I'm Really a Superstar

Zhang Ye sang.

And the music arrangement teacher wrote out the simplified notation1 on the fly.

Once…

Again…

A long time passed. After singing and going through the song several times, the notation was finished and the lyrics were added in, completing the song.

“Perfect.” Zhang Ye hands trembled as he held the score.

The music arrangement teacher was also fatigued and profusely sweat. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and asked, “Teacher Zhang, can we do this ahead of time in the future? Rushing like this is really scary. Our program team has spent a lot of money to invite the four coaches to join us with figures that even the public might not know about. If they find out, it will surely cause an uproar. The four coaches are big shot celebrities in the music industry and we were the ones who arranged for them to come over today. If we were unable to produce a song for them to rehearse with, it would have become very embarrassing for us and make it look like we thought they were fools.”

They were not ordinary celebrities. If they turned hostile and threatened to not record the program or rehearse the song, their program team would be in big trouble.

Zhang Ye pretended it was nothing, then just smiled and said, “But we managed to finish it, didn’t we?”

The music arrangement teacher had no words in response. Indeed, this song only took twenty minutes to finish, but excluding the time taken to compose the simplified notation, Zhang Ye had only taken less than a minute to write it. It felt like he finished as he was writing and singing. The music arrangement teacher could swear that—in all these years he had worked in this industry, he had known countless lyricists and singer-songwriters—when it came down to songwriting speed, Zhang Ye was absolutely ranked number one among all the people he had ever met. At this moment, he looked at Zhang Ye full of admiration! He only started writing the song when the coaches were already at the doorstep, yet he still managed to finish writing the song! In the entire industry, only Zhang Ye would risk doing it this way. Other than him, no other person could achieve it! No one would believe this even if it were revealed, but whoever did would surely have to bow down to him!

As for the quality of the song, the music arrangement teacher had not really listened to it carefully yet. First, he was in too much of a rush trying to fill in the simplified notations and his mind was not focused on the melody and lyrics. Second, Zhang Ye’s singing ability was just average, nothing special. Third, it would be difficult to judge just from hearing him sing without music and instrumental accompaniment.

Outside, someone was knocking on the door. Dong dong dong.

Before Zhang Ye could say anything, the person had already pushed open the door and come inside.

It was Deputy Director Zhang Zuo who said anxiously, “Director Zhang, I can’t hold them back anymore. The four teachers can’t wait any longer and are already making their way here to look for you.”

Zhang Ye nodded. “It’s been hard on you, Brother Zhang.”

Zhang Zuo had really put in a lot of effort to make up lies and find excuses to delay them, but the four coaches were all big shots and extremely famous, and even the least popular among them was a national bel canto singer. Every one of them possessed a great aura, so it was considerably stressful for him to deal with them tactfully.

At this moment, some voices came from outside the corridor.

“Little Zhang?” It was the voice of Grandma Zhang Xia.

And then he seemingly heard Zhang Yuanqi asking someone, “Miss, where is your executive director?”

That female staff exclaimed and then muttered, “I don’t know either.”

Zhang Xia said, “I know he must be here, ask him to come out. He scheduled us to be here for the recording and we’re already here, yet he’s avoiding us. It’s almost been half an hour, so why has he still not shown himself?”

Zhang Ye hurriedly walked out the door while holding the score. He looked to the end of the corridor and walked up to them, laughing. “Grandma Zhang, Sister Zhang, Brother Chen, Sister Fan, you’re all here already?”

Chen Guang said in a speechless manner, “We arrived long ago.”

Zhang Yuanqi looked toward where he came out, then smiled and said, “So you were hiding in there?”

Zhang Ye said, “No, I wasn’t hiding. It was just that something had cropped up suddenly over here, so I couldn’t get away.” Turning to Zhang Zuo, he pretended to be angry and scolded, “Brother Zhang, why didn’t you inform me that the teachers had already arrived. If I knew they were here, I would have dropped everything and gone to receive them. What can be more important than the teachers?”

Zhang Zuo could only think to himself how he was told by Zhang Ye to delay them, but he just said, “…I’ll pay attention to this next time.”

Zhang Ye reminded him, “Next time if the teachers come and look for me, make sure to inform me immediately. Look, I very nearly got misunderstood by the teachers this time.”

Zhang Yuanqi looked at him. “But I don’t think it’s a misunderstanding.”

Zhang Ye coughed.

Zhang Xia criticized, “You were too much. How could you let us sit around and wait for more than twenty minutes? At least you should have given us the score to take a look at first.”

Zhang Ye also felt a little embarrassed, since he was the one who arranged the meeting yet he totally forgot about it. It was unacceptable. “Grandma Zhang, you’re right. This time, it’s my fault, so you can just blame me.”

Fan Wenli blinked. Becoming sharper, she asked, “Is there some problem with the theme song?”

Zhang Ye immediately let out an uncontrolled laugh and started lying without any guilt, “How could there be any problems? Actually, I’ve already finished writing it, and it took me a whole week to perfect it. The lyrics and melody were carefully deliberated and meticulously scrutinized upon. I’ve already made it into absolutely, the most exquisite song among songs. Here, see? The score is right here. I’ve been waiting for all of you to arrive since long ago.”

Spent a whole week?

Meticulous? Scrutiny? Carefully deliberated?

The music arrangement teacher stared in silence at the ceiling.

Zhang Xia and the rest of them walked up to him. “Is that so?”

