Chapter Ninety-One "The Sugar Bean Princess"
This is a cover video, but Tang Baona isn't actually in the video; it's just a montage of animation clips.
Tang Baona covered a song called "Farewell, Jianghu," Xiang Kun had heard before; the original singer was Hu Yanbin.
In his memory, it's not easy to cover Hu Yanbin's songs well. Many people say that "only Hu Yanbin himself can sing his songs well." But when Tang Baona sang them, the effect was surprisingly good.
Her voice has a richness that is not common among female voices. Whether it is the mid-range or high-range, it sounds very stable, like telling a story, making it easy to immerse yourself in the song and lyrics.
The last time we played Dou Dizhu at Tang Baona's house, she lost once, Xiang Kun asked her to sing. She sang Harlem Yu's "Spring Mud," which is a very difficult song to sing well, but she sang it quite well.
At that time, Xiang Kun only thought that her voice was very good, her singing skills seemed to be quite good, and she sang very well. As for anything else, with his musical knowledge, he couldn't hear anything else.
Seeing this video and listening to her sing with background music, Xiang Kun realized that her singing ability was actually much better than he had thought.
It's clearly a martial arts song, but the combination of various anime clips actually doesn't look out of place.
Xiang Kun used to watch anime a lot when he was in school, but he barely had time to watch it after he started working. So, in that montage, he could only recognize the parts from One Piece and Naruto; he hadn't seen the others.
Although the video has only been posted for a little over four hours, it already has more than 600 comments, with identical comments frequently filling almost half the screen.
"Where leaves dance, fire will burn!!"
"... It's not me who's wrong, it's the world!!"
"... My drill bit is a drill bit that can pierce the sky!!"...
"... This era is called Whitebeard!!"...
"... Where our king's sword points, our hearts follow!"...
For some reason, Xiang Kun was also drawn into the atmosphere of the video. The short video, just over three minutes long, quickly ended with Tang Baona singing.
Xiang Kun glanced at the content creator who posted the video, still somewhat unsatisfied. Hmm, their ID was: Sugar Bean Princess...
It was unexpected that Tang Baona would use a name like "XX Princess," which wasn't her usual style on WeChat. However, Xiang Kun immediately recalled his old Weibo and forum IDs, "Qiankun Great Emperor," which weren't much better. Back when he first started using the internet in middle school, he had used nicknames like "Code Celestial" and "KING_OF_CODE" on Baidu Tieba and some IT forums—nicknames that now make him want to cover his face in embarrassment.
To Xiang Kun's surprise, "Sugar Bean Princess" had over 600,000 followers. Although he doesn't often use Bilibili, he roughly knows that content creators with over 500,000 followers are quite popular.
He looked at the videos Tang Baona posted; there were over 80, 90% of which were covers of songs. There were old Cantonese songs, such as "Deep Deep Deep," "Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division," and "The Season of the Wind," some Japanese songs, such as "LAST STARDUST," "ALIEz," and "Uninstall," and some Chinese songs with a Chinese style, such as "The World," "A Glimpse of A Glimpse of Beauty," "Bright Moon, Distant Horizon," and "Rain Falls on Chang'an." There were also a few songs that seemed to be original.
The accompanying footage mostly consists of montages of clips from movies, TV series, or animations, and Tang Baona never appears on screen. However, it must be said that her editing skills are quite good; at least the timing, the visual mood, and the coordination with the lyrics are all done quite well. Of course, it's also possible that she had someone else edit the video.
Judging from the comments and bullet screen messages, it seems that fans don't know what "Sugar Bean Princess" looks like. They all say that judging from her voice, she should be a very domineering and mature woman.
Many people are even posting nicknames like "Queen of Sugar Beans," "General of Sugar," and "Iron Sugar Douluo"...
They probably never imagined that the real Tang Baona was a girl with a Lolita style who liked to wear pigtails and glasses.
However, given Tang Baona's appearance, her fan base would likely grow even more if she appeared on camera.
Xiang Kun listened to one song after another, and before he knew it, he had watched most of the videos posted by "Sugar Bean Princess." He could understand why she had so many fans.
Her voice and singing style are indeed very unique and distinctive. Different songs can be transformed into her own style under her interpretation. In particular, when singing ancient-style and martial arts songs, she has a kind of heroic and dashing spirit.
Moreover, Xiang Kun's experience of listening to songs is different from that of online