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

Xu Qing's expression changed.

It wasn't his usual indifferent expression, nor was it the helplessness he showed when angered by Luo Qianyu.

It was a white color that the Luoqian fish had never seen before.

The phone screen was still lit, but the five-second audio clip had already finished playing.

The living room was so quiet that you could hear the hum of the refrigerator compressor running.

"Xu Qing?"

Luo Qianyu reached out to touch his arm, and the moment she touched him, Xu Qing's hand trembled violently.

The phone slipped from his fingers, hit the coffee table, bounced once, and then landed on the carpet.

Then Xu Qing picked up the half-finished glass of water on the coffee table.

Luo Qianyu thought he wanted to drink.

He did not.

With a muffled thud, he smashed the glass against the corner of the coffee table, shattering it into three large pieces, splashing water all over the table and floor.

A shard of glass grazed his palm, and blood immediately seeped from between his thumb and forefinger, trickling down his fingers.

Luo Qianyu sprang up.

"Xu Qing!"

She hugged him tightly from behind.

Two arms were wrapped tightly around his chest, trembling with tension.

Xu Qing's body was trembling. Not from cold, but from a chill that seeped into her bones.

Luo Qianyu could feel the muscles in his back taut, one by one, like a bowstring being stretched to its limit.

"Don't move... your hand is bleeding..."

Xu Qing didn't say anything.

His breathing was erratic, short and rapid, like a drowning person just pulled ashore.

Luo Qianyu had no idea what was in that five-second recording.

But she gleaned something from Xu Qing's reaction at that moment.

That voice was more than just important to him.

It's fate.

"I'm here." Luo Qianyu pressed her face against his back, her voice low. "Xu Qing, I'm here."

Xu Qing's hand slowly fell to his sides. Blood dripped from the tiger's mouth onto the carpet, spreading into a small dark red patch.

He didn't turn around, but he wasn't shaking as badly anymore.

A long time passed.

It went on for so long that Luo Qianyu's arms ached.

Xu Qing's voice came out from his chest, muffled and hoarse.

"...That's not her."

Luo Qianyu didn't ask "who she is".

"That's not her voice." Xu Qing repeated it again, as if she were talking to herself.

Luo Qianyu's arm tightened again.

At that moment, the cell phone on the carpet lit up.

Ma Dongteng's phone call.

Luo Qianyu bent down to pick it up, glanced at the caller ID, and held it up to Xu Qing. Xu Qing answered and put it on speakerphone.

"Did you see the email?" Ma Dongteng's voice was cold, devoid of any pleasantries.

"I've seen it."

"That demo, 'Moon,' was forcibly bought out by an offshore account in the Cayman Islands for US$4.2 million in the early hours of the morning."

Xu Qing didn't say anything.

Ma Dongteng continued: "The same account. The one that acquired the copyrights to three of your old songs in the past two weeks. This time they're directly targeting your unreleased works."

"Four million two hundred thousand for an unfinished demo." Xu Qing's voice had regained some strength, but Luo Qianyu could hear something pressing beneath that calm. "They don't want the song."

"I know," Ma Dongteng said. "What they want is you. Or rather, they want to trap you in the quagmire of copyright issues."

Xu Qing put her phone on the coffee table and glanced at the broken glass.

Did you listen to that audio?

There was a two-second silence on Ma Dongteng's end.

"Send it to me."

Xu Qing used her uninjured hand to forward the email.

There was a five-second silence on Ma Dongteng's end. Five seconds of audio, just enough to listen to once.

"That voice—"

"It's not true," Xu Qing said.

Are you sure?

"Confirmed." Xu Qing closed his eyes briefly, his injured hand clenching and unclenching on his knee. When he opened his eyes again, the tiny point of light in his pupil slowly enlarged. "There's a problem with the voiceprint's resonant peaks. When a real person hums, the third resonant peak should fluctuate with the breathing rhythm—this recording is too flat."

The sound of keyboards clicking and clattering came from Ma Dongteng's side.

"AI-generated?"

"Top-notch." Xu Qing's voice turned cold. "There are no more than three companies in the world that can achieve this level of precision."

Luo Qianyu knelt on the ground and pressed a tissue against the wound on Xu Qing's hand. The blood soaked through the tissue, so she took another one, folded it on top, and pressed it firmly.

Xu Qing glanced down at her.

Luo Qianyu didn't look at him.

Her hands were trembling, but she held on with great force.

"Mr. Ma," Xu Qing said.

"Um."

What is Wang Jianguo's current situation?

"The final judgment against Xinghuang was issued last week, his assets were frozen, and he hasn't even raised the copyright compensation yet. He's borrowing money all over the world to plug the hole," Ma Dongteng said. "He doesn't have that kind of financial strength. A sum of four million two hundred thousand US dollars, plus this level of AI voiceprint synthesis technology—that's not him."

Xu Qing narrowed his eyes.

"So someone is behind him."

"Or rather, from beginning to end, it wasn't Wang Jianguo who acquired your copyright," Ma Dongteng said. "Today, I'll have the security department trace the holding structure of that Cayman account further back. You should take care of your hand injury first."

The phone hangs up.

The living room fell silent again.

Luo Qianyu took the tissue away and glanced at the wound. It wasn't deep, but it was quite long, extending from the base of her thumb to her palm.

"Wait here." She stood up, jogged to the bathroom, and pulled out the first-aid kit.

When she returned, Xu Qing was leaning back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. Her face was expressionless, but not in her usual blank way.

Luo Qianyu squatted down in front of him and wiped the area little by little with an iodine swab.

Xu Qing did not dodge.

"Does it hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt."

"You're kidding me."

Luo Qianyu's voice was a little muffled. She lowered her head and focused on wrapping the gauze around his palm, making two loops and securing it with tape.

From beginning to end, she never asked a single question—whose voice it was, what the song was called, or why you were like this.

I didn't ask a single question.

After wrapping the gauze, she turned his hand over and pressed hard on his bandaged palm.

Then she looked up and looked into Xu Qing's eyes.

"No matter who's behind that," Luo Qianyu's voice wasn't loud, but every word was firm. "I'll help you bite him to death."

Xu Qing looked into her eyes.

There were no tears in those eyes. Instead, there was a fierceness reminiscent of Luo Qianyu—a fierceness born of protectiveness. Just like her father.

Xu Qing's lips twitched slightly.

After moving slightly, he reached out with his uninjured hand and pressed Luo Qianyu's head into his chest.

Luo Qianyu did not struggle.

Her face was pressed against Xu Qing's chest, and she could hear his heartbeat.

Much faster than usual.

"Aren't you going to ask me who that voice is?" After a long time, Xu Qing's voice came from above.

"Say it when you want to."

Xu Qing's hand lingered on the back of her head for a long time.

"Don't rub your hair," Luo Qianyu added in a muffled voice.

Xu Qing's fingers twitched, but in the end, she obediently left them still.

"Okay. No kneading."

Sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the shattered glass on the coffee table and refracting into tiny fragments of light.

Luo Qianyu hugged him even tighter.