Chapter 42 I Think You've Had Too Many Red Beans

Miklu Lu: I found a great book, "Why Do Celebrities Care So Much About Ratings?", come read it together.

"Yu Wei's book, amazing and I love reading it!"

Seeing Tong Yulu share the novel link on his Moments, Yu Wei's mindset slightly collapsed. The thing he worried about the most had finally happened—an acquaintance reading his book.

When a stranger reads the various YY (daydreaming/fantasy) plots, it's no big deal, but when an acquaintance sees them, it's bound to be a bit awkward. It's no different from having your browser history exposed...

This kind of social death is hard to describe in words; it feels like running around the Moments spiritually naked. There's a reason why novel authors dislike exposing their alter egos.

It would be one thing if she just read it, but she had to share it for others to see. What kind of perverse humor is this?

As a variety show regular, Tong Yulu possessed a certain social butterfly attribute. He couldn't even begin to imagine how many public figures were on his friends list.

Yu Wei initially suspected that Tong Yulu might have set the post's visibility to "only visible to him" just to put on an act, until three minutes later when Su Jian left a comment.

"This reminds me."

Then he turned around and posted a link on his own Moments as well.

Can this kind of thing even be a subject of rivalry? Please, I beg you all to act like normal human beings.

Before more acquaintances followed suit and circulated the book, Yu Wei silently exited WeChat, choosing to adopt the "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy...

Since when did the entertainment industry develop the bad habit of reading web novels as a group?

It only proves that the path of celebrities writing web novels is indeed narrow. Aside from him, no one else dared to venture down it. Can other artists manage to write five thousand words every day?

If he really did pioneer this trend and lure other celebrities into writing books, it would be a bit too shocking, a piece of terrible news for the web novel community.

Would the rankings even be watchable by then...

The reaction to Yu Wei's chapter at noon was intense, but only a small fraction of readers cared about what song he wanted to write; the vast majority just wanted to watch him fight (tata-kai).

Readers only needed to fan the flames, but a struggling author had to consider a lot more. Since he decided to launch a targeted counterattack, it had to be comprehensive enough to win without a single trace of controversy.

"Scarlet" was a love song from a female perspective, exploring the complex emotions of contradiction and helplessness in love, carrying a somewhat melancholic literary vibe.

However, this song was entirely preoccupied with sorrow and failed to express anything deeper in the end. Its deconstruction of disappointment in love remained somewhat superficial.

It was like a heartbroken young girl crying in a corner, pouring out her grievances through self-pity.

I must admit, the song captured the struggle and disappointment of a breakup quite accurately, and it was easy to resonate with. It would be invincible if paired with a sad caption on a short video...

To win without controversy, he had to balance three elements: a female perspective, the disillusionment of love, and a color.

The color was the designated prompt for the song creation, while the other two constituted the core and angle of the song. What Yu Wei needed to do was comprehensively defeat this song in lyrics, melody, conception, and depth.

The same theme, the same style—an absolute control-variable method. His victory in the novel would be justified, and no one outside could question it...

Why did it feel a bit like psychological devastation?

Yu Wei had already chosen the song as well. Since it was a female-themed song, it naturally had to be chosen from among the Heavenly Queens. Given the color constraint, he thought of Stefanie Sun's "Green Light" and Faye Wong's "Red Beans".

"Green Light" expressed a persistent pursuit of hope, true love, and happiness, which was the exact opposite of the requirement. In comparison, "Red Beans" was undoubtedly a much better fit.

Reunions and partings both have their times; nothing lasts forever. Sharing the same theme of love's disillusionment, this song reached a higher artistic realm.

The gold content of the "Sole Heavenly Queen"...

Crimson is also red; my color is above yours!

As Yu Wei wrote the plot, he also considered the presentation of the song. The best version of this song was naturally the one sung by Faye Wong, undoubtedly, but he clearly couldn't replicate it.

In entertainment-themed web novels, protagonists always grab any song and sing it, regardless of whether it's for male or female voices—they sing it, and somehow it's always at a perfection level.

But upon reflection, that was impossible. Male and female singers had huge differences in vocal conditions. A male lead singing a female song was definitely possible, but it could never compare to the original singer. This was an objective law.

If possible, Yu Wei would certainly want to find a female singer to sing this song, but he was still a newcomer, and the importance of a representative work went without saying. Only a fool would hand such a benefit to someone else.

As a veteran struggling author in the entertainment genre, how could he not know that gifting songs was a toxic trope?

Besides, it would be fine if the female singer had good moral character, but what if he happened to run into an ingrate who sang the song for ten years and suddenly stabbed the original author in the back, claiming to be the sole original singer?

