Chapter 81: The Night in Third Avenue

The timeline rewinds a week.

Tokyo, Roppongi. A midnight in June.

Gu Cheng’s former dance instructor, An Xiyuan, was driving a nanny van, twisting and turning through the narrow streets of Sanchome, finally stopping beneath an apartment building.

She unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the rear door, and gently nudged the petite girl sleeping in her clothes on the back seat. “Xiaoya, Xiaoya, wake up, we’re home.”

“Quiet~ Don’t bother me~ Stop it~ Don’t make noise~”

The girl tossed and turned, stubbornly resisting, but was ultimately forced awake. She sat up like a zombie, only to realize the muscle therapy magnets strapped to her legs were still on, nearly stumbling.

This little girl, of course, was Kwon Boah, the sole money-making machine currently being exploited by S-M Company. Miss An no longer had the ability to teach her dance, so she had become her assistant instead.

Kwon Boah took three deep breaths, rubbed a little purified water on her face from a bottle, forced herself into wakefulness, then got out of the car.

She was exhausted. Over the past two months, she had just finished six promotional tour events with fellow Avex rookie singer Miku Koda. And she had it harder than Miku—at only fourteen, she also had to squeeze in time to finish her junior high graduation exams at the international school.

In one corner of the apartment ground floor was a 7-Eleven convenience store. As always, whenever she passed by, Kwon Boah habitually bought a can of roasted tea. It was a niche flavor—not many drank it in Dongyi, and even fewer in Fusang.

The female clerk recognized her and chatted as she handed back the change: “We’re rooting for you~ We always reserve this flavor for you every day, so keep fighting tomorrow too~”

Kwon Boah gave a bright, energetic smile, then headed upstairs. She was softly humming a tune as she entered the elevator: “Picked a can of tea at the convenience store~ Unconsciously want to share it with you~”

The song was written by Avex’s composer, titled “Merry Christmas.” But only half was finished; the company felt it was unsuitable for her age and told her to wait two years. So Kwon Boah filled in some random lyrics in Fusang language and hummed along.

As for whom she truly wanted to share the tea with every time she sang that lyric, she herself had forgotten.

She had already forgotten that her first taste of roasted tea was on the eve of Gu Cheng’s expulsion from S-M Company. That two-hour Fusang language lesson, listening to her senior’s whimsical ramblings, had broadened her horizons as if a whole new world had opened up.

Back then, after practicing speaking until she was parched, Gu Cheng had taken out that flavor of roasted tea and shared a bottle with her. It was more bitter and smoky than regular green tea, but it felt incredibly refreshing when her throat was overused.

But Gu Cheng had already betrayed the principles and ideals of an artist, had sold his soul for money—hadn’t he?

Over these nine months, Kwon Boah had learned how to bury herself in mad study, training, and work. To forget that old acquaintance who had disappointed her, hurt her, whom she once thought was like-minded, only to discover she had misjudged him.

Now, all she cared about was album sales.

The joint promotional tour with Miku Koda had been a resounding success. Her first Fusang-language album, “Listen to My Heart,” released in April, had already sold over a million copies—her first time breaking into the top five of the Oricon (Fusang Official Chart). Counting both the Dongyi and Fusang editions of “ID: Peace B,” she had already helped President Lee pay off half the company’s external debt.

“If I keep working hard for another year, President Lee should be able to clear the debt.” As she opened her apartment door, Kwon Boah thought simply, “HOT couldn’t be saved, and senior An Qixuan’s talent couldn’t hold up solo. Now, I’m the only artist making money for the company. I must hold on. Hold on until ‘Dongyi Rising’ is formed and the company finds a new source of profit…”

Back then, when President Lee promoted her, HOT was still the backbone group and the company was thriving. Now HOT had disbanded and the company was down and out; she owed it to him, more than ever, to weather the hardships together and repay the kindness.

If Kwon Boah were to fall now, S-M Company might go bankrupt outright. There would be no Dongyi Rising, Super-J, Girls’ Generation, EXO… Even Gwon Jiyong would still be a half-finished trainee, not necessarily swapped to YG Company.

But history never allows for “what if.”

…

She entered the room, shed her burdensome attire, drank roasted tea, switched on the NHK entertainment channel, and soaked herself in the bathtub, watching the news.

Water covered her callused feet and fingertips, telling the story of the hardship her youthful, energetic body had endured.

She lived alone; the bathroom door was left open so she could see the television on the wall opposite.

The past two months had been almost hermetically sealed—either touring with Miku Koda or studying for exams. She hadn’t paid attention to the outside world.

