vstars Chapter 37, A Girl's Blushing~
Chapter 37, A Girl's Blushing~
"Go ahead," Shen Meng pushed her, "Going in and taking a look won't hurt you."
Zhang Ruonan took a deep breath, pushed open the heavy soundproof door, and walked into the recording studio.
The moment the door closed, all outside noise was instantly cut off.
In that instant, she felt as if she had been put into a transparent box, where she could see people walking, talking, and laughing outside, but she couldn't hear any sound.
The whole world was as quiet as a blank sheet of paper.
She walked to the microphone and stood still.
The microphone is silver with some tiny scratches on the surface, as if it has been used by many people.
She wondered if any of those traces were left by one of her favorite singers.
she does not know.
She stood there, unsure of what to do with her hands, which finally hung down at her sides, her fingers slightly curled.
She looked out the glass window at the control room. Yangyang Jin was on the phone, Shen Meng was sitting on the sofa drinking milk tea, and the sound engineer was looking down at the sheet music.
Nobody was looking at her.
My phone vibrated.
She took it out and saw it was a WeChat message from Shen Meng, who was sitting outside through the glass window sending the message.
"Stop standing there daydreaming, look at your headphones."
Zhang Ruonan glanced down at the headphones, picked them up, and put them on.
There was no sound from the headphones, but she could feel the soft, warm foam of the earcups against her ears, like a hug.
She recalled the first time she heard Gao Huan's song, "One Meat and One Vegetable".
That night, she was alone in her dorm room. Her roommates were all asleep. She wore headphones and turned the volume down as low as possible, afraid of disturbing them.
She started crying as she listened, both because of the lyrics and because of the person's voice.
The voice sounded like someone calling her from a great distance. It wasn't loud, but it was very penetrating and could be heard even across mountains and rivers.
Now, she stands where he will be, wearing the same headphones, waiting for him to arrive.
Time passes slowly.
Zhang Ruonan stood in the recording studio for more than ten minutes, then came out, returned to the control room, and sat down on the sofa.
Shen Meng handed her the milk tea. She took a sip; it was already cold, but she thought it tasted great.
Yangyang Jin walked in from outside, holding a stack of documents in her hand, and glanced at the time.
"It's 5:30, he should be finishing work now."
Her phone vibrated as soon as she finished speaking.
She answered the call, hummed in agreement twice, hung up, and smiled at Zhang Ruonan.
"It's here, it's on its way."
Zhang Ruonan tightened her grip on the milk tea cup slightly.
Shen Meng whispered in her ear, "Can you please stop squeezing it? You're about to crush the cup."
Zhang Ruonan looked down and saw that the milk tea cup had indeed been deformed by her squeezing it, with a little milk tea seeping out from the edge of the lid and sticking to her fingers.
She quickly put down the cup and took a tissue to wipe her hands.
When Yangyang Jin saw this, the corners of her mouth curved slightly.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor.
As they drew closer, Zhang Ruonan's heart pounded as if it would jump out of her throat.
The soundproof door was pushed open.
Gao Huan was wearing a dark gray windbreaker with the collar turned up. His hair was unkempt, with stray hairs hanging down and covering one eyebrow.
His makeup wasn't completely removed, and there was a faint layer of grayish-black around his eyes.
That was Shen Lian's weary look, which hadn't completely faded from his appearance.
When he walked in, the temperature in the entire control room seemed to change.
Zhang Ruonan couldn't tell if it had gotten colder or hotter, but the air felt different.
It was like a pebble being thrown into a stagnant pool, causing ripples to spread silently.
She stood up so quickly that the chair pushed back half a step, making a slight scraping sound.
Gao Huan's gaze swept over and landed on her face.
In the real world, a face that rivals John Lone and is even more handsome than Daniel Wu is right in front of her, smaller and closer than on the screen, so close that she can see the beauty mark at the corner of his eye.
"Zhang Ruonan?" Gao Huan asked.
Her voice was deeper than the ones she had heard on TV or in interviews, with a slight hoarseness, as if she had just finished filming a scene that required her to shout.
"Hmm." She felt that her voice was much more stable this time than when she spoke to Yangyang Jin at the airport.
"Let's go," Gao Huan said, looking at her. His voice wasn't loud, but it had a kind of solidity that made people unconsciously listen. "Go in and give it a try."
He turned and walked toward the door of the recording studio, the hem of his windbreaker fluttering gently with the movement.
Zhang Ruonan stared at his retreating figure, stunned.
"Let's go." Shen Meng gently nudged her, and she finally snapped out of her daze.
She followed behind, taking smaller steps than usual.
