Chapter Twenty: Who Could Refuse a Beautiful Girl?

September 6th, the day after "Invisible Wings" was released, the song made no splash at all.

September 7th passed just as quietly.

Within the company, rumors were swirling.

“It flopped.”

“How could it not?”

“Exactly. This month is a battlefield of heavyweights. The release was delayed by several days, too. Even Sister Zhi would flop under these conditions.”

Wang Mo paid no heed to such chatter.

But he did make a point to check the stats for "Invisible Wings."

Plays: 358.
Downloads: 122.
Favorites: 220.

The download-to-play ratio was a staggering 1:3.

That meant for every three listeners, one had downloaded the song.

The comments section held just over a dozen remarks.

“Such a beautiful song, why is no one here?”
“Great songs never go viral.”
“Calling it now: this song will blow up! If it does, someone kick me.”
“This is so good. I’m going to spread the word and see if it helps.”

From these numbers alone, Wang Mo was absolutely certain: even if the world had changed, the way this song moved people remained the same.

On September 8th, Wang Mo’s phone buzzed with a message: “A salary payment has been deposited to your account ending in 1314 at 10:01 AM on September 8th. Amount: 59,012 yuan. Balance: 59,012.5 yuan.”

This was his income for August.

It included a base salary of 5,000 yuan, and 54,000 yuan in royalties.

Normally, the company paid salaries on the 10th, but as that fell on a weekend, they paid early.

As for the 100,000 yuan bonus he’d received earlier, he’d lent 50,000 to Liu Zhengwen and returned the other 50,000 to Yuan Xiong.

Before the salary arrived, there was only half a yuan left in his account.

Throughout August, "Doesn't Matter" had been downloaded 215,000 times, more than doubling the 81,000 downloads of the second-place song. That was the source of Wang Mo’s 50,000-plus yuan in royalties.

“It’s a bit little...” Wang Mo frowned.

His villa mortgage alone cost several hundred thousand yuan a month.

But Wang Mo knew that the true potential of "Doesn't Matter" was still untapped. When Hao Mingxing started booking commercial performances, when other channels picked up the song, when it became a hit or even a classic, his earnings would surge.

What’s more—

His second song had already been released.

“How much will ‘Invisible Wings’ earn me?”

Wang Mo tried to count on his fingers, but couldn’t figure it out.

He was sure, though, that it would be far more than "Doesn't Matter." For one thing, almost no singers had covered "Doesn't Matter," but "Invisible Wings" was already attracting a slew of covers.

Each singer who covered it paid a hefty licensing fee.

Ten singers meant ten hefty fees.

...

Zhou Peng.

Yes, the guy who listened to "Doesn't Matter" with his HD820 headphones.

Ever since he’d spent a month as the admin for a fan chat group in July, he’d become addicted to it.

Unfortunately, in August, "Happily in Pain" discovered the song "Doesn't Matter" and took the admin spot back from him.

Later, as "Doesn't Matter" demonstrated overwhelming strength and topped the newcomer charts, it proved that "Happily in Pain" indeed had sharp taste.

That was the whole point of the "Discoverer No. 1" group.

When someone in the group unearthed a hidden gem that then outshone the works of famous singers, everyone felt a strange sense of pride.

Zhou Peng accepted losing the admin spot, but he was not content.

So, when September began, he devoted himself entirely to song-hunting.

Of the twenty-four hours in a day, he spent twenty in the music library searching for new releases, vowing to find another overlooked masterpiece and reclaim his admin role.

He even turned down his girlfriend’s invitation to snuggle under the covers and watch the glow-in-the-dark clock together.

Yet—

Several days passed, and Zhou Peng still had nothing to show for it.

September’s charts were a battlefield of titans, with plenty of great songs.

But after five or six days, neither Zhou Peng nor any of the two thousand members of the "Discoverer No. 1" group had found a single song that the whole group agreed was an undiscovered gem.

Plenty had shared their finds, but none gained widespread approval.

So, for September, the group admin remained "Happily in Pain."

“This is so frustrating. I need some motivational videos to recharge…”

Zhou Peng rubbed his bloodshot eyes, feeling defeated.

Whenever his fighting spirit faltered and his willpower flagged, he’d open Douyin and watch a few inspirational videos to get pumped up again.

For example:

A celebrity who, while filming a variety show, cut her finger but kept going until filming ended, moving millions of fans.

A businessman who declared bankruptcy, yet still managed to get a twenty-million-yuan bank loan and stage a comeback.

Or many others—there were countless stories.

After watching, Zhou Peng always felt his own troubles were trivial, and he would be instantly re-energized.

He opened Douyin.

Since his account was well-trained, the system automatically recommended nothing but motivational short videos.

In fact, Zhou Peng had several Douyin accounts.

One for inspirational content.

One dedicated to watching videos about Aodebiao transporting bananas or fixing cars.

One purely for appreciating beauty.

He wouldn’t sell any of the three accounts for a million.

After a few motivational clips, he felt much better.

He was about to close Douyin and return to song hunting in the music library.

He instinctively scrolled down one more time, and his eyes froze.

The reason: the girl in the video was stunningly beautiful.

Who could resist a pretty girl while scrolling through Douyin?

“Just one look,” Zhou Peng told himself, curious as to why this girl had appeared in his motivational feed.

The video had been posted just five minutes earlier.

Likes: 12.

Comments: 3.

Favorites: 5.

Shares: 5.

He glanced at the caption and understood: it was early September, the start of a new academic year. This was a girl fresh into university, sharing a video to showcase the rainbow after the storm she’d endured to get into a top-ranked university.

The video was a montage of dozens of photos.

Such motivational content was common on Douyin.

It began—

The first was a photo of the girl’s hometown: backward, rundown, surrounded by mountains.

The narration read: “I was born in 2005, in a farming family in Yunnan. My parents left to work when I was young, making me a left-behind child. When I was five, they died in a car accident. My grandmother, devastated, soon passed away too. I became an orphan.”

Zhou Peng felt a pang of emotion.

Then—

Unnoticed, the background music began to play.

“Each time, I grow strong in loneliness and hesitation
Each time, no matter how hurt I am, I never let my tears show”

The music fit the images so perfectly that Zhou Peng couldn’t help but pay closer attention.

At that moment, though, he hadn’t noticed the background song, so absorbed was he in the unfolding photos.