Zhang Fu got distracted for a moment due to her rich inner thoughts, and after greeting him, she didn’t continue the conversation.
The young man sitting not far away clearly didn’t have much intention of chatting either. By the time she came back to her senses, Quentin had already put on his headphones, turned on his computer, and busied himself.
She didn’t know if Quentin was deliberately ignoring her, but looking at his calm demeanor, it was obviously not like the trainees in other groups who avoided conversation for reasons like “shyness,” “reservedness,” or “not being good with words.”
This attitude of “idle people do not disturb” probably wasn’t targeting her, right?
Perhaps because the manager had repeatedly drilled instructions into her beforehand, the talk about creating a CP had ultimately left a seed in Zhang Fu’s heart. Even though she was determined to just go through the motions, she still felt a bit guilty because of those words.
Especially when alone with the top contestant, Quentin, whom that idiot manager had been eyeing covetously…
It should be known that within BKL, it wasn’t just Aurora’s manager paying attention to Quentin. According to Zhang Fu, Inferno over there was even more on edge, as if facing a great enemy.
She wasn’t sure what had happened during the recording of Cat and Mouse Game a few days earlier, but just the day before coming to the NS recording base, she had coincidentally met a few members of Inferno in BKL’s company cafeteria.
Calling it a “coincidence” wasn’t necessarily accurate, since they had actively carried their trays and sat down across from her.
One of them, a young man named Ji Xu, politely introduced himself and then tentatively asked her if she was going to participate in the recording of NS.
This matter wasn’t a secret within the company, but not many people knew about it either. After all, compared to Aurora’s meteoric rise when they first debuted a year ago, they no longer had any value worth paying attention to.
Who would have thought that this small, struggling group, already drained of their blood by BKL, would still be specifically invited by a currently popular survival show?
Although the two survival shows were only a year apart, and the production team staff hadn’t changed much, key positions like the head director, assistant directors, and head screenwriter had all been completely replaced.
Even though the outside world said Next Stage was the second season of “Shining Queen”, and Zhang Fu and the others were the senior sisters of this batch of boy group trainees, not many people within the industry actually took these words seriously.
After all, Aurora had signed with BKL after debuting, while the boy group from NS would sign with Galaxy Entertainment after debuting. Apart from both being debut groups from Youth TV’s survival shows, there was no other connection between the two sides.
The so-called junior and senior relationship, in the eyes of those in the know, were not even as close as the relationships between BKL’s several generations of boy and girl groups.
For instance, Ji Xu, who had spoken to Zhang Fu, was nominally also her junior brother.
But despite this loose relationship, the head director of NS, braving the longstanding feud between Youth TV and BKL, had actively extended an invitation to them. No one could cherish this opportunity more than Aurora.
Zhang Fu thought about what Ji Xu and the others had asked her to do, looked over at the blonde boy over there focused on his work with wired headphones, and couldn’t help but sigh.
Actually, it wasn’t a big deal. Ji Xu said their group had a very pleasant cooperation with Quentin and the others during the variety show recording, but after filming ended, they parted too hastily and forgot to exchange contact information, so they wanted to ask Zhang Fu to help pass along a message.
Should she use this as an excuse to start a topic… But knowing clearly that he was busy and still initiating conversation, wouldn’t he think she had no sense of propriety?
Zhang Fu, who had been PUA’d by the company and management team for a whole year, was anxious and overthinking things. Even though she was facing a junior brother who hadn’t even debuted yet, as a senior, she still lacked confidence.
Over on the other side, Quentin, who was very sensitive to gazes, had naturally noticed Zhang Fu’s occasional glances.
After uploading the revised arrangement, he took off one earphone, looked up at Zhang Fu, and asked, “Senior Sister, if you’re not busy, would you like to come listen to the song for this public performance?”
The young man’s eyes were like a quiet lake, adjacent to a forest and grassland. The shallow green seemed to carry little warmth, yet it made one’s entire heart feel much more serene.
Zhang Fu was stunned for a moment. The hidden anxiety in her heart quietly dissipated, and a look of surprise and joy surfaced in her eyes.
But her expression was very calm. She maintained a steady senior sister demeanor, nodding politely and amiably. “Okay.”
Quentin unplugged the headphones from the computer and, without waiting for Zhang Fu to sit down next to him, clicked play.
The song “Senior Sister, No” had exploded in popularity in the video section since its release five years ago. Its Japanese version was one of the fandom-defining divine songs for anime-style cover dances, and often used by people as background music for hand-drawn videos or otome game fan-edits.
Zhang Fu knew this song inside and out. Back in university, she had also danced the corresponding dance with friends in her dance club.
In her memory, the musical style of “Senior Sister, No” was light and cheerful, neither sentimental nor passionate. It was a small sweet song that, while seemingly about love, actually advised girls to study hard and not be deceived by bad boys.
Three males were mentioned, each appearing sequentially in the three main verses. The original lyrics roughly were…
Verse 1:
Riding a skateboard
He… (omitted)
Verse 2:
The shy boy who loves writing love poems wears clean shirts
He… (omitted)
Verse 3:
The class monitor, a bookworm who doesn’t understand romance, always secretly looks at you
He… (omitted)
As for the online versions, they replaced these three male images with other looks, so Zhang Fu had heard many adapted versions.
