FWTS ### Chapter 093: The Eighth Episode Airs

On the way back, Hou Muyun received several more phone calls, this time from companies that sounded quite familiar. They were inviting Hou Muyun to participate in commercial performances, offering six-figure appearance fees, which were not low even for some celebrities. However, Hou Muyun maintained the same attitude towards commercial performances, declining them on the grounds of his schedule.

Fat Ning, in the driver's seat, clicked his tongue in amazement and teased, "Monkey, with all these calls, you should get yourself an assistant."

Hou Muyun, remembering the few calls he received in the morning while writing, sighed, "I thought buying another phone would solve the problem."

Fat Ning responded, "What's the point of buying another phone? Are you going to ignore all unfamiliar numbers? What if you miss an important call?"

Hou Muyun was speechless, "So, should I really get an assistant?"

Fat Ning laughed, "You should! It would save you a lot of hassle. Plus, you're probably not familiar with some of the industry nuances and priorities. Having someone knowledgeable to help wouldn't be a bad thing. And you can afford the salary. As for where to find one, isn't Shi Fifteen a friend? Ask him to recommend someone good. Haha, preferably a pretty one. How does that saying go? If there’s work, let the assistant handle it, and if there’s none..."

Hou Muyun replied, "I was actually thinking of asking you or Little Fat to be my assistant..."

"Young man, that kind of thinking is not acceptable," Fat Ning shivered and quickly changed the topic, though he soon veered back, "By the way, speaking of which, since you’ve left the lottery and such to Little Fat, he’s also been getting a lot of messages about commercial performances and advertising. Do you want to check them out?"

"Let's go to the board game cafe first."

At the board game cafe, Hou Muyun asked Little Fat about the private messages. Little Fat complained bitterly about the constant notifications. For a Weibo enthusiast, it was exciting at first, but soon it became genuinely annoying. If the messages were useful, it would be fine, but most were spam.

Little Fat said, "A lot of messages are about commercial performances and some about Weibo ads. I ignored the obvious spam and sorted out the rest for you. I meant to tell you earlier, but you were busy with the show recordings. I wanted to mention it at noon, but you had a livestream."

Hou Muyun thought for a moment, then looked at Little Fat, and in front of Fat Ning, he asked, "Little Fat, would you be interested in being my assistant?"

Little Fat was stunned and hesitated, "I don't know much about this stuff."

Hou Muyun said seriously, "If you're interested, I can arrange for training. You can familiarize yourself with the work. If it works out for both of us, you can become official. During training, you'll still get paid."

Little Fat thought it over and nodded, "In that case, I can try! But if it doesn't work out, don't worry about hurting my feelings."

Fat Ning rubbed his hands together, "The transfer fee for Little Fat’s contract is one million."

Hou Muyun nodded, "I'll draw it for you later."

Fat Ning laughed, "Sure, just sign it and put your seal. I'll fill in the details later."

The board game cafe mostly hired recent graduates who hadn’t found full-time jobs yet, and they came and went frequently. According to Fat Ning, these young people treated this place as a stopgap, and he liked this hiring method, genuinely hoping each one would find a better place after leaving. Now that Hou Muyun had chosen Little Fat as his assistant, Fat Ning was naturally pleased.

Hou Muyun remembered something, "Ah Ning, I have a serious matter to discuss. Tomorrow, I’m booking the board game cafe for the whole day."

"Are you meeting those people here? Isn’t it too simple?"

"They’re not here for the food and drink, just for a quiet, undisturbed place."

"That’s true... Alright, I’ll go buy some good coffee and tea later."

Too lazy to cook, Hou Muyun ordered takeout at the cafe and, after eating, took a cup of coffee to go. Back home, he began drawing his manga. Updating one chapter a day was very fast, but no matter how fast, it couldn't catch up to the progress of the novel's serialization. Once the plot and ideas for the manga adaptation were sorted, drawing it became much faster than usual. Originally, it took over three hours to finish a chapter, but now the fastest time was two and a half hours.

Most manga artists update one chapter per week, or at most two chapters, making Hou Muyun’s speed terrifying. Now, as the plot of the manga deepened, whether readers were drawn in by other reasons or were already manga fans, the retention rate was quite high, with the average number of subscriptions reaching 30,000!

Just yesterday, the manga’s favorites count broke one million. Hou Muyun wasn’t sure about the accuracy of this number but got a better understanding of the Chinese manga market. The market was undoubtedly vast but lacked high-quality domestic original works. In this context, the significance and benefits of "Xuan Yuan Swordmaster" in manga form were immense.

At 21:10, the eighth episode of "Music’s War" aired. 

Hou Muyun was the first to perform, with "Tiger Hunting on the Mountain" and a thrilling erhu performance that electrified the audience and shocked viewers at home. Many had heard the classic opera "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy," but few had heard it performed in rock style, and no one had seen such an exciting erhu performance! 

Previously, there were online rumors that Hou Muyun had played the erhu in a live stream, performing some light and refreshing tunes. People had also seen him demonstrate various erhu techniques on "Everyday," but no one had seen him play the erhu with such explosive rock energy!

For those who hadn’t seen Hou Muyun’s various erhu performances before, the shock was even greater. The stereotypical image of the erhu was too ingrained, and no one could associate it with rock music, especially not such an intense rock performance!

As this segment aired, online discussions about Hou Muyun surged again, with the hashtag #HouAnchorMusicWar quickly trending. Soon, the official account of "Music’s War" released a high-definition video of the performance, which was widely shared.

Additionally, a music platform collaborating with the first season of "Music’s War" released the pure audio version of the song, which was also crazily played and downloaded. "Tiger Hunting on the Mountain" was already a classic, and Hou Muyun’s brilliant rendition, along with the erhu accompaniment, and the audience’s curiosity led to the video being shared over 100,000 times and the video and music platform plays exceeding five million and one million, respectively, in just forty minutes before Hou Muyun’s second-round performance.

The praise was overwhelming:

"I’ve never seen such an exciting erhu performance!"

"It's been so long since I've heard such a thrilling song!"

"After listening, I feel completely invigorated!"

"I’ve heard Xiaou's version too, but honestly, Xiaou’s Beijing flavor is strong, but his singing isn’t quite right. If we’re talking about Peking Opera rock, Hou's performance is unbeatable!"

"I agree with Er Zhang. This guy's interpretation is truly the first in Peking Opera rock!"

"I've never seen erhu played like this before, it's simply godlike, completely overturning my impression of the erhu. Who knew erhu could be so rock and roll!"

"As always, national music is powerful!"

"National music combined with traditional opera, refreshing to this extent, I’m convinced! From now on, I'm a die-hard fan of Hou!"

"This song can totally be used as a battle anthem!"

"Honestly, there have been a lot of music shows in recent years, but genuinely good songs are rare. Finally, another one that can cleanse the ears!"

"There are so few good songs! Some shows hype up a decent song to death, and even shamelessly claim that folk or rock music is undying. Please don’t overpraise Hou! Well, if you insist on saying Peking Opera is undying, I have no objection!"

"..."

As a result, more people either sat in front of their TVs or logged onto Blue Whale TV's website, eagerly awaiting Hou Muyun’s second-round performance.

In the second round, after Hou Muyun's third performance of "Star Light," the buzz skyrocketed again!


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