Chapter 93

Cheng Xiaoyu routinely called Wang Dongliang in the evening.

Wang Dongliang briefly explained the situation. To avoid making the matter too obvious, the hacker they hired had long ago infiltrated the alumni website's backend and obtained administrative privileges, but had not taken any drastic measures to crash the site.

Instead, he quietly increased the server load, making it increasingly difficult to log in to the alumni website, slowing down data retrieval, and causing more frequent crashes.

Although most users' complaints about the alumni website were growing, they had not yet reached a critical point, or perhaps they were still lacking a catalyst.

Due to a lack of manpower, the work on the website structure was progressing slowly, and many tasks had to be subcontracted to college students who took on temporary jobs.

Cheng Xiaoyu knew that one couldn't expect instant results, but he was still somewhat anxious. In the world of social networks, the first mover advantage was crucial. Being the first to capture users would give them a significant edge, and time was of the essence.

This kind of thing was easy for large internet companies to copy, and once it became popular, it might be everywhere. Therefore, every bit of a head start was a guarantee of success.

However, he was completely clueless about website construction and could not offer any constructive advice. He could only hope that Wang Dongliang would speed up and get the "Xiyu" test page done as soon as possible. If the acquisition of the alumni website went smoothly, they could directly link it and accelerate the entire process.

Wang Dongliang was also in a hurry every day. He used to think that being a boss was easy, just drinking tea, teasing the secretary, and signing documents to get through the day.

But now, he realized how difficult it was. Recently, he had been under a lot of stress, with sores on his lips that made speaking painful.

He was almost living at the company, focusing on the progress. He had bet his entire life on this, and no matter whether it would succeed or fail, he had to do his best to make it the best, to meet his own expectations and leave no regrets.

Cheng Xiaoyu hung up the phone, remembering that he had promised to record the songs he wrote for Xia Shamo, Wang Ou, and Chen Haoran after the art exam. He went to the recording studio to get to work.

For him, getting into the Shanghai Theatre Academy was a sure thing. Reviewing at school was enough, and with his excellent memory, he found it relatively easy to handle the mostly rote memorization required for the liberal arts subjects.

As for math, he had completely given up. The college entrance exam score for the Shanghai Theatre Academy was around 380 to 400 points, which was easy for him.

After recording the piano, drum, and guitar accompaniments, Cheng Xiaoyu checked his watch. It was almost 11 PM, so he decided to go back to his room to sleep. Before bed, he checked GG Music, and saw that the number of listens for the four songs on his homepage was still zero.

He felt a bit disappointed. The failure was too severe, but he didn't realize that the five-yuan price for a listen was too high, which was why no one had tried it.

Because no one had listened, the songs had stayed on the new release page for less than five minutes.

Even in those five minutes, quite a few people had clicked to check it out. But seeing the five-yuan price, they thought it was a scam and no one was willing to listen, causing the songs to quickly sink to the bottom of the new release chart, setting a record for zero listens.

Cheng Xiaoyu was puzzled and randomly clicked on the page of the top-ranked new song, "Loving My Sin," to take a look.

The homepage was elaborately decorated, with non-mainstream photos uploaded. A man with long, snow-white hair, bizarre makeup, and seven or eight earrings in his ears, holding a cigarette with a hazy look in his eyes.

In the personal profile, it read: "That's not the cry of my sorrow, but the sadness of the past, let time lick my wounds. The core of the shattered dust, like being frozen in the icy world."

Cheng Xiaoyu silently clicked on the free listen, and a deep male voice came from the speakers.

"Feeling the taste of love, I don't know who to love, seeing you cry for me, I step back, all because I was too intoxicated, not giving you a chance, until I lost you, I realized your true love was beautiful."

Cheng Xiaoyu found the song so俗 (vulgar) that he couldn't bear it and decisively clicked the close button.

He then read the comments below, all of which were praises like "very good to listen to," "sang really well," "the song is great," and "keep it up," which hurt him deeply.

