WeChat note: "Teacher Lu," and add the label: -084.
He casually jotted it down in his phone calendar as well. According to his records, August 4 was also Wu Xi's birthday.
While rehearsing in the "underwear building," he finished recording the birthdays of over thirty artists he had recently added as friends.
Chu Zhi scrolled through his phone and sighed. "Over three years, and my calendar still isn't full."
The Emperor Beast was a bit dissatisfied. In his past life as a boss, he had so many friends, employees, partners, and friends introduced by partners that all 365 days of the year were filled—he had to send birthday greetings twice a day.
"No big deal, one step at a time," Chu Zhi muttered.
He wasn't sure if this habit counted as a form of hoarding, but he liked it when his calendar had birthdays marked every day.
"Right, right, that's what I was forgetting. Silly me," Chu Zhi said, smacking his forehead, before starting two themed jobs.
The original owner's body showed signs of organic changes—his poor memory was proof. If it weren't for the Emperor Beast's unique memory techniques and the various strange items from his system brother, it would be much more obvious.
One job was the theme song for Shiyi Lang. Chu Zhi fished for details from the system brother and learned that a similar film on Earth had a theme song called When Love Has Become a Thing of the Past. He used one of the seven remaining slots in his custom album and quickly wrote it.
After a trial sing-through, Chu Zhi was satisfied. It was good lyrics and melody. He would make the full version tomorrow and send it to Director Wang.
The second was a proper commercial job—writing a promotional song (also a theme song) for a movie. Which movie company was so generous to spend big money on Chu Zhi?
Turns out, it was Bona Film Group. Well, that explained it.
The financiers sent Chu Zhi a summarized script. They didn't require it to match the plot exactly, but the emotions had to align with the film's tone.
It was a three-page synopsis, and Chu Zhi finished it quickly.
The story was simple: a modern city romance where the couple breaks up and reconciles multiple times. There were plenty of clichés, such as the female lead being heartbroken after the breakup while the male lead happily eats and drinks.
Some time later, the male lead begins to reminisce and grow sad, while the female lead slowly heals and leaves the gloom behind.
Why call it cliché? Because post-breakup reactions are purely personality-based—it's shallow to divide them by gender.
"Lots of scenes with heavy drinking… I think I have just the song for that."
About six months ago, he had gotten a blind box album of cover songs by Hua Zai (Andy Lau) called Love Is So Magical. Many tracks fit—Love Like the Tide, You Make Me Drunk, Goodbye Kiss…The last one was out of the question. Using Goodbye Kiss here would be like using a cannon to shoot a mosquito—actually, a nuke on a mosquito.
🎵 My love is like the tide, love like the tide— 🎵The Emperor Beast quickly settled on You Make Me Drunk. While Love Like the Tide was beautiful, it was too deeply romantic for this film's tone. In contrast, the lyrics of You Make Me Drunk fit perfectly.
He went to the practice room to record a demo.
"Wait—if it's You Make Me Drunk, wouldn't drinking a little to awaken the 'Wine Immortal' make it more heartfelt?"
And so he did. The Emperor Beast brought out a gift from Mr. Aleksei, chairman of the Cultural Forum Committee—a bottle of Himalaya Red Itly Vodka. Whether it was good or not was debatable, but as the brand's signature drink, it cost thousands of US dollars.
Some people say "a small gift shows deep feelings," but in Aleksei's case, it was "an expensive gift that also makes you drunk."
He downed half a bottle in one go, his throat burning like fire. Luckily, with the Wine Immortal and his magic lozenge, even Cthulhu couldn't destroy his throat.
Even Russian would shake their heads at the Emperor Beast's drinking style.
With the mic in hand, he felt he owned the world. That powerful performance urge could not be restrained—he started with 50% "Voice of Despair."
🎵 Drive to the edge of the city, roll all the windows down, trade speed for a bit of joy…Loneliness gets chased out by the bustling night, yet I cannot confess this sorrow you left me…Oh~ love has made me unable to let go… 🎵
As the chorus approached, the Emperor Beast stopped holding back—Voice of Despair at 80%.
Everyone knew—at the Hokkaido Song Festival stage, Chu Zhi only used 90%. On I Am a Singer, singing Desert Island with no special techniques, just 50% Voice of Despair, was enough to make the audience cry.
Now, with both technique and emotion, Chu Zhi's vibrato and crying tone could make a person's heart twitch.
🎵 Oh~ love made me seek my own pain. You make me drunk, you make me cry. I take on all the blame, I try desperately to make it right. You make me drunk, you break my heart. Loving without retreat—guessing the best and the worst, still guessing why you left… 🎵
The raspy voice he used was common in rock music to express anger, despair, and other negative emotions. Normally, you had to belt high notes to get that sound—very rough on the throat.
