Tokyo: My obsession with China led me to become the king of Japanese entertainment.

Chapter 90 A Meeting of Geniuses

"Did you arrange to meet at a recording studio?" Shinoda raised an eyebrow as he looked at the message from Jun Sakurada.

"Sakurada-kun's singing talent is indeed outstanding. He held back a bit during yesterday's live stream." Wowaka's voice sounded slightly weak, but quite stable, indicating that he had received treatment.

"And his basic skills don't seem very proficient, but his vocal technique is very correct. I don't think I could teach him much if it's just about singing."

"Hey, your core strength isn't your voice, you're Wowaka!" Shinoda laughed and patted Wowaka's shoulder, the force much lighter than before.

The biggest highlight of a top-tier VOCALOID producer is undoubtedly their creative abilities: talent, skills, inspiration, and the ways they acquire these.

"I know, I'll take good care of myself. Don't test me anymore." Wowaka was silent for a few seconds, then laughed and scolded.

On the surface, they were talking about Jun Sakurada, but the real issue was something they both knew the other was talking about.

Wowaka can no longer work at the same high intensity as before.

Heart failure is not a disease that can be prevented and will never have any aftereffects. Even though Jun Sakurada's reminder helped Wowaka avoid death, his physical condition and immunity declined significantly during this bout of heart failure.

Even now, theoretically he is still in the treatment cycle, but he just took a day to thank Jun Sakurada.

Even if he recovers, the intense creative and touring work he used to do will be completely out of reach for this genius from now on.

If he didn't want to die young, he could only work for a limited time each day at a relatively low intensity, completely avoiding staying up late and other behaviors that would harm his health. A national tour was basically impossible for him.

He was destined never to return to the life he had before.

As for this, Hitorie's other teammates had a simple thought: if they can't go back, they can't go back; as long as they're alive, that's enough.

Let's discuss it and decide to divide up the responsibilities of Wowaka's lead vocals and lead guitar so that Hitorie can function normally even if Wowaka doesn't perform on stage.

Then, when the brothers turned their attention to wowaka's creative work, this time, he absolutely refused to agree.

Even if the creative process is slower, he will never give up.

Wowaka even considered stubbornly continuing to push himself and risk working at a high intensity after completing this treatment. His attitude was firm, and his teammates couldn't persuade him otherwise.

It wasn't until Kenshi Yonezu, another immortal legend in the VOCALOID world and a representative figure of J-pop worldwide, heard about this that the matter came to light.

When the autistic boy heard that his best friend had narrowly escaped death, he broke out in a cold sweat and, forgetting his autism, rushed to the hospital where Wowaka was being treated that very night.

Unfortunately, his language skills were far less rich than when he was writing lyrics. He could only sit by the hospital bed, staring at his good brother like a ghost, and say things like, "If you keep up the act, I'll never drink with you again."

After glaring at him all night, wowaka finally gave in.

But his teammates were still worried and kept trying to find out what wowaka was thinking. No matter how much he insisted that he had figured it out, they couldn't completely put their minds at ease.

"Alright, let's talk about Sakurada-kun. How should we repay this favor?" Wowaka was a little troubled by this thought.

"Who cares? We'll just ask them when we get there. At worst, we'll be their slaves!" Shinoda shrugged.

These underground bands and producers, with their grassroots backgrounds, often have this kind of style of doing things, with a carefree attitude of "if the sky falls, I'll just cover it with a blanket."

So the group strolled over to the address Sakurada Jun had given them—a top-tier recording studio in Tokyo, which had collaborated with many top musicians. Even a top band like Hitorie, who had already made a mainstream debut, had to consider the cost-effectiveness of practicing in such an expensive studio.

It seems that Jun Sakurada is richer than they imagined.

So the group went to the recording studio. This time they didn't dare rent a car, because Hiroshi Nagano's car rental company was still embroiled in a dispute with Johnny & Associates.

Upon arriving at the recording studio, before even pushing open the door, I heard a familiar and powerful interlude approaching from afar.

The melody, so familiar to their very bones, made the four of them pause for a moment, then they subconsciously exchanged knowing smiles.

"Are they practicing our song?"

Shinoda paused for a moment, then chuckled, "Mother Goose Rhymes—that's an incredibly difficult song! Can Sakurada-kun handle it?"

Before Wowaka could answer, he casually pushed the door open a crack, and immediately, the singing of a man and a woman, which was just reaching its climax, exploded in their ears.

Yes, it was a loud bang:

Who knows the story?

Just thinking about the story that no one knows

I hugged each other tightly and cried as if I was going to be broken. I danced and watched.

If the indistinguishable perceptualism can be allowed, then I will cry out.

Just keep looking like you can't even cry and swallow it all.

The thing that involves having a heart that's about to shatter is called basete!

Let me scream it out!

