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

It has the rough texture of sandpaper, the dampness of lingering mist, and the weary warmth of someone who has been trudging through mud for too long finally stopping.

Every word wasn't "sung" out—it was pushed out with the lowest, deepest breath from her chest, as light as if she were talking to herself, yet as heavy as a thousand-pound anchor crashing into the seabed.

"Following the trail of the boy's drifting journey—"

The cello's long bow slowly drew out the second chord, the low-frequency vibrations like an invisible hand pressing on the chests of three thousand people.

It wasn't coercion, it was appeasement—yet it was even more irresistible than coercion.

"I hesitated for a moment before stepping out of the station—"

When she sang the word "hesitation," a very subtle tremor appeared in Luo Qianyu's voice.

It wasn't a technical lapse in control; it was a fragment of emotion mixed into the airflow—the tremor was so real, like a water droplet hanging on a thin strand of hair, about to fall but not quite.

A girl in the second row of the audience covered her mouth with both hands.

It wasn't because of the shock, but because of the weight in that "hesitation" that she understood.

The first verse has finished.

The three music critics sat motionless in their seats, their prepared expressions of mockery slowly crumbling.

The chorus is coming.

Everyone was waiting for this part—waiting for her to mess up in the high notes, waiting for that broken voice to reveal its true flaws.

"I was once overwhelmed by the vastness of the world—"

There was no push-up to the high notes.

Luo Qianyu used a falsetto an octave lower, her voice dropping instead of rising, like a bird whose wings had been broken and which no longer tried to fly, but instead chose to wade through the mud.

But it was precisely this posture of not flying that made everyone's breath seem to be suppressed.

Because there's something in every low note of hers.

She endured three years of being sidelined, endured every night being mocked as a subordinate, endured the early mornings when she squatted on the bathroom floor and cried silently after her vocal cords were torn, and endured the fact that she was even deprived of the right to cry out loud.

These weights don't need high notes to express them; low notes are their only outlet—downward, downward, sinking to the deepest point, then suffocating in the chest of everyone who hears them, unable to escape.

"Also indulging in sleep-talking—"

Xu Qing's guitar was suddenly taken away here.

On stage, only Luo Qianyu's voice and the low murmur of the cello remained.

"Let your heart guide you, and let things take their course."

When she sang the words "Go," her voice dropped to the lowest register of the entire song.

That position was close to the physical limit of the female voice, but she landed steadily on it without the slightest wobbling.

On the judges' panel, Fang Hong clenched his fists, his knuckles turning completely white.

Having listened to songs for decades, this was the first time he had experienced such a terrifyingly penetrating power in a live performance "without high notes," a power far surpassing the high notes of any vocal giant.

This is not penetrating power that can penetrate the eardrum.

This is the penetrating power that penetrates your deepest memories.

The second chorus begins.

The strings and guitar entered simultaneously, slightly expanding the soundstage, but Xu Qing firmly suppressed the maximum volume.

All the instruments made way for the bass of the Luo Qianyu.

"I once poured my youth into her—"

Some people in the audience on the third floor started sobbing.

It wasn't a loud, wailing cry; it was a dull, uncontrollable, physiological tear duct collapse, suppressed in the nasal cavity.

"I too once played out the vibrant summer with my fingertips—"

Luo Qianyu walked deeper into the song.

The last paragraph.

The cello bow fell silent, the guitar fell silent, and once again she was alone on the stage.

"The evening breeze stirs the white hair at your temples—"

The lyrics in the original version were a gentle remembrance, but when sung in Luo Qianyu's low voice at this moment, they became an almost inaudible reconciliation with all the worlds that had ever hurt her.

It's not forgiveness.

After she had walked through that muddy path, she finally no longer needed to prove anything.

"In the name of love, are you still willing?"

The last note.

So low that it almost disappeared into the air.

It was like a gust of wind that just started and then stopped.

The entire room fell silent.

Five seconds.

Seven seconds.

Nine seconds.

The tenth second.

A middle-aged man on the third floor suddenly stood up, tears streaming down his face, and clasped his hands together tightly.

The applause was like a spark falling into a pile of dry wood.

The entire studio erupted in chaos the next second—not with applause, but with sobs.

