Chapter 103: Overbearing Little One

Li Xuan's music studio was in a heavily commercial neighborhood near the Communication University of China, just outside the East Fifth Ring.

It wasn't exactly downtown.

After nine in the evening, the area around the commercial district grew fairly quiet, with few people around—though occasionally paparazzi would show up to tail Li Xuan.

The villa where Li Xuan lived was only a few minutes' drive from the studio.

Back when she was in a good mood, Li Xuan used to put on a mask and ride her electric scooter home after finishing up at the studio.

The basement of her villa had been converted into a miniature recording studio—a very small music workspace, though its professional quality was considerably below the one Dongyu had built for her.

After the Zhou Shilin incident blew up, Chen Ke no longer dared to take any chances with Li Xuan's personal safety.

Now, no matter where she went, the company arranged for an assistant and bodyguards to chauffeur her. Even for the short stretch between the studio and her house, bodyguards escorted her the whole way.

Zhang Qiyang had already been to Li Xuan's studio once the week before.

That night, familiar with the route and driving his G65, he made quick work of the trip and rolled up to Li Xuan's studio.

He walked in with Qin Xueyang, who had been cracking sunflower seeds so noisily it was getting on everyone's nerves. The time was exactly eight thirty in the evening.

Li Xuan, Xiaowa, and Chen Ke were all there.

Also present was Li Lei, a senior recording engineer from Dongyu.

This thirty-five-year-old engineer, with his bowl cut and a face that was equal parts cool and rough, was meeting Zhang Qiyang for the first time that night.

After Chen Ke introduced Li Lei to Zhang Qiyang, the group got straight down to business, talking about the week's upcoming competition song for *I Sing*.

Maybe it was her time of the month, but Li Xuan felt unusually sensitive to the cold that night.

The air conditioning inside wasn't set particularly low, but Li Xuan kept drinking warm water to heat herself up.

Unlike the others, who were still in short sleeves, Li Xuan was bundled up tightly. On her legs were a pair of black leggings that looked almost like yoga pants, wrapping her long legs so they looked slender and shapely. A pair of fuzzy house slippers covered her ankles completely.

Up top, she wore a stylish dark-brown long-sleeved T-shirt with a unique microphone graphic printed on the chest.

The T-shirt had a wide neckline that showed off her collarbones, but it was covered over with a red-and-black plaid silk scarf. Clearly, Li Xuan didn't want to catch the slightest draft.

When Zhang Qiyang first walked in and saw her outfit, he thought she might have caught a cold, and he was actually a little worried about her.

After chatting with her for a bit, though, and seeing that her voice and spirits seemed perfectly normal, he relaxed.

At this point in the competition, when things were heating up, the one thing a singer absolutely could not afford was to get sick—because otherwise, they'd just get slaughtered by everyone else.

"So, what are you planning to sing this week? You're not secretly plotting another ambush to come at me, are you?"

After her championship win, Li Xuan was clearly in a good mood, and as they talked, she joked around, trying to probe Zhang Qiyang's battle plans.

"What do you mean, 'come at you'? I was paying tribute to you. Though in your fans' eyes, I was picking a fight. Those fans in your Xuan'ai Family are practically coming after me—they keep biting and won't let go, cursing me out everywhere they go. Ha, one of these days I'm going to write them a song and give them a proper reply."

"Don't bother arguing with my fans. Later I'll have my assistant talk to the people running Xuan'ai Family and tell them to stop causing you trouble."

"No, no, let them keep causing me trouble. If there's one thing I'm not afraid of, it's people making trouble for me. The piece I'm preparing this week is meant to push back against everyone who doesn't like my music, and it's also for everyone who does like me. I want everyone to hear my musical attitude."

Qin Xueyang asked Zhang Qiyang: "You're singing *The Outsider* this week?"

"That's right. I want to tell everyone who likes me and everyone who hates me: I'm a damn outsider! A one-of-a-kind outsider! Don't any of you mess with me! Even if the whole world looks at me with cold eyes, I don't give a damn. My sound waves will tear you apart."

Zhang Qiyang spoke with fierce dominance, and anyone who'd dealt with him before knew this was simply his style.

But Li Lei, meeting him for the first time, hadn't expected Zhang Qiyang to be this aggressive even in casual conversation.

The tone of this tycoon's son was practically swallowing the sky! Did he actually have the chops to back it up?

Li Lei couldn't help feeling that Zhang Qiyang was just showing off wildly.

Meanwhile, Xiaowa's frog-like face suddenly lit up with an exaggerated expression, and he praised like an excited fan: "I can already feel the killing intent in this song! Is this something like *New Shit*? I can't wait!"

