Chapter Twenty-Three: It! It's Charging Up!

Wang Mo could never be a teacher. Why would he bother? He stared steadily at Liu Zhengwen and held up his payment code. "Mr. Liu, you just asked ten questions. According to our bet, you owe me ten thousand."

Liu Zhengwen's expression froze.

Wang Mo pressed on, "Mr. Liu, no backing out!"

Liu Zhengwen wished he could slap himself. Just last month, he lost fifty or sixty thousand, spent all his energy coaxing his wife back into good spirits. If he lost another ten thousand this month, he'd probably have to report to the King of Hell.

"Let’s talk about it later," Liu Zhengwen awkwardly tried to change the topic, then asked, "Wang Mo, how is your musical knowledge so solid?"

Solid was an understatement—it was practically glued in place.

Wang Mo smiled shyly. "Because I love to study."

Damn!

Liu Zhengwen gave up asking. But from Wang Mo’s example, he seemed to have gained some insight.

He stood up and returned to the podium, speaking in a deep voice, "Wang Mo’s example is right here. His grades and his depth of knowledge show us: knowledge is wealth. Only by mastering the relevant knowledge can you write better works. So I’ve decided..."

At that moment, many felt an ominous premonition.

Liu Zhengwen continued, "I’ve decided that from now on, every Friday morning, the Composition Department will have a theoretical knowledge exam. The results will count towards performance evaluations. Everyone must study the theory carefully and not slack off."

The crowd felt a chill sink into their hearts.

Many had graduated years ago, and now—exams again?

The next second, everyone turned in unison to glare at Wang Mo, the culprit.

"It’s got nothing to do with me!" Wang Mo was on the verge of tears.

How could he know that his casual remarks would be taken so seriously by Liu Zhengwen and put into practice?

No matter what, Wang Mo was sure that every Friday, the department would curse him under their breath during exams.

The vast auditorium was suddenly eerily silent.

"Ahem..."

Just as Liu Zhengwen was about to break the silence—

Bang!

The auditorium door was slammed open.

Liu Zhengwen’s assistant rushed in, visibly excited. "It—it’s taken off!"

Taken off? What?

Liu Zhengwen was startled and looked outside, but saw nothing.

He frowned. "You’re an adult, calm down. What happened?"

The assistant whispered something in Liu Zhengwen’s ear.

The next second, Liu Zhengwen shouted in a tenor that could hit D3, "What?!"

Then, he became even more excited than the assistant and dashed out the door.

After that, the auditorium door was never quite the same again.

...

Liu Zhengwen almost flew to his own office.

He hurriedly opened his computer as he asked, "When did you notice?"

Assistant Xiao Zhang replied, "Half an hour ago. I was bored and checked the company’s new song releases for September, and noticed an anomaly in the data. Judging by the comments, someone used the song as background music on Douyin, and it exploded in popularity."

"Have you confirmed it?"

"I have. I just found the Douyin video. It now has over half a million likes, tens of thousands of comments, and a conservative estimate of over ten million views. Even if only one percent of that traffic converts to CloudNet, the song will gain at least a hundred thousand in popularity. Wang Mo… his luck is really something."

At this moment.

Liu Zhengwen had opened his computer and saw that the once obscure "Invisible Wings" had surged overnight—not only landing in the new song chart, but breaking into the top hundred overall!

"Heh!" Liu Zhengwen let out a surprised laugh, "To reach this ranking overnight takes more than luck."

He checked the position.

Currently, ranked at eighty-three!

The computer lagged for a moment.

He refreshed the page.

Hmm?

Liu Zhengwen was stunned. "Wasn’t it just eighty-three? How did it jump to eighty-one? Am I seeing things?"

But Assistant Xiao Zhang remarked, "Eighty-three? I saw it at ninety-eight just now."

"What?"

Liu Zhengwen turned to Xiao Zhang, and the two stared at each other.

After a moment, Liu Zhengwen refreshed the ranking again, and his pupils shrank, his eyes full of disbelief.

"Seventy-five!"

It had only been a few minutes, yet the song had leapt eight places.

Liu Zhengwen felt his breath grow shallow.

He had never encountered anything like this before.

It was unheard-of.

This was the new song chart—top hundred, where every spot was worth more than the top ten on the newcomer chart.

But now, "Invisible Wings" was climbing as if breaking into uncharted territory, scaling the chart with abandon.

"Could the chart have a bug?" the assistant nervously suggested.

"Let’s wait and see," Liu Zhengwen said, taking a deep breath to calm himself.

They waited in the office for about half an hour before Liu Zhengwen refreshed the chart again.

If it were a bug, CloudNet’s tech team would have fixed it by now.

He checked.

His whole body tingled as if electrified.

Xiao Zhang asked, "Mr. Liu, what’s wrong?"

Liu Zhengwen pointed at the screen, his voice dry, "In half an hour, it’s climbed to twenty-fifth place."

Half an hour—twenty-eight minutes, to be exact—and it had jumped fifty places.

Now, Liu Zhengwen was sure it wasn't a bug.

Except for "Invisible Wings," all other song rankings remained unchanged.

If it’s not a bug—

Then this song’s potential was beyond anything any of them could have imagined.

...

Thinking of this, Liu Zhengwen’s expression grew complicated.

What was happening?

What on earth was happening?

He knew the song’s explosive success had little to do with the singer, Su Xueyao.

If it were "Whatever," people could credit Hao Mingxing’s unique voice, but with "Invisible Wings," Liu Zhengwen was certain Su Xueyao was nothing special.

She’d sung several songs before, and they all flopped.

Her track record proved she wasn’t a gifted singer.

So all the astonishment—

Came from Wang Mo.

"Whatever" was like this.

"Invisible Wings" was like this too.

"Wang Mo, he..."

Liu Zhengwen suddenly realized he understood this young man less and less.

...

For the monthly new song chart, industry attention far outweighed the newcomer chart.

Especially this month.

With the chart full of heavyweights vying for position, countless musicians watched every shift.

The top ten remained unchanged.

Top twenty, unchanged as well.

The singers in the top twenty showed their dominance with strength and a strong fan base.

But.

Singers ranked outside the top twenty noticed a song had suddenly appeared, traversing nearly the entire new song chart within hours.

Madness!

Everyone was in shock!

This was the new song chart.

For singers in the top five hundred, every move up required mobilizing fans, company promotions, and rallying support across channels.

It was like climbing Mount Everest—each step was a struggle.

Yet, while everyone was gasping for breath, toiling upward, they suddenly saw someone soaring to the summit on a flying sword.

That feeling—

Who could understand?

"Did something just fly past?"

"Did you see what it was?"

"So fast!"

"So cool!"

"I struggled for hours just to get from one hundred and one to the top hundred, and before I could catch my breath, I got kicked back?"

"She’s cheating!"

"I’m reporting her—she’s not following the rules!"

"Why can we only climb, but she can fly?"

Only the top twenty singers remained unmoved.

Many, in their pain, started to sneer: Don’t get cocky, you top twenty. No matter how strong you are, can you beat a monster who can fly?