On TV, the female anchor on the entertainment channel gushed excitedly:

“After ‘Boys Over Flowers’ was introduced to Wanwan, its average ratings broke 20%, but growth stalled, ending at 24%, failing to claim this year’s ratings crown.”

“‘Boys Over Flowers’ was unlucky, airing right after the strongest drama ‘Legal Hero’ and ultimately losing to its successor’s 31% ratings average.”

“But its defeat was honorable; its lead actor Gu Cheng’s popularity index now follows closely behind ‘Legal Hero’ star Takuya Kimura. Among this year’s rookies, Gu Cheng’s metrics all surpass those of Yamashita Tomohisa in the other hot legal drama, ‘Unyielding Justice.’”

Kwon Boah’s pupils contracted sharply, her expression growing focused.

In 2001, a newly debuted actor, using ratings and search heat, had exploded past Yamashita Tomohisa in Fusang, past Song Seung-heon in Dongyi, past Jerry Yan in Wanwan, and in the Mainland… she couldn’t even think of a “rival” to compare.

What kind of phenomenon was this?

“Is it really Brother Cheng? Didn’t he go into gaming? Damn it! Why doesn’t the entertainment news show a single still from the drama? Who wants to see the host’s face!”

Because Gu Cheng’s image didn’t appear on TV, Kwon Boah couldn’t confirm if it was the same person. She grabbed a towel, wrapped herself loosely, and sneaked over to her computer, turning it on and going online.

At the turn of the century, only four countries had their own search engines: America, Russia, China, and Dongyi. Fusang used America’s Yahoo, but Kwon Boah was used to NAVER at home, so she kept using it in Fusang.

She typed “Gu Cheng” in Dongyi language and hit enter.

It was her first time searching, oh, not “baidu-ing” but navering about someone she knew.

Unfortunately, NAVER’s algorithm at the time wasn’t very smart. Typing “Gu Cheng,” the first result was “Gu Cheng”—the famous poet.

(The note: Dongyi language can’t distinguish homophones; “Cheng” and “City” are written identically.)

NAVER then lacked “temporal frequency heat algorithms,” so it didn’t boost results based on recent popularity. It simply ranked by the most-clicked result across all history—a stupid method.

Gu Cheng the poet had been famous for years (and had died five or six years ago), while Gu Cheng the actor was just a suddenly popular nobody. Ranking by total historical clicks, the actor naturally came after the poet.

Kwon Boah didn’t realize the misunderstanding and clicked in, only to be greeted by lines of poetry.

“The night has given me black eyes, and I use them to seek the light.”

“Huh? Brother Cheng writes poetry too?” Kwon Boah was baffled, thinking she’d made a mistake, so she quickly clicked the next few search results.

This time, the content was finally normal—some entertainment and technology news from China had been translated.

Gu Cheng’s speech at the Dingdang Net press conference was fully searchable. His proud advocacy for independent musicians was clearly displayed.

“We fight to ensure that everyone’s interests and spiritual home are not overwhelmed by the masses! We fight for the spiritual freedom of the Chinese people! We firmly believe that no matter how rare a person’s interests are, as long as they do not harm others, such freedom deserves respect!”

Kwon Boah felt her breathing quicken, her cheeks flushed, and she stared in a daze for a long while, not even noticing the towel slipping to the floor.

Until the air conditioner’s cool breeze made her shiver.

She immediately scrolled down and found a Dingdang Net sales page. The album “Meteor Rain” had sold over half a million copies, followed by Zhou Jielun, Cai Yilin… dozens of independent musicians.

Gu Cheng had said it—and he had done it.

“Did I wrong him… Did I really wrong him? I’m so foolish… He really wasn’t doing it for the money… Oh, oh…” Kwon Boah’s tears flowed freely, yet a strange sense of relief rose in her heart, as if she had just heard a dear friend had returned from the dead. “When he persuaded me to sign a long-term contract with the company, all that talk was sincere, not just the pretentious posturing of a hypocrite.”

Her sobs were loud enough to attract Miss An from the next room: “Xiaoya, what’s wrong? You’ll catch cold if you don’t dry off with the air conditioner on. How will you shoot your MV tomorrow? Don’t you want to return home for your vacation as scheduled?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll sleep right away.” Kwon Boah wiped her tears, turned off the computer like a thief, dried herself, and went to bed.

Even with the lights off, she kept thinking: “The night has given me black eyes, and I use them to seek the light—did Brother Cheng really write that? Maybe not, but it feels so much like him.”