Chapter 45: Time

Intuitively speaking, Taiwan was much quieter than Hong Kong.

Although the paparazzi were still guaranteed to be stationed downstairs at the hotel where Lin Jianlu always made a habit of staying whenever he came to Taiwan—Lin Jianlu himself even spotted a few suspicious targets.

However, compared to the sheer craziness of the paparazzi in Hong Kong, this was still a far cry.

This feeling of his lasted for about an hour.

While having lunch inside the hotel at noon, thanks to Sylvia Chang’s connections built up over many years in Taiwan, Lin Jianlu received a message: a team of paparazzi had already checked into the room right next to his!

Wonderful...

He wanted to curse, but upon second thought, it seemed unnecessary—this was naturally just part of the price of making money.

That very afternoon, without checking out of his room, he ran over to another hotel two blocks away and booked a room there, which finally made him feel slightly more at ease.

Then... back to work.

The work he had to do currently was to record four songs: Sarah Chen's "Hustle and Bustle", "Summer Wind", and "So Many People in This World", as well as Richie Jen's deeply cherished "Softhearted".

Richie Jen was still hard at work promoting in Hong Kong and hadn't returned yet, so they recorded Sarah Chen's tracks first.

As a result, after several days apart, the moment Sarah Chen saw him, she still couldn't help laughing, blushing all the while, which left Old Li and the others somewhat baffled. "Hey, save the romance for after work! This is working hours!"

Old Li even tapped the table, looked at Lin Jianlu, and gestured toward Sarah Chen. "Keep a leash on her!"

Everyone had come to watch how Lin Jianlu produced music for others, and nobody was interested in watching them put their romance on display.

Sensing everyone's dissatisfaction, Sarah Chen hurriedly apologized to them.

Only, she still didn't quite dare to look at Lin Jianlu, as if she were terrified of blushing and laughing again.

Yet once the work began, she quickly brushed aside her tangled thoughts, and her entire demeanor rapidly turned serious.

In truth, however, Lin Jianlu's job was quite simple.

Having debuted a few months ago and visited Taiwan more than once, he had gradually come to understand the basic production modes of others in the music industry, but he didn't care about that and stuck to his old habits—with Sarah Chen's vocal cords, as long as you helped her sort out the emotional nuances and hit the right feeling, recording was basically a guaranteed one-take wonder!

No exaggeration, across the entire Mandopop scene, if you added up all active male and female singers, Sarah Chen's vocal technique, even if it couldn't squeeze into the top three, was solidly in the top five—this was a vocal technique that even Wakin Chau admired!

Before transmigrating, Lin Jianlu had shared the view popular on the internet at the time, believing that the more ancient a singer was, the less vocal technique they possessed, as if singing was something that continuously evolved, and as if the various chest and head resonances, mixed voice techniques developed later by Western singers were something profoundly advanced—but in reality, after transmigrating and listening live to many singers of this era, while their "technology" might not have been all that "advanced," almost every single voice possessed an incredible solidity!

Those were eating-rice skills that they had painstakingly honed over many years, excavated from talents that were already exceptionally superior—technologies of this sort were never the newer, the more awesome!

For instance, Sarah Chen: her vocal stability was extremely high, her resonance was superb, clear, crisp, and mellow. Moreover, having sung for over thirty years, her breath control was so magnificent that whenever she sang seriously, you could hardly hear a single breath being drawn.

In a single afternoon, they recorded "So Many People in This World," a track Sarah Chen had assumed would be the hardest to tackle—yet upon hearing the result in the monitoring headphones, even Sarah Chen herself felt that she had sung it well enough.

The pace was blindingly fast, and the efficiency astonishing.

The folks from Rock Records were simply awe-struck—they had genuinely never seen this kind of recording speed! They had only heard rumors before, but now they were seeing it with their own eyes!

The crucial part was that when he recorded, he didn't bother trying out various possibilities at all. Instead, he would tell Sarah Chen directly: "You do it like this and like that, right here like this, over there like that, drop that vibrato for me, add a bit of power here, make it sound crisper right there..."

Done!

They had been utterly astonished during work, and when the topic came up during dinner that evening as they earnestly discussed whether there might be alternative possibilities, Old Li let loose a series of curse words once again.

On the contrary, Sarah Chen was extremely quiet, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the dazzlingly lively demeanor she had when Lin Jianlu first met her.

After the meal broke up, everyone tacitly bid their farewells and tossed out various teasing remarks.

"Sorry for interrupting your French dinner!"

"Actually, no interruption. It's still dark outside, the candles can stay lit."

"The romantic pays the bill, let's go!"

Lin Jianlu couldn't be bothered to refute a single word of what they said. Once they left, Lin Jianlu called out to Sarah Chen, "Girl! Go pay the bill so they stop saying I'm hitting on you!"

Sarah Chen burst out laughing once more and obediently went to settle the bill.

Outside the restaurant, the traces of lingering paparazzi could faintly be seen, but with Old Li and his group of seven or eight people leaving, the paparazzi didn't bother them, clearly still waiting for the bigger fish.

Ah, the more frequently this happened, the more truly annoying it became.

