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Chapter 978: 859 Chapter: Shocking the Entire Audience (Please Subscribe!)
Inside the Shanghai Stadium.
Over ten thousand audience members had arrived in succession.
As the lights dimmed gradually, just like the beginning of a movie in a movie theater, the concert officially started. When the last beam of light disappeared from the hall, a queen in full regalia appeared on stage.
A round of enthusiastic cheers erupted from the venue, as if to lift off the roof of the gymnasium.
The power of a Chinese-language diva.
Was plain to see.
Sitting in the front row, Tang Qing didn’t share the same frenzy as the fans, just clapping his hands because he wasn’t a star-chaser. In the eyes of capital, celebrities were also capital, and the only reason for one capital to chase another was.
Interests.
At that time, they still hadn’t sold those hand-cranked clapper toys, so if you wanted to clap, you had to use your hands.
"Brother, can I go backstage after the show and ask Sister Fei for an autograph?" Qin Shiqi leaned her head in again.
"Don’t you already have one?" Tang Qing asked with doubt.
"I’m asking for my classmates; they’ve been clamoring in the group chat for some too," Qin Shiqi said, sticking out her tongue, feeling somewhat guilty for having bragged earlier. As soon as her classmates saw, they began to ask for celebrity autographs as well.
Tang Qing rolled his eyes at Qin Shiqi, "How many do you want?"
"Just... forty or fifty," Qin Shiqi said with a grin.
Tang Qing was speechless: "... you think this is a writing assignment... Getting a few for you would already be good, dozens, your thinking is really something." He could, of course, ask for them, but he didn’t want his cousin making rash promises to others.
Within a reasonable range.
No problem.
But if you go over, you’ll have to fill the hole you’ve dug yourself.
Hearing Tang Qing’s words, Qin Shiqi expressed her disappointment, "Okay then, a few it is..." Then, she took out her mobile phone and delivered the ’bad news’ to her class group, eliciting quite a bit of idle chatter.
Seeing those comments.
Qin Shiqi immediately felt displeased.
At the same time, she made up her mind to never make careless promises to anyone again and not to act too generously, even if things might be easily obtainable for her, it wasn’t a reason for others to demand it. She turned off her mobile phone, out of sight, out of mind.
She lifted her head.
And looked around the venue.
Only to see the queen approaching the front of the stage.
She took a deep breath.
"Hello everyone."
Three words.
Crisply reached every member of the audience’s ears.
It was also these three words.
That brought a complete silence over the crowd.
The expressions on the audience’s faces froze as they questioned themselves if they had just experienced an auditory hallucination. That clear voice lingered in their ears, with not the slightest hint of noise interference within the enclosed venue.
This was something they had never encountered before.
Live singing inevitably comes with distortion, but what was that just now?
Observing the reaction of the whole venue.
The corners of the queen’s mouth curled up.
"Friends in Shanghai, hello, thank you for your love and support. This isn’t my first time holding a concert in Shanghai. All I want to say is thank you. Without you, there would be no stage for me..."
As soon as she finished speaking.
The entire place erupted.
"Is this... is this a dream? I’m in the worst sound quality zone, right? Did they change the equipment here?" a chubby fan murmured in shock. Having managed to get a ticket with great difficulty, he had thought that even hearing some live sounds would be sufficient, but this sound quality was something he couldn’t even have heard in the best seats before.
Other members of the audience started to express similar doubts.
"Damn it, what was that just now? It felt like I was listening to a tuned sound quality."
"Oh my god, that was..."
"Incredible, this sound."
"Look, is that a new speaker system?" a more observant person pointed at some of the equipment around the venue that they hadn’t seen last time, drawing the attention of others nearby.
"It seems like it, but it also looks like a camera." From a distance, with the lights low, they couldn’t make out the details of the equipment; they could only see green lights flashing on it, with occasional flashes of red.
"Have you ever seen this many cameras placed here before?" one person retorted.
"True, I don’t know whether that sound originated from those devices, but I do know, this company is about to make a fortune," an industry insider pushed up his glasses and declared.
"I agree, they’re about to rake it in."
"Where can I buy a set? I want to take one home."
"... "
The audience below buzzed with discussion.
The queen on stage didn’t waste words.
Tonight.
Her voice was to do the talking.
She began, "I think everyone has noticed that the venue is using a new sound system, hoping to give you all an auditory feast. Next, I’ll bring you the song ’Red Beans’."
No sooner had her words fallen.
The venue instantly fell silent.
The prelude of the song slowly started to play.
At a typical concert.
It was common for people to talk below, even chatting from beginning to end, for a very pragmatic reason: to join in the bustle, since the on-site effects were so poor that some people couldn’t even make out what the singer was singing, only familiar melodies.
But now.
Each musical note.
Each word.
Seemed to go through the most perfect treatment and then through earphones, reaching the ears, creating an experience as if surrounded by the most powerful stereo sound effect, and any disturbance from others was a desecration to the sound.