The recording studio door was open, and Gao Huan was already standing in front of the microphone, adjusting the headphone position.
When he lowered his head, the collar of his windbreaker pressed against his chin, and his Adam's apple moved slightly in the shadow of the light.
Zhang Ruonan walked in and stood in front of the microphone next to him.
Gao Huan didn't rush to have Zhang Ruonan sing.
He stood in front of the microphone, holding the headset with one hand, his head slightly lowered, and hummed a few times.
Those few hums didn't have any lyrics, but the pitch was incredibly good.
The sound wasn't loud, but it was extremely penetrating, making Zhang Ruonan feel as if it had pierced her heart.
Yangyang Jin leaned against the door frame, a slight smile playing on her lips.
She had heard it countless times, but every time she heard it, she still felt that this person was born to do this job.
Huang Xiaoyun stood in front of the microphone in the control room, looking at Gao Huan through the glass, her expression as calm as still water.
At this moment, Huang Xiaoyun is standing in this recording studio, and her mindset is completely different from Zhang Ruonan's.
Zhang Ruonan was the lucky fan who was chosen; she was selected as a promising young talent.
Both of them were nervous, but the underlying reasons for their nervousness were different.
One is afraid of being too bad, and the other is afraid of not being good enough or stable enough.
After humming the last syllable, Gao Huan took off his headphones and glanced at Zhang Ruonan standing next to him.
"Give it a try, sing a few lines, and see if you can get a feel for it."
Zhang Ruonan took a deep breath, put on her headphones, and brought the microphone closer.
She chose "Unfortunately, If Only," a song she knew best. As the intro played in her headphones, her fingers unconsciously tightened around the microphone stand.
The first line sounds like a child who has just learned to walk, stumbling forward and falling down after only a few steps.
She could hear it herself; her voice dropped at the end, as if she had stepped into thin air.
In the second line, she tried to pull back, but she overdid it, and the tone veered in another direction.
Shen Meng laughed so hard she leaned over the mixing console through the glass; she genuinely found it adorable.
That kind of cuteness that makes you think, "Why is my best friend so funny?"
At the same time, she was calmer than Zhang Ruonan, and she knew that Gao Huan had made it very clear that Xiao Zhang was invited to be the female lead in the music video, not the singer.
Huang Xiaoyun stood to the side, her expression unchanged.
She had already watched Zhang Ruonan's cover video and knew that she was not a professional singer, so it was expected that she would sing off-key.
But when she actually stood in the same recording studio and listened to her sing a cappella, she couldn't help but shudder.
That voice is definitely not suited for singing.
He had six of the seven orifices open, but his musical notes were incomplete.
But she didn't say it aloud.
She's only fifteen, but she's already learned to keep quiet when necessary.
Gao Huan didn't say anything either.
After Zhang Ruonan finished singing, she seemed completely drained, standing there with her face flushed red from the base of her neck upwards.
The red was the color of blood rushing to the head, spreading from the collarbone all the way to the tips of the ears, even turning the earlobes into a transparent pink, like flower buds just sprouting on branches in early spring being tinted by the sunset.
She didn't know where to put her fingers; the microphone stand was clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned white, and she kept clenching and unclenching repeatedly.
Her throat felt like it was blocked by something. She wanted to say, "I didn't sing well," but her lips moved and she couldn't squeeze out a single word.
My eyes reddened first, not because I wanted to cry, but because the surge of blood brought tears to my eyes as well.
Gao Huan looked at her.
She stood in front of the microphone, wearing that white turtleneck sweater, her face flushed from her neck to her forehead, as if someone had set her on fire from the inside.
The fire burned quietly and silently, but the temperature was so high that even the air felt hot.
Her eyelashes trembled slightly, like butterfly wings struggling in the final moments before a downpour. Her lips were pressed into a thin line; she dared not look at him, yet did not know where to look.
In the control room, Shen Meng was laughing so hard she couldn't stand up straight, but her eyes reddened after she finished laughing.
She remembered Zhang Ruonan practicing singing over and over again in front of her phone in the dormitory, and the resigned tone in her voice when she said, "I really sing terribly."
Now she stood in front of Gao Huan and sang, off-key, but...
She went up to the top.
Yangyang Jin leaned against the door frame, looking at Zhang Ruonan's flushed face, and suddenly remembered a sentence she had seen somewhere.
There are few truths in this world; a woman's blush is worth more than a long dialogue.
"It's nothing," Gao Huan said, her voice not loud, but every word was clear in the soundproof room.
"It's normal to sing off-key; you're not a professional singer."