But she hadn’t expected the adapted version Quentin played for her to be so different from what she had imagined.
“…”
Zhang Fu stared blankly at the flowing lyrics on the computer screen, holding her breath as she listened to the entire song.
The drumbeats in the accompaniment were deafening, lingering for a while without stopping. Only after a long time did she realize it was her own heartbeat.
The person singing… should be Quentin, right? It was most likely just a recording sample. He sang very casually, with a practiced ease and nonchalance.
It was this damnable nonchalance, combined with his uniquely charming voice, that came forth into a magical attraction.
Although not a single lyric was changed, and only the arrangement was altered, the whole song instantly became sweeter and more heart-fluttering. Listening to it too much made you feel like a love-brain was about to grow!
It was just as light and cheerful as the original, at most adding a bit of R&B and Funk flavor, the colors remained bright and warm, yet they expressed a completely different feeling from the original.
Was this song sung by him?
Was this song adapted by him?
…Does it have to be this terrifying? This kind of talent and gift is just too overwhelming.
Before this, Zhang Fu had re-watched the stages of Black Umbrella and Fire Seed multiple times online. At that time, she was immersed in appreciating Quentin’s work from the audience’s perspective, only finding it beautiful, sounding great, and very impressive.
But when she faced Quentin directly and saw him adapt a song, listening to it as Quentin’s teammate, she suddenly realized that this junior brother’s talent seemed even more astonishing than she had originally thought.
“Clap, clap, clap.”
Zhang Fu applauded, forcibly maintaining the dignity of a senior sister, and said dryly, “The adaptation sounds really good… very different from the original. How did you do it…”
Was this the gap between people? Quentin had already adapted the song, but she didn’t even know where to start praising him…(tearful eyes).
Quentin noticed Zhang Fu’s complex emotions, but he didn’t pay much attention. Many people around him had similar complex emotions when hearing his songs for the first time.
He could understand that. After all, the impression his appearance gave people was very mismatched with his ability. What did this indicate? It indicated that his songs sounded good.
He replied, “It’s just a normal adaptation. To put it simply, I adapted the song from a boy group perspective.”
What differences were there between boy group songs and girl group songs…Quentin didn’t really understand.
But he knew that when boy group members sang love songs, they were singing them to their fans.
The vast majority of boy group fans project their fantasies of an ideal type onto their beloved idols, and boy group idols play exactly that role.
When interpreting it from the perspective of girl group members, “Senior Sister, No’ could be about a young girl waking up after first falling in love, or it could be admonishing girls in a teasing way not to be love-brains.
But it would be very difficult for a boy group to convey this kind of “persuasion” or rather, gentle guidance when singing the original song.
Therefore, Quentin’s adaptation guided the love song back towards love, keeping the lyrics the same and only changing the arrangement.
Let the boy group members play the role of the boys mentioned in the lyrics, transforming the theme from “girls, don’t be love-brains” to “boys’ courtship”.
The two were not contradictory; it was just that the change in singer caused a change in narrative perspective, and the overall feeling the song gave naturally had to change accordingly.
Quentin added a Funk bass in the arrangement, using leaping, portamento, and melodies full of elasticity and rhythmic feel to play the role of an invisible hand, plucking at the listeners’ heartstrings along with the notes.
This kind of sweet love song with a campus background is most suitable for boyish voices. Wen Xinyi and Quentin’s timbres could lean in this direction, while the low voices of Xue Mingzhu, Yan Qiao, and others were better suited for harmonies.
The highly rhythmic overlapping drum beats quietly disappeared during the transitional bridge section, leaving only the heartbeat-like bass drum and crisp clapping sounds. The vocal part was handed over to Wen Xinyi for a solo.
In some details, Quentin added ad-libs (impromptu humming), like “oh,” “yeah,” “baby,” light laughter, sighing sounds, etc., scattered throughout the song’s background music, thereby increasing the song’s intimacy with the listeners.
…
Quentin roughly explained his thinking behind the arrangement.
Zhang Fu hadn’t expected this young man to be so cooperative and patient. She breathed a small sigh of relief. Although she didn’t understand much about arranging music, she could understand Quentin’s words, and this situation was way better than being ignored or struggling to find something to say!
Although she hadn’t met the other trainees in the team yet, judging from Quentin’s attitude, these junior brothers were still easy to get along with.
That’s right. The junior brothers were all disconnected from the internet, so they were completely unaware of how many fans they had online. Quentin now was just like she was a year ago, someone who had switched paths from studying halfway to participate in a survival show, starting from an obscure, pure amateur to suddenly becoming popular.
Thinking about it this way, the psychological pressure instantly disappeared.
So when Yan Qiao and the others returned from the cafeteria and opened the practice room door, the scene they saw was their own young leader and Aurora’s senior sister sitting together, chatting amicably.
Hmm?
That’s not right…
Given Quentin’s personality, is he really this good at chatting with girls?