"I haven’t properly felt the climate of snowflakes blooming yet, as we shiver together, we’ll understand more clearly..." the queen’s ethereal voice echoed through the venue, not as an echo, but as a reverberation that stimulated the soul.
The audience had forgotten to cheer.
Forgotten even where they were.
I felt like I was at home in the sunny courtyard of a spring day, soaking up the warm sunshine, putting on my earphones, and listening to that intoxicating voice.
"..."
"When the view is completely understood,"
"Maybe you will stay with me to watch the endless stream of creek water..."
As the word ’stream’ left the princess’s mouth,
the music finally stopped.
The audience inside remained immersed in the unexpectedly superb effect, akin to sacred sounds in their ears.
"Thank you," the princess said.
Two words.
That awakened the audience.
What followed
were sky-high cheers and applause.
"Wow..."
"Whoo..."
"Ahh..."
"..."
Excited roars, fervent applause, all-out whistling, and various ways of expressing the excitement overwhelming their hearts—shock was all they had in mind, nothing else.
...
In the audience seats.
Hearing the live effect for the first time,
Li Feng’s face was flushed with excitement; last time was just testing, but this was the real live sound effect. The feeling was so strong he thought he’d feel nauseated listening to his own gymnasium’s sound system again.
"Director Li, what’s going on? Have you changed your audio equipment?" A young man next to him asked curiously.
"No," Li Feng shook his head.
"Then what’s all this about? Is there a ghost here?" The young man had no filter.
Li Feng felt annoyed,
but this young man had some connections; he was not someone Li Feng could afford to provoke.
So he explained instead, "Our equipment hasn’t been changed, it’s the organizer who has used another company’s sound system. Look, those things that look like cameras, those are that company’s products."
"Such a great piece of gear, are you going to switch to it too?" The young man’s eyes lit up as he looked at the equipment nearby, buying low and selling high was his strength, and government procurement always carried hefty profits.
Li Feng shook his head and gave a wry smile, saying, "How could that be possible? These items are not for sale, only for lease, and the fees are expensive—fifteen yuan per square meter, and that’s for less than eight hours. Forget buying the equipment; I can’t even afford their services."
"That expensive? Are they robbing you?" The young man was also startled.
"..."
Li Feng didn’t answer, wasn’t this basically a robbery?
The young man took another look at the equipment, stroking his chin and his eyes rolling in thought. After a moment, a trademark smile spread across his face: "This is a nice gadget. Which company is it from? I’ll see if there’s a chance for a partnership."
Hearing this, Li Feng thought to himself: "Of course."
The young man’s family had some clout in Shanghai, as one of the city’s privileged few, with a district committee secretary for a father, he often made money from government procurement.
This time, it seemed he had taken an interest in this company.
But
this guy was probably going to hit a wall, Li Feng candidly stated, "I reckon they won’t partner with you."
"There’s no one in the world who can’t be cooperated with," said the young man with a lofty air, causing the female companion beside him to gaze at him admiringly, and the rest seemed to be filled with a noble spirit reaching to the skies.
Li Feng added, "They don’t lack money, they have so much they don’t know where to spend it."
"Which company is it?" The young man was taken aback; having so much money to not know where to spend implied influence and power, and such a company required careful handling.
Li Feng chuckled and said, "Comet Group, I believe their CEO is right over there." Saying this, Li Feng’s gaze fell on the VIP area, where Pu Chaodong was present, greeting so many people; how could he not know.
Upon hearing the words Comet Group,
the young man’s expression instantly stiffened.
His bravado disappeared without a trace.
Recalling what he knew about Comet Group’s background, the young man shivered and cast a glance over there. Not seeing Shen Yi, he breathed a sigh of relief. If he had approached to discuss a partnership,
Shen Yi would probably have thrown him out.
Working as the vice-president of Comet Group, Shen Yi’s status in Shanghai’s circle of second-generations was no secret, and who the Group’s shareholders were: Chai Ren and Zheng Lin.
The collaboration of these two,
who the hell would dare to confront them?
It was practically suicide.
Moreover, with that mysterious and dominant Chairman Tang Qing, even with Comet Group’s immense potential, no one had yet dared to eye the Group’s interests.
"I’ll... think about it some more, haha," the young man forced a laugh.
On stage,
the princess had begun to sing the second song.
"Fragile Woman"
The Cantonese version of the song.
Many didn’t understand the words,
but that didn’t stop them from liking it, enjoying the melody, loving the voice.
Following that,
one celebrity after another took the stage.
Seeing such a live effect, they all performed at their best since the sound company declared they would not accept lip-syncing, but would optimize the voice. However, they hadn’t expected it to be optimized up to the level of a recording.
Exhilaration.
It wasn’t just the audience who were thrilled.
But also the celebrities.
This signified
that concerts,
like movies,
could truly become a high-quality mass consumption product.