Yet when Sarah Chen returned, there was actually a slight, awkward sense of solitude—mostly awkward on Sarah Chen's part, as she didn't say a word, and within mere seconds, her face turned red all over again.

"I'm warning you! I can be quite fickle, you better protect yourself! Stop letting your imagination run wild!"

She laughed again, though her expression gradually returned to normal, remaining noncommittal to Lin Jianlu's words. "There seem to be paparazzi outside. Are we leaving together? I was planning to drive you back!"

"Forget it! I'll call a taxi! I'm getting a bit scared of this too, it's way too annoying!"

"Who's to blame but yourself? If you want to be popular, fine—every year new artists skyrocket to fame, but there has never been anyone quite like you. Everyone says you casually drop golden quotes, and interviewing you is like listening to a talk show! The paparazzi love you to death, of course they chase after you wherever you go, so you can never have a moment of peace!"

Lin Jianlu was left speechless.

A moment later, he sighed. "Sigh, I miss home! The capital is still the best!"

............

Hearing that Lin Jianlu missed home and wanted to finish his work quickly and return to the capital, and seeing that the recording progress on Sarah Chen's side was terrifyingly fast, Richie Jen was frightened into cutting his promotional tour in Hong Kong short and flying back ahead of schedule.

"Softhearted" was simply too important to him.

With "Cold to the End" having exploded to such an extent, and "Lemon-tree" setting a template once again!

Even if he had to delay his own album "Depending On", he had to record "Softhearted" first!

As it turned out, that was also wrapped up in a single day.

Richie Jen felt immensely guilty. "Ah-lu, do you think we should record it one more time? I feel like I still didn't sing it well enough, and some parts weren't handled perfectly!"

Lin Jianlu couldn't be bothered to do retakes. "Fine by me! I'm not the producer of your new album. If you think it's no good, discuss it with Brother Xiaochong, you guys can re-record a version!"

Richie Jen instantly shut his mouth.

............

Actually, returning that quickly was out of the question.

Lin Jianlu still had plenty of work to do in Taiwan—as his work piled up more and more, Lin Jianlu gradually began to understand why martial arts novels and storytelling books always depicted a jianghu figure washing their hands in a golden basin by gathering all friends and relatives, throwing a banquet, holding a ceremony, and publicly announcing their retirement from the martial arts world.

You simply couldn't get away without making such a fuss, because as long as you lingered in this circle, all sorts of matters would endlessly crop up.

Yet, even though he felt he had already achieved financial freedom, he always felt that right now he was just casually scooping up wealth—wouldn't it be a bit of a pity not to scoop more? Besides, there were still so many songs in his head, a stockpile thirty years ahead of time; wouldn't it be a sin against heaven and earth not to record a few more albums to trade for money?

Who would ever complain about having too much money?

During the intervals of recording for Sarah Chen, Lin Jianlu specifically called Chang Fei and invited the Chang brothers out for dinner, bringing Sarah Chen along.

The people Lin Jianlu knew in Taiwan were already quite numerous, but his closer acquaintances were mainly centered around the Rock Records circle. Aside from them, the friendships he had struck up came from when he went on "Dragon Brothers" to do a show with the Chang brothers, Chang Fei and Fei Yuqing—to be precise, their friendship was limited, rooted actually in mutual appreciation.

Sure enough, they hit it off quite well.

Exchanging hobbies, interesting anecdotes, and gossip proved quite entertaining.

In private, these two weren't actually mischievous at all, especially Fei Yuqing, who was quite a refined and scholarly person.

The following day, he invited Harlem Yu, Tarcy Su, and Jacky Wu—acquaintances he had made while recording "Super Sunday"—and their camaraderie was passable as well.

He held a rather detached view of this circle, and his mindset of not planning to work long-term made him relaxed, bold in his speech, daring in his actions, and indifferent to competing with others. As a result, he ended up with more friends.

Of course, the fact that he was immensely popular played a part as well.

On July 6, he welcomed the interview team from America's *Time* magazine.

It had been arranged beforehand that they intended to conduct an exclusive interview with Lin Jianlu, and one that would make the magazine cover—an Asian edition, of course. Unless it was a government-level leader or a monumental figure in international politics, foreigners found it very difficult to make the domestic American cover.

Even so, within the industry, landing the Asian cover was already a super monumental deal.

"You will be the third Chinese artist to make the cover! Previously, there was only Ms. Zhang Qiang, and that Best Actress from your Mainland, Gong Li! You are the first male artist, the first male singer!"

Well, then let's do it.

The team didn't display any legendary arrogance. They arrived at Rock Records at the scheduled time, conducted the interview, and took photos. The communication actually went quite well.

Sylvia Chang accompanied him the entire time.

The next day, he went to her home as a guest and finally met the "brother-in-law," Wang Jingxiong, for the first time.

He was a businessman from Hong Kong with a very pleasant personality.

There was quite a story behind them as well: the two had met back in 1985 and fallen in love; in 1990, Sylvia Chang gave birth to a child out of wedlock, and in 1991, Wang Jingxiong finally divorced his previous wife and married Sylvia Chang.

Unfortunately, their son was already six years old and too smart to be easily fooled, refusing to call him dad.