Chapter 50 - 42: Good People Are Rewarded
Back on the thread, the replies quickly started piling up under this comment.
[15L-1]: Senior Song Cheng is one of our school’s Top Ten Singers, a pro, okay? He’d definitely destroy this Chen Lin.
[15L-2]: Don’t just hate for the sake of hating, user above. I’ve listened to both videos, and I can’t really hear a huge difference? They both sound pretty good.
[15L-3]: Amateurs hear the noise, but experts see the skill. Senior Song Cheng has that smooth, storytelling quality in his voice that this Chen Lin just can’t compare to.
...
As he was reading, someone else started a new thread of replies further down.
[28L]: To be fair, I’m a student in the Music Performance department of the School of Arts. I happened to watch both videos, so here’s a brief analysis.
First of all, in the competition between Chen Lin and Song Cheng, Chen Lin chose "Moonlight." In terms of both vocal range and singing technique, its difficulty far exceeds that of "Xiangsi," which Song Cheng chose.
Moreover, Chen Lin’s performance was extremely polished; you could barely find any flaws. To be honest, besides the original artist, I’ve never heard a live version that was more perfectly executed than his.
But why did Song Cheng get more tips from the live audience in the end? Because his performance awareness and emotional expression were superior. He sang with a voice that seemed weathered by the years, able to quickly draw the audience into the story he was weaving. This was something that the more technically-focused Chen Lin lacked at the time.
As for this new video the original poster shared, although the sound quality is terrible, I can tell that Chen Lin’s emotional delivery has improved by more than just one level. If last time was 90-point technique + 60-point emotion, then this time, it’s at least 90-point technique + 80-point emotion.
[28L-1]: Holy crap! A real expert! That analysis is totally on point!
[28L-2]: I bow to the master! Now that you put it that way, I get it!
[28L-3]: So the conclusion is, the current Chen Lin is even more awesome than Senior Song Cheng?
[28L-4]: Bullshit! Our Song Cheng is the best!
...
The thread quickly went off-topic, devolving into a flame war arguing over whether he or Song Cheng had better singing skills.
Chen Lin scrolled through it uninterestedly. Finding it pointless, he simply locked his screen.
However, the moment he looked up, he was met with three pairs of eyes that screamed, "Confession brings leniency; resistance brings severity!"
"Brother Lin, that’s not cool," Fatty Zhao was the first to speak up. "We’re dorm brothers. When did you start practicing singing in secret without telling us?"
"Exactly!" Wang Tao chimed in from the side. "Don’t we know what you were like when you used to sing at KTV? You were just your average karaoke hog. How did you suddenly get so damn good?"
Li the Monkey put on an even more dramatic, pained expression. "Spill it! Did you get a girlfriend? Why else would your singing improve so fast all of a sudden? You must have been practicing in secret every day to sing love songs for her!"
"Get lost!" Chen Lin was amused by them, laughing as he retorted, "Your imaginations are running wild. I just messed around with it myself, and the more I sang, the better I naturally got."
"Like hell I believe you!"
"Confess! What department is your girlfriend in?"
"Is it Shen Yan?!"
The dorm room was instantly filled with joyful air again as the four of them dissolved into a fit of laughter and playful roughhousing.
...
...
Time flew by. In the blink of an eye, the sweltering mid-June arrived, and the final exam period officially began.
「June 18th, Wednesday.」
That morning, the exam for Appreciation of Chinese and Western Literary Trends had just ended.
Chen Lin packed up his stationery, walked out of the examination hall, and let out a long sigh of relief.
After a month of hellish review, the exam hadn’t been too difficult for him. Most of the questions were within the key areas Professor Wang had pointed out. He had answered them quite smoothly. He couldn’t say for sure he’d get a high score, but getting at least a 70 or 80 was more than guaranteed.
He stood in the shadow of the academic building, wondering whether to go straight back to his dorm to crash or head to the library to continue preparing for tomorrow’s Modern Chinese Literature exam.