The emotions of three thousand people were like a floodgate being opened at the same time. Tears, screams, and stomping shook the entire skeleton of the building. Some people squatted on their seats and covered their faces, while others stood up and hugged the strangers next to them.

Fang Hong neither slammed his fist on the table nor stood up.

He took off his glasses, covered his face with his hands, and his shoulders heaved violently next to the voting machine.

Thirty seconds later, he looked up into the microphone, his voice hoarse and distorted.

Who says singing has to involve hitting high notes?

Adam leaned against the wall in the waiting area, his deep blue eyes brimming with tears.

His right hand, which was holding the mineral water bottle, trembled slightly before he gently placed the bottle on the ground.

Then he clapped his hands, very hard, until his palms turned red.

Three seats behind camera position number seven, Zhang Wei's hand remained next to the microphone, unable to pick it up.

The three drafts he had prepared in his mind were all shredded into scrap paper.

Fang Licheng's mouth was open, like a stranded fish, unable to close it for a long time.

They prepared all the templates for "failures" in their reviews—but they didn't prepare any solutions for "being thoroughly humiliated."

What did you say?

They say her bass voice isn't good?

Three thousand people are crying, and you fucking say her low voice isn't good?

When the rankings were announced, the control room was in complete chaos.

Luo Qianyu achieved a total score of 97.4, ranking first in a single period.

Fault.

They pulled ahead of the second-place team by a full three and eight points.

The second place went to Adam Lambert.

The studio erupted in thunderous cheers once again.

With tears in her eyes, the host walked up to Luo Qianyu, opening her mouth several times but failing to utter a complete sentence.

Luo Qianyu stood under that beam of white light, trembling all over.

She didn't cry.

It's not that I don't want to cry—it's that I can't cry.

The cruel fact that people with vocal cord edema are not even allowed to cry loudly has become a strange force that makes her expression calm to the point of being almost sacred.

She turned around and looked at the dark corner to the right rear of the stage.

Xu Qing was still sitting there, his guitar on his lap, his hat brim covering his eyes, so his expression was not visible.

Luo Qianyu walked over.

Three thousand people watched as she walked across the stage toward the person in the shadows.

She walked up to him, knelt down, and cupped his face in her hands.

Xu Qing lifted the brim of his hat.

Those eyes, bloodshot and filled with tears, held a very faint glimmer of moisture.

Luo Qianyu opened her mouth.

She didn't say anything—not because of the censorship order.

It's because all the things I wanted to say had already been sung in that song.

She pressed her forehead against his and closed her eyes.

Xu Qing reached out and precisely straightened the earpiece wire that had been tilted because she was looking down.

The sound of camera shutters clicking filled the room.

—In the early hours of that night, Luo Qianyu was wrapped in a blanket and nestled on the sofa when Xu Qing came out of the kitchen with freshly cooked noodles and placed the bowl on the coffee table in front of her.

"Eat and go to sleep. I need to go to the hospital for a follow-up check-up tomorrow."

Luo Qianyu held up the note: "Was salt added to the noodles today?"

"Release them."

"How many?"

"Normal amount".

Luo Qianyu picked up her chopsticks with satisfaction, put the first bite of noodles into her mouth, and her eyes curved into crescents.

On her way back to the living room from the kitchen, Xu Qing casually pushed open the half-closed door of the study as she passed by, intending to turn off the light inside.

His hand had just touched the switch.

Suddenly all the lights in the room went out.

Not just the study—the ceiling lights in the living room, the wall lights in the hallway, and the spotlights in the kitchen were all turned off at the same time.

Then the computer screen on the desk suddenly lit up.

Against a glaring black background, a line of blood-red English letters pops up one by one from the center of the screen.

"You saved her. But can you save the girl who died in that lab?"

You can save her.

Can we save the girl who died in the lab back then?

The next line appears immediately afterward, with a larger font size than the previous line.

"SIREN EVIDENCE. TOMORROW."

Siren false evidence.

See you tomorrow.

Xu Qing stood in the darkness, her fingers still resting on the light switch.

From the living room came Luo Qianyu's indistinct chewing sounds and the clinking of chopsticks against the rim of a bowl.

She was still eating noodles, wrapped in a blanket, completely unaware.

Xu Qing silently closed the study door.

Then he stood in the darkness behind the door and slowly clenched his fist.