Entertainment: A song that brought his deceased wife back to life.

The day before the recording of the second episode.

In the main control room of a photography studio on the outskirts of Beijing, the lights were off, with only rows of green indicator lights on the equipment.

A man in gray overalls sat in front of the control panel, his fingers tapping a few times on the keyboard. An audio routing interface popped up on the screen, displaying a dense array of signal lines.

He changed the delay parameters for channels 3 and 7.

The modification is very subtle. Ordinary people wouldn't even notice it. But during a live performance, the accompaniment in the singer's in-ear monitor will be off-key by 0.3 seconds from the actual sound.

0.3 seconds is enough.

It's enough to make any singer lose their rhythm during the chorus, and enough to create a noticeable sense of dissonance between the strings and vocals.

The audience couldn't understand the reason; they would only think—the performance was a disaster.

The man deleted the modification history and cleared the operation log. He stood up and dusted off his trouser legs.

My phone vibrated.

A message from the director of Xinghuang's copyright department: "All done?"

"It's done. It only applies to passages 3 and 7. Suman will be unaffected if she uses passages 1 and 2."

"it is good."

-

On the day of recording.

At 2 p.m., all the guests arrived at the photography studio one after another.

Xu Qing arrived forty minutes earlier than Luo Qianyu.

He didn't go to the backstage dressing room. He walked onto the main stage alone.

The studio was empty, the lights weren't adjusted yet, and the chairs and music stands from yesterday's rehearsal were placed in the center of the stage. The sound system was already on, in standby mode, with the monitor speakers emitting a slight background noise.

Xu Qing stood in the middle of the stage, without moving.

He closed his eyes briefly.

Then open your eyes.

The background noise is incorrect.

Normal background noise is uniform white noise. But now the background noise from the left speaker has an extremely low frequency fluctuation, around 30 Hz, which is imperceptible to the average person's ear.

But Xu Qing heard it.

He walked to the edge of the stage, squatted down, and glanced at the aisle label on the floor. Number 3.

Then he walked to the right and glanced at it again. Number 7.

He stood up and took out his phone.

I sent a WeChat message to Ma Dongteng.

"The main control panel has been tampered with. There are signal problems with channels 3 and 7."

Ma Dongteng replied four seconds later.

"Sure?"

"A 30Hz noise floor fluctuation is not present in normal equipment. Someone has modified the latency parameters."

Ma Dongteng didn't ask another pointless question.

Three minutes later, Ma Dongteng sent a message: "I've sent people from the Technical Security Department over. The reason given is a routine equipment inspection by the joint sponsor. They'll be there in twenty minutes."

Xu Qing put her phone away and walked off the stage.

-

Twenty minutes later.

Three technicians dressed in Penguin Music uniforms entered the control room. One of them glanced at the operation logs.

"The logs have been cleared, but the underlying cache remains. The latency for channels 3 and 7 has been changed to 300 milliseconds."

Another person tapped a few keys on the keyboard.

"There's also a conditional trigger for audio routing. It's set to automatically activate during the chorus of the third song, down to the bar."

"Who is this for?"

"Looking at the channel allocation, channels 3 and 7 are for the vocals and string instruments of Qingniao Feiyu."

The three of them exchanged a glance but said nothing.

Within fifteen minutes, the sabotage program was isolated, the administrator privileges of the core console were reset, and the operating account of the sound director in gray overalls was locked.

No one alerted the production team throughout the entire process.

The sound engineer was scrolling through his phone in the hallway, completely unaware that all his work had been for nothing.

-

Backstage dressing room.

Luo Qianyu adjusted the angle of her mask in front of the mirror for the fourth time.

"What on earth are you doing?" Xu Qing leaned against the door, holding the guitar with the clownfish sticker on it.

"I'm looking for the best breathing angle."

"You used the same reason last time."

"Last time was last time, this song is different. I need more breathing space during the chorus of 'Coral Sea'—"

"Your mask covers your eyes, not your mouth."

