Song Yiyuan was furious when he heard this. While the other didn’t know, he, as the manager, was aware of this.
These songs weren’t composed by Mr. Bu Li; they were obviously made by Shi Fei at home.
Song Yiyuan was in tears: ‘Shi Fei, you can’t just fantasise that you’re going to surpass Bu Li and become the second person from China to win a Grammy Award.’
He sat on the side and pulled Shi Fei’s sleeve, indicating that he couldn’t lie too much; such lies were too easy to uncover.
But Shi Fei answered Ling Huai’s question with a smile and said, “I wrote all these songs.”
Ling Huai had an angry expression on his face: “Are you playing with me? This is the attitude you have when you come to talk about things?”
Shi Fei said calmly, “Actually, we at Yiyuan Studio are very sincere in discussing cooperation with you.”
Ling Huai angrily retorted, “You just said that Bu Li wrote these songs, and then you said that you wrote them; what are you doing if you are not fooling me?”
Shi Fei said, “Mr. Ling, you’re so smart, can’t you guess it?”
Ling Huai thought about it then he couldn’t help but smile mockingly; the creases at the corners of his eyes clearly showed. “You’re telling me that you’re Bu Li?”
Shi Fei nodded his head in acknowledgement.
Ling Huai laughed once more, “I haven’t heard such a fresh and funny joke in a long time. I admit that you are a talented person; you are proficient in a number of talents at a young age. The ten songs you brought today are already very shocking to me. There may not be a second talented artist like you in the younger generation. You don’t have to lie and say you’re Bu Li; you have to know that Bu Li started writing songs for Shen Qingran four years ago. How old were you four years ago?”
If the man who was sitting here today was 28 years old, Ling Huai would have really believed him. Even if he was a bit younger, 24 would be fine. Four years ago, if he was 20 years old and could write those amazing songs, it only meant that he was a magician.
But this year, Shi Fei was only 18 years old; four years ago, he was only 14 years old. Could a junior high school student write those amazing lyrics and songs? How would anyone believe that?
Didn’t that mean that so many talented musicians in the entire singing world were nothing in front of Shi Fei?
Writing songs and playing guzheng and painting weren’t the same; sometimes it was not just about talent; somethings also required a certain amount of experience.
“If you want to say that your sense of music is different from normal people today, I’ll believe you, but if you say that you’re Bu Li, are you taking me for a fool?” Ling Huai didn’t know what to say to Shi Fei. “Actually, you don’t have to be like this; the words I told you before are true; your musical talent is really good; as long as you set your mind right, even if you miss this time’s album, you’ll definitely be able to release a popular album next time.”
But he didn’t really mean it, there were many so-called talented musicians in the music industry, but they ultimately lost to those capitalists and those teams who could speak well and market their albums.
Not everyone could replicate Shen Qingran’s route.
Shi Fei had long guessed that Ling Huai would not believe it, he picked up the cell phone on the table, trying to find if there was a picture of his Grammy trophy in the album, then he slapped the hand next to him that had been pulling on his sleeve away, and said, “Brother Yiyuan, don’t pull on my clothes anymore; pulling them again is going to be out of line.”
Song Yiyuan regretted bringing Shi Fei here; he thought his plan was so good, but it turned out to be just like that.
Originally, it looked like they couldn’t settle this matter, but judging from Ling Huai’s appreciative attitude towards Shi Fei, there was still a chance for cooperation in the future.
This would probably all be messed up by Shi Fei.
He was usually quite a stable person; how come he became so hasty now?
He wondered if it was too late to drag him away.
After checking the photo album twice, he found that he couldn’t find any photos. It seemed that every time he brought back the trophy, he put it on the cabinet directly and never moved it.
Feeling chagrined, he said, “I forgot to take a picture to show you before I came; I can only make a phone call to Qingran.”
After Shen Qingran’s domestic concert, he went abroad, he had several concerts abroad this year.
The video call was made to Shen Qingran, and it took a while for the other side to pick up, and just when Ling Huai was about to run out of patience and leave, the call finally went through.
Shi Fei saw that Shen Qingran was dressed very formally and cleanly, although he was usually like this. Looking at the background behind him, he asked, “Qingran, are you being interviewed?”
