Chapter 6: Money Is So Hard to Earn

The T City Music Festival came to a successful end, its lingering heat refusing to dissipate.

Liu Lusi’s suggestion was to strike while the iron was hot and release new work as soon as possible.

However, an album’s production cycle was too long to catch up in time, especially since Heartbreak had only been independent for less than half a year and was short-staffed in all areas. Waiting for the album to be smoothly released, the daylilies would probably be cold by then!

Comparatively, releasing a digital single was more cost-effective.

This way, when Heartbreak participated in performances come summer, they could also refresh their setlist.

If they could solidly digest this wave of popularity, in the public’s eyes, “Mengmeng’s” position as the third-generation lead singer would be secured. He wouldn’t be easily leaving.

After the busy music festival, Liu Lusi accepted an exclusive interview with a top music review magazine.

Actually, she had no choice but to accept.

After all, the band circle was just this small, could they afford not to give face?

Luckily, the interview itself didn’t take much time, only the styling and photoshoot wasted some effort. She could only console herself that both sides had needs:

The magazine side had the instinct to chase traffic and wouldn’t let any hot topic slip by; while Heartbreak needed a suitable platform to summarize the lead singer iteration matter, so that newly-joined fans and old music fans alike could be clear:

Regarding Jiang Hu, we adhere to the principle of never abandoning, never giving up;

Regarding Mengmeng, he also needs everyone’s support.

In short, one sentence—

Heartbreak is still that same Heartbreak, please continue to support us!

According to Liu Lusi’s initial plan, if the music festival response was slightly above average, she would contact Qu Yanni to increase marketing efforts, stretching the battle line as long as possible, slowly advancing.

Who knew this battle went so well, so well that the current momentum was unexpectedly huge!

In that case, the follow-up actually needed to be slightly suppressed, to avoid causing public outrage and attracting underhanded attacks.

Actively revealing one’s own flaws and being exposed by others—

These two things were completely different in nature.

Of course, the questions for the interview segment were all personally reviewed by Liu Lusi. She not only pondered them herself but also dragged everyone in the studio to discuss them together.

“Questions related to creation can be answered, and questions about member relationships can also be answered.”

“Let’s skip the alias matter, everyone tacitly understands it enough.”

Finally, about forty backup Q&A items were selected.

During the solo interview segment, Li Tingzhou found most questions were personal ones aimed at him, like zodiac sign, MBTI personality, whether he preferred cats or dogs as a pet companion, etc. The only thing that might spark post-interview discussion among music fans was probably picking his three favorite songs from the first and second generation Heartbreak.

Regarding this, Li Tingzhou did his best to maintain an even balance.

The staff even wanted to see his recently played song playlist.

This scared Liu Lusi into rushing forward to stop them!

Content outside the plan made her subconsciously alert.

What playlist needed to be viewed during an interview?

Done well, it was a friendly recommendation, mutual traffic boost;

If handled improperly, it would become a backhanded comparison.

She had been afraid that in her absence, the magazine would change plans and slip extra things into the script. She never expected they’d dare set a trap for Li Tingzhou right in front of her!

This stress reaction scared the staff member into nearly stuttering: “Uh, sorry, Sis, I just saw Mint Candy’s drummer and Tipsy Cookie’s lead singer’s social media accounts both followed Mengmeng, so I thought—”

Liu Lusi didn’t care whether the other party was truly sorry or making a strategic retreat.

Her reply was very official: “It was Mengmeng’s first time on stage, everyone was very friendly to him.”

The old rule applied: for collaborations, send an email. Anything else, unless it came directly from the person’s own mouth, whether good or bad, Liu Lusi would absolutely not acknowledge it!

By the time the interview was finally over, Mao Maoyu was already impatient.

“Does this magazine have a secret crush on Heartbreak, or does someone internally specialize in reading comprehension? How could they summarize your dating history from the lyrics? Are they doing music reviews or gossip?”

