“Alright, so it’s time for our final round! And this time our contestant Huo Ran will be judging!” The host squeals, it’s evident to all by now that she’s his fan. “So? Are you ready?” She asks, turning to him. Huo Ran smiles good naturedly, taking the microphone from her.
“Yes, and I’m excited to see what everyone comes up with for this round. Does this round involve singing or music in general?” He asks the host.
“Ah, that’s right, let me present the rules!”
“No worries.” Huo Ran responds with a smile, handing the microphone over.
“Ah thanks…” the host responds, her ears suspiciously red. Noticing this scene from the side, Mo Lan snorts with a humph, his eyebrows furrowing. The host shivers. Funny, it’s not supposed to be cold in here?
“Miss Host?” She blinks, hearing Huo Ran’s voice prompting her, and quickly returns to explaining the rules.
“Okay, so this is a general music round, but with certain specifications. Each contestant is required to perform – notice I said perform, so this can include any instrument or voice – a single song in a genre chosen by our judge!” The host reaches behind her and whips out a drum with a fist sized hole punched in the center of one of its surfaces. “Huo Ran, would you do the honors of reaching in and pulling out our topic for today?”
Huo Ran blinks, then reaches in, and pulls out a slip. “It says” he unfolds it, “…love.” At this, the host’s eyes light up. “Alright, so everyone has fifteen minutes to prepare a love song, either singing or with an instrument. Over there”, she gestures towards the side of the stage and someone whips open a curtain, “is our selection of instruments for our contestants to pick from. Any genre is allowed, whether nursery rhymes” – she pauses as the audience laughs – “or pop. So let the timer begin!”
Immediately, the contestants make their way over to the instruments. Jessie quickly seats herself down at the piano and starts testing some chords. The biologist picks up a guitar and begins strumming. Only the painter is left, looking mildly tangled as he gazes from instrument to instrument, finally settling for mouthing a song to himself quietly in the corner. While the other three get busy, Mo Lan continues to stand stiffly to the side. Huo Ran glances towards him his brow furrowed, but he’s quickly called over by the host.
“Huo Ran, it looks like we have a piano and guitar here, do you have experience with these instruments?”
“Ah yes, a little, although I primarily have experience with the Zither and guqin.”
“So more traditional instruments then?”
“Yes.”
“Wow, that’s surprising since you’re such a well known pop singer…”
Huo Ran laughs at this. “Well, I grew up with more traditional instruments so I’d say they’re my childhood love.” Hearing these words, Mo Lan glances over at him.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“I’ll be singing ‘Love Confession’ by Jay Chou.” Cheering erupts from the Jay Chou fans in the audience. The biologist opens her mouth and her soft voice flows out. Overall, it’s accurate and soothing and she smoothly finishes the song. The audience whoops and cheers.
“That was beautiful, thank you so much for that performance!” The host exclaims. “Huo Ran, would you like to give us your expert opinion?”
With a smile Huo Ran opens his mouth, “well her accuracy was quite good and the guitar…how long have you played?”
“Nine years”, she answers with a smile.
“You can tell. Especially with the…” Watching Huo Ran standing under the lights, explaining while all eyes are focused on him, Mo Lan’s lips press tightly together imperceptibly. “Therefore, I’d give a solid 7 out of 10.” Huo Ran finally finishes. The biologist smiles under the claps, and finally takes her seat.
“Alright next up is…” Hearing his name, the painter nervously comes up to the small stage.
“…I will be singing.” He hesitantly speaks. “Alright, we can’t wait to hear it!” The host encourages. He opens his mouth…then the hall falls into a strange silence.
After several moments an audience member finally whispers, breaking the silence. “…China’s national anthem?”
“Yeah I think it is…”
“Why is he…”
The painter sings loudly, proudly, and patriotically which sounds fine except for a few missed notes that cause the audience to flinch. Within moments he finishes and there’s silence. The host blinks. Somehow I can see my grandfather there, singing his heart and soul out, in the wrong key. She quickly snaps out of her revere and starts to clap and slowly everyone follows her.
