Saturday morning, 10:00 AM.

The car turned into a narrow alley in the outskirts of Beijing.

Old Zhao sat in the passenger seat; he hadn't stopped talking since they got in the car.

"Mr. Zhou debuted in the eighties, became a legend in the nineties, and retired at the height of his fame in the early 2000s," Old Zhao said in a lowered voice.

"He is a universally recognized titan of the Chinese music scene. He's produced seven superstars and three Golden Melody Award-winning best producers."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Lu Zhixian leaned back in the rear seat, his eyes closed.

"To make you a little nervous," Old Zhao turned back to glare at him.

"Fine, I'm nervous."

Lu Zhixian opened his eyes, expressionless.

Old Zhao glanced at him and slapped the three pages of paper hard against his thigh.

"You call this nervous?"

The car stopped in front of a gray wooden door.

The driver turned off the engine.

Old Zhao was about to open the door when Lu Zhixian held him back.

"Wait in the car."

"What for?"

"He invited me for tea, not you. If you go in, it'll be harder for the old gentleman to speak freely."

Old Zhao opened his mouth, then closed it again.

He sat back down and buckled his seatbelt.

"Remember, speak less and listen more."

"Mm."

Lu Zhixian pushed open the car door, walked to the wooden door, and knocked three times.

The door opened from within.

A middle-aged man in a dark blue jacket stood behind the door, wearing glasses and with neatly combed hair.

"Mr. Lu? I am Mr. Zhou's assistant, Old Zhang."

"Hello."

"Please, come in."

The courtyard wasn't large, about fifty square meters, but it was kept immaculately clean.

In the center of the courtyard stood an old pagoda tree. Its trunk was so thick that two people couldn't wrap their arms around it, and its foliage covered nearly half the yard.

A set of stone table and stools was arranged under the tree.

An old man sat on a stone stool, a set of purple clay tea set before him with steam rising from the teapot spout.

He was rinsing the tea leaves.

Lu Zhixian stood at the entrance of the courtyard and watched for two seconds.

Zhou Yaoting.

Seventy-three years old. His hair was completely white, but not a dull white—it was a very clean, silvery white. He was very thin.

This was Lu Zhixian's first assessment upon entering the courtyard. For a seventy-three-year-old, his eyes weren't clouded at all.

Zhou Yaoting heard the footsteps and looked up.

He didn't stand up.

He simply sat there and gave a small smile.

"You're here."

Two words. His tone was flat, like an old friend dropping by.

The string that had been taut in Lu Zhixian's heart inexplicably loosened a bit.

But his body was more honest than his mind.

He walked to the stone table.

"Greetings, Mr. Zhou."

Zhou Yaoting pointed a finger at the opposite stone stool.

"Sit."

Lu Zhixian sat down.

The assistant, Old Zhang, had retreated at some point, and the courtyard door closed again, immediately distancing the sounds from outside.

The entire courtyard was so quiet that only the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves remained.

Zhou Yaoting poured out the rinsing water, then refilled the pot. His movements were slow and steady.

"Have you ever had Rock Tea?"

"I don't know much about it."

"Not knowing is good." Zhou Yaoting lifted the pot and poured some into the cup in front of Lu Zhixian.

"Those who know tea tend to be pretentious about it; those who don't know can instead taste the true flavor."

Lu Zhixian picked up the cup and took a sip.

It was bitter upon entry, with a slow-coming sweetness, but it had a strong aftertaste.

He set the cup down.

"Good tea."

Zhou Yaoting glanced at him but offered no comment.

After the first steep was finished, Zhou Yaoting set his cup down.

"I listened to your 'Xian'."

Lu Zhixian's hand paused.

"The whole album?" Lu Zhixian asked.

"The whole album."

"Young man, your stuff doesn't seem like it belongs to this era."

When these words fell, even the wind in the courtyard seemed to skip a beat.

Lu Zhixian didn't move.

He wasn't sure what the old gentleman meant.

Zhou Yaoting continued, his speaking pace not fast, but every word was clear.

"I'm not talking about style. Style is something young people learn quickly; they can listen to a foreign song today and make something similar tomorrow. I'm talking about depth."

He extended a finger and tapped the tabletop.

"The way you handle those arrangements, the technique of layering emotions one by one, and that sense of detached distance from life in your lyrics—these things don't seem like they were created by a twenty-eight-year-old."

Lu Zhixian's back tensed slightly.

He held his teacup but didn't drink.

Because everything the old gentleman said was exactly right.

Silence spread between the two for about five seconds.

Zhou Yaoting looked at him and suddenly smiled.

There was no interrogation in that smile, nor was there any testing.

"If you don't want to say, then don't."

The old gentleman picked up the teapot again and refilled Lu Zhixian's cup.

"Everyone has their own path. When I was young, I also had things I couldn't tell others."