Dai Jier had also reached his limit of patience.

But then again, if they hadn’t seen with their own eyes how the lyricist teacher leafed through dictionaries just to find rhymes, they’d really think the analysis made sense. No wonder they were so good at steering narratives…

Li Tingzhou looked helplessly at Liu Lusi: “Did I answer okay?”

Liu Lusi smiled tiredly, giving a look that said, “Need you even ask?”

~

Setting aside these work tasks that suddenly cut in line, Heartbreak’s current focus was still concentrated on three projects: the summer single, the winter album, and the talent show (male version) that Whale Video was restarting in the summer.

The first two didn’t need much explanation; they had been internally initiated before Heartbreak went independent.

The third was marked with a star for emphasis, purely because the platform was great and the exposure opportunity rare—it could quickly broaden Heartbreak’s path of exploration into the mainstream circle.

Here, mention must be made of Li Tingzhou’s previously selected song, “Passion.”

This song brought considerable heat to the talent show’s limited-time girl group. Originally planned as an album track, the internal test-singing response far exceeded expectations, so it was promoted to a double title track. After the album’s release, it also made Mengmeng’s alias famous in one battle. Then, Diamond Records’ First Sister chose “Telepathy,” thus giving birth to a goddess-style minor divine song.

With these two songs as credentials, Whale had already contacted Heartbreak back in March.

The show’s producer personally requested Mengmeng to provide songs, the price being negotiable.

“Do you directly provide options for the production team, or do they give requirements?”

Dai Jier asked out of curiosity.

After all, the two scenarios were completely different price brackets. Regardless of the circle, the most expensive form of expenditure is always customization.

“They set them.”

Whale’s Q2 investment promotion meeting displayed content related to the male group talent show. The VP personally stated on stage that a nationwide trainee selection would start in June, recording would begin in July, ensuring the broadcast period covered the entire summer season.

It seemed ample, but actually, Li Tingzhou’s working period was less than two months.

He had never liked procrastination. He rummaged through his music library, picked out songs that felt right, and subjected them to a thorough, bone-deep rearrangement. He sent them to “Heartbreak’s M Country Office Director,” Eldan—his old classmate and homework partner (graduation postponement edition). The latter then filled in the lyrics according to his understanding of the theme’s direction.

Something like “Girl you’re so bad, I know it, you know it.”

Something like “Baby you’re too hot and cold, I won’t let you leave.”

As if finding it too monotonous, he even cockily slipped in a couple of lines of Spanish…

This showed that lyrics were indeed better off not being understood.

Ignoring the Chinese meaning, when embedded into the melody, singing them actually felt okay. Li Tingzhou gave this “group assignment” that was still unpolished a score of 70, and sent it to the relevant person in charge of the production team.

The next day, the other side replied with a long string of revision suggestions.

For example, “The key is too high, considering the trainees’ limited ability, can it be lowered by half an octave?” Also, “Can the bridge part be extended by two bars of non-lyrical melody? We’d like to leave it for a dance showcase.”

These were minor things, not difficult to change.

But the production team had internal disagreements.

Eldan, bridging the time difference, had a voice call with Li Tingzhou: “What kind of disagreements?”

“Have you heard of dividing the cake?”

“Limited debut spots mean it has to be calculated one by one. Those big companies participating in the show all have their own trainees they want to push, but their abilities are uneven. Everyone gets a different performance script. The production team wants a certain person to sing a certain line, but they lack the expressiveness. So what to do? How can a brilliant part be given away to someone else?”

“What does ‘lacking sufficient expressiveness’ specifically mean?”

“Either they can’t open their mouths, or they can’t move their legs.”

Even worse, some have both conditions, useless to a hair-pulling degree.

The two discussed and revised another version, sending another email two days later.

