HDIEUMDBTSB Chapter 61: Winning Lots of Prizes
Volume Two: The Road to Winning Fans
Chapter Eleven: Winning Lots of Prizes
The ruthless butcher required to eat spicy food a hundred times for the next achievement, the cigarette king wanted five hundred cigarettes, and the next big haul would have to wait for some time.
Although Chu Zhi also wanted to splurge and buy three blind boxes, his rationality restrained him to only two times.
Quietly, he told the system that he wanted to draw a prize, and six blind boxes appeared in the prize pool.
【Song Voucher *2】
【Wonder Item: Memory Bread】
【Mastery of Latin Dance】
【"Dimple" Gift Pack】
【"Nocturne" Gift Pack】
【Special Grand Prize: Zhao Yuanren's Talent】
There it was, appearing again at last, the familiar special grand prize, visible yet out of reach.
But a problem arose, who was Zhao Yuanren? The previous achievements were all skills and talents, but what was "talent"?
Chu Zhi quickly checked the details of the prize, and upon seeing it, he couldn't contain his excitement. Zhao Lao was a polymath. Aside from being titled alongside Chen Yinku, Liang Qichao, and Wang Guowei as one of the "Four Tsinghua Tutors," he was also the father of modern Chinese linguistics, holding a philosophy Ph.D. from Harvard University and teaching physics at Cornell University.
Why would such a renowned figure appear in a prize pool primarily focused on music? That's because Zhao Yuanren was a famous musician who had composed many songs, including the school songs for Xiamen University and Yunnan University.
While not as famous online as the other three, his most well-known work is probably the tongue-twister poem "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den" written in the style of classical Chinese poetry.
Zhao Lao was also a translator, fluent in seven foreign languages including English, French, Japanese, Russian, German, Greek, and Latin. There are dozens of translations of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," and Zhao Lao's version is still the most widely recognized.
What's even more impressive is that Zhao Lao was fluent in over thirty dialects from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan, Shanghai, Yunnan, and other provinces, able to blend in seamlessly anywhere he traveled.
"Philosophy, physics, linguistics, music—all of these fields require talent to reach a professorial level, and Zhao Lao excelled in all of them, especially his contributions to modern Chinese." Chu Zhi was well aware that he definitely wouldn't draw this prize, and Zhao Lao's talent seemed even more exaggerated than the previous three, leaving him touched and hesitant to act.
The Memory Bread was similar to the gadgets in Doraemon, imprinting the contents of a book onto it so that one could remember them by eating it, without the side effects of defecating memories.
Mastery of Latin Dance wasn't a discriminatory issue, but he couldn't help but feel it was strange for him, a top-tier star, to learn Latin dance.
There were no more album gift packs, only two songs.
The song "Nocturne" was reputed as "the song that leads to awards when played," and it indeed dominated the charts in 2006, winning awards such as Best Songwriter, Song of the Year, and Best Songwriter of the Year at the 12th Global Chinese Music Billboard Awards. Who else could compete?
"Your dimples and long eyelashes are your charming features." Chu Zhi hummed the lyrics to himself, a familiar song from the streets in 2008 and 2009.
Chu Zhi chose a blind box and opened it—two song vouchers.
"Oh? Not bad, not bad. This prize is the second best in the prize pool." Chu Zhi breathed a sigh of relief, feeling slightly disappointed in his heart. Even though he knew he couldn't draw the grand prize, there was still a glimmer of hope in his heart.
Indeed, hope was the worst thing in the world.
After reading the description of the song vouchers, he realized that they could be used to purchase any familiar song in his mind for only three Personal Coins. The price was actually quite high, equivalent to the price of a wonder item, but the key was the word "any" song, granting unparalleled autonomy. It could be used as a secret weapon.
Of course, the songs purchased with the two vouchers wouldn't come with the features of the gift pack, such as the automatic registration, or the series of creative processes including multiple revisions to the composition, and so on, only the finished product would be remembered.
But it didn't matter. After signing with the company, the registration details would be taken care of by the company. Standing firm as the "original young talent," bringing out two songs wouldn't raise any suspicions. That's why he planned to live stream the recording of his new album, to fully showcase his "creative talent."
Having a picture is one thing, but having a video is another. Otherwise, how would bystanders believe that the top-tier singer who used to rely on a million-dollar sound engineer for singing had musical composition talent?
His first time drawing a blind box, he was satisfied with all the prizes.
【Three-Minute High Note Genius】
【Title: Man of Letters and Elegance】
【Wonder Item: No Sugar Pinch】
【"Guest, You Can't" Gift Pack】
【"Invisible Wings" Gift Pack】
【Miscellaneous Songs Grand Prize Pack】
The Three-Minute High Note Genius allowed him to have three minutes of unbeatable high-note ability after use, with a cooldown period of one day. Chu Zhi felt it was similar to a gaming skill.
The title of Man of Letters and Elegance was an epic-level title. When worn, it would exude an air of literary grace, much like the composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.
As mentioned before, the No Sugar Pinch was a useful item. "Invisible Wings" was one of Zhang Shaohan's representative works, a motivational song that Chu Zhi quite liked.
"Guest, You Can't," seems to be a song by the internet sensation Xu Liang, "Tears of the Times."
Chu Zhi quickly glanced through the rewards, feeling speechless at the absurdity of the grand prize in this pool. The Miscellaneous Songs Grand Prize Pack wasn't bad per se; indeed, it was quite good. But to say it was good... well, that's a stretch.
The system-defined miscellaneous songs included popular songs like "Cat Calling," "The Rest of Life," "Desert Camel," "Short Love, Long Paper," "Ba'er Ben, Ben'er Ba," and many more. Dozens of viral songs on TikTok were classified as miscellaneous songs.
The main reason for this classification might be that these songs either involved plagiarism or lacked technical content.
What does it mean to lack technical content? Take "Cat Calling" as an example. From melody, rhythm, and harmony, the composition was assembly-line quality, lacking originality in arrangement, instrumentation, texture, and chord progression. Insiders in the industry looked down on these types of songs, sometimes out of jealousy.
As for some industry secrets, entertainment companies would buy these assembly-line songs in bulk for seven thousand to twelve thousand each, distributing them widely for song promotion. Those who made a living from producing these assembly-line songs could churn out two songs a week...
"I want the title of Man of Letters and Elegance. I want the title. If not, the Three-Minute High Note Genius will do." Chu Zhi silently prayed in his heart.
Blind box selection.
Opened—【Miscellaneous Songs Grand Prize Pack】.
"?" Chu Zhi didn't expect to draw the grand prize from the prize pool. Looking at the dozens of songs in the Miscellaneous Songs Grand Prize Pack, he had definitely heard many of them from scrolling through TikTok.
"Anyway, there are some good songs in here. Even if the lyrics aren't great, they're catchy. 'Your tavern closed for me...' " Chu Zhi thought this reward was pretty good. Although it wasn't as good as an album, he could play around and improvise with these songs at certain times.
Thinking about how these casual songs could become viral hits on the internet, wasn't that impressive enough? Chu Zhi hummed to himself even more excitedly, "I stumble and run towards you, you can't leave alone."
"Did you notice, Tongtong?" Pang Pu's brow furrowed with concern. "Teacher Chu seems to be daydreaming quite often."
"Really?" Die-hard fan Wei Tongzi snapped out of her daze. Being too handsome isn't good either; in Wei Tongzi's eyes, even Chu Zhi's daydreaming was handsome. Coming to her senses, Wei Tongzi also noticed that their idol seemed to have been daydreaming for a minute or two since just now. Clearly, he had been studying history just a moment ago, so it wasn't normal for him to daydream for so long.
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