“Well everyone, let’s give it up for this very…er…patriotic performance! Huo Ran, what do you think?” She asks, whipping her head towards Huo Ran, expecting to see a similar expression however, instead she sees a perfectly genuine smile, his gaze fixed on the painter. She blinks in surprise. Why did he become a singer when he would have been perfect as an actor? No wait, then we’d lose a heaven sent voice, what am I thinking?!
Huo Ran opens his mouth, “Overall…very unique performance. In competitions like this, most people expect pop so to see something as patriotic as the national anthem is unusual to say the least. This is especially so since the theme of our competition was love. There were also a few notes that were off key.” As he speaks, the painter’s head slinks lower and lower.
“However…I haven’t seen someone sing with this much fervor, passion, and love for their country in a long, long time” he says, his gaze fixed on the painter. Yet somehow, it’s as if his gaze is looking through or even past the painter to legions of soldiers led by generals, long before the age of guns, roaring loudly and proudly as they defend their country.
“Therefore, I’m awarding you a 7 as well.” Gasps echo across the audience. A song that out of place and off key deserves a 7?
“Alright, moving on…” the host brings everyone back with a clap. “Next up we have our martial artist, Mo Lan!” This time claps and cheers ring out across the audience, more passionate than for the previous two simply because the face value of Mo Lan is more than the previous two combined. Surely a handsome man can’t perform too badly? Everyone eagerly looks up, expected him to start singing.
Instead, Mo Lan’s hands slip out of his robes holding a pure, jade flute. He brings it up to his lips and…immediately everyone is transported to a snowy, white landscape. As the jade flute whistles, everyone feels themselves becoming purified and cleansed. By the time the last few notes play, the audience slowly breaks from their revere.
Huo Ran, having heard Mo Lan’s jade flute before, is the first to awaken and clear his throat. The host snaps out of her daze. “That was…amazing.” She says, her voice low. Huo Ran waits for her to continue, but seeing her remain silent, he takes over.
“As Miss Host said, that was amazing. The flute was pure and clear, the notes accurate, to the point that they put everyone in a different space altogether and that’s extremely difficult to achieve.” Mo Lan’s face remains expressionless and cold, but if one were to look closely, they’d see a hint of pink in his ears.
“…but the theme of this round is love and I didn’t feel any of that. Therefore, I must give Mo Lan’s performance…a 9.” Gasps ring out across the audience, this time for a different reason than before. Only a 9??? Mo Lan whips his head around to face Huo Ran. The other meets his gaze head on and that same competitive ferocity from years past is displayed between them. For a minute, one can almost see the sparks flying.
“Last but not least we have Jessie! Jessie are you ready?” The host calls out, nervously.
“Yes.” The older woman softly smiles and walks up to the microphone. Huo Ran, turns away first and after a few moments, Mo Lan does as well with a hmph.
“Today I will be singing and playing the piano for “City of Stars” from the movie LaLa Land. Is it possible…for me to ask someone from the audience to sing the male part with me?” She asks, softly and calmly. The host frowns for a moment, deliberating. Such a thing has never happened before, it’s not expressly forbidden but…
“May I?” She glances to the side. It’s Huo Ran. He turns to the host. “Is that permitted? I’ll only judge her part.” The host thinks for a minute then finally her desire to hear her male god sing live, wins. “Go ahead.” She gestures to the stage. Huo Ran walks up to Jessie’s side.
“Thank you, young man.” She says. Huo Ran just smiles in return. The two begin. Huo Ran starts, his voice strong, and low: showcasing the distinctive husky tone that sets it apart from other voices. Until this point Mo Lan had kept his gaze firmly turned away from the other man but hearing him now, he slowly turns his gaze, his eyes fixated on the Huo Ran shining under the spotlight. If he was dazzling before while speaking, now he’s truly a blazing star while singing. All eyes can’t help but focus on him and Mo Lan is no exception.
Then, Huo Ran finishes the first male section and it’s Jessie’s turn. The older woman’s voice is surprisingly strong and her notes and intonations are all accurate. Although her voice isn’t perfectly pure or beautiful, there’s something deeper in it that pulls one in: an underlaying layer of pure, raw sorrow intermixed with the sweetness of lost youth.
