Agent

"Don't blame me for not warning you, Ya Li. As long as Little Lowry doesn't agree, as long as he says no, then everything ends right there. You are not allowed to harass him anymore, and you can do whatever you want with this crappy song!"

The next day, in the moving Toyota Eagle, Tony took out the cassette after listening to the demo and tossed it back to Song Ya.

"Fine, at worst I'll find a way to release a single myself."

This was the downside of showing his cards to Tony first. Song Ya's original intention was a win-win, but now he was being viewed as an opportunist. Of course, saying he would release a single himself was just an angry retort. In this era, if you wanted to debut purely with a single, you had to walk a very winding and difficult path. Just to get strong support from various music radio DJs, you needed at least one of the following: connections, background, or financial resources. Not to mention the quality of the music itself, the singer's ability to hustle had to be maxed out.

"Cool."

Silencer, who was driving, popped out a single word and parked the car outside an office building. The Chicago office of the Songwriters Association was inside.

"So expensive..."

Song Ya bared his teeth as he looked at the rates on the coin-operated meter next to the car. He shoved in a few coins and couldn't help but complain, "I told you I could have come by myself."

"That won't do. I have to keep a close eye on you now."

Stepping into the building, Tony looked around and sighed, "It's so 'white' in here!"

Indeed, the prime downtown area was almost entirely white territory. This was the real Chicago, a global hub for academics, arts, legal affairs, finance, commerce, and publishing—the home of skyscrapers. White-collar and gold-collar men and women in high-end suits and professional attire walked with hurried steps; the pace of life here was a different world from the South Side.

Walking to the elevator, a young white woman waiting there saw the three of them and immediately stepped away subconsciously. She switched her bag to the other shoulder, moving it from the side near them to the side further away.

"NAZI!" Tony cursed under his breath.

The elevator doors opened and the three of them entered. The woman remained where she was, head down, pretending to stare at her toes as if there were a flower there.

Song Ya felt Tony's rage becoming difficult to suppress and hurriedly pressed the elevator door button.

"Look! It's already the last decade of the twentieth century, and white people are still like this! They assassinated Dr. King, covered up Area 51..." Tony started his long-winded rant about racial discrimination and white conspiracy theories again.

Song Ya was used to it by now. Whenever this happened, his brain would automatically filter out Tony's voice. He had only one goal now: to maximize the power of his cheat and improve his life as quickly as possible.

The filing procedure was very simple: pay the money, leave his name and contact information, and put the cassette and sheet music into the file folder provided by the Songwriters Guild. Done. Song Ya confirmed the information provided by Goodman with the staff again—it was accurate and error-free. Although this filing had nothing to do with copyright, it would serve as powerful evidence regarding the time and content of the work if a copyright ownership lawsuit ever arose, providing him with excellent protection.

"Looks like you're really playing for keeps..."

Having watched Song Ya go through the filing process methodically from start to finish, Tony's suspicion had dissipated quite a bit.

"No kidding, the money Aunt Susie gave me is almost all spent," Song Ya retorted.

The three of them came out, and Silencer started the car, driving straight to the building where Little Lowry lived.

Although Little Lowry played rap, he wasn't a kid from the slums. Aside from the high-rise apartment building being a bit old, it had everything from security gates to property managers.

The three were let up, and AK was already waiting at the door. After the customary black-style greeting, he welcomed everyone inside.

The living room was large and covered with a classic-style rug.

Little Lowry was lazily half-lying on the sofa, holding a guitar in his arms, clearly showing his displeasure. "Hey, APLUS! Come on! Let us see what your music is like!" He beckoned to Song Ya, calling out with a playful tone.

"Uh, okay."

Song Ya took the demo cassette and sheet music out of his bag. AK, standing nearby, smiled and took them. "Everyone, sit down." He pointed to the sofa, turned around to toss the sheet music to Little Lowry, and put the cassette into the dual-deck tape recorder.

"Hey." Tony, as if he didn't feel the awkwardness in the air, scurried over to sit next to Little Lowry, extended his fist, and smiled warmly, "Thanks for giving Ya Li this chance, brother."

Little Lowry smiled helplessly, bumped fists with him, and said nothing, only gesturing toward the tape recorder with his chin.

