Chapter 124: Flying Higher

"Stop acting like a clown! You call this an electronic keyboard? Let me teach you something: this is an electronic synthesizer. Pay attention, kid! Hahaha! Come here, help me set up the stand, and I'll show you something fun." Hong Tao teased the young man while bossing him around.

An electronic synthesizer looks similar to an electronic keyboard, but its functionality is n-times more powerful. In essence, it is a mixer. Simply put, as long as you have a sufficiently rich library of samples, it can completely replace a small band. If you add a MIDI interface and a computer, one person can accomplish things that a large orchestra couldn't dream of.

In his previous life, Hong Tao was not only an audiophile but had also spent his spare time taking courses in sound engineering and recording. The result was the same as all his other hobbies: he had a burst of enthusiasm, earned his sound engineering certification, but quit halfway through the recording course to dabble in computer music composition, ultimately wasting thousands in tuition fees without getting the second certificate.

Of course, his original motivation wasn't exactly pure. He had thought that the music scene was filled with beautiful women, but once he actually entered the circle, he realized that 90 percent of them were rough, unrefined men. In hindsight, it made sense—what beauty would be interested in someone spending all day studying radio wave principles?

His excitement now stemmed from the fact that he could finally make his own backing tracks. With this set of professional audio equipment and the synthesizer, he essentially had a basic music studio. While he couldn't produce anything overly complex, making a simple backing track was well within his reach. The synthesizer came with many built-in instrument sounds, and if those weren't enough, it didn't matter. He had cassette decks and tapes; by using the synthesizer's sampling function, he could record from the tapes bit by bit and then mix them. This was the most primitive form of "sampling." Later on, many small bands and vocal groups used this very technique for their performances in bars and clubs.

"Damn! ... With this, won't every band be out of a job?" After Hong Tao spent over half an hour crafting a simple backing track for "I Love Beijing's Tiananmen" on the synthesizer, those present were stunned. The young man who had been running around looking for "Uncle Hong" had already started mourning for his fellow musicians.

However, this was just a simple beat; it was enough to fool the young man, but it was far from a professional backing track. Hong Tao wasn't worried. After the fat man led the team in a flurry of activity, the sound system was connected in just over an hour. It worked on the first try; the tapes in the deck and the connected microphones were all functioning perfectly. Hong Tao declined the fat man's suggestion to stay and continue fine-tuning the effects processor. He only agreed to come after school starting the next day to help with the adjustments, on one condition: he must be allowed to use the synthesizer, and they had to prepare as much diverse cassette material as possible.

The fat man agreed to Hong Tao’s request without a second thought. Until all the equipment was fully installed and tested, he was the boss here. To him, Hong Tao's request was effortless; the equipment was sitting right there. He could use it whenever he wanted, and any tapes the Youth Palace had were his to listen to—he could even take a couple home if he really liked them. From then on, every day after school or after his sports school training, Hong Tao would have his uncle bike him to the Youth Palace on Nanxiaojie to spend two hours helping the fat man and the bald technician with the equipment, all while working on his own backing tracks.

May 4th is the annual Youth Day. The entrance to the Dongcheng Youth Palace was exceptionally lively that day, as students from schools all over the district arrived and filed into the courtyard in neat rows. These were schools that had contestants in the district competition; whether they were high schools, middle schools, or elementary schools, they all organized their students to cheer for their teams and representatives.

Since this was the first district-wide singing competition held after the fall of the Gang of Four, and it coincided with the "Five Stresses, Four Beauties, and Three Loves" propaganda month, it was both a competition and a showcase. Attendees included not only students and teachers but also relevant leaders from the District Education Bureau.

As a contestant, Hong Tao arrived at the backstage area early to have his makeup done by his school's faculty advisor. Two groups from Yonghegong Elementary School had qualified for the district performance, both from the elementary division: Hong Tao, for his solo, and the collective chorus from Grade 2, Class 1—Jin Yue's class. The music teacher was finally able to hold her head high, as she was the only music teacher in the elementary department, and these were students she had trained from the ground up.

Speaking of makeup, Hong Tao wanted to avoid it at all costs because the result was truly grotesque. It started with bright red lipstick that looked like they had eaten a dead rat, followed by large, bright red circles of rouge on each cheek, just like the performers in rural folk boat dances—and it was applied to everyone, regardless of gender.