With a warm smile on his face, Shen Qingran responded, “It’s a magazine interview, and there just happened to be an intermission. What is the urgency for you to call me?”
Probably noticing the background behind Shi Fei and Ling Huai beside him, Shen Qingran spoke more cautiously.
“Qingran, I’m at Penguin Music’s Mr. Ling’s house, and he has a few questions he wants to talk to you about.” Shi Fei moved the camera a bit towards Ling Huai’s side.
Ling Huai saw Shen Qingran and didn’t know how to ask for a moment. His expression was very rich and varied, then he finally spoke up and asked, “Teacher Shi Fei’s new album has come out. He said the songwriters and composers on it are inseparable from teacher Bu Li, but he also said that these songs were all written by himself. I want to verify. Is this what I think?”
Shen Qingran looked at Shi Fei, saw him nodding, and then frankly said, “Mr. Bu Li is indeed Shi Fei; I can prove this; if you need, I can show you some of our email exchanges.”
Shen Qingran flew around in different countries, and when he wrote songs, he would send them to Shen Qingran by email.
After hanging up the phone, Shi Fei looked at Ling Huai and said, “Mr. Ling, if you still don’t believe me, I can only show you my email records, or I can take you to my study to see my trophies.”
He had gotten few Grammy Awards in the past few years, and every time, he had Shen Qingran help him receive it back on his behalf.
Hearing his name, Ling Huai reacted and hurriedly shook his head: “No need; Mr. Shen Qingran has personally testified; how would I not believe it? Let me digest this news; I still need some time.”
Four years ago, Shen Qingran debuted. At that time, no one could have imagined what kind of scenery this good-looking and aloof person would create in the entertainment industry.
He made an album in half a year after his debut, and his music lyrics conquered the entire singing world, and together with him, of course, there was also the writer of those songs he sang, ‘Bu Li’.
At the following year’s Grammy ceremony, Shen Qingran won the Best New Artist award with absolute confidence, along with Best Instrumental Composition and Best Instrumental Arrangement, both of which were taken by Bu Li.
China was the first country to win an award at the Grammy ceremony, which wasn’t only shocking for China but also for Asia and the world.
At that time, how many media outlets competed to report on this new singer?
At the same time, there was also a gold medal songwriter.
Many people wanted to ask this person to write a song for them, but no one could find out who this person was; they only knew that their pen name was called Bu Li, their age and identity weren’t known, and whether it was a man or a woman was also unknown.
It wasn’t that they hadn’t thought about getting a quote from Shen Qingran. Many media outlets and companies had tried to extract a firm identity from him, but they hadn’t succeeded once. Shen Qingran had a firmness that didn’t belong to someone of his age category.
Anything he didn’t want to disclose to you, it was no use how you tried to get the word out.
There were even people who suspected that Bu Li was Shen Qingran himself; who would have thought that the big god that the major media were racking their brains to dig up was the teenager sitting in front of him in his house, smiling with a harmless expression.
Ling Huai felt that this world was too metaphysical.
“This world is too crazy.” Even though it had been confirmed, Ling Huai still felt a bit incredulous.
“Don’t say you can’t believe it; I’m his manager, and I knew it on the first day.” Song Yiyuan, who was standing on the side, felt as if he were listening to a play or having a dream; in fact, Song Yiyuan had another bold idea: could this be a conspiracy between Shen Qingran and Shi Fei?
The two of them had teamed up to impersonate Bu Li. Song Yiyuan quickly shook his head.
“I just found it too troublesome to talk about.” Facing the crowd’s puzzlement, Shi Fei blandly explained, After all, once he let the crowd know that he was Bu Li, there might be a lot of invitations to write songs and the like at that time, and his unwillingness would inevitably offend a group of people again.
He wasn’t afraid of offending people, but there would always be people behind his back who would constantly stare at him, just like a snake waiting for an opportunity to move; that wasn’t a good feeling.
Shi Fei looked at Ling Huai and asked, “Mr. Ling, do you think that Bu Li’s reputation and popularity can be compared to Tang Kun’s?”
Ling Huai nodded. “Yes, of course it can; it’s simply too good to be true.”
