"Jiu-yé must be here because of that, right?" Gu Nanxi's "that" referred to the hottest headline on today's internet.
Penguin News: [Reporters confirmed with Hirokumo Ryōko that she hasn't made any statement, and Miao Mu hasn't reached out either.]
Southern Metropolis Daily: [The plagiarism scandal at the Expo once again shrouds China in shame. Tonight, we all lose face.]
Sina News: [Miao Mu hung up on reporters, giving no response.]
The Paper: [Why does the Shanghai Expo keep running into problems? What on earth is going on this year?]
Last time, Director Zhou of the Expo Bureau didn't step up, and the officials stayed quiet. They thought it'd be best to let the one who tied the knot untie it, meaning Miao Mu should handle it himself. Even if he refused to admit plagiarism and cut ties with the authorities for good, Zhou never expected him to stab them in the back again, forcing him to come out and give a wheel-spinning interview.
"This whole thing's blown up so big, even if Jiu-yé's here, it won't be easy to fix," Gu Nanxi sighed.
Not that it had anything to do with her. She'd better just focus on preparing for the show.
"Wait, isn't this a music chart show? Can I sing a song that's not mine?" she suddenly wondered. She almost called her manager, but international calls were expensive, so she set the phone down.
She typed a WeChat message instead, but replies on WeChat weren't instant. After staring for a while with no response, she gave up and focused on the song she was about to perform, Beyond the Thousand Mountains. It was the theme for a hit Japanese drama that year. As long as she sang it well, viewers would love her by association. For someone with no footing in Japan, the company's arrangement wasn't half bad.
Her mistake was thinking MUSIC.STATION was like a chart show. The program did show the weekly best-selling top ten singles, but only by playing recorded tapes, with no guest appearances.
Of course, if a single broke the artist's own record, or the national sales record, then there'd be a live performance.
The next part of the show was what mattered. The production team invited a lineup of stars based on audience votes. Many Japanese artists chose to debut their new singles here.
MUSIC.STATION also invited the most Western stars of any Japanese variety show. It often brought in overseas acts.
This time both Gu Nanxi and Chu Zhi were invited as overseas guests, but their slots were completely different. She was the opening act, meant to warm up the stage, while he was the grand finale.
Speaking of him, on the plane he drew another blind box and got Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot. Just like when he'd drawn Mr. Herbert's poems earlier, both were obscure at home but influential abroad. Herbert was big in Eastern Europe, Eliot in the English-speaking world.
Plenty of people might recognize the ending of Eliot's The Hollow Men:
🎵 This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper. 🎵
The line's been quoted in countless essays and speeches. Read enough modern poetry and you'll realize so many sharp, timeless sentences come from it.
"Eliot even won the Nobel Prize in Literature. If I put out another poetry collection…"
He thought about it for a while, then dropped the idea. He already had seven collections published, enough to contend for a Nobel someday. What he lacked was time to build reputation.
"Fine, let's open another blind box. Still got 43 left."
[Voice of the Fairyland]
[Curio: Alarm Pill
][Title: King of Love Songs]
[Album Pack: WAIT.FOR.YOU]
[Draw-Sword Anthem Bundle]
[Special Prize: Fred Astaire's Talent]
Such a weird prize pool. He paused at the "Draw-Sword Anthem Bundle."
"What the hell's that?" He checked the definition. Originally, "draw-sword anthem" referred to βios, the theme of Guilty Crown. The song's intense and tragic melody often played when a sword was pulled from Inori's chest.
Later it evolved into a term for any blazing hot anime track. The bundle included "nuclear explosion anthems," "transformation anthems," and more.
"System bro, do you hang out on Bilibili a lot? Don't tell me you're actually a closet otaku system?"
[No], the system replied.
The Emperor Beast didn't keep teasing. He shifted focus to "Voice of the Fairyland." Another new emotion buff. This one let his singing sound dreamlike, as if out of a fairytale.
"Feels like it overlaps with Angel's Gospel, but they're different. One's holy, the other's childlike and carefree."
"I'm almost thirty, childlike doesn't exactly suit me," he thought.
The "King of Love Songs" title was also interesting. It made him better at handling breakup songs, sweet ballads, tragic love songs, basically all kinds of love tracks.
The curio, Alarm Pill, was useless. It gave an insanely accurate biological clock, but his internal clock was already solid.
Fred Astaire was a name he didn't know much about. He didn't dig deeper, just summed him up in one line: Michael Jackson dedicated the opening of his autobiography Moonwalk to Astaire.
"System bro, how about you pick one for me? I'm not picky, an album pack or a special prize will do. Don't worry, whatever I get I won't blame you. We're brothers from different mothers after all."
His scheming was loud enough to be heard on Earth.
[This system has no lottery function.]
"Then do you think I should draw two at once to boost my odds?" he asked.
Silence. Fine, he'd do it himself.
He was the super ultra lucky star. Why would he be afraid?
He opened a blind box. [Draw-Sword Anthem Bundle].
Not what he wanted.
The Japanese tracks inside were good, but he wasn't releasing Japanese albums anymore. Pretty useless.
When the plane landed, the one meeting him was the head of Asahi TV's marketing division.
By the time they got back to Asahi TV, recording had already started.
Hosts Motari and Rika were on stage, though the real anchor was Morita. His sunglasses look was iconic, copied by many. He even played the sunglasses uncle in the opening of The World's Strange Tales.
They chatted casually as they announced the top ten singles of the week, then invited guests one by one.
One thing about the live audience: it was all women. The only male present was a dad with his wife and kid, literally a single case.
Reporters once asked the show's director about this. He denied any deliberate choice, but the facts spoke for themselves.
When Johnny's boy groups performed, the room went wild. Even trainees with no name recognition got cheers, as long as they were handsome.
"The dancing's out of sync," Gu Nanxi muttered from the guest seats on the left. Singers who'd finished performing sat there.
"Oh! A flip!"
She raised a brow. Weren't people saying the new generation of Johnny's dropped the tradition of acrobatics? Guess not.
Handsome guys got the crowd going, but beautiful women got even louder cheers. People say women don't like watching women, but that's nonsense.
When Hirokumo Ryōko, FlyB & Firebird came on, the atmosphere hit a peak.
Hirokumo sang Dream Lover, one of her classics. This year marked its 25th anniversary. The audience was swept into nostalgia. They'd first heard it as kids, now they were in their twenties and thirties. Whether they loved it or not, the song was part of their youth. Many women in the audience were in tears.
Rika, the younger host, even joined the chorus. Motari, older and in his sixties, just clapped along. He had no deep attachment to the song.
FlyB & Firebird were debuting a new track. The vibe was strong, no surprise for a group that once pulled a 100,000-person concert in a Yokohama parking lot.
Even if it wasn't her style, Gu Nanxi's foot tapped to the beat.
"The Showa era's eternal beauty, Miss Hirokumo's stunning," Rika said.
"If you could become a woman like Miss Hirokumo, would you?" Motari asked.
Rika's eyes lit up and she nodded eagerly. Which female star in today's entertainment world wouldn't want to be Hirokumo Ryōko? Forget the hits, just her title as a Yamaha Music executive board member was enviable.
"How about you, Miss Hirokumo?" Motari turned the question on her.
"Rika's already excellent. Everyone in this world has value. It's not important whether there are two Hirokumo Ryōkos, but having one Noda Rika matters a lot," she said warmly.
Morita applauded the words, and Rika was clearly moved.
"And next up, another overseas guest. Rika, I'm sure it's an idol you like," Motari teased.