He didn't dare take that gamble.

Fortunately, the song "Red Beans" was a classic. Aside from the original version, several male-covered adaptations were also quite good and suited him better.

Hua Chenyu had a version... Never mind, pretend he didn't say that.

Among them, Yu Wei's top recommendation was Khalil Fong's version, which changed the original piano accompaniment to a jazz arrangement, and the chorus's interpretation of "nothing lasts forever" carried even more tension.

Alas, what a pity for Teacher Khalil.

Singing in a show was the easiest thing to write about. With an audience and peers, you could write hundreds of words just by picking a few details to portray.

The public judging panel consisted mostly of female audience members, but this "Red Beans" undoubtedly had more emotional infectiousness. Although a male voice couldn't recreate Faye Wong's ethereal and detached tone, it was more than enough to crush lesser opponents.

"Almost forgot to inject the soul."

[I would believe everything has an end

Reunions and partings both have their times

Nothing will last forever.]

After copying the lyrics, the protagonist's singing plot finally came to an end. He checked the time, then reviewed the sentences and typos twice.

In the past, when fewer people were reading, minor typos didn't matter much. But now that so many people were waiting for his updates—with several acquaintances mixed among them—he had to stay sharp and not lose face.

If he made too many mistakes, wouldn't he be labeled as an illiterate celebrity?

After clicking publish, Yu Wei opened the main text of the novel just like a reader chasing serial chapters.

There were too many messages in the author's backend to keep up with, so flipping through the comments directly in the main text was actually more convenient...

"A new song? Don't tell me it's another trick?"

This reader was clearly one of the old readers who had been tricked into the chapter by his clickbait title last time. Still traumatized to this day, he belonged to the group of people who were terrified of being deceived by him.

"Let's get colorful!"

"What does 'red beans' mean? The only 'red bean' I know is *red bean paste, gomen nasai*."

"This isn't ordinary red bean; this is the ordinary red bean from Wang Wei's poetry."

"I see you've eaten too many red beans—lovesickness!"

The readers understood his routines and knew this should be the new song Yu Wei was about to release, but without hearing the melody, they simply couldn't get it...

According to Yu Wei's description, this song should be much better than "Scarlet", but reading it purely through imagination still felt somewhat inexplicable.

In the past, Yu Wei would just drop a song, and they would just read along. But this time, with "Scarlet" as a point of reference, feeling only able to look without listening made them feel rather agonized.

"Personally, I feel 'Scarlet' is pretty good. I don't know what level 'Red Beans' will actually be at. Hopefully, it won't flop."

"Internet celebrity fanboys are making a huge fuss. All Yu Wei has to do is make a slight move and that's already her limit."

"Don't stir up trouble upstairs. Let the works speak for themselves, alright? I also like Yu Wei's songs, but at a time like this, we should be more realistic. All I can say is I'm looking forward to it for now."

This reader named "A Bowl of Raisins" was quite rational. As expected of a soldier trained by himself, they were completely different from those brainless fans in the inner circle of the entertainment industry.

While reading the comments, Yu Wei scrolled through the new chapter. In the end, his follow-read ranking didn't break into the top two hundred. With so many more readers now, exchanging for songs shouldn't be a difficult task for quite a long time to come.

He casually clicked into the fan community. There were over eight thousand posts, a large portion of which were posted last night, and the newest one was a song analysis.

A reader very meticulously summarized the pros and cons of "Scarlet", and finally gave a score of 6.0, deeply imbued with Wei Yu's teachings.

Actually, the readers' thoughts were more or less the same: this was a pop song with obvious shortcomings. Winning would be easy, but winning without controversy was definitely a difficult task.

Music is a very subjective thing; it's hard to achieve a completely overwhelming advantage unless you deliberately create a targeted composition, directly bringing out an amplified version where whatever you have, I have too, and it's even better than yours.

The logic made sense, but practicing it was too difficult. If he had that kind of effort, he could have already written two new songs.

It was like a martial arts duel: no matter how powerful a grandmaster was, they wouldn't necessarily understand their opponent's moves. But Yu Wei was different—he practiced the *Taixuan Scripture*.

Just as he was feeling emotional, his gaze suddenly froze as he noticed a post from noon.

A Bowl of Raisins: I went to Chen Chen's comment section to declare war. Brothers, did I do the right thing?

Attached was a screenshot.

["Just wait to be crushed by Yu Wei."]

Why was this guy going over to provoke people directly? That wasn't what this kid was saying just now. What a sudden switch between angel and demon.

He had praised him too early after all.