Chapter 9
Meng Fu, Who Knows A Little Bit Of Everything
The Best Idol show in China and the show in the other three countries had similar rules.
In order to select the best female group and to groom them to become global idols, they would naturally be very strict with the judging and the selection process. Everyone was required to do proper rearrangement of music, lyric writing, song composition, and come up with the choreography.
They were only given one week. In the first two days, a mentor would guide them to work on their lyrics and music. For someone who could compose like Ding Liuyue, it was already difficult for her to come up with a composition in two days. Moreover, Chu Yue and the rest were not adept at composing music. They might not even be able to compose a song in one week, much less one night.
While Chu Yue, Wei Jin, and the others were still feeling dreadful and fretting about that, Meng Fu had already released her fingers, massaged her wrists, lifted her delicate chin, and said to Wei Jin, “Bring me a chair.”
The scent of the sandalwood had slowly spread throughout the room. The fragrance was not strong at all. There was the light smell of plants in the air. Wei Jin, who was anxious, began to calm down and she was able to think clearly. She carried a chair for Meng Fu and placed it respectfully behind her.
Meng Fu sat on the chair, crossed her legs, and pointed at the short-haired girl, smiling enchantingly. “Buddy, do you have a guitar? Let me use it.”
The short-haired girl had a guitar, but she had never used it. She had not expected Meng Fu to know about her guitar. She pursed her lips, as if deciding what she should do next before saying, “I’ll get it now.”
The short-haired girl brought the guitar to Meng Fu. It looked very old. She lowered her head, looking embarrassed. Meng Fu took it and plucked it twice randomly. It did not sound right. Meng Fu did not show any reaction. Instead, she plucked the strings to tune it. She tried to play a few notes, but some of them were out of tune. She then tuned them and the notes sounded normal.
She pressed a chord with her fingers. The guitar was half resting on her leg and her curly hair on the left side of her face was inadvertently touching the strings. The girl with short hair knew how to play the guitar. She could tell that Meng Fu was not a beginner at playing guitar. Although there were some notes that were off pitch at the beginning, her movements became more and more natural.
Meng Fu could be considered an expert. The girl with short hair and everyone else were stunned. They all thought Meng Fu was tone deaf and incapable of reading music. How could she play the guitar?
Chu Yue realized what Meng Fu was doing. She took a piece of paper and began to jot down some chords and the main melody. Everyone was immersed in Meng Fu’s expressions when she played the guitar. After playing the guitar, she released her grip on it and her slender fingertips wound loosely around the strings.
“How is it?” she tilted her head and looked at Chu Yue.
Chu Yue’s icy cold demeanor finally eased slightly. She looked at Meng Fu with gleaming eyes. “Did you transcribe the melody score that Mentor Tang gave us?”
To transcribe was to be self-reliant and to identify the main melody, harmony, and orchestration of the score. However, only people who studied music professionally were able to do it.
Chu Yue originally planned to study and fill in the music with her members tonight. She was also planning to go to Tang Ze to get a new original song. Unexpectedly, Meng Fu knew the melody that Tang Ze had played only twice. However, she had no time to ask how Meng Fu knew the song.
Meng Fu put down the guitar and changed the subject. “Let’s check the overall lyrics and melody first.”
Meng Fu used the guitar to play some of the melodies that she transcribed. With this and a little harmony and other orchestration, it would be possible to create a successful song. There was light at the end of the tunnel. The group hurried to fill in the details.
After everyone left to work on the music, the girl with the short hair was the only person left. She squatted next to Meng Fu, pinching the corner of her clothes as she asked in a low voice, “Can you play the guitar? Why did you tell Mentor Xi that you couldn’t read the score last time?”
Meng Fu was very patient with adorable girls. She did splits while answering her. “I learned guitar from my master’s friend for a while, but he didn’t have time to teach me how to read music scores.”
The girl with short hair looked sideways at Meng Fu. Choosing the word “master” was odd. In modern society, few people used the word “master.” The word “mentor” was much more commonly used.
Seeing the gleaming eyes of the short-haired girl, Meng Fu stopped herself from saying that she merely spent a few weeks learning how to play the guitar and that she had yet to master it.
Meng Fu was interested in everything and she was a quick learner. However, she quickly lost interest after learning a new skill and she would look for the next interesting skill to learn. Her master often scolded her, saying that she might seem as if she knew everything, but in fact, she was a master of nothing.
**
Ding Liuyue left Chu Yue’s group and went to Jiang Ran’s team. The trainees of Best Idol were not surprised. No one paid attention to the change except for Jiang Ran and Ding Liuyue. Everyone only hoped that they could survive till the last competition and sign an upgrade contract.
Jiang Ran and Chu Yue belonged to the same company and had similar rankings. The reason why she poached Ding Liuyue to join her was because she hoped that by doing so she would sabotage Chu Yue and cause her to drop out.
Everyone had to submit their completed work to the mentors the next day. She was surprised that Chu Yue, Wei Jin, and their team showed no signs of defeat. Instead they were in good spirits and were happily discussing something. Ding Liuyue’s departure did not seem to have caused any trouble for them.
Jiang Ran stopped at the intersection, glanced at Ding Liuyue, took off her headset, and asked, “Did you fill in the music for them?”
“No.” Ding Liuyue was puzzled but she was certain. “They didn’t even know the original song last night, how could they fill in the song overnight? They are pretending to be calm. Chu Yue always has the same expression on her face. As for Meng Fu, she didn’t come to training today.”
Jiang Ran calmed down at Ding Liuyue’s words.
She had panicked for no reason just now. In fact, even if they had a composer, with Meng Fu on their team, Chu Yue’s team was guaranteed to struggle only to fail.
**
65 trainees prepared to have their public performance on Saturday. Two thousand spectators had already arrived.
Chu Yue did not draw a good lot. They happened to be the 8th group to perform. Everyone who was in a competition knew that one would not get enough popularity votes if one was too far ahead or too far back in the performance sequence.
This was especially so for elimination matches where they needed to maximize votes.
The seventh group happened to be Ye Shuning’s team. When they performed, the audience cheered loudly. Everyone chanted Ye Shuning’s name. Most of the LED signs tonight had her name on them as well. Everything was perfect, including the singing and dancing.
Ye Shuning bowed to the audience. “I have to say thank you to all my mentors and thank you to everyone in the audience!”
“Shuning! Shuning! Shuning!”
“Shuning, soar bravely. Your fans will always be with you!”
The shouts from the audience slowly died down after Ye Shuning left the stage.
“The 7th group has performed for us. Who is the next group?” Yin Bingnian came with her two roommates, both of whom were fans of Ye Shuning. She herself was merely a passer-by fan who only occasionally showed interest in her.
“It’s Meng Fu’s and Chu Yue’s group.” One of the roommates put away the fluorescent lights and snorted. “Isn’t it funny to allow Meng Fu to participate in this kind of live performance? What should we look out for? Her lip-syncing or going off pitch? What’s the point of watching her performance?”
“The Best Idol program crew is crazy. It’s no wonder it is not as popular in the country as compared to overseas. I don’t understand why Meng Fu participates in this kind of competitive program. She did not spend much time studying and she knows nothing at all.” The boy behind Yin Bingnian stood up while pressing the voting device to vote for Ye Shuning. “I shan’t watch it anymore. I will go to the restroom first. Maybe I will run into Ye Shuning backstage.”