Superstars of Tomorrow

The voting period was not yet over, but Fang Zhao’s dominance in the charts was clear. Nanfeng had to begin his preparations.

“Boss, if you receive the invitation from the organizers, you probably won’t reject it, right?” Nanfeng asked.

“I won’t,” Fang Zhao replied. “Let me think about the performance.”

“Alright!”

Given the present circumstances, Fang Zhao receiving an invitation was certain. As a positive role model publicized by the media, there was no reason not to invite Fang Zhao.

It was as Nanfeng had thought. The organizing side contacted Fang Zhao’s side before the voting results were even concluded and invited Fang Zhao for Star Cup’s victory ceremony.

Mo Lang didn’t wish for Fang Zhao to take part in other activities after returning back, but it wasn’t good to reject this. The significance of Star Cup wasn’t the same. Even though it was against his will, Mo Lang could only agree. Fortunately, the graduation concert plans that Fang Zhao had submitted satisfied him. Progress was also good, and it showed that Fang Zhao hadn’t neglected making preparations for the graduation concert all this while while being busy with other things.

However, Mo Lang still called Fang Zhao over for some lessons in seclusion before the Star Cup victory ceremony as well as amending the graduation concert plans that Fang Zhao had submitted.

Therefore, Fang Zhao didn’t have too much time to head out after he returned to school. Fang Zhao also didn’t attend a banquet that Zaro hosted when he came on a vacation to Huangzhou.

Zaro felt that it was really a pity that Fang Zhao couldn’t come out. “My brothers are rather looking forward to see you. Oh, I have a good bro that was also invited by the Star Cup organizers. You two will meet when the time comes.”

“Who?'” Fang Zhao asked. He was also a little curious.

“It’s Bobo, or Chu Bo. His nickname is Bomber. He’s the one who ended in second place on the Star Cup’s voting list of the Most Popular Celebrities.”

After ending the call with Fang Zhao, Zaro then looked through his address book and picked people to contact in succession. He wanted to call a few more people to have fun and liven things up. He hadn’t gathered together with his bunch of good-for-nothing friends for quite some time as he had been on Planet Bu for “poverty alleviation”.

Zaro also contacted Danke Assis. “Come out and have fun!”

“I’m not free. I have to look after a kid!” Danke really wanted to go out and have fun but wasn’t able to spare the time. He had already completed the assignment his father had given to him at the beginning, but perhaps because he had looked after the kid too well, management was too lazy to change the kid’s caretaker. They had asked Danke to accompany Little Bear to play every once in awhile. Thus, Danke wasn’t free today.

Zaro had learned the news of Danke looking after a kid from his bunch of good-for-nothing friends back when he had been ‘alleviating poverty’ on Planet Bu. At that time, he had jumped up in shock. Those scoundrels knew how to go crazy, but there always had a limit. When they heard that Danke was at home looking after a kid, all of their imaginations ran wild. It was only after Danke explained that they understood that the kid was something like a crown prince of the Inter-planetary Fund. After that, they stopped joking about the kid.

“Wasn’t your assignment completed? Hasn’t it been so long already?” Zaro didn’t understand.

“New assignment. That kid has probably started school somewhere, so he comes out during the holidays. In any case, I have been called over to accompany the kid to have fun for this period.” Danke sounded tired.

“Alright, another day then. Bobo came to Huangzhou today and will be staying for a while. Let’s schedule another time to hang.”

Zaro had his own private residence in Huangcheng and this was the place he would call his friends over to every time. A little while after he ended the call with Danke, the “Bobo” that he was talking about arrived.

Chu Bo was a member of Jinzhou’s super-aristocratic Chu family and a descendant of a Great General. He had a status that was similar to Zaro’s status in Leizhou. Their personalities were also similar in some aspects——both were relentless in their verbal attacks.

The difference was that Zaro straightforward in his verbal attacks. Whatever methods were used against him would be directly used back in a counteroffensive. If someone attacked him on social media, Zaro would use social media to directly criticize them in return.

It was different for Chu Bo. Regardless of whatever methods were used by others to scold him, Chu Bo loved turning whatever he wished to say into song lyrics and verbally criticize the offending parties back in song.

Chu Bo had blinding gold hair which was dyed. He scanned the area after arriving at Zaro’s place. “Nobody came?”

“They are on the way. Danke can’t make it. He has to stay home and look after a kid. You know the one.”

“Still?” Chu Bo didn’t really care though and asked, “What about Fang Zhao? Is he coming?”

“He can’t come. His teacher has shut him in for lessons.”

“… Are the teachers of Twelve Tones that strict? That didn’t happen back when I was studying.” Chu Bo went online and searched. “That’s not right. Isn’t his Academic Advisor Prof. Carter? Prof. Carter is giving lectures away from Huangzhou these few days. Who is the one giving lessons to Fang Zhao today then?”

“Prof. Carter? I’m not sure.” Zaro recalled the Fang Zhao’s words. “However, during the call, he seemed to have spoken to someone on his end. If I heard correctly, it sounded like ‘Teacher Mo’ or something.”