This time, there weren’t even revision suggestions. The team leader solely responsible for this block called directly:

“Teacher Mengmeng, the first version still sounded better, the choreography team also prefers the first version. But singing and dancing simultaneously to this song is indeed quite difficult, you see—”

Li Tingzhou took a deep breath: What can I see? How am I supposed to see this?

Probably sensing his speechlessness, the team leader added apologetically: “What I mean is, Teacher Mengmeng, could you create a sample first? We’ll produce a demo with higher completion and precision, then let the trainees follow and practice…”

No wonder they specifically called to say this.

If he remembered correctly, in the previous female version talent show, this stage involved everyone starting from scratch with unified progress.

And their reference material was merely a simple demo.

That sample didn’t have much instructional value. How to use one’s own timbre and singing style, how to infuse emotion—completely relied on the trainee’s individual understanding and digestion.

Now, for the male version talent show, the meal had to be fully prepared and delivered to their mouths before they were willing to eat.

What else could Li Tingzhou say?

Money is so damn hard to earn…

~

Before the end of April, Li Tingzhou went to see another one of Xi He’s performances.

After her performance ended, the two walked out of the theater side by side.

On the way, they seemed to run into an acquaintance who smiled and waved goodbye in their direction. Li Tingzhou found him somewhat familiar, but couldn’t recall where exactly he’d seen him.

Xi He asked him to guess. Only when he truly couldn’t guess did she reveal the answer:

“You definitely watched ‘The Congcong Family’ when you were little, right? He’s Congcong, who got mixed doubles beatings from mom and dad in every episode! Aren’t those ears exactly the same as back then?”

“So it was him…”

Li Tingzhou casually asked: “He didn’t continue being an actor?”

Xi He nodded: “Ying Cong’s mother is my teacher. Whenever he has free time, he comes to the troupe to pick up his mom from work. From what I know, Ying Cong switched to the directing department after his postgrad exams.”

“Could it be he discovered he has more talent as a director?”

Hearing Li Tingzhou say this, Xi He smiled: “You always think the best of people, but actually, that’s not it. Teacher Ying said her son found his classmates from the same year were too talented. After graduating and struggling for two years, feeling he really couldn’t stand out, he forcibly changed paths.”

“That’s still great. Many people don’t have the courage to change their current situation.”

Xi He nodded: “Yeah…”

“If I hadn’t passed the exam for the troupe, I don’t know what the future would be like.”

When young, full of passion, just praised a few times by an interest class teacher, she chose a path completely different from her peers without hesitation. So many years of heavy investment—just to step on stage and sing opera, no matter the hardship or fatigue, not a single second of regret—only then did she persevere to success.

But seeing former senior brothers and sisters fail to achieve their goals for various reasons, even giving up their profession to switch careers, Xi He was somewhat frightened and uneasy.

Especially when she found herself unable to stop actively deepening her understanding of Li Tingzhou.

He had excellent conversational manner and temperament, his way of dealing with people flawlessly impeccable. His conduct was generous, never showing off or squandering. His daily life in clothing, food, housing, and transport hinted at an extraordinary family background.

He said he was the producer and lead singer of a small band.

But this was definitely not Li Tingzhou’s entire identity.

Looking at herself, Xi He didn’t even know what else she could do if she left this profession.

“There are many things you can do in the future, it just depends on what you want to do, and when you want to do it. One year traveling in Country G, I met a sailor-turned-sailboat athlete. He switched careers at 33, won his first medal at 36.”

Xi He looked at Li Tingzhou, trying to read something in his eyes.

“Before he switched careers, he was a dentist.”

Xi He blinked in a daze: “Then that person really gave up a lot…”

Who could say he didn’t?

But what Li Tingzhou didn’t finish saying was: the other party earned his doctorate at 24, owned his own clinic at 26, relied on family support to develop a chain. In just a few years, he accumulated enough wealth to last a lifetime, enabling him to carefreely leap from one money-burning industry to an even more money-burning one.

But this didn’t matter—because what Xi He needed more was comfort and affirmation.