I was exposed for adding my female boss to my group of female friends.

……

The actual situation is even more exaggerated than Jiang Xinhai described.

She only accompanied Chen Ya to look at apartments in the evening, then went back to school, took a nap, and had a dream that was neither good nor bad.

After she got up, she suddenly realized that she had been tricked.

If her mother knew that she had just casually used a quarter of her savings to rent an apartment off-campus with a deposit of one month's rent and three months' rent in advance, and that she had rented it from a guy she had only known for one day, what would her mother say to her?

She'll probably be called shameless and unscrupulous, and depending on her mood at the time, she might even hurl more insults.

Upon arriving at the apartment, she immediately spotted the landlady she had met the day before, who was currently helping workers carry an electronic keyboard upstairs.

The landlady, arms crossed, suddenly noticed Jiang Xinhai and whispered, "Is that your boyfriend?"

==

Thank you to the author of "The Spirit Realm Walker," Mr. Newspaper Boy, for recommending this chapter.

I'm sorry I got criticized for recommending my lowbrow book!

Chapter 125 The Blade Wolf (Thanks to Yu Shengyi for the donation)

Is that your boyfriend?

"……no."

After the other person gave him an expression that said, "No wonder they're celebrities, they're already living together before they're even boyfriend and girlfriend," Jiang Xinhai realized for the first time how unpredictable people's hearts are.

She rushed upstairs with an air of leaving everything behind, and as soon as she pushed open the door, a cacophony of guitar and drumbeats poured out.

The first snow of 2012 came later than usual.

The No. 2 bus, parked on the eighth floor, carried away the last fallen yellow leaf…

Jiang Xinhai heard a hoarse and unfamiliar voice singing loudly, and a smell of gasoline mixed with sweat and mutton wafted towards him.

She choked so hard that tears welled up in her eyes. She lowered her head and started coughing, clutching her throat.

Chen Ya sat in the room, banging away on the drums with a smile on his face, while another short, stout man wearing a baseball cap held a guitar and strummed the strings as he sang into the microphone.

Jiang Xinhai was so shocked by this sudden and shocking scene that he couldn't speak for a long time. It was only after Chen Ya struck the cymbals several times that the noise dissipated from the room like the receding tide of soldiers.

Jiang Xinhai had a bit of tinnitus and rubbed his small ears.

"Let me introduce you," Chen Ya said, standing up. "Xin Hai, this is Luo Ling, and Luo Ling, this is Jiang Xin Hai."

The man in the baseball cap nodded to Jiang Xinhai and said, "Hello! I've heard so much about you!"

Jiang Xinhai looked him up and down, then pinched his nose.

She was certain that, regardless of the source of the body odor, the muttony smell was definitely coming from this person.

"Sorry, I just moved a lot of things, and I'm covered in sweat," the man said with an embarrassed smile.

Looking around the room, there were two enormous cardboard boxes, a sofa, a drum set, a guitar, and an electronic keyboard.

Jiang Xinhai pointed at Chen Ya and said, "It's okay, he's covered in sweat too."

Chen Ya pointed at the man and said, "Luo Ling is my friend. He just happened to come to see me today, so I'm hanging out with him and helping him practice his new song."

Luo Ling put his arm around Chen Ya's shoulder and said, "What friend? Chen Ya is my guide, my guide!"

"Oh." Jiang Xinhai didn't really understand.

She looked Luo Ling up and down. He looked to be around thirty years old and was wearing an ill-fitting dark green short-sleeved T-shirt with a crude cartoon head printed in the middle. His middle-aged belly was protruding.

Like Chen Ya, he was also wearing a pair of sneakers.

These two have the same taste in clothing, are unfashionable, and are unrestrained. They were having a blast playing music earlier, which made Jiang Xinhai want to call them the Sneaker Brothers.

"Was that his new song?" Jiang Xinhai asked.

"Yes, it's called 'The First Snow of 2012'," Chen Ya said. "This song is definitely going to be a hit!"

Jiang Xinhai wasn't very convinced.

She felt that the song didn't sound like it was sung, but rather howled. Or rather, it sounded like it was spoken.

Chen Ya suddenly pointed at Luo Ling and said, "Come on, take out your tanbur, let's sing another song!"

Luo Ling rubbed his hands excitedly: "Is it okay? I won't disturb you?"

"Sure, sing! Let your music reach the depths of my heart!"

Luo Ling pulled out a musical instrument with exotic features from a dusty, yellow-and-black travel bag on the ground.

"What is this?" Jiang Xinhai asked.

“Tanbur,” Chen Ya said, “a kind of folk instrument. When you listen to this, the feeling is absolutely different.”

Luo Ling plucked the strings, and the strings rang out in a delicate, ticklish sound, like the scorching winds of the Taklamakan Desert, stirring up fine sand as they swept across the dunes.

"Let me introduce myself. I was born in the Western Regions and I make a living by wandering," Luo Ling said, stroking his chest. "I have traveled through deserts, grasslands, mountains, and plateaus. I have crossed great rivers and visited many remote places."

"I am using my feet and my throat to search for my music. My music comes from nature, from the most intense emotions in the loneliest journeys."

"I had heard of Jiang Xinhai before, and I feel very honored to have a celebrity like you hear my songs before my concert. I am also very grateful to Teacher Chen Ya for giving me this opportunity."

Having said that, he plucked the strings and opened his throat:

The first snow of 2012

It's the lingering attachment I have to WLMQ.

You are like a butterfly flitting about.

Swaying in the season of falling snow.

……

After listening, Jiang Xinhai mechanically clapped.

She still couldn't see anything good about it.

After studying at Binhai University for a period of time, she had learned about the structure of music.