“Mo Lang?!” Chu Bo got excited. He rubbed his hands in glee and continued, “This won’t do. I have to run into Fang Zhao when the time comes and have a good chat with him!”

Chu Bo had always paid attention to Fang Zhao because of their similar age and because both studied music. Although their approach was different, people would still compare them side by side. This had been especially so during the voting where Fang Zhao had been a dominant first while Chu Bo was second. Chu Bo didn’t feel that it was unacceptable; rather, he became more curious of this Fang Zhao. He originally thought that they would meet today. He hadn’t expected that the Twelve Tones Advance Class would supervise him so strictly.

Fortunately they were both invited by the Star Cup organizers and would get the chance to meet.

“Hey Zaro, you interacted with Fang Zhao for quite a long time during your stay on Planet Bu. What is he normally like? Are those credentials published by the official military media outlets real?” Chu Bo asked.

…

While Chu Bo was asking about Fang Zhao, on the other side, Fang Zhao was at Mo Lang’s place for lessons. He was resting in the study after listening to Mo Lang’s assessment and evaluation of his thesis.

Mo Lang was already quite old and couldn’t spend too much time and energy giving Fang Zhao lessons. He would normally go rest after teaching Fang Zhao, and more often than not, Fang Zhao would stay behind after that. There were all sorts of professional books and works in the study as well as Mo Lang’s own manuscripts that couldn’t be found anywhere else.

After straightening out his thesis, Fang Zhao did an online search for information of Chu Bo.

Before this, Fang Zhao had seen video recordings of Chu Bo’s concerts as well as various entertainment reports of Chu Bo online.

Chu Bo was from the family of a Great General. Chu Bo achieved overall excellence all the way from kindergarten to university, yet he wasn’t the sort of well-behaved student as he had an arrogant and obstinate character. Afterwards, he managed to get into Jinzhou’s best university with exceptional grades. During university, he formed a band for fun, and two years in, he realized he loved singing even more. Having suddenly found his true passion, he spent another half year to complete his studies in advance before getting into the next door music academy which was also Jinzhou’s best. Back then, this matter became the headlines for Jinzhou’s various media outlets.

There were people who said that he was willful, but he had the ability to be willful.

There were also some who said that his personality was like a student going through adolescence, and they loved this sort of person who took the road less traveled.

Chu Bo liked to use incisive lyrics to sing about his innermost thoughts under powerful electronic beats. He didn’t care how others saw him. At the beginning of last year, an extremely aggressive punk track full of dissing was popular among many punk enthusiasts. However, shortly after, Chu Bo then revised a rather famous punk track into rock ‘n’ roll. Although it sold extremely well, he was boycotted by many punk fans and caused them to turn from admirers into detractors.

He liked to add insightful critique to his song lyrics about various happenings and would improvise and change lyrics for songs to verbally criticize people during his concerts where the atmosphere was at its highest. He had also written a song with a positive and bright outlook for a young fan prone to suicidal tendencies and had once composed a rock n roll style requiem to honor the victims of a terrorist attack.

There were some people that said he exploited the terrorist incident to show off and gain popularity. However, seven days after the incident, Chu Bo released a powerful song with a strong anti-terrorism agenda. The evaluation of a well-known person in the music industry was this: “With fury added in it, a song triumphs a gun.”

After that, it was rumored that Chu Bo was placed on a certain hit lists because of this anti-terrorism song. Chu Bo’s family kept him at home for a month before he was allowed to step out. When he finally did, he was surrounded by many more bodyguards.

However, there were also people who said that the reason Chu Bo always had many bodyguards with him was because his daring mouth had offended many people. He once did an improvised rap during a concert criticizing a rather popular film emperor, and lots of people wanted to beat him up, let alone terrorists. As long as he couldn’t control that mouth of his, he would be smothered sooner or later even if he wasn’t assassinated.

Some people hated him till their teeth hurt, but there were people who absolutely adored him. Secondary school students in particular loved him. Chu Bo’s popularity among secondary students had never fallen, and if the the scope was only in Jinzhou, the most voted celebrity among secondary school students would definitely be him.

In the eyes of the entire world, academics didn’t really like Chu Bo’s style. Chu Bo’s status in the music circles wasn’t too high, but he still maintained extremely high popularity among secondary school students. Chu Bo had also been invited to the previous iteration of the Star Cup’s victory ceremony. This year, he had been a hot favorite in the Star Cup, except that there was the unexpected emergence of Fang Zhao. On the day when voting concluded, many students from Jinzhou had even protested.

Fang Zhao watched Chu Bo in his concert video. When this sort of person stood on stage, he was majestic, willful, and ostentatious. It was as though his entire body was emanating with light, just like a little blazing sun. The point where he glowed brightest was when his mouth did as his heart wished and it could not be concealed.

And the media’s assessment of him was accurate indeed. Chu Bo would really change lyrics when the atmosphere was intense. From time to time, Fang Zhao would see the lyrics at the bottom of the screen be replaced by ‘***’ or beeps, and the frequency of this was highest when the live atmosphere was at its most intense.

This wasn’t a good habit.

Fang Zhao thought about the Star Cup victory ceremony. Chu Bo wouldn’t start cursing at that sort of occasion, would he?