Chapter 37: Some People, Once Missed, Are Gone Forever

“Going on stage first is great!” Yu Zhile typed a message to his wife: “If you can stun everyone as the first to perform, the singers who follow will feel the pressure, and both their presence and their singing won’t compare to yours!”

“Is that so!” Qin Haiyu replied, “Hehe, listening to you is better than reading for ten years! Honey, are you still at your parents’ house?”

“Yes, I’m still here. I’ll head back after dinner, and I’ll bring you some of Mom’s best dishes to go!”

“Alright, thank you! Tell Mom I love her, hehe!”

“Mom heard you! She told you to sing well and not to be nervous!”

“Thank you, Mom, you’re the best!” Qin Haiyu wrote back, “I won’t keep chatting now—I have to get ready to go on stage. Wait for my good news!”

Knowing her mother-in-law was beside her husband, Qin Haiyu felt too embarrassed to keep acting coy—she still had some dignity, after all...

Yu Zhile sent her a “Go, wife!” sticker, then glanced at his own father, who was playing with their child, and his father snorted, “I heard you spent money for your wife to get on that show, didn’t you?”

Yu Zhile admitted, “Yes, I spent a million.”

“A million?” Old Yu’s eyes widened. “That lousy show not only doesn’t pay, but you have to pay them a million to take part?”

Yu Zhile explained, “Dad, you don’t get it! On these highly popular shows, unless you’re a big star and can negotiate an appearance fee, smaller celebrities who want to use the show for exposure—well, a million is nothing! Some people are willing to pay ten million! After your daughter-in-law retired for nearly two years after marriage, her popularity plummeted. Spending a million just to get her on the show is already a good deal!”

Yu’s mother said with concern, “A million is too expensive! I’ve been teaching for over twenty years and never made that much in total!”

Old Yu shook his head in disbelief. If a million weren’t just pocket change to his son, he would have scolded him for being wasteful.

Yu Zhile added, “But here’s the interesting part: now that the production team has invited her to the finals, they’re offering a three-million appearance fee. So in the end, we didn’t lose out—we made two million!”

Old Yu was satisfied now, and even boasted a little, “Not bad! The other day, Old Liu was showing off, saying his son was a supervisor in some state-owned enterprise and about to earn a million a year. I told him my son and daughter-in-law can easily make several million a month, and he thought I was exaggerating! Ha!”

With a sneer, Old Yu spat out a saying, “Frog in a well!”

Yu Zhile was curious, “Don’t they know your son is a famous writer and your daughter-in-law is a star?”

Old Yu replied offhandedly, “Very few relatives know, let alone outsiders.”

Well, that was some top-notch secrecy!

But it was all for the sake of a peaceful life. If everyone knew their son was a renowned writer and their daughter-in-law a celebrity, they’d never get to enjoy this kind of quiet, ordinary existence.

His mother then asked, “Son, now that you’ve stopped writing novels, how will you support the family? You can’t just rely on your wife doing shows for income, can you?”

Yu Zhile reassured her, “Don’t worry, Mom! Even though I’m not writing new novels now, I still have a steady stream of royalties every month. With our current savings, our whole family can live comfortably for a lifetime.”

Old Yu said earnestly, “As long as you steer clear of drugs and gambling, everything will be fine! Once you get into those, no amount of money will last!”

“You can rest easy on that! I don’t even drink now, let alone touch anything like that!” Yu Zhile said, then urged, “Come on, Dad, let’s play a couple of rounds of chess—it’s been ages!”

Old Yu was itching to play, so he fetched the chessboard, warning, “No using your phone to cheat!”

Yu Zhile suddenly recalled when he first started middle school, once using his phone to cheat at chess and beat his father. At the time, though his dad lost, he was thrilled, thinking his son was a chess prodigy. When he found out the truth, he was furious—if not for his mother’s presence, Yu Zhile might really have gotten a spanking that day!

In the end, his father confiscated his phone in anger, and Yu Zhile had to go through all of middle school without one.

What memories—they were vivid as ever!

Thinking back, Yu Zhile realized he’d been getting the better of his dad since he was little...

...

Meanwhile.

The finale of “I Am a Singer” had begun recording its second half.

In the first half, Qin Haiyu made it smoothly into the top four.

The show had completely adopted Yang Bing’s plan, altering the voting and final round rules.

In the first half of the finals, eight singers drew lots to determine the order and then performed. After everyone sang, the host, knowing the rankings, announced which singers did not advance to the top four, along with their vote counts and rankings.

For the four who advanced, the vote counts remained secret.

Because for the singers who made it into the top four, their votes from the first half would be combined with the votes from their second-half performance, and the singer with the highest total would become the champion of that season’s “I Am a Singer”!

As the host, Ni Qiqin, announced with passionate energy, and the audience responded with thunderous applause and cheers, the second half of the finals began with Qin Haiyu taking the stage first once again.

She couldn’t tell if she was lucky or unlucky: she’d drawn first in the first half and now, again, she was opening the show!

This was actually a disadvantage for her. Based on past results, the first performer rarely scored the highest; the last performer nearly always took the most votes. She didn’t know why, but in this show, going first never seemed to end well.

Still, she wasn’t too nervous. Her husband was right—going first could be a good thing! If she could amaze everyone and win them over right away, those who followed would feel the pressure and might falter.

Looking at it from another angle, there were advantages to being the first to compete!

At that moment, the song Qin Haiyu would perform appeared on the stage’s background screen.

Once she gave the signal, the band began to play.

Qin Haiyu immersed herself in the beauty of the stage, her thoughts drifting to her husband’s debut novel, “Sea of Love,” because she felt his inspiration for this song must have come from that book.

The judges, meanwhile, were bewildered again. The song title sounded familiar—they thought there must be a song by that name—but the music was completely unfamiliar!

When the first line of lyrics appeared on the screen, they felt even more lost.

It seemed this was yet another song they’d never heard before!

Could it be another new song written by Qin Haiyu’s husband?

If she hadn’t already begun singing, some of the judges would have wanted to ask!

And then Qin Haiyu lifted her head slightly, eyes filled with sorrow, her voice tinged with melancholy, and began to sing with deep feeling:

“Later
I finally learned
How to love
But sadly you
Were long gone
Vanished into the sea of people…”

If the song “Cherry Blossom Grass” she performed in the first half made the audience feel as if they were falling in love, then this one, “Later,” made them feel as if their hearts were breaking.

An unforgettable heartbreak.

“Later
Finally, through my tears, I understood
Some people
Once missed are lost forever…”

Just a few lines, with that haunting melody and sorrowful voice, broke right through to the audience’s hearts.

When Qin Haiyu sang “Cherry Blossom Grass,” her love song could sweeten everyone. Now, her melancholy ballad could move them to tears.

That one line—“Some people, once missed, are lost forever”—was like an arrow, piercing the hearts of everyone in the audience, hearts that still beat but were no longer as passionate as they once were…