Not only did he represent the national level within China, but also abroad, where many people rarely noticed the names of the writers and composers.
But if any of Shen Qingran’s award-winning songs, such as “Gryphon” and “Manifest,” were to be pulled out and the writer exposed, the promotional effect would be explosive.
In recent years, apart from writing songs for Shen Qingran, Bu Li hadn’t written for anyone else, which was another major promotional selling point.
No matter how good Tang Kun was, he was only within China, but Bu Li could be a global sensation.
“Don’t worry, as long as you give the copyrights of these songs to our company, we will definitely put our best recommendations and publicity all on these songs.” Ling Huai was a bit anxious now; such an opportunity could not be snatched away by others.
Not to mention that he hadn’t signed with Tang Kun yet; even if he had, he would still have to break the contract, and he believed that if Yunyue Music Network and Koolaide Music Network knew about this, they would definitely come to steal it too.
Shi Fei said, “Mr. Ling, in fact, I personally have a small idea.”
Ling Huai was excited: “Go ahead.” It was as if he could already see the expl-osion that would be caused by the uploading of these songs.
Shi Fei put his cell phone away and put it back in his pocket. “It’s like this; I plan to release the song in four languages at the same time, English, R, H, and Chinese, so that we can face the world together at that time.”
Ling Huai understood the reason for this after a little thought: “You are… trying to intercept Tang Kun’s foreign media resources?”
Before, no one dared to imagine that music from China could also win awards. With Shen Qingran, who opened up the world music stage, many people were moved and had thoughts in this regard.
Unfortunately, none of them had succeeded so far, but that didn’t stop people from continuing to explore, and even if they couldn’t win awards, they could still open up overseas markets with their music.
Tang Kun’s focus in the past two years has been on foreign countries, wanting to expand his overseas resources. In recent years, his album would be released in China, then an English version would be released shortly thereafter.
It was just that the effect wasn’t be ideal. Although the results weren’t very good, they still worked tirelessly on it.
They didn’t want to win top music awards like the Grammy Awards, like Shen Qingran. As long as they could easily win some awards abroad, they could use their return to China to earn gold and double their value.
He heard that Tang Kun planned to release a music version in four languages at once in order to make a name for himself overseas. Shi Fei also wanted to release music in four languages at this critical moment; if he said that it wasn’t to block Tang Kun, no one would believe it.
Shi Fei was very quick to admit it, with a calculating smile at the corner of his lips, “It’s just to block him.”
Did he really think he was a soft bun that was so easy to crush?
Shi Fei’s eyes flashed with a hint of cunning, and he said, “If Mr. Ling agrees, then we will agree that in three days, my digital album will be online on your Penguin Music platform. Half a month later will be the day that Tang Kun’s album will be launched. I will step up my efforts to record a trilingual version of the album during this period of time so that it will be launched on the same day as his publicity campaign half a month later.”
Three days later was the release of Lu Rongrong’s new song, and half a month later was the release of Tang Kun’s new song. Shi Fei not only wanted to pull down Tianxing Media’s first-tier flower, he also wanted to pull down one of their pillars, the heavenly king, Tang Kun; he’d pull out two of their tiger teeth for fun.
To beat a dog, you had to beat it hard so that they could remember the lesson.
Ling Huai hadn’t come into contact with Shi Fei before; his understanding of him was only on the news, and he had thought that such a gifted and talented person would be a very crazy person.
He didn’t realise that he was even more crazy than he imagined. His first album not only had to compete with top performing artists, but he also wanted to take a bite of the heavenly king’s flesh.
Was it true that a newborn calf wasn’t afraid of tigers?
Shi Fei looked at Ling Huai, slightly provocative, and asked, “Mr. Ling, do you dare to play this hand?”
He was being provoked by a little kid, but Ling Huai had seen a lot over the years, so he immediately answered, “Dare, why don’t I dare? If we win, Penguin Music will at least be able to suppress Yunyue Music in the next few years and become the leader of the three major music websites. If we lose, we will be the leaders of the three major music websites.”
Before Ling Huai finished, Shi Fei immediately retorted, “We can’t lose.”
Ling Huai followed with a confident smile, “That’s right, we can’t lose.”