Luo Qianyu stopped.

She stared at herself in the mirror and thought for two seconds.

"It seems so."

Xu Qing walked over and reached out to push her mask up one millimeter.

"Alright. Stop messing around."

Luo Qianyu turned around and looked at him.

"Xu Qing."

"Um."

"I'm a little nervous."

You were nervous last time too.

"This time is different. Last time I was nervous about going on stage, this time I'm nervous—afraid that I won't be able to sing at the same level as in the studio."

Xu Qing looked at her.

"No matter what happens later, sing with your eyes closed. I'll be there for you even if the sky falls."

Luo Qianyu was stunned for a moment.

Then she lowered her head and wiped the koi scales off her mask.

"Why are you suddenly speaking like a human being today?"

"Occasionally."

The voice of the stage manager came from outside the door.

"Bluebird and Flying Fish, wait in ten minutes."

Luo Qianyu stood up.

She glanced at the reflection of two people in the mirror: a deep blue bird and a red koi standing side by side.

"Let's go."

-

The other end of the back-end channel.

Su Man's private dressing room door was open, and the lights inside were very bright.

Chen Che stood in the corridor outside the door, holding a final version of the arrangement document, making final confirmations.

Su Man's song has been polished for two weeks. It has an electronic dance music base, four layers of synthesizer sounds, and orchestral samples and vocoder effects added to the chorus. The production cost of the entire song is enough for an average singer to release an album.

Chen Che is confident in this song.

At least technically, he is second to none.

He closed the document, preparing to return to the control room for a final audio check.

He heard a sound as he turned the corner in the corridor.

It's very light.

Guitar.

It was coming from a lounge with the door half open.

Chen Che slowed his pace.

It wasn't a complete performance. I just randomly strummed a few chords. It was just a transition, a connection between one key and another.

It was very casual, without any deliberate showing off.

But that chord progression—

Chen Che stopped.

He stood in the corridor, looking down at the old silver ring on the ring finger of his left hand.

Convert Cm9 to Abmaj7, then connect to Fm11.

He had heard of this method of execution before.

Eight years ago.

Berlin. Winter. Heavy snow.

He was walking down a street in the Kreuzberg district, heading to a recording studio. As he passed a subway station exit, he heard a guitar.

The pianist sat on the steps, a paper cup in front of him containing a few scattered coins. He was dressed very lightly, his fingers red with cold, but the music he played—

Chen Che stood at that subway entrance for twenty minutes.

He heard something he had never heard on the Grammy red carpet, in top recording studios, or with any of the big-name artists he had ever worked with.

He stepped forward, wanting to speak to the person.

The man looked up and glanced at him.

Then he packed up his guitar and left.

Chen Che chased him for two blocks. He couldn't catch him.

He then spent three months trying to find that person. He asked everyone he could in the street performer community. Nobody knew.

He memorized that unique chord progression for eight years.

Now he heard it again.

Chen Che slowly turned his head and looked at the half-open lounge.

A small glimpse of the scene peeked through the crack in the door. A man in a black hoodie sat in a chair, a dark blue half-face mask hanging around his neck, and an old guitar in his hands.

There was a clownfish sticker on the headstock of the guitar.

Chen Che unconsciously twirled the ring on his ring finger.

He stared at that figure for five seconds.

Then he turned and left.

After walking a dozen steps, Chen Che stopped at the end of the corridor.

He opened the music arrangement document in his hand, then closed it again.

I looked up at the ceiling.

eight years.

Is the person playing guitar on the streets of Berlin the same person as the person in this lounge?

He wasn't sure.

But those chords are exactly the same.

Chen Che tucked the document under his arm and walked towards the control room. He took two steps and then stopped.

He glanced back at the half-open door at the end of the corridor.

The guitar music in the lounge had stopped.

It was so quiet that there was nothing there.

Chen Che clenched the document in his hand, turned around, and walked into the control room.