Just then, the phone in his pocket started to vibrate.
Chen Lin took it out and saw it was a voice call from Shen Yan.
He swiped the screen and answered the call.
"Hello?"
"Chen Lin, is now a good time? I’m not disturbing your studies, am I?" Shen Yan’s cool, clear voice came from the other end, laced with a hint of concern.
"Not at all. I just finished an exam," Chen Lin replied in a relaxed tone, leaning against the wall.
"That’s good," Shen Yan seemed to breathe a sigh of relief before getting straight to the point. "It’s about the modeling competition. The schedule has just been finalized."
Chen Lin raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Tell me about it."
"On July 7th, we have to do our defense presentation first. Our team received the official notification from the organizing committee yesterday, which means we’ve won at least a regional first-prize." A trace of subtle joy could be heard in Shen Yan’s voice.
"That’s amazing!" Chen Lin praised her sincerely.
"Then, a week after the defense, around July 15th, the committee will invite some of the outstanding teams that won a national first-prize to the Imperial Capital for an in-person exchange and the final award selection."
Shen Yan paused before continuing, "There are two awards: one is the ’Higher Math Cup,’ and the other is the ’Applied Tools Innovation Award.’ Our school’s competition advisor said this is basically just another way of saying first and second place. The professor also said that with the quality of our paper, a national first-prize is pretty much in the bag, and we have a good shot at competing for the final awards."
Her voice now carried a hint of expectation. "So, I wanted to ask you, if we go to the Imperial Capital for the in-person exchange, will you still come?"
’I already promised her. Besides, an opportunity like this—an all-expenses-paid trip to the Imperial Capital where I can also see the country’s top academic superstars—doesn’t come around often.’
’And since I’m already planning to change my major, this is a perfect chance to go and talk with some teachers or leaders from the school’s mathematics department.’
"I’m going. Of course, I’m going," he answered without hesitation.
On the other end of the line, Shen Yan seemed completely relieved, and her voice even sounded a little brighter. "That’s great! Then I’ll submit your name to the school along with ours. The round-trip high-speed rail tickets to the Imperial Capital and the accommodations there will all be arranged and reimbursed by the university."
"Alright."
"Oh, right, one more thing," Shen Yan added. "The school gives prize money for winning competitions. For a national first-prize, each official team member gets 500 yuan. If we win the Higher Math Cup, the whole team gets an extra 10,000 yuan, and the Applied Tools Innovation Award is 5,000."
"I’ve already discussed it with Li Zihan and the others. It’s all thanks to you that we’ve gotten this far in the competition. So, no matter how much prize money we get in the end, we’ll give half of it to you."
After hanging up, Chen Lin stood there in a great mood.
’Looks like giving Shen Yan free guidance on the modeling competition for the first time wasn’t for nothing!’
’In this world, good deeds really do get rewarded!’
Shen Yan had mentioned to him before that the main reason she and her roommates were doing the modeling competition was for graduate school recommendations.
According to upperclassmen from previous years, winning a national first-prize only added points toward the recommendation, but winning the Higher Math Cup basically guaranteed it.
So from that perspective, Chen Lin felt he could accept the money with a clear conscience. It was basically like he was providing a major consultation for Shen Yan’s team to secure their grad school recommendations—a consultation with guaranteed results, at that.
The prize money given to him would be equivalent to a consulting fee, and it was perfectly reasonable for it to be higher than his usual rates.
So from this angle, it was indeed necessary for Chen Lin to attend the in-person exchange in the Imperial Capital.
Although, technically, what Chen Lin had taught Shen Yan was the optimal solution for the modeling problem provided by the Little Mathematician.
But no one knew what kind of questions the expert judges would ask when they went to the Imperial Capital. With him there, even if they ran into some tricky questions from the experts that Shen Yan, despite being a top student, couldn’t handle, he could still save the day as long as it was a math problem.
In any case, he had to make sure he secured this 6,000 yuan income.