Two almost frenzied vocals intertwined and surged in the room, while the four old band members stood there woodenly, their eyes filled with a kind of incomprehensible bewilderment.

They were quite certain that this was the song they knew best, a masterpiece written by wowaka himself in 2017, marking his return to the world of Shuriken after six years.

"アンノウン・マザーグース" (Unknown Mother Goose nursery rhyme).

But why does it sound so unfamiliar now?

Or rather—should this song be sung like this? Is it even possible for a human to sing like this?

Fun fact: because the voices carried by the songs are virtual singers like Hatsune Miku, theoretically, as long as they are properly trained, they can guarantee an infinitely wide vocal range, absolutely accurate pronunciation, and always stable breath control.

So when those vocal geniuses write songs, they often don't know their own strength, their tongues moving so fast they leave afterimages, their high and low notes switching insanely—since they don't need real singers, they just write whatever is most expressive.

wowaka himself is an expert in this field. This Mother Goose nursery rhyme is filled with a large number of difficult passages from different directions and fields, but all equally challenging. The difficulty of covering it is not small.

The band Hitorie themselves covered it at a concert, and even the songwriter wowaka had to admit that writing the song was too difficult and singing it felt like being in prison.

But what are the young men and women in the recording studio doing now?

They're stuffing all sorts of things that are practically torture for the voice into this already incredibly difficult song.

The ending note was replaced by a frantic roar, with unrestrained bursts of angry sounds and faint sobs filling the passages that should have been restrained. Those few incredible high notes that were never intended to be sung by a real person were forcibly pushed to have a texture similar to that of a virtual singer.

If Hatsune Miku's original version and Wowaka's version of Mother Goose are gentle yet somewhat restrained in their emotions, then the version sung by these two is unrestrained ruthlessness and release.

Hitorie and her friends, who were just curious, were now frozen in place, speechless and their eyes even showing a hint of fear.

They could barely make out that the male voice should be Sakurada Jun's voice, but was this monster in front of them, who was unrestrained yet terrifyingly steady, really the same person as the obedient child next to Nagano Hiroshi a day ago?

How much did he hold back that day? How much of his impulse to perform freely did he restrain himself from overshadowing his seniors in a song?

Thinking about it this way and listening again, you can hear that little bit of steadiness in Jun Sakurada's voice—compared to the female voice.

The female singer who sang the duet with Jun Sakurada was clearly not as restrained as Jun Sakurada. She sang without reservation, so much so that some minor flaws could be heard.

But it is precisely because she held nothing back that her explosive power and expressiveness even surpassed Sakurada Jun's by a fraction. It was a full-force release that disregarded the cost and the lifespan of her voice.

Combined with his already manic and powerful voice, which was under immense pressure, the final effect was terrifying.

"Where did these two monsters come from?!" Shinoda's voice trembled as he spoke, his scalp tingling.

wowaka didn't answer him; at that moment, only one sentence filled his mind:

So, the songs I wrote can actually be sung like this?

Then came an irrepressible excitement.

The reason why enthusiasts love VOCALOID and virtual singers is largely because the existence of virtual singers removes the limitations and shackles of functionalities, allowing creators to freely explore the ultimate in song art.

However, the singing voices of virtual singers cannot match the richness of human voices in terms of technique and emotion, resulting in a slight deficiency in expressiveness.

This seems to be a difficult problem to solve simultaneously.

And now, wowaka seems to have found the final answer to this question:

If we could find a human singer with the same level of skill and stats as a virtual singer to sing the songs that require special abilities, wouldn't that be the best of both worlds?

So here's the question: where do you find such a genius?

What a coincidence, aren't there two of them right in front of us?

Without a second thought, wowaka quietly admired the new version of his work, then, without another word, headed towards the innermost room.

"Senior brother, is this version any better?"

As soon as the song ended, Ze Muqing's demeanor changed almost instantly, from the queen of singing to her usual socially awkward and slightly shy self.

"That's excellent, but my advice is not to push yourself too hard. You should take better care of your voice." Jun Sakurada smiled.

"Mmm!" Ze Muqing nodded vigorously.

She actually didn't have much of a concept of just how powerful and extraordinary she was right now.

There was no way around it. During this period of intense contact and teaching with her, Taka was one of the most terrifying psychic and live vocalists of the previous era, while Jun Sakurada was not even human.

Compared to this, ADO's extraordinary talent seems a little more normal.

But if we were to take out that old-fashioned apartment—

Just as the two were talking, the recording studio door opened without warning.

The man with black round-framed glasses rushed in somewhat hastily and unsteadily. The moment he saw Sakurada Jun and Sawaki Ao, his eyes lit up. He seemed to want to rush up and shake hands, but then froze in place because it was inappropriate.

Under the gaze of two pairs of eyes, wowaka stood frozen for a long time before finally managing to utter, "Please allow me to write a song for you!"