“Good. With those words from President Zhu, I can rest easy.” With that, Sister Shan turned and left.
A flicker of suspicion crossed President Zhu’s eyes. Had Sister Shan really been persuaded that easily?
Sister Shan was a veteran of the company. She held 2.1% of its shares and received an annual 0.5% equity incentive. Even he, as CEO, only held 4.1% of the company’s stock.
Not to mention, Sister Shan had been with the company since its founding—she had even more seniority than he did.
When Sister Shan had come to see him today, he’d braced himself for a long battle. Heck, he’d even stashed a case of bottled water under his desk.
He never expected her to just walk away like that.
President Zhu quickly ran through their entire conversation in his head, from the moment she walked in to the moment she left. Once he was certain she hadn’t pulled one over on him, he finally let out a small sigh of relief.
The moment Sister Shan stepped out of President Zhu’s office, she hurried straight back to Lin Shuwen’s place.
As soon as she entered, she heard Lin Shuwen singing. She didn’t interrupt and instead quietly listened to the entire rendition of The Original Dream.
“Sister Shan, how was that?” Lin Shuwen stopped and asked.
“Excellent in every way. More than good enough to be the lead single for your album.”
Lin Shuwen beamed at that.
“Chuchu, stop spacing out—take out your phone. Wenwen, sing the chorus again. We’ll record it and post it on Wenwen’s Weibo.”
“Sister Shan, what should I caption it?”
“Just two words: ‘Vocal practice.'”
Chen Sichu nodded, pulled out her iPhone 5s, and opened the video recording function.
iPhones have plenty of flaws—they’re stingy with high refresh rate displays, have poor signal reception, and lack fast charging. But one thing they’ve never been beaten at, since the iPhone 3, is video recording quality. They’ve always led the pack.
Chen Sichu recorded a 30-second clip and posted it to Weibo, exactly as Sister Shan instructed—captioned simply with “Vocal practice.”
“Wenwen is absolutely gorgeous!”
“That profile shot is killing me.”
“Is this a new song from Wenwen? I’ve never heard it before!”
“The lyrics probably mention ‘the original dream,’ right? Sounds pretty inspiring.”
“Can’t wait for the full version.”
While fans were busy commenting, Sister Shan also bought some astroturfers. This time, they were tasked with hyping up that the song was Lin Shuwen’s own original creation.
Then, Sister Shan shot a message to Director Liu: “Director Liu, it’s about time to release the news about the movie changing its theme song.”
Director Liu replied instantly: “Perfect timing—our new trailer is ready too.”
“Then go ahead and post it. We’ll coordinate our promotion on our end.”
“Great!”
Director Liu immediately had his production team post on Weibo, along with the new 20-second trailer. The background music for that trailer was, naturally, Lin Shuwen’s Light Years Away.
Director Liu was considered a top-tier director in the TV drama world, but in film, he was still a complete newcomer.
This movie project was something of a career transition for him, and plenty of people both inside and outside the industry were keeping an eye on it.
After Director Liu’s team posted about changing the movie’s theme song, combined with the astroturfers Sister Shan had hired, Lin Shuwen quickly shot up Weibo’s trending charts.
This time, the topic stormed into the top 10 trending topics in no time.
The studio-recorded version of Light Years Away—even though only a short snippet appeared in the trailer—still blew everyone away. It absolutely crushed the earlier acapella version in every way.
“This trailer with this BGM is just perfect.”
“Seriously, the song and the visuals are a match made in heaven.”
“This song is so good! I thought the acapella version was great already, but now that the studio version is out, I could listen to it on loop for days.”
“Too bad it’s not the full version yet. Hurry up and release the movie! I want to hear the whole thing.”
“Hey, Wenwen just dropped another new song too—also an original, and it’s really nice.”
“Another new song? I’m gonna go check it out.”
With the astroturfers steering traffic that way, a ton of netizens flocked to Lin Shuwen’s Weibo page.
They all saw the video that Chen Sichu had posted.
Two original songs in one week, and both sounded high-quality just from the choruses. For that reason alone, plenty of casual listeners chose to follow Lin Shuwen.
In just one day, Lin Shuwen’s Weibo followers grew by over 30,000.
And those were all real, active followers!
That evening, Lin Shuwen happily shared the day’s results with Luo Ming.
“My songs aren’t half bad, right?”
“Mm, thanks to your songs, really. By the way, Luo Ming, what was your creative inspiration for this one?”
Luo Ming scratched his head, momentarily unsure how to answer.
The Original Dream wasn’t actually an original by Fan Weiqi. It was adapted from a song called Riding on the Silver Dragon, for which the rights had been purchased.
Judging by the title, the Chinese version’s meaning is easy to grasp. The Japanese title, at first listen, might sound like some kind of fantastical song—but it’s not.
Riding on the Silver Dragon was the theme song for a Japanese TV drama, celebrating a doctor working on a remote island. The “silver dragon” was his bicycle. (PS: This interpretation comes from the drama’s creators. Singer-songwriter Miyuki Nakajima, however, said the silver dragon referred to the doctor’s scalpel. Personally, I prefer the drama creators’ take.)
That doctor, on an island where people distrusted doctors, spent his entire life riding his bicycle through the streets, saving lives and healing the sick.
In Luo Ming’s view, that pursuit of fundamental human goodness was, in terms of its underlying message, even more profound than The Original Dream.
After all, no matter how much you talk about dreams, they’re just empty talk until they come true. But genuine human kindness and compassion—those are real, tangible things.
Of course, he could think that all he wanted, but he definitely couldn’t explain it to Lin Shuwen that way. He cleared his throat and said, “It’s nothing really. When I was working on Plants vs. Zombies, I suddenly remembered my childhood dreams. What I’m doing now is pretty much the complete opposite of what I wanted back then, so I just felt inspired in the moment.”
“Now that you mention it, I’m kind of in the same boat.”
“Really? What was your childhood dream?” Luo Ming asked casually.
“Both my parents work in the biological sciences—they spend all day dealing with microorganisms and viruses. I grew up surrounded by that, so my childhood dream was to become a scientist too. When I became a celebrity, my parents were so mad they didn’t speak to me for over half a year.”
“I can understand that. I’d probably react the same way if I were your parent.”
“What about you, Luo Ming? What was your childhood dream?”
“My family wasn’t well-off—we couldn’t afford snacks or drinks. The person I envied most in elementary school was the kid whose family ran a convenience store. My biggest dream was to open my own store when I grew up, so I’d have endless snacks and never run out of drinks.” Luo Ming said, a hint of nostalgia in his voice.
“That dream totally fits what a kid would think back then.”
Luo Ming smiled. Honestly, even before he transmigrated, his biggest dream had been to go back to his hometown and open a convenience store. He’d almost saved up enough money, too—then he ended up transmigrating because of crazy overtime.
He’d done the math shortly after arriving in this world. His insurance plus savings probably amounted to around 1.5 million yuan. That should be enough for his parents to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. He just hoped his younger siblings would take good care of them.