He clicked on a few more top-ranked songs, which were not as俗 (vulgar) as the first one, but the monotonous melodies, simple accompaniments, and unprofessional recordings made him feel that his own recordings were of a much higher quality. He couldn't understand why his songs were so bleak.

This made him start to doubt whether uploading songs online was the right choice.

After refreshing his worldview, Cheng Xiaoyu decided to go to sleep immediately to heal his wounded heart.

The next day, Cheng Xiaoyu still couldn't let it go and couldn't help asking the quiet Wang Ou, "Have you heard 'Loving My Sin'?"

Wang Ou shook his head. "Since I heard your songs, I found that other pop songs are all trash! Didn't you say you were going to record those songs? Why hasn't there been any progress?" Wang Ou, with a deep grudge, jumped over the desk and grabbed Cheng Xiaoyu's neck.

Cheng Xiaoyu, choked, cursed, "Your sister, not everyone can skip the college entrance exam! There's only a month left until the summer break, what's the rush!"

"That day when I ran into Brother Yong, he said that the bar's business plummeted after 'Sinful Crown' stopped performing at Forest of Lights! He also said that Liu Huaming from 'And the Wind Chants' is now singing the songs you wrote," Wang Ou said, somewhat resentfully.

Cheng Xiaoyu didn't find it surprising and smiled, "Good music is meant to be shared!"

"You're so magnanimous! Didn't you say that Scorpios have the strongest sense of revenge? Last time they treated you like that, and you didn't get angry?" Wang Ou had some objections to Cheng Xiaoyu's repeated softness.

"I do have a strong sense of revenge, but the problem is that they didn't really hurt me last time," Cheng Xiaoyu said calmly. To be honest, he didn't really take those people seriously.

"If I were you, I'd go and wreck their bar," Wang Ou said, pouting, and returned to his seat as the class bell rang.

This class was math. Cheng Xiaoyu looked at the numbers and English on the blackboard, his mind turning to mush, feeling his IQ had dropped. His eyelids were heavy, and he propped his head up, dozing off.

In his dream, he was back in that hot early summer, with a stack of reference books and textbooks on the desk, and a pile of test papers in the drawer. Those test papers made him remember a name, Huanggang, Hubei, which caused him to have a deep grudge against the province for a long time.

At that time, the naive him would still read comic books during class, watching "Slam Dunk" and "One Piece." The most terrifying thing was the sudden appearance of the homeroom teacher's face at the window.

To this day, that image is as terrifying to him as Sadako crawling out of the TV.

At that time, he never worried about the future, thinking he would always be young, and that love was just mutual affection, regretting why he didn't grow up immediately.

When he was over thirty, he realized that Kanan would never win the championship, and "One Piece" was still far from its conclusion. He started to have insomnia, worrying about mortgage payments and marriage, and on every sleepless night, he would lie in bed, fantasizing about reliving his life.

How long have the tree shadows under the moonlight lasted? Does the girl he wanted to confess to still walk down that long street? How many times has he looked back at his parents' backs in the sunset? How many regrets are left in his backpack of dreams?

Our greatest sorrow is that in our most courageous years, we couldn't understand the world, and our ignorant actions completely changed our fate.

When we mature, we won't have those childish actions anymore, but we will also have missed the courage to change everything.

Cheng Xiaoyu felt he had slept for a long time and woke up from a dream where his homework was not finished. With a splash, he knocked over the pencil case on the desk when he raised his hand.

The math teacher was writing the solution steps on the blackboard, turned around, and looked at Cheng Xiaoyu, saying, "What? Great poet, are you dreaming again?"

The classroom burst into laughter, the dull atmosphere was swept away, and Cheng Xiaoyu's drowsiness was also scared away. He laughed along with everyone else.

Life is like the X on the blackboard. Even if you start over a thousand times, it will still be an unknown number, and there will inevitably be regrets.

But this time, he won't miss what he shouldn't miss.

And this time, he will hold on tighter to what he shouldn't let go.