Last week, the third recorded episode of "Vocal Creation Chapter" officially went live.
Fans of the show saw Mu Li's performance; at first, they didn't know much about him, but since Mu Li had already debuted, some fans recognized him.
This led to Mu Li's Weibo being constantly mentioned by fans.
"A Li, why did you go participate in this competition without saying anything?"
"If we hadn't found out, would you still be keeping it a secret?"
"Wow, when are you going to introduce your band members! The Sylveon on drums is too cute!"
"My friend went to the live show and said it was absolutely incredible."
Mu Li's Weibo had recently been managed by him, but he was busy making new songs and completely forgot to notify his fans.
For this, he was scolded by Liu Yun for a long time.
Soon, a new message was updated on Mu Li's Weibo: "Everyone, come support me on 'Vocal Creation Chapter'! This time, the show is live!"
The fans also got excited.
"Finally, we see a live person; what kind of celebrity doesn't operate their social media normally!"
"On this day, A Li finally remembered his account password."
"Support A Li! I want to see it live!"
In the third episode, Mu Li secured a promotion spot with his song "If You Don't Do Some Things Now, You'll Never Do Them."
However, online reviews of Mu Li's song were polarized.
One group of people thought the song's quality wasn't that great, and Mu Li's good performance was mainly due to the band and stage effects.
The other group had very positive reviews for Mu Li's song, stating that just from the lyrical concept, it was already much better than songs that only described love and romance.
But almost everyone agreed on one point: watching Mu Li's performance live and listening to it online were completely different experiences.
"I'm not exaggerating, A Li's live performance was absolutely electrifying."
"Those stage effects were simply amazing."
What made online viewers even more frustrated was that the performance seen by the live audience seemed different from what they saw online.
For example, the clock in the mist at the beginning of the show: online, they could only see a mist and hear the sound of the clock, but they couldn't see the clock at all.
Mu Li also mentioned this in a show interview: "That's an effect caused by illusion, which can only be felt live."
Coupled with Gardevoir's psychic influence, this directly led to different viewing experiences for live and online audiences.
Mu Li's performance also sparked discussions online.
This topic was an old one: people who had seen live concerts knew that the singers' live performances had a completely different impact than listening online.
Many did not deny that the perception of the same show differed between online and offline, but most believed that the public exaggerated Mu Li's performance effect.
Mu Li saw these comments, but he wanted to say: "Sorry, this time his performance will push this contrast to the extreme."
He had already decided on the song for this performance—"Starry Sky," a very gentle and sweet song.
This performance featured a total of 16 participants, and even with a live broadcast, it would take about two hours.
At eight o'clock in the evening, the live broadcast of the fourth episode of "Vocal Creation Chapter" officially began.
After a simple opening, the host Xu Wei came on stage to explain the rules of this battle.
This episode's format was a 16-to-8 elimination round, where 7 of the 16 participants would directly advance to the top 8, and the remaining spot would be filled by the audience voting for the eliminated contestant with the most votes.
"We informed all contestants of this week's theme a week ago," Xu Wei said, and then the big screen began to play the lottery ceremony from a week prior.
As the big screen played, the audience could see Xu Wei drawing a ball from the lottery machine, and on the ball were two words—First Love, which was the theme of this competition.
Speaking of first love, it could be said that this was a very old-fashioned theme, one that almost every musician had written about.
After the theme was announced, the real-time bullet comments started to flood in.
"Even my grandma has written about this theme."
"This theme probably means digging into the old song lists of various creators, right?"
"Too simple, no difficulty at all, anyone who has studied music can write something, right?"
The general consensus in the bullet comments was that this episode's theme was too simple.
To be honest, even Mu Li and the other contestants wondered if the production team had tampered with this episode's theme, preparing such a simple theme to build a good reputation during the first live broadcast.
This live broadcast, in addition to the four previous initiator mentors Li Xingyang, Lan Yaning, Zhang Jialiang, and Liu Zhengqing, also featured a new singer, Han Li, an old-generation national treasure male singer.
"Netizens all think this theme is too simple; what do the five mentors think about this theme?" Xu Wei directly posed the question to the five mentors.
The five mentors were clearly seasoned veterans, and dealing with such minor issues was second nature to them.
"Don't think this theme is simple yet," Liu Zhengqing said, "A simple theme means there's not much novelty, and the room for innovation is very small, which instead tests the contestants."
