Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I thought life could go on like that for a good long while.

Until one day, I saw a familiar account in my private messages.

By then, it had been almost eight months since I had gone back to being an ordinary person, and I had posted nearly ten singing videos.

My follower count on the platform had reached several hundred thousand.

I had no idea what those people were thinking.

My songs were being covered and shared by a lot of people, and their popularity was only climbing.

Because none of the songs could be found on any other platform, and because I was posting new work too quickly, some people suspected there was a whole studio behind me.

They had no idea that when I was in a good, peaceful mood, my desire to create shot through the roof. Sometimes I would be lying in bed, get a flash of inspiration, and crawl right back up to write a few lyrics.

In my private messages, I saw an official account. It belonged to the production crew I had worked with before leaving the industry, the same production where Jiang Yiming was now playing the male lead.

They wanted to buy the copyright to one of my songs and use it as the theme song for their TV drama.

“…”

Not selling.

Message read. No reply.

A day later, that account sent another message. They even named a price. It was neither high nor low, and they had probably left me room to negotiate upward.

I still did not want to reply.

Over the next two days, that account kept messaging me, raising the price each time, but I did not waver.

At the same time, I saw a private message from someone else. I did not quite believe it, so I tapped into the profile and checked the homepage. It really was him.

…

He was a singer who was currently very popular. We had crossed paths at work before, but our relationship was average at best. He probably had some prejudice against me.

Openly and subtly, he had always been cold toward me.

Still, the man did have some talent. Maybe he looked down on everyone.

In his message, he asked whether all my songs were original. He wanted to pay a licensing fee to sing one of them, and he also wanted to commission me to write him a song.

I still did not reply.

The reason was simple. He did not like me, and I did not like him either.

Maybe because he saw that I had read his message and ignored it, he, like the production crew, sent more messages. A dozen or so of them. His wording even seemed rather humble, nothing like the way he had been whenever I saw him before.

But I was too lazy to even tap them open.

I even posted a new work instead.

After staying in the village for a long time, I would occasionally go out for walks. The village was mostly full of old people and children. Most of the young and middle-aged adults had gone elsewhere to work.

Sometimes, I would stop by someone’s house and help move things if they needed an extra hand.

Today, as I passed one household in the village, I heard crying coming from inside.

People in the village were not in the habit of closing their doors. I looked in and saw Sister-in-law Chen crying. She was at home alone raising a son and daughter, while her husband worked away from home.

There was a neighbor beside her. I went up and asked what had happened. The other person gave me a pitying look.

“Their girl had a health problem at school a few days ago and was sent to the hospital. She was diagnosed with kidney failure. If she needs surgery, it’ll cost at least several hundred thousand. How could their family possibly have that kind of money? The little girl has such good grades too. What a shame…”

Leaving aside whether the family had money or not, even if they did, there was no guarantee they could wait for a kidney donor.

But without money, nothing else mattered.

Both husband and wife had gone in for compatibility testing, but neither matched. Their son was only ten, and in principle, he did not meet the age requirement for donation.

Some collateral relatives in the family were willing to get tested too, but so far, not a single one had been a match.

If she did not get a transplant, that little girl’s life might be ruined.

Sister-in-law Chen was crying as if her heart had been torn out. Her son beside her was crying too. But as for the entire village, never mind whether people were willing or not, even if they were, they could not scrape together that much money.

This place was too poor.

The house I lived in was one of the rare ones in the village with air conditioning. In their eyes, I probably counted as a rich person now.

I stood in the doorway and watched for a while, then thought about how much money I had left. Several hundred thousand… I had not expected that I would actually reach the point where I had to think about money.

After returning home, I sat in my chair and thought for a long time.

In the end, I took out my phone and replied to Zhou Qi on the platform: [Hello. We can discuss the collaboration.]

Didn’t that guy want me to write him a song?

Then I would milk him for all he was worth.

I did not know whether he spent his whole day staring at his phone, but less than a few seconds after I sent the message, he immediately replied:

[Hello, Teacher Nameless!! Thank you for replying. This is my studio’s contact information. Would it be possible for you to add them?]

I added his studio as a contact, and they accepted not long after.

Once the contact was added, Zhou Qi’s Studio quickly pulled me into a group chat. The people inside were probably staff members and Zhou Qi.

We began discussing the collaboration.

I had a rough idea of the current market rate for songwriting. I quoted them almost according to the price a traffic-driven singer would pay. The price was a bit high, but since I urgently needed money, of course I was going to fleece him while I could.

Zhou Qi might truly have liked my work, because he did not bargain.

Naturally, there was no way I would expose my identity. I refused every request from Zhou Qi’s Studio to discuss things in person.

The bank card the money went to belonged to Sister-in-law Chen.

The village officials were willing to cooperate and say it was a donation from a kindhearted person outside the village.

Zhou Qi’s Studio was probably suspicious of my identity. After all, I refused to reveal anything, which made me look more like a scammer, so they sent the first deposit.

I then hurried to write the song according to their requirements.

A few days later, I sent the work over.

They probably had not expected it to be that fast and were afraid I had plagiarized someone else’s lyrics and melody.

But Zhou Qi liked it very much. He really did seem to like the things I wrote. Later, he even secretly used his private account to add my contact information, calling me Teacher this and Teacher that every day.

I had no idea what he was trying to do.

If he wanted songs, that was easy. Just pay. Trying to cozy up to me was useless.

Although I no longer had many places where I needed to spend money, what happened to Sister-in-law Chen gave me a warning.

What if my equipment broke one day? What if I got sick? All of that required money.

Taking ten thousand steps back, even if I did not need money, someone else always would.

I did not want to one day see someone who needed help and have no money to give.

See? Even deep in the mountains and forests, there were still places where money was needed.