Chapter 18: A Bread Man Deserves Red Bean Paste.

“Why aren’t they saying anything? Is the connection bad?”
“Why aren’t they coming to roast me? Why!”

While relentlessly teasing, Li Can glanced at Lin Feng, pointing at the screen.
“Brother Feng, do you think he’ll bring a whole bunch of breadheads over to insult me together?”

Lin Feng, who was organizing project lists in the studio, had completely lost the will to work, his expression on the verge of dying from laughter.

“Hahaha, Can, you really just block the door and ask, huh!”
“Because I said long ago, once ‘Dazzling Realm’ goes live, I’m going to crush them into red bean paste!”

Li Can grinned broadly. Although Lin Feng didn’t quite get the joke, he still chuckled, listening to Li Can’s wild tirade.

“When you criticize me, you’re proud and arrogant. But once my strength kicks in, it’s anyone’s guess what’ll happen.”
“Where are you?! Stand up straight! Don’t tremble!”
“Hahahahaha!”

Lin Feng felt Li Can’s joy. The moment of fighting back fiercely and mocking was simply the greatest pleasure. No matter how the other side responded, it was always an art form.

Not bowing down nor rising too high—that’s art. Taking the role of the reasonable party—that’s art. Stubbornly denying and blindly smearing—that’s art too.

Stammering to change the subject is art; playing dead with your tail between your legs is even more so.

They had turned all of this into an art.

Li Can and Lin Feng were very happy.

But Wang Fusheng probably didn’t share their sentiment.

As a music critic in his forties, Wang Fusheng was rather old-fashioned and had a poor tolerance for new things.

Starting out as a literary youth, he sought lofty thoughts and aesthetics to prove his own sophistication, thereby gaining recognition and a sense of superiority.

In truth, people like him spend their whole lives loving the idea of something without truly understanding it, failing to grasp the essence of art.

At twenty, Wang Fusheng condemned underground rock’s savagery; at thirty, he criticized traditional art’s obsolescence; at forty, he denounced pop music’s shallowness.

He idolized classical music but probably rarely appreciated it in daily life.

Now, faced with this kind of “playfulness,” he couldn’t help but strike back hard.

During the slow development of the internet, relying on informational gaps and crafting an image of high taste, high-quality humanity, and intellectual sophistication, he had indeed amassed a large following.

Originally, as usual, many people had gathered, praising Wang Fusheng’s critiques nonstop.

But unexpectedly, just as he was settling in, the stage was overturned!

“He’s doing it on purpose, he must be doing it on purpose!”

Seeing the ID that kept tagging him and provoking him, Wang Fusheng was about to explode with anger.

Doesn’t anyone recognize him?

After all, Wang Fusheng wasn’t a fool, nor was he completely ignorant of music. Seeing how things were unfolding, how could he not realize Li Can was playing him?

Someone’s fishing for trouble! Can’t someone do something?

“What exactly does he think music is?”

Wang Fusheng trembled all over, furious.

Though he said this, it’s hard to say whether it was truly for music’s sake or just face.

He opened the webpage and played “Dazzling Realm,” scrutinizing it with an extremely critical eye, trying to find something to attack.

After a long search, he could only muster some empty, repetitive remarks.

“‘Dazzling Realm’ looks impressive on the surface but is fundamentally incoherent. Li Can and Chen Meijing tried to blend all their lifelong learnings to present a lofty image, but completely lost the meaning of music, empty and flashy.

The hollow showmanship might be more suitable as an etude, but even as an etude, it’s not difficult enough—awkwardly positioned, relying on so-called classical packaging and marketing as a commercial gimmick. Having such music and musicians is a disgrace to the Chinese music scene.

Moreover, no matter what ‘Dazzling Realm’ is, or whether Li Can has talent, their attitude towards music dooms their musical path to be short-lived; they might even lose their current status in the future, leaving only lamentations over a fallen genius.”

“Tsk, isn’t this just blatant lying with eyes wide open?”

Seeing such comments, Li Can remained unfazed, but Lin Feng was already annoyed.

Sometimes he felt these critics made some sense until one day he bumped into his own professional field.

That “Dazzling Realm” isn’t difficult enough? It depends on who you compare it to.

Compared to the extremely demanding pieces for operatic coloratura sopranos, it surely can’t compete.

But it definitely counts as “high difficulty.”

Moreover, in Lin Feng’s eyes, the very attempt of “Dazzling Realm” to fuse styles, from crossover to boundaryless experimentation, was tremendously important for the entire music circle.

Showmanship taken to a certain level naturally reveals the most essential emotions, a unique aesthetic experience. Techniques and emotions are meant to harmonize, not oppose each other.

If one just criticizes for the sake of criticism, holes will appear, and strong bias sometimes results in unprofessional appraisals.

Critiques like Wang Fusheng’s, which confuse laypeople and make professionals cringe, often prompt musicians to speak out in opposition.

“Wang Dog has lost his mind; he probably doesn’t even know what he’s saying.”

“If you harshly critique ‘Little Chick Little Chick,’ I honestly wouldn’t know what to say. Though the music itself isn’t particularly blameworthy, I personally can’t accept it. But if that’s really how you evaluate ‘Dazzling Realm,’ then I kind of get it.”

“The quality of ‘Dazzling Realm’ is evident; pointless baseless hate is just meaningless.”

Seeing these replies, Wang Fusheng’s loyal followers immediately became restless.

After all, believing in old Wang for so long, denying him was denying themselves.

Driven by fanatic devotion, the truth no longer mattered.

Thus, the fierce counterattacks grew wider and wider.

Until someone discovered Li Can’s ID and began targeting Li Can personally.

“Look at your arrogant attitude! You’re just famous for one song! Worthless!!”

“Old Wang is right; talent and virtue are clearly different. With you, becoming ordinary is only a matter of time.”

“Idiot, a pure clown seeking attention, producing crap works, you’re basically a manure machine!”

“Still ‘talking?! Talking?!’ Fine, today I’ll give you what you want! I #@%... beep beep beep!”

Old Wang’s loyal followers swarmed in.

They reveled in the joy of online bullying, their insults growing dirtier and dirtier, even imagining Li Can being infuriated to death.

But what these people never imagined was that on the other side of the screen, Li Can and Lin Feng were laughing loudly.

“The breadheads actually showed up.”
“Ahahaha! They’re so frantic.”
“They really are all roasting me! Damn, this feels great.”

After their uproarious laughter, Li Can, once again in front of Lin Feng, seriously found the dirtiest insult and sent an utterly unexpected reply.

“...If you’re going to talk, just talk. Why so loud? You scared me.”

After typing the last word, Li Can looked up at Lin Feng, their eyes locking.

Lin Feng’s expression, trying to hold back laughter, was priceless.

Li Can couldn’t hold it anymore either, and they both burst out laughing.

“Hahahahahaha!”