"Exactly," the new mentor Han Li agreed, "It's like making fried rice; everyone can make it, but it's where the basic skills of the dish are truly reflected."
After the two mentors spoke, the online opposition quieted down considerably, but there were still many dissenting voices.
"That's what they say, but I can already imagine tonight's songs will be very uninspired."
"This theme dictates the tone of the performance: either sweet, or heartbreaking, or regretful, or disappointing—it's just these."
"I'd like to see what these contestants can do with such a theme."
Soon, Xu Wei invited all sixteen contestants participating in this event onto the stage.
Mu Li was among the last few, and next to him was Qiao Bo, who had performed before him in the last promotion round.
Besides him and Qiao Bo, he hadn't paid much attention to the other two promoted contestants and had even forgotten their names.
After Xu Wei's introduction, he learned that one of the girls was named Anna, and the other boy was named Wang Yang.
However, he had no impression of their works.
As for the other twelve, he had even less impression.
It might sound too arrogant to say, but he simply wasn't interested in getting to know these people; Mu Li hadn't even watched the previous episodes.
At this moment, his domineering aura as a Champion was fully displayed.
No matter what kind of formidable opponent you are, as long as you dare to be my enemy, there will only be one outcome: being crushed under my feet.
This was Mu Li's domineering nature, and it was also the confidence the original world had given him.
As for knowing yourself and your enemy to win every battle, please, which truly powerful creator would come to participate in this show?
The people who come to participate in this show are nothing more than the following types: either newcomers like Mu Li, who lack channels for exposure—though Mu Li's lack of channels was entirely self-inflicted; any new creator, as long as they join an entertainment company, usually gets some opportunities to stand out.
Besides newcomers, another type is creators whose songs are famous but they themselves are not; these creators often have one or two very popular songs, but these popular songs are mostly just due to luck.
Otherwise, why would only one or two popular songs appear over so many years?
Either the creator doesn't grasp trends accurately, or the creator's niche itself is very small.
Truly powerful creators cannot have only one or two good songs.
Take the singer Lu Hu from his previous life, for example; he had written hundreds of songs in over a decade of his career.
When he wasn't famous, no one noticed how many works he had written, and many of those songs were well-known.
This demonstrated his creative ability; he didn't become famous based on one or two songs, but through various accumulations, and it was this accumulation that formed the foundation of his creativity.
Besides these two types, there are also those who feel their talents are unrecognized, creators immersed in their own musical worlds.
These people might be very powerful within their own circles, but once they step out of that circle, perhaps no one knows them.
Most of the creators participating in "Vocal Creation Chapter" fell into these three categories.
Mu Li had also listened to some of their works; some were well-done, but still far from being considered premium music.
And all he had in his hand were trump cards.
If he were competing against top musicians, Mu Li might still need to focus his energy to cope, but in the show "Vocal Creation Chapter," Mu Li could only shout, "I can take on 10 of them."
While Xu Wei was introducing others, Mu Li merely listened out of respect, though his expression was somewhat vacant.
However, as one of the few debuted contestants among the 16 participants, coupled with his superior looks, Mu Li naturally received a lot of camera time.
This resulted in his vacant expression being directly captured by the camera.
Fu Peiyao, watching Mu Li on TV, almost sprayed out the drink she had just taken a sip of: "How can this idiot be so distracted during a competition?"
Besides Fu Peiyao, many of Mu Li's friends were also watching the live broadcast.
Ling Fei was one of them; when he saw Mu Li's expression, a hint of nostalgia appeared in his eyes: "This kid is still the same as before, never putting anyone else in his eyes."
Watching the show with Ling Fei was his wife, Zeng Anlian.
Her expression, however, was different from Ling Fei's; her face showed more tenderness: "It's been so many years since I've seen this child; he's getting more and more handsome now."
"That's true," Ling Fei nodded, "He has quite a bit of my youthful charm."
Zeng Anlian retorted irritably, "If A Li looked like you when you were young, he probably would only be able to come back as a coach."
Ling Fei was taken aback and asked confusedly, "Wife, didn't you say that the reason you chose me was because of my looks?"
Zeng Anlian nodded, not denying Ling Fei's statement: "That's right! I chose you because I thought you looked like that, you'd definitely be safe and wouldn't have any flirtatious thoughts, that's why I married you."
Ling Fei: "..."
This scene was naturally also seen by the live audience.
By now, the online netizens finally caught onto a topic.