sorted things out at school, you can introduce him to Ren's Records, okay? Listen to his voice—he's definitely worth waiting for.

When Meng Qi sent his message, Ren Suiyi was probably holding his phone and watching. Within less than half a minute—just enough time for him to finish listening to Wang Boyuan's short a cappella clip of "Chinaberry"—Ren Suiyi replied:

Nice voice. Can sign. Do as you said.

Nine words. Simple and clear. No discernible emotion.

Meng Qi picked at his fingernail and replied to Ren Suiyi: Thanks, Brother Sui.

Four words. Even shorter. Even less emotion.

Then he planned to put his phone away and do something else. But the top of his chat with Ren Suiyi kept showing "The other person is typing..." Curious about what Ren Suiyi would say next, he paused putting the phone away, kept the screen on, and waited. One minute passed. Still typing. Two minutes passed. Still typing. Three, four minutes...

A full eight minutes later, Ren Suiyi was still typing!

"Is he writing a novel?" Meng Qi couldn't help muttering.

His voice was too low for Wang Boyuan to hear. Wang Boyuan asked, "What did you say?"

Meng Qi jerked his head up, startled. Stammering, he said, "Huh? Oh, nothing, nothing. Just messing around."

"Did you send the video to Ren Suiyi?" Wang Boyuan asked.

Meng Qi blinked. "Sent."

Wang Boyuan pressed on, "What did he say?"

"The other person is..." Meng Qi paused, giving an awkward smile. "He said it sounded good, signing is no problem. When we say the time is right, we can formally sign the contract."

"He didn't ask why?"

"I already told him you need to handle the major transfer first, and we'll sign after. Didn't give him a chance to ask."

Wang Boyuan furrowed his brows. Just as he was about to say something else, a distinctive engine rumble came from the yard—a "putt-putt-putt." No need to ask; it was Li Qingjiang and the others returning.

Meng Qi quickly glanced at his phone screen. Ren Suiyi was still typing. He sighed in exasperation, put his phone away, and asked Wang Boyuan, "Want to go see what they bought? They've been gone so long—did they bring back the whole supermarket?"

"I don't want to go. I don't want to see Ren Suiwu." Wang Boyuan refused bluntly.

Meng Qi stood up, stretched, took a few steps toward the large glass window, craned his neck to look outside, and reported to Wang Boyuan, "Whoa, the back of the tricycle is full. Looks like a jackpot haul."

Just then, Qu Liang happened to be carrying a box in their direction. He looked up and caught Meng Qi's eye, then smiled and greeted him, "Brother Wu is feeling generous and doing charity. He ordered a batch of air conditioners for our school—two in each classroom, one in each of our sleeping rooms."

"Can a tricycle fit that many AC units? How small are they?" Meng Qi asked, dazed.

Qu Liang chuckled heartily. "The specialty store owner will bring them when they come to install them tomorrow. They have a pickup truck. Our little tricycle is way too small to carry ACs—it's just for carrying people."

Meng Qi felt awkward. "...But it can carry water heaters. We brought one back last time, remember?"

Qu Liang stopped laughing, switched the box to his left hand, and went along with Meng Qi. "Right, our tricycle isn't that weak," he paused, then asked, "You not going out to see? Brother Wu bought a lot of good stuff. He even brought gifts for you and Qi Yun."

Meng Qi turned back to Wang Boyuan. "Liangzi says Brother Wu bought us gifts."

"Haven't even seen the gifts yet and you're already bought off? If you want to go, go ahead. I'm not going." Wang Boyuan rolled over toward the inside of the bed, pulled the covers up to his chin, closed his eyes, and said to Meng Qi, "You go. I'm tired. Going to take a nap."

Hearing Wang Boyuan say that, Meng Qi wasn't sure if he should go out or not. He didn't really want to see anyway, so he sat down by the bed, planning to scroll through his phone again.

More than ten minutes had passed already. Had Ren Suiyi finished writing?

Ren Suiyi had finished writing, but it wasn't very long—at least not as long as Meng Qi had imagined. Meng Qi counted: this time, Ren Suiyi had sent him thirty Chinese characters in total, or thirty-four if punctuation was included:

"You like carp soup? Another day, when I'm better, take me there, and I'll catch carp for you in that river too."

Just a few words like that took over ten minutes to type? Was he Cangjie, having to invent characters on the spot?

Meng Qi curled his lip, strongly tempted to reply to Ren Suiyi, "I don't want to drink it anymore; I've had enough."

During the period when his morning sickness was severe, under Li Qingjiang's instructions, Elder Gu had him drink fish soup almost every meal. Though the flavors changed each time—like one meal was donkey-hide gelatin carp soup, the next was tofu carp soup, then papaya carp soup, followed by loofah carp soup, gastrodia carp soup, tomato carp soup, black bean carp soup...

But no matter how many varieties, the main ingredient never changed—every time it came out, it smelled like carp—and it made him thoroughly sick of it.

But if he said that to Ren Suiyi, wouldn't it make him seem inconsiderate?

After thinking it over, Meng Qi only replied with one word: "Mm."

Even though he was sick of it, there were plenty of others at school who weren't, so Ren Suiyi might as well catch some and cook it for them.