"This song's different from *New Shit*. *New Shit* was too extreme—it caused Xingdu TV a lot of trouble, so I won't be singing anything that hardcore casually anymore. This *Outsider* is rap-rock, with a hard, metallic arrangement."

Xiaowa asked, intrigued: "So you've already finished the arrangement?"

"Done. I brought the track files with me. Since Teacher Li Lei is here, let's not waste the chance—help me monitor the session and record a demo of this song. I'll give it a simple run-through, and once it's recorded, I'll send it to the production team. Those *I Sing* people are watching me pretty closely now. Every week I have to sing a new song, and they always want my demos."

Chen Ke laughed: "Who told you to keep making trouble for them? They're all scared of you by now."

"Scared maybe, but they must also like me quite a bit—I've given them plenty of topics to hype up. This week I'll let them have some more fun."

Zhang Qiyang handed the track files to Li Lei and had him set up the equipment.

He himself stepped into the recording booth, ready to lay down the demo of *The Outsider*.

Xiaowa and Li Lei put on monitoring headphones and gave the arrangement a quick first listen. Both were filled with admiration!

The arrangement was incredibly powerful!

Xiaowa couldn't wait to hear Zhang Qiyang's vocals.

After listening to Zhang Qiyang's arrangement, Li Lei also started to see him in a new light.

Still, he didn't quite believe the arrangement was actually done by Zhang Qiyang himself. Like most people in the industry, he figured Zhang Qiyang had a high-end team behind him, polishing his image.

Whether or not Zhang Qiyang had arranged it himself, Li Lei now very much wanted to hear what kind of song could hold up such a powerful and defiant arrangement.

Li Xuan and Chen Ke both put on their own large headphones, not bothering to keep their distance, and listened together to Zhang Qiyang's competition piece for the week.

Since this was only a demo, Zhang Qiyang didn't pour too much emotion into it—just ran through it as if to give them a taste, flashing enough dominance to let everyone feel it:

"...If you don't like my songs, then shut your ears. Coming in for the kill, piercing through your eardrums! Reaching the depths of your soul, making you worship me. Follow me, follow me, follow me—fight against the world!..."

As the wall of sound spread out, everyone in the room got swept up in Zhang Qiyang's storm of otherness.

The song radiated a fiercely defiant arrogance from its very bones!

Its core message—"Even if the world gives me cold stares and everyone treats me as an enemy, so be it—then take me as an outsider"—defined him as a maverick, unconventional, brimming with swagger, and indifferent to what others thought of him.

The song's sharp, crystalline edges fit the image of Cannon perfectly.

Compared to the domineering lyrics, the melody was even more like a floodgate thrown wide open, surging with climax after climax! Pure instrumentation, massive soundscapes, and noise walls detonated in surges of inspiration, assaulting the senses and sending out a signal of subverted listening.

The arrangement followed a nu-metal direction, with an electric piano threading a fixed da-di-da-di-da pattern from the intro all the way through the entire song.

About eighty percent of the track used a band-style arrangement, with the backing chosen from a Hardcore Hip-Hop base shifted into a melodic, more accessible Hip-Hop Beats style.

While incorporating electronic elements, the rough, dense texture of the noise-based instrumental fabric was preserved intact. The experimental and improvisational qualities shared by noise rock, post-punk, and shoegaze moved forward with unbroken precision.

A heavy bassline, a defined guitar riff, and an aggressive drum beat combined for both layered depth and overall coherence, carrying a wave of nu-metal that lasted over three minutes.

Such a brilliant, powerful design, paired with Zhang Qiyang's brand-new vocal style, left Xiaowa—who loved dissecting arrangements—completely lost in the music!

Li Lei was lost too. It had been a long time since he'd recorded such a ferocious studio piece.

Never mind whether Zhang Qiyang had written the song himself—just the way he sang it was so audacious it had no friends!

When Zhang Qiyang rapped, he completely altered his usual vocal approach, deliberately using a hoarse, low-throated growl. For the chorus, he switched to an urgent, high-pitched scream, expressing the unyielding dominance of surging and tumbling within a vortex, making everyone in the room burn with excitement!

Other than "badass," Li Lei simply couldn't think of another word to describe Zhang Qiyang's performance.

Li Xuan was increasingly struck by just how extraordinary this tycoon's son's voice was.

Not just in the Chinese music scene—she'd never seen a singer with a voice more freakish, more wild than Zhang Qiyang's in the entire world music scene!

And today he was just recording a demo. He hadn't put nearly his full emotion or dominance into it, yet he'd already produced such a thunderously powerful effect. Li Xuan found it hard to imagine just how stunning an impact it would have on the audience when Zhang Qiyang unleashed his full power on stage and sang this song over the weekend.