Structurally speaking, this song has no structure at all.

Not to mention the pre-chorus, bridge, etc., there's not much difference between the verse and the chorus.

The whole song is like blending eggs and tomatoes together in a juicer, then throwing them into a pan and frying them repeatedly, finally serving it as scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

In terms of singing skills, Luo Ling can only be described as having no singing skills at all. Her voice is as rough as the wind blowing from the Taklamakan Desert, mixed with sand and gravel. As the wind howls in your ears, the tone rises and falls dryly, as if telling the story of the hardships the wind has gone through.

The only thing that Jiang Xinhai found strange was that although the melody of the song was completely unoriginal and lacked any ups and downs, he didn't find it boring at all while listening to the whole song.

After Luo Ling finished singing, she actually started crying.

The thirty-year-old man released Tanbul's hand, but touched his own cheek, wiping away more and more tears.

Chen Ya walked over like an older brother and patted him hard on the back.

"Don't cry, don't cry. Look, Jiang Xinhai is applauding for you. Isn't your dream about to come true?"

Luo Ling sobbed uncontrollably, shaking her head and saying, "Teacher Chen Ya, I can't do it anymore. I'm under too much pressure. I'm going to ruin the concert..."

Chen Ya shoved his shoulder with a look of disgust: "What kind of behavior is this, crying and sobbing? Show some heroism."

“They said I don’t understand music, that I have no aesthetic sense, that I’m just a country bumpkin… Actually, it’s not so bad that they say anything, but they also say that my music fans are all farmers, migrant workers, people who don’t know how to appreciate music…”

Chen Ya patted his back to comfort him, saying, "Why do you care about them? I, Chen Ya, approve of you, and that's enough. Don't listen to them. They don't know anything."

The man said, "But my mother and my wife both listened to them and called me, saying, 'Why don't you just give up on music? You can't succeed. All those senior figures and big stars have said so. You'll never amount to anything. You'll just be a failure...'"

Chen Ya said, "The more they think that way, the more you need to prove yourself, right?"

Luo Ling was still sobbing, and Chen Ya gave Jiang Xinhai an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, it's an important day for him in a while, and he's a bit emotionally unstable."

Jiang Xinhai nodded, sat down gracefully to the side, and said:

"It's nothing, I feel... I feel he must really love his music."

Luo Ling stopped crying.

"How did you know?" Chen Ya asked.

Jiang Xinhai said, "It's just a feeling."

Although she wasn't moved by Luo Ling's music, she was moved by his passion for it.

"You're about to hold a concert, right?" Jiang Xinhai asked.

The man nodded: "In another month, I will be holding my first concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum."

Jiang Xinhai nodded: "That's great! You must be a really good singer to be able to hold a concert. How come I've never heard of you before?"

Chen Ya said, "Luo Ling is his real name, his stage name. You must have heard of it."

What is his stage name?

"Knife Wolf".

==

Thank you to author Yan ZK of "The Museum of Demon Suppression" for recommending this chapter!

Report on achievements + bonus chapter explanation

First, I'd like to thank the author of "Red Heart Patrols the Heavens" for recommending this chapter.

Seven or eight years ago, when I was writing on Zhihu, I read many of Ashin's short stories and always thought he was awesome.

Later, he wrote me a very long reply, and that's when I realized he already knew about me.

However, we are both introverted. We added each other as friends 20 years ago, but it wasn't until yesterday that I spoke to him for the first time.

The first time I spoke to him was when I asked for his stamp.

Yesterday, the physical book of Volume 3 of "The Crimson Heart Patrols the Heavens" was released. He was worried that people wouldn't see the chapter recommendation for me, so he specially wrote a lot of it and put it at the top, squeezing his own book information to the second page.

Ash is really cute.

Here's a little-known fact: When Ashin was writing "Red Heart Patrols the Sky," he already had 100,000 followers on Zhihu.

Zhihu is different from Weibo. Back then, being able to get 100,000 followers on Zhihu was something that couldn't be described simply as "awesome".

However, the initial subscription for "Red Heart Patrol" was only 60.

Most people would have cut the book and left unless they were desperate.

But he managed to write over two million words despite only achieving mediocre subscription numbers.

This is something that only those with great perseverance can accomplish.

Only an author who has a strong belief in the quality of their work can endure the hardship of sitting alone under a lamp for so long while writing.

Closer to home.

Here's a report on the performance on the first day of release.

The book achieved 3800 first-hour sales.

On the first day, there were two alliance leaders, and the rest of the rewards totaled around 76300 points, plus over 400 monthly tickets...

Before it was published, I almost stopped updating because I was away taking an exam, my stockpile of chapters ran out, and half of the readers had stopped following the story. I thought I was going to fail.

The results were better than anyone expected, especially for my editor Ziliang, who thought it would be less than two or three thousand (but it doesn't matter, I love him).

The bonus chapter rules I mentioned the day before yesterday are: one bonus chapter for every 500 first subscriptions and one bonus chapter for every 2 donations.

Some data websites have given me a first subscription of 4000, so I'll use 4000 as the first subscription and add 8 more chapters.

The bonus chapter for those who donate is rounded up to 14 chapters.

So, in total, I owe 22 chapters. I already made up for 2 yesterday, so I still owe 20 chapters...

The pressure is immense...

I posted four pictures yesterday, working until 11:4 PM. My body is worn out; my head is still throbbing. Next week is probably going to be another super busy week; I feel like I'm about to collapse again.

We don't have any drafts saved up. To ensure a steady flow of content, let's discuss gradually repaying the extra chapters, one or two a day at a time. We'll slowly finish repaying all the extra chapters eventually.