“Who knows….I felt it from the first embrace I shared with you, that now, our dreams, may finally come true…”
“…a voice that says I’ll be here, and you’ll be alright…”
Throughout the song, Mo Lan’s gaze remains fixed on the duo. As he watches Huo Ran and the other woman croon to each other, something tightens in his chest and his brow furrows further and further. He clenches his fist around the jade flute, not noticing the drop of blood dripping down his palm from where his hand is scratched by its sharp edge.
“…City of stars, are you shining just for me? City of stars…” Huo Ran sings.
“…never shined so brightly.” Jessie finishes. At the end of their song, it’s silent. Like after Mo Lan’s song, everyone is caught up in the mood created by the music. But unlike Mo Lan, everyone isn’t transported to another environment, but into their own world and memories.
“Jessie, Huo Ran that was amazing! I can’t believe I got to see a live performance!” The host squeals, accidentally letting her true thoughts show.
“Alright, so Huo Ran what did you think of Jessie’s singing and piano playing?”
“It was accurate, clean, crisp and like Mo Lan’s piece it had the power to influence its listener’s mood. But unlike Mo Lan’s piece, the song was slightly weaker and therefore didn’t thoroughly transport the listener to another world.”
Here, Huo Ran pauses and turns to Jessie who has been softly smiling this entire time. “May I ask what you thought of when you sang?” He asks. The older woman freezes, before slowly answering.
“I was thinking of…my late husband. We used to sing this together.” Gasps of sympathy ring out across the audience.
“I thought it must be something like that.” Huo Ran replies. “Because while your song wasn’t perfect in the way we now often expect our songs to be, it was honest: an honest memory-reflection on love, on first love and its bitter sweetness.” At this, his gaze stops on Mo Lan for a millisecond, but the other is too occupied with his own thoughts and irritation to notice.
“And because of its honesty, it allows its audience to empathize and reflect on their own first love. Therefore, Jessie, I must award you a 10.” He says. For a moment, there’s complete, utter silence. Then the audience breaks out into chatter, some voices confused why Mo Lan didn’t win, some voices cheering for Jessie. The host quickly claps her hands together, trying to take charge.
“Alright then! Since Jessie and Huo Ran each have three points, they will be advancing to a tiebreaking round…”
As the host speaks Mo Lan’s gaze remains fixed on Huo Ran a fire burning within them. Huo Ran meets his gaze, a complicated expression flashing past his face, he opens his mouth to speak-but before he can Mo Lan whips himself around and with a swish of his white robes, leaves the auditorium. Seeing him go, the host calls out confusedly but within a second he’s gone, like a gust of wind.
Author’s Note:
Hi everyone, thank you ForRoent, Jose, and Pleth for your suggestions! I Initially wanted to have Mo Lan win the music competition then face off in some sort of tie breaker with Huo Ran in some sort of memory/quiz question related tie breaker as Jose suggested however, for the life of me, I couldn’t think of what. Then, I considered having Mo Lan diss Huo Ran for not cultivating as Pleth suggested but I wasn’t sure how to tie that together. Finally, I came up with the idea of using ForRoent’s suggestion to form the chapter you see above. Once again, thanks!
Sorry for the delay, the final chapter should come in a day or two and after that is a final extra for one of our beloved side character’s happy ending! I’m not revealing which one yet.
Someone’s jelly~
Thanks for the chapter!
I really like how it turn out
Thanks for the chapter!
Is it just me? I can see Lan Zhan walking out silently after looking at Wei Ying with jelly jelly eyes. I know this is this incredible authors writing butttttttttt that was the first thing that came into my mind. Thank You for the chapter~ looking forward to the next one~ (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤
Not just you. I totally had a Lan Zhan moment as well.😍
Mo Lan reminds you of Lan Zhan? That’s such an honor, that comments makes me really happy😆 Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are awesome!
Ah! I was shocked when I saw that this chapter is from my idea~ You made it extra good SB sama! The other suggestions was hella good too, and I suddenly wanted to know how they’d turn out~
That’s a good idea, I may actually try the other ideas as well and make an extra 3.
yes!!!