Hong Tao refused to wear it. After much persuasion from the music teacher, he begrudgingly agreed to the lipstick, only to wipe it off with a handkerchief the moment no one was looking. He had specifically instructed his uncle to bring a camera to capture this highlight, but he certainly wasn't going to do it while wearing that lipstick; he didn't want to look like a fool.

In stark contrast to Hong Tao, all the other children were so afraid of smudging their lipstick or rouge that they barely dared to close their mouths, keeping them half-open and speaking as if they were holding a hot egg in their mouths.

"Teacher, I'll have a music backing track when I perform later, you can just play along with the rhythm," Hong Tao said to the music teacher backstage, finalizing the arrangements after the final chorus had finished.

"You have a backing track? Where did you get it? Are you not playing the accordion?" The music teacher was baffled. The school didn't have the equipment for backing tracks, and except for a few schools, almost all performances relied on live accompaniment from pianos, accordions, tambourines, or trumpets.

"Heh heh heh, don't you worry about that. They'll play it for me in a moment," Hong Tao said smugly, pointing toward the lighting and sound technicians at the side of the stage.

"Oh, good, that makes things easier. I'll just follow the beat. Don't be nervous when you get on stage later; it's the same as the school performance, just with more people and brighter lights," the teacher said. After glancing in the direction Hong Tao pointed and seeing the bald technician give a thumbs up, she felt reassured. As for how Hong Tao knew the crew, she didn't bother asking. She knew this student was full of secrets, and asking wouldn't get her anywhere.

"Don't worry, do I look nervous? What's there to be nervous about when just singing a song?" Hong Tao wasn't nervous at all. In his past life, he had even performed in a women’s low-cut evening gown while singing "Tan Te" at a company party without breaking a sweat; this was a trivial matter.

Unlike the chorus, which only performed one song, the soloists had to perform two. Hong Tao was scheduled to go on second to last. As the high school girl before him walked off stage with a pale face, he grinned at her, and after the announcer finished, he trotted onto the stage. He stood behind the microphone, professionally gave a thumbs up to the sound technician, and nodded to the music teacher at the piano.

"Life is like a great river,
Sometimes calm, sometimes wild.
Reality is like a pair of shackles,
Binding me, unable to break free.
This mysterious life is sharp as a blade,
Wounding me time and again.
I know the happiness I seek,
Lies in that higher sky.
I want to fly higher,
Fly higher!

Dancing like a gale,
Breaking free from the embrace.
I want to fly higher,
Fly higher!
My wings stir a storm,
My heart lets out a roar..."

As the rich, electronic-infused music filled the hall, the buzzing from the audience vanished instantly. Whether they were first-graders or high school seniors, everyone was filled with curiosity about this strange music and instinctively fell silent, waiting to see what this boy—who wasn't even wearing a red scarf—would sing.

Then, they heard a song they had never encountered before. His voice couldn't be called beautiful; in neither his past life nor this one was Hong Tao a talented singer. Words like "magnetic," "rich," "husky," or "resonant" had nothing to do with his voice. At best, he was simply on-key and could carry a tune.

But the melody, the rhythm, and the style of the song were things no one in the auditorium, including the music teachers, had ever heard before. What moved them even more were the lyrics. You couldn't say the lyrics weren't positive, but there was an underlying feeling of a wounded wolf howling. Most incomprehensible of all was that such lyrics and such a tune were coming from a child under ten years old; the contrast was simply too stark.

The boy was now lost in his own performance, nearly knocking over the microphone stand. His eyes were closed, and as he hit the high notes, he bent his knees, crouched slightly, and tilted his head back, his face contorted in an expression of intense strain.

"..." When the music finally stopped, the hall was dead silent.

"Everyone, I've put in quite an effort here, nearly sang my uvula out! Regardless of whether it sounded good or not, you could at least give me some applause, right? Come on, I'll start!" Standing on stage, Hong Tao couldn't see anything; the stage lights were so bright that his eyes might as well have been closed. But that didn't stop his ears or his mouth. Instead of bowing and leaving like the other kids, he shamelessly stood there asking for applause, even starting to clap for himself.