The kind of dual-deck tape recorder he had was the style black people loved to carry on their shoulders to the courts or parties. After a burst of static, Song Ya's immature singing began. The song Thrift Shop wasn't long; three-plus minutes passed quickly, and then only the slight static of the tape spinning empty remained.

AK turned off the tape recorder.

Tony stared nervously at Little Lowry's face.

Song Ya's attention was entirely on someone else: Little Lowry's manager. When the song was playing, he had walked out from the inner room and stood in the corner, arms crossed over his chest, listening very carefully. This was the one thing he had begged Tony to ensure happened. He had promised Tony that if Little Lowry said "no," he would turn and leave, but in exchange, Little Lowry's manager had to be present. Because Little Lowry might be kept in the dark about the fact that his new album was almost certainly going to fail, and this manager, who had shouted "We're finished" at the time, definitely knew their current situation clearly. However, someone of his age wouldn't easily let people see through his true thoughts; he kept a straight face the whole time, not cracking a smile.

"Hmm..."

Little Lowry thought seriously for a while. The sheet music was in his hands; he had been listening while following along. Due to limitations, Song Ya had no accompaniment when recording this, with only the mechanical sound of a metronome in the background. Tony hadn't thought much of it after listening, but Little Lowry, who understood music, would surely be able to see what was behind it.

"Drum kit plus saxophone?" Little Lowry didn't say "no."

"Right." Song Ya breathed a sigh of relief inwardly and pointed to the sheet music in the other's hand, "Other instruments are used later on."

"I know, I know..."

Little Lowry muttered, flipping the sheet music back and forth several times. "The lyrics are very interesting..." He tapped out the beat with his hand and hummed a couple of lines, picking out a section.

"Ya Li thought of this when he was visiting a thrift shop, the very day we were shooting the MV. Heh, this little smarty-pants." Tony explained for Song Ya, "How is it? Not bad, right?"

"The level of completion is very high." Little Lowry raised an eyebrow and looked at Song Ya.

"Really?"

Tony was overjoyed. "I told you, this kid has something. He's the lead trumpeter in our school band, the teachers all like him, and the equipment used to record this song was borrowed from a teacher! He has very high expectations for this song himself. Guess what? Before coming here, we went to get this song... get what was it called again?" He looked back at Song Ya.

"Brother, please just shut up..." Song Ya lamented in his heart, but he couldn't help but answer, "Filed."

"Right, right, filed!" Once Tony started talking, he couldn't stop. "You don't know, when we were waiting for the elevator, we ran into a white chick, and when she saw us..." He imitated the woman's coy gesture of switching her bag, "It was like she saw some kind of robber..."

"Wow... filed..."

Little Lowry smiled and handed the sheet music to AK, then lay back down.

"Racial discrimination! That's racial discrimination! It's NAZI! Seeing a nigger, they think of a thief..." Tony was still going on.

AK flipped through the sheet music and said, "I think this song isn't very suitable for you, Lowry..."

"What?" Tony sputtered, looking at AK.

"Uh..."

AK paused for a long while before saying, "This song is basically about buying second-hand clothes and items, right? Lowry, your persona is cool, handsome, young, and fashionable. If you sing so ostentatiously about the joy of buying second-hand goods... will it... will those young girls... um... you know what I mean."

"Hey, AK, you..." Tony wanted to get angry at AK, but he lacked the confidence, so he turned back to look at Little Lowry. "What do you think, Lowry?"

"Hmm..."

Little Lowry shrugged. "On professional issues like this, I respect AK's opinion."

"Fine... alright then." Tony's eyes dimmed.

AK took out the cassette and handed it back to Song Ya along with the sheet music.

"Thanks." Song Ya smiled at him. He felt much clearer about the situation than Tony; there was nothing left to say, it looked like he would have to find another way.

"Uh... wait a second."

The manager, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly spoke up. "Ya Li? Is that right?"

"Yes." Song Ya nodded.

"Tony just said you were a trumpeter, but this score of yours uses a saxophone and a drum kit? Why don't you... why don't you use the trumpet to play it for us instead of the saxophone? Right here, we have a trumpet, and as for the drum kit..." He considered it for a moment, then snapped his fingers at AK. "Go into the room and get the trumpet, and the Djembe too."