169: Chapter 169's popularity soared, trending on social media!

The next day.

Lu Li slept until he naturally woke up.

He felt around for his phone and took a look; it was already eleven in the morning.

Today, Shen Qingxue rarely didn't wake him up, and she also slept blissfully until she naturally woke up.

As for whether it would affect today's progress, it certainly would have an effect, but not much.

After all, the two of them practiced singing until nearly one in the morning last night, although the practice time was directly proportional to the time spent messing around...

But at least they still practiced!

Either way～

"Mm～ So comfortable～"

Lu Li let out a comfortable groan, then rolled over, burying his face into the pillow, wanting to lie down for a little longer.

But as soon as his face was buried in the pillow, two little figures appeared in his mind.

"A: How can you bear to waste time instead of practicing singing with Shen Qingxue???"

"B: How can you bear not practicing singing and leaving Shen Qingxue neglected aside???"

"Huh? Is there any difference?!"

Lu Li's buried head suddenly bounced up from the pillow.

No, something's wrong.

"Forget it, forget it... I'll reluctantly practice songs with her for a while."

Lu Li climbed out of bed with a delighted expression.

He walked out of the bedroom and washed up, but the living room was still empty, and Shen Qingxue's bedroom door was closed.

A sticky note was left on the dining table, with five words written on it.

"Breakfast is in the pot."

The handwriting was neat and pretty, as always.

Lu Li walked over, opened the pot lid, and inside was the breakfast Shen Qingxue had prepared for him.

A bowl of porridge, a fried egg, and a small dish of side dishes.

However, in Lu Li's view, huh? What breakfast? Why was breakfast usurping the position of lunch?

Within a minute, Lu Li wolfed down his food, then washed the bowl, leaned against the sofa, and took out his phone to browse Douyin.

This kind of life was simply wonderful～

But soon...

"Holy shit!"

Lu Li subconsciously leaned a bit closer to the phone screen, staring intently at the content displayed on it.

#National-Style Song Chain, this new topic created by Shen Qingxue, had now surged to the third spot on the Douyin trending search list.

Inside the topic page, various discussions emerged endlessly.

From music bloggers analyzing the lyrics of red dust inn sentence by sentence, writing long essays of thousands of words,

to music critics putting hair like snow and red dust inn together for comparison, praising them endlessly.

However, there were even more ordinary netizens enthusiastically recommending, discussing, and urging for updates within the topic.

[I've been playing red dust inn on single-track repeat all morning, I simply can't stop!]

[I've finally realized that Lu Li really has a way with writing national-style songs; that vibe is just so spot-on.]

[By the way, what style is east wind breaks tonight actually? Just hearing the name makes it feel so flavorful.]

[Taking a blind guess, it should be the kind of song with a heavier sense of vicissitudes?]

[Whatever the style, could a song written by Lu Li possibly not sound good?]

[So damn funny, Starlight Entertainment over there must be freaking out, their popularity got completely sniped.]

[Do you guys think Lin Zhihan's qingyu at 7 PM tonight can fight?]

[Fight my ass, a newcomer compared to Goddess Shen? They're not even in the same magnitude, alright?]

[Don't say that, Starlight Entertainment's resources are right there; once the promotion rolls out, who wins and who loses is still uncertain.]

[Indeed, today's recommendations kept pushing Lin Zhihan to me; I almost wanted to block her.]

[Neutral. Anyway, I only listen to songs; whoever sounds good gets my support.]

[Where's the pitchfork? Fork this fence-sitter out of here!]

Lu Li leaned against the sofa, crossing his legs as he flipped through the comments one by one, the corners of his mouth curving up slightly.

When it comes to making memes and creating chaos, it has to be the netizens.

"What are you looking at? You're smiling so wretchedly."

Shen Qingxue's voice came from behind.

Lu Li turned his head back; Shen Qingxue had already come out of her room at some unknown point.

But judging by her appearance, she probably hadn't practiced singing this morning either.

"Here, looking at the comments."

Lu Li tilted his phone toward her side.

"The National-Style Song Chain you started, this topic has now surged to third on the trending searches, another record broken."

Shen Qingxue walked over, sat down next to him very naturally, leaned in to glance at the screen, and nodded slightly.

"Yeah, I saw it. It's better than expected."

She paused for a moment, her gaze falling on Lu Li's face.

"But don't get too happy too early. Starlight Entertainment's new song will be released at seven. This one-hour time difference is enough for them to do a lot of things."

Lu Li put down his phone and asked, looking at her,

"You mean they're going to deploy internet trolls in this hour to smear and step on us?"

"Not necessarily."

Shen Qingxue shook her head, her expression serious.

"Smearing is too low-class and prone to backfiring. I guess they'll take another route... It should be praising one while stepping on another."

Lu Li was stunned for a moment.

"Praising one while stepping on another? Isn't that still smearing?"

"It's different."

Shen Qingxue picked up the teacup on the coffee table, took a sip, and spoke unhurriedly.

"Smearing is directly saying you're no good. Praising one while stepping on another is first lifting you up very high, and then using you as a ruler to measure others—in other words, killing with praise."

Lu Li's brow furrowed slightly.

"You mean... they're going to use our own songs to suppress us? What the hell kind of dogs are they."

"Yeah."

Shen Qingxue completely agreed with Lu Li's words.

"This move is much more clever than direct smearing, because they are the ones saying the words, but the emotions belong to the netizens themselves; you have no way to refute it."

Lu Li leaned back against the sofa with an indifferent expression.

"Whatever～ Anyway, I know the quality of east wind breaks in my heart, and besides, aren't you here? This is a song sung by our Goddess Shen, after all."

Shen Qingxue turned her head to look at him, the corners of her mouth subconsciously curving into a shallow smile as she rolled her eyes at him.

"You're being glib-tongued again."

Lu Li grinned, stood up from the sofa, and stretched lazily.

"Let's go, time to work. Today, let's record your east wind breaks first, lest the time arrives and the song hasn't even been recorded yet."

Shen Qingxue nodded.

But just as she followed behind Lu Li, scenes from last night involuntarily flashed through her mind...

Her face subconsciously flushed red.

Fortunately, Lu Li had his back to her, so he didn't notice her abnormality.

...

After countless rounds of practice, they finally recorded the entire song from start to finish with almost no flaws.

This result was unanimously agreed upon by the two of them.

Lu Li grinned, stood up from his chair, and stretched his somewhat stiff neck.

"OK, done. What time is it now?"

Shen Qingxue glanced at her phone.

"It's past four o'clock."

"Good grief, we recorded for almost an entire afternoon? And that doesn't even include the practice time from last night."

Lu Li smacked his lips.

Shen Qingxue turned off the equipment, took off her headphones, and put them away.

"It's normal that I'm slower than you; you're more familiar with that song since it was written by your hands after all, but I still have to find the feeling while singing."

Lu Li nodded; that statement was indeed correct.

After all, he was the only person in this world who had heard the genuine original version of red dust inn.

Coupled with the fact that he wrote the lyrics and music for red dust inn, arranged the accompaniment, and even recorded several versions of the demo, he knew it by heart long ago.

But this was Shen Qingxue's first time formally singing east wind breaks, so familiarizing herself with the song itself took time.

Being able to finish recording within this timeframe was already very fast.