In the music video, you don't need to sing well; you just need to stand there and look good. You have a rare, first-love quality about you!
He said this in a calm tone, not as if he were praising someone, but more as if he were stating a fact.
But Zhang Ruonan found it very gentle.
When she heard the word "good-looking," her face turned even redder.
She remembered that comment she had scrolled through countless times.
"Gao Huan is almost perfect. I cried when I saw her at the fan meeting! She's beautiful, talented, and gentle."
Now she was standing next to that person, less than a meter away, and she felt that the comment was backwards.
It's not that he's not good enough, it's that when you're too close, you feel like you don't deserve to stand there, and then you feel so wronged that you want to cry.
But she held back.
Huang Xiaoyun glanced at Zhang Ruonan, then at Gao Huan, and walked forward with a normal expression, standing in front of the microphone.
She didn't have many inner thoughts. For a girl who would only turn sixteen in a few days, when you are too far away from someone, you won't even have the thought of profanity.
Gao Huan is the boss, the senior colleague, and the voice I've heard countless times in the demos but is now standing beside me.
She doesn't need to blush; she just needs to sing well.
She spoke.
When the first sentence was uttered, the control room fell silent for a moment.
The sound engineer's hand remained on the fader, motionless.
Her voice was as steady as a nail driven into pitch, perfectly balanced and unwavering.
The technology certainly didn't reach its peak in later generations, but the timbre was already undeniable, like a fine jade wrapped in coarse cloth, with light leaking out from the gaps in the cloth, so bright that it was impossible to look away.
After listening, Gao Huan nodded without saying much.
His requirements for Huang Xiaoyun were different from those for Zhang Ruonan. Zhang Ruonan didn't need to sing well, and Huang Xiaoyun didn't need to act well.
Each person performs their duties and remains in their proper place.
"That's enough," Gao Huan said. "Xiaoyun, try your highest note again. I want to hear your control again. As for Ruonan, you can go out and rest for a while."
Zhang Ruonan was stunned for a moment, and then gripped the headphone cord in her hand even tighter.
"it is good."
Just as she was stammering and about to speak, Huang Xiaoyun spoke up, singing in a coloratura style that was simply heavenly.
As expected of a professional singer, Zhang Ruonan couldn't help but think that after "Confession Balloon" aired, this song would definitely become one that she would hum from time to time.
She may only have one lyric, "Darling, I fell in love with you from that day on," but she is the female lead in the music video, Gao Huan's person, and appears in the main shot.
Zhang Ruonan's lips curled up slightly.
Instead of using the studio's own backing track, he made a phone call.
The call was answered quickly, and Gao Huan only said a few words.
"We're here? Come in."
The recording studio door was pushed open, and four people walked in.
Leading the way was Wei Wei, the keyboardist for the band Travel Group. He wore round-framed glasses, a faded denim jacket, and carried a black equipment case.
Following behind were lead singer Kong Yichan, guitarist Huang Zijun, and bassist Zhu Huan.
When the four people walked in, the space in the control room suddenly became a bit crowded, but the atmosphere also changed.
It went from a "recording studio" to a "studio," and from "serious" to "casual."
"Brother Huan."
Wei Weichong nodded to Gao Huan, as familiarly as if he were greeting his own brother.
"They're here," Gao Huan stepped back from the microphone, making room for them.
"The arrangement for 'Confession Balloon' will follow the same old rules: listen to the demo first, and then follow your own interpretation. You don't have to follow the original version."
Wei Wei didn't say much. He put down the equipment box, sat down in front of the mixing console, and put on his headphones.
Kong Yichan leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets, looking as relaxed as if he were in his own living room.
Huang Zijun and Zhu Huan were whispering to each other, occasionally laughing. Their demeanor was exactly the same as Gao Huan's when they were recording "The Ordinary Road" and "Nanshan South".
It's both "working" and "playing music".
The tour group was Gao Huan's old partner.
The arrangement and harmony of "The Ordinary Road" and "South of the Mountain" were done in collaboration with them.
Gao Huan's cooperation model with them is very simple.
He provided the demo, they provided the arrangement, and after listening, he would nod or shake his head, making almost no changes.
Yangyang Jin took out a few bottles of water from the corner and handed them over. Wei Wei took them, unscrewed the caps, took a sip, and didn't say anything, his eyes fixed on the audio track on the screen.
Standing next to her best friend, watching all this, Zhang Ruonan suddenly felt as if she had stepped into a world that did not belong to her.
Her face, still flushed from the intense heat, hadn't completely cooled down, but her heart was filled with anticipation and longing for the new world.