“Let me take a look.” Zhang Yuanqi took the score from him.

Chen Guang and Fan Wenli also stood beside her and looked at the score. They started humming along to the lyrics, “I wanna fly…to the sky…walk beside…the Sun…” As they were unfamiliar with this song and had never heard it before, their humming was also intermittent. They were only reading the simplified notations as they hummed along but it didn’t sound too coherent.

At this moment, the music arrangement teacher was also seriously savoring the song for the first time, since he did not listen to it earnestly before.

Fan Wenli was a music teacher in the past and had previously taught students to sight-read music scores, so she was skilled in this area and adapted much faster than the others. She was the first person to sing the song in its completed form.

“Never been afraid of others seeing my dreams.

“Here, I can make it happen.

“Laughing loudly, let’s walk side by side.

“Isn’t happiness everywhere.

“Casting off all worry, I stride forward bravely.

“Now I am taking center stage!”

On seeing Fan Wenli singing so fluently, the other three coaches stopped their singing and listened quietly to Fan Wenli singing the entire song.

The more they listened, the more their expressions changed!

Zhang Zuo was the first person to be shocked. He did not know music, nor melody changes, nor treble and bass. He only knew this song was very nice to listen to and was the type of work that could make people excited after listening to it just once. Moreover, the lyrics were also very encouraging. The dreams people have, they can make it happen here? Wasn’t that exactly the message they wanted The Voice to portray!? Didn’t they want to provide the platform for people to realize their dreams! This song matched perfectly!

The next person to be shocked was the music arrangement teacher. Originally, he thought Zhang Ye was only messing around as he had no choice but to randomly write a song because the four teachers had already arrived at their doorstep. He felt that the quality of the song couldn’t possibly be any good, because how good could a song that only took one minute to write be? To even be able to write it out was already a miracle! But when the music arrangement teacher finished listening, he knew that he was wrong right from the start! This song was too awesome! How could this be a haphazardly done piece of work!?

Honestly speaking, if the music arrangement teacher had not witnessed Zhang Ye composing on the spot, he would not have believed what was unfolding in front of him no matter what! It was written so quickly, had a high quality, a good tune, and was even in line with the concept and vision of the program. The music arrangement teacher knew that what had happened today was truly an eye-opener for him!

Fan Wenli finished singing the song.

Chen Guang had long since forgotten about the displeasure at waiting for half an hour for Zhang Ye. He even gave a thumbs up to Zhang Ye after listening to the song.

Zhang Xia nodded furiously in appreciation. “Great song!”

Fan Wenli was also very satisfied with it and commented, “This song is really tailor-made for the program. Teacher Zhang really took great effort in crafting the lyrics and melody.”

Zhang Ye laughed gently while waving it off. “That’s not true, though I did use eight or nine days to write it.”

Chen Guang lamented, “You’re already so busy with stage and preliminary auditions, yet you took the time to finish writing such a good song in just eight or nine days. Teacher Zhang Ye’s talent is indeed extraordinary.”

Zhang Ye smiled and said, “No matter how busy and tired I am, it’s all part of my job. I’m the executive director after all.”

But suddenly, Zhang Yuanqi, pinching the score, slightly rubbed the last parts and asked, “Why is the ink on this score not dry yet?”

Upon hearing that, Zhang Ye broke out in cold sweat.

Fan Wenli came up and took a look. “Oh, it’s really not dry yet.”

Zhang Xia also reached out to touch it and then looked at Zhang Ye. “Little Zhang, you got your people to hold us back and delayed us for more than 20 minutes. Could it be that you forgot to write the song and ended up writing it only just then?”

Chen Guang stared with eyes wide. “Ah? This song was just written?”

Zhang Zuo also jumped up in fright as he knew that Zhang Ye had asked him to hold back the four teachers for a reason, but he did not expect this to be the problem!

The music arrangement teacher also did not know where to look, so pretended to have not heard anything.

Zhang Ye immediately answered, “How is that possible? How could I have forgotten such an important matter? I had already finished writing the song long ago, but after discussing with the music arrangement teacher earlier, we found there were some problems with the notes on the score, so we got it changed. Then…then we copied it again. That’s why the ink was still wet.

Chen Guang found fault with his words. “Didn’t you say you had already written out the score earlier and was busy with other things just now?”

“Ah? Did I say that?” Zhang Ye said.

Fan Wenli also exclaimed, “You can’t really have just written it last minute, could you? In only twenty minutes? How can that be? I got my team to write a song with a specific set of requirements, yet the quickest they could do it in was still more than half a day! The quality isn’t even guaranteed to be good.”

Zhang Ye made up another story. “That’s why I didn’t forget…”

Zhang Xia exposed Zhang Ye’s secret to the husband and wife, “Little Zhang is best known for his fast songwriting speed. At the last Spring Festival Gala, the song ‘Woman Flower’ was written in the blink of an eye. At most, it only took a minute or two.”

Zhang Yuanqi smiled and chimed in, “It’s the same for ‘Wishing We Last Forever.’ Although the lyrics were written by him earlier, the music was composed by him on the spot. It didn’t even take a few minutes.”

Chen Guang: “…”

Fan Wenli: “…”

It was only then that they found out that Zhang Ye had such stories surrounding him!

Could it really be that Zhang Ye had waited until they were right at the doorstep of Central TV for the song rehearsal before he took his time to compose a song for them? If that was so, then speaking from a certain angle, he was truly a god!

1. numbered musical notation