It usually required hitting a high F5 smoothly, but Chu Zhi sang it in his comfortable C3–F4 range while still achieving that raspy texture—making it sound exactly like someone whose throat was wrecked after drinking all night in heartbreak.
If there had been an audience, they would have been reminded of their own sad memories… and those without romantic experiences? Probably even sadder.
What was supposed to be a short demo of one or two minutes turned into a full performance under the Wine Immortal's influence.
Still feeling the performance rush, Chu Zhi set up his camera and took out a recently purchased musical saw. This unusual, stringless, keyless instrument—originating in Italy and said to be created by 19th-century lumberjacks—looked like a logging saw.
Playing it was simple: bend the saw into a curve, then strike it with a small mallet—or use a bow. The sound resembled the wailing of a lonely ghost from a thousand years ago.
Perfect for sorrowful tunes—Chu Zhi arranged and played Zhao Jun's Lament.
This traditional guqin and zither piece required large, sweeping movements. His performance allowed more of the practice room's "background" to be visible on camera.
It was past 2 a.m. before he finally settled down and went to bed.
In deep sleep, the Emperor Beast didn't know that his Bilibili account was in danger—thanks to a user named "God's Left Leg."
God's Left Leg was the ultimate freeloader—sometimes going a year without giving even one coin. For him, a free "like" was already the peak of generosity.
But his freeloading ways met a strong challenger: the uploader "I'm Not That Cat." At first, the name made him think it was like other pet accounts—"Fluffy Little Puff" or "My Cat Pees Everywhere"—but it turned out to be in the music section.
Piano, violin, cello, guitar, pipa, hulusi, guzheng… every video featured a different instrument, with over 60 videos showing almost 70 different instruments.
Being a music school graduate, God's Left Leg often browsed the serious music section—not the kind with less and less clothing.
"I'm Not That Cat" played many instruments he had never even heard of—spursö, siteng, something called a zither-like cither—things found in obscure corners of the world.
"A musical genius!" he would sigh after each video.
He even broke tradition and gave several coins.
That was the end of it—until two months ago, when the uploader's update accidentally showed half of their face. Probably unintentional—no editing or captions were ever added.
God's Left Leg thought they looked a bit like his favorite celebrity. At the time, he dismissed it—after all, his idol was Chu Zhi. The idea that such a big star would secretly be an uploader seemed absurd.
But the video was deleted after a few days. He began paying more attention. Could there be a one-in-ten-thousand chance that this uploader was actually Jiu-yé?
When "Italian Musical Saw (rarely seen in China)" was uploaded, God's Left Leg immediately clicked—he had set the account to special follow.
"This saw… looks like a logging tool." He watched, then suddenly paused the video.
"This place… is Jiu-yé's practice room?" He zoomed in on the background and took screenshots.
Using the focus of a sniper with an 8x scope, he spotted the vine-patterned wall that matched Jiu-yé's "Orange Home" uploads.
Within minutes, he found the exact match among the 20+ million IDs in Orange Home's database. His breathing quickened.
As the video continued, he ignored the music entirely, just taking screenshots of every possible glimpse of the background.
Even the blurry ones matched.
"Oh my Pangu, Nüwa, Donghuang Taiyi—look what big secret I've found!" he thought excitedly. The vine pattern alone was enough to confirm it, but he wanted even more direct proof.
After twenty minutes, he was 99.5% sure.
Half an hour later, still no one in the comments or bullet chat had noticed—probably because the uploader only had a few thousand followers.
Scrolling to the previous video's comments—24 in total:
Hao Ran Zheng-ge: "This mid-range oboe playing is incredible."
Lin Junnan: "The most talented music uploader—no contest—even if they aren't popular."
Xiao Qingmeng: "Professional-level skill on violin, cello, bass, guitar, piano, and guzheng. This person is scary good."
Sisilove2008: "Such beautiful hands—a hand-lover's dream. Too bad they don't talk. If they did, they'd be a top 100 uploader for sure."
…
"Heh, perfect. No one's caught on."
God's Left Leg decided to take this massive revelation to Weibo—how could Jiu-yé's popularity be so low?!
===
"当爱已成往事" (When Love Has Become a Thing of the Past) – Zhang Guorong / 王菲 (Leslie Cheung / Faye Wong)
"爱如此神奇" (Love Is So Magical) – Andy Lau (Hua Zai)
"爱如潮水" (Love Like the Tide) – Zhang Xinzhe (Jeff Chang)
"你把我灌醉" (You Make Me Drunk) – Huang Pin-yuan (Samuel Tai)
"吻别" (Goodbye Kiss) – Jacky Cheung (Zhang Xueyou)
"昭君怨" (Zhao Jun's Lament) – traditional Chinese guqin/zither piece
Instrument reference:
Musical Saw – Originated in Italy in the 19th century, created by lumberjacks. Produces a ghostly, wailing sound when bowed or struck.