Assistant Xiao Wang gripped the lightweight USB drive as he returned to Zhang Ji's studio, located on the top floor of the Weihai Building.

He felt as if he wasn't holding a film score, but rather some freebie thrown in by a shop owner after buying pirated discs at the computer mall downstairs.

As soon as he stepped through the door, the characteristic scent of a film set—a mix of high-end equipment heat and dust—hit him.

Inside the screening room, the lighting was dim. Only the massive monitor screen was lit, casting a silver glow over Zhang Ji's signature salt-and-pepper hair.

"Director, the... stuff is here." Assistant Xiao Wang handed over the USB drive, his tone carrying thirty percent uncertainty and seventy percent distrust.

He weighed his words carefully but still couldn't help himself.

"But... I don't feel like it's very reliable. That Lu Zhixian looks like he just crawled out of an all-night session at an internet cafe—unshaven, and his attitude was... pretty casual."

Zhang Ji didn't even turn his head; his gaze remained glued to the unrendered gray-box models on the screen. He simply reached out his hand.

Assistant Xiao Wang tactfully shut his mouth and placed the USB drive into Zhang Ji's open palm.

No extra words were spoken.

Zhang Ji took the USB drive, turned around, and plugged it into a top-tier audio workstation nearby—minimalist in design, but expensive enough to buy an entire floor of the office building downstairs.

He opened the folder; inside was a single, lonely audio file and one video file.

He double-clicked the audio file directly.

*Click*.

The moment he pressed the play button, the air in the screening room seemed to be sucked out.

There was no melody as expected.

The first sound to ring out wasn't music at all.

It was an extremely low, deep, yet incredibly ethereal hum.

It didn't sound like it was coming from the speakers; it felt more like it was traveling from the singularity of the universe, from the very end of time.

The professional expression on Assistant Xiao Wang's face instantly froze.

He didn't feel like he was sitting in a screening room worth tens of millions; he felt as if he had been stripped bare and tossed into the boundless void of space, surrounded by absolute darkness and cold, with only distant nebulae slowly and ruthlessly being born and dying.

This... was the breathing of the universe.

Immediately after, the sound of a piano began.

It wasn't a flashy display of technique, just a few simple, clean notes—like someone gently pushing open a dust-covered window on a silent, snowy night.

Outside that window lay a hometown one could never return to.

On the screen, the footage showed the protagonist looking back through a porthole at the shrinking blue planet.

What was originally just a slightly vacant look from the actor was, at this moment, infused with a soul by these few notes.

It was longing, it was a final farewell; it was the smallest yet greatest courage of humanity—to cut off all paths of retreat even while knowing the road ahead is infinite.

Assistant Xiao Wang's mouth hung open unconsciously.

He had watched this footage no less than fifty times, but only today did he truly understand the look in the protagonist's eyes.

The music continued.

As the starship's engines ignited, preparing for the first spatial jump, the string section cut in abruptly with a momentum that could sweep away anything in its path.

The hurried, passionate, and crescendoing violins were like countless streaks of light piercing the darkness. The steady, heavy cellos represented the starship's own indestructible armor.

In that music, there was the massive roar of engines, the painful groan of metal under extreme pressure, and the fear and excitement of a human heart racing while traversing the unknown.

Assistant Xiao Wang felt waves of numbness across his scalp.

What he saw before his eyes were clearly still crude 3D models, but what his ears heard was an entire epic blockbuster with all special effects rendering completed.

The music gave weight to those gray models and warmth to those virtual lights and shadows.

The climax arrived.

Just as the starship burst out of the wormhole and a never-before-seen sea of brilliant stars slowly unfolded before the protagonist.

The sound of a pipe organ descended without warning, like a divine oracle.

Majestic. Solemn. Sacred.

*Thud!*

Zhang Ji suddenly stood up from his custom director's chair.

He wasn't looking at the screen; his bloodshot eyes were staring fixedly at the empty air in the screening room, as if he could see the end of the universe that existed only in his imagination.

His lips were trembling, his Adam's apple bobbed, and after a long while, he squeezed a few words from his throat.

"This is it..."

"This is the one!"

"This is the fucking sound I wanted!"