Lu Zhixian lifted the cup and took a sip.

The second steep.

The topic shifted to the industry.

When Zhou Yaoting spoke his views, there were no roundabout ways.

"The reason the Chinese music scene has been going downhill these years isn't because there are no good singers, but because there's no one setting the direction."

He looked Lu Zhixian in the eye.

"A group of people are bumping around blindly in a dark room. Some hit the door, some hit the wall. Those who hit the door get out, and they immediately close the door behind them, caring only about making money for themselves. Those who hit the wall fall down, and the people behind them step over them to keep bumping."

"What do you call that? That's called internal friction."

Zhou Yaoting picked up his teacup, didn't drink, and set it down again.

"They call you the Godfather."

The old gentleman's gaze fell on Lu Zhixian's face, neither heavy nor light.

"Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?"

Lu Zhixian thought for a few seconds.

"It depends on whether I can live up to it."

Zhou Yaoting gave a nod.

"Honest."

The old gentleman stood up.

Lu Zhixian thought he was going inside and was about to get up with him, but Zhou Yaoting waved his hand, signaling him to stay seated.

The old gentleman walked to a wooden cabinet behind the pagoda tree, opened a drawer, and took out a kraft paper envelope.

The color had already turned yellow.

Zhou Yaoting brought the envelope back, placed it on the stone table, and pushed it toward Lu Zhixian.

"Inside are some things I wrote in my early years. Melody fragments, notes on arrangement ideas, and some harmonic progressions I didn't use at the time."

His finger pressed on the envelope and paused.

"I've been writing for decades, and I've never shown this to anyone."

Lu Zhixian looked at the kraft envelope and didn't reach for it.

"Why give it to me?"

Zhou Yaoting withdrew his hand and sat back down.

"Because you can use it."

He looked at Lu Zhixian, his tone very flat.

"I'm not telling you to take them and use them directly; I'm telling you to look at them. After looking, you'll naturally know how to proceed next."

Lu Zhixian was silent for two seconds.

He reached out and picked up the kraft envelope.

The envelope was lighter than he imagined.

He tore open the seal and pulled out the papers inside.

A stack of yellowed manuscript paper, hand-written musical staves, the penmanship neat and orderly without a single correction.

The bottom right corner of every page was marked with a date. The earliest one was March 1987.

That year, Lu Zhixian hadn't even been born in his previous world.

He flipped to the third page.

His fingers stopped.

The old gentleman was holding his teacup, drinking slowly.

He seemed to have noticed nothing.

And yet he seemed to have seen everything.

Lu Zhixian organized the manuscripts and put them back into the kraft envelope.

"I will look at them carefully."

Zhou Yaoting set down his teacup.

"Burning them after you're done is fine too."

Lu Zhixian was stunned for a moment.

The old gentleman smiled.

"Those things are seeds. The purpose of a seed isn't to be collected, but to grow into something new. After you look at them, what grows will be your own tree; it has nothing to do with me."

By the fourth steep, the tea's flavor had faded.

Zhou Yaoting stopped refilling the water.

Lu Zhixian checked the time and rose to take his leave.

This time, Zhou Yaoting stood up and escorted him to the courtyard entrance.

Pushing open the gray wooden door, sunlight shone in from outside. The old gentleman stood on the threshold with the old pagoda tree behind him.

"Young man."

Lu Zhixian looked back.

Zhou Yaoting stood there, his back unbent, his posture straight.

"Godfather isn't an honor."

He paused.

"It's a responsibility. If you can shoulder it, it's wings. If you can't, it's shackles."

Lu Zhixian looked at the old gentleman and said nothing.

The courtyard door closed.

Lu Zhixian turned and walked down the alley.

The MPV was parked at the alley entrance. Old Zhao was leaning against the car door, having smoked a cigarette down to the filter.

Seeing Lu Zhixian come out, Old Zhao stubbed out the cigarette and walked quickly to meet him.

"How was it? What did you talk about?"

Lu Zhixian pulled open the rear door and sat inside.

He placed the kraft envelope on his lap without opening it.

"He gave me his most precious treasures."

Old Zhao looked at him through the rearview mirror.

"What treasures?"

Lu Zhixian looked down at the yellowed marks on the envelope.

"Direction."

Old Zhao didn't understand.

Old Zhao chose to shut up.

Sunlight shone through the car window, falling on the kraft envelope.

Lu Zhixian closed his eyes.

That melody replayed in his mind over and over again.

His phone vibrated.

Lu Zhixian opened his eyes and tapped the screen.

Old Zhao had sent a message.

It was a screenshot.

The official Penguin Music Awards account had just released the teaser poster for the first wave of the attendee list.

At the position of the final name, a blank space was left.

In the blank space, only four words were written.

"Finale To Be Determined."

Old Zhao attached a line: "Penguin's side is asking, for your solo stage, what do you plan to sing?"