This "Madman Zhang," who could scold a Best Actor until he was miserable on set and flip tables in front of investors, now had a vibrato in his voice that bordered on religious pilgrimage.

The score slowly reached its end, finally returning to that silent cosmic background noise from the beginning before fading into nothingness.

The screening room was deathly silent.

Assistant Xiao Wang was still in that mouth-agape pose, slumped in his chair as if his bones had been removed, his mind a total blank.

What had he just heard?

He didn't know.

He only knew that the worldview he had built over thirty-plus years seemed to have been crushed by the music just now.

After a long time, Zhang Ji slowly sat back down.

He picked up his phone from the table, his fingers trembling slightly with excitement as he found the number he had only called once and dialed it himself.

The phone rang twice before being picked up.

"Hello?" Lu Zhixian's voice came through, thick with nasality—clearly, he had just been woken up.

"Teacher Lu!"

Zhang Ji spoke, addressing him with immense solemnity, even carrying a hint of respect that he hadn't noticed himself.

Lu Zhixian seemed to pause for a moment on the other end: "...Director Zhang?"

"It's me!" Zhang Ji spoke extremely fast, fearing the other person might hang up the next second.

"I've heard the score! This is it! Perfect! It's even more perfect than what I imagined in my dreams!"

"Oh, as long as it's okay." Lu Zhixian's voice sounded indifferent.

Half an hour ago, Assistant Xiao Wang would have thought this nonchalant attitude was just him acting cool.

But now, he felt this was exactly the demeanor a true master should have.

What looks like a miracle to you is just their daily routine.

"Money! I'll have accounting wire the full amount immediately!" Zhang Ji's tone left no room for argument.

"Also, Teacher Lu, what was that 'Easter egg' you mentioned?"

"Oh, that." Lu Zhixian let out a yawn.

"Just open the video called 'Recording Behind-the-Scenes' on the USB drive and you'll see."

He paused and lazily added another sentence.

"A friendly tip: don't share it around. I'm... a relatively low-key person."

After hanging up, Zhang Ji immediately turned his gaze back to the screen.

Assistant Xiao Wang also leaned in curiously; he wanted to see what kind of 'Easter egg' the person who could create such music would have.

Zhang Ji moved the mouse and clicked on the video file named [Recording Behind-the-Scenes.mp4].

The next second.

The screen lit up.

The expected luxury recording lineup consisting of a top international symphony orchestra and a cathedral organist did not appear.

In the video was the recording room of Xian Dong Wo Xin Studio, which they were all too familiar with.

Lu Zhixian, with a head of messy hair like a bird's nest and wearing a crumpled T-shirt, was sitting in front of a MIDI keyboard.

He first played a complex piano melody with fluid grace and recorded it.

Next was the bass.

Seeing this, Zhang Ji and Assistant Xiao Wang only felt that this kid was really good with instruments.

But this was still far from the level of shattering their worldview.

The true shock began in the next second.

After recording those, Lu Zhixian sat back amidst that pile of keyboards and synthesizers.

He reached out both hands, his fingers flying across the keys.

On the screen, the software's audio tracks were increasing at a terrifying speed.

Track one, violin section.

Track two, viola section.

Track three, cello section.

...

He, alone, used a single synthesizer to simulate an entire string section! And the realism of the timbre and the delicacy of the emotion were simply appalling!

And that wasn't all.

The moment that familiar pipe organ sound flowed from his fingertips.

Lu Zhixian, alone, in one recording studio.

At times he closed his eyes, his body swaying gently with the music.

At other times, he frowned, repeatedly adjusting the parameters of a certain synthesizer, his requirements for the phase of a timbre being demanding to a perverted degree.

He alone was an army.

One person had replicated the heartbeat of the entire universe.

At the end of the video, Lu Zhixian, having finished the recording, stretched and gave a tired but incredibly brilliant smile to the camera.

He said, "Finished. Going to sleep."

The frame froze.

In the screening room, one could hear a pin drop.

Slowly, very slowly, Zhang Ji bent down and picked up the mouse from the floor.

He looked up at that smile on the screen and murmured to himself, as if asking himself or asking this question that had overturned his cognitive world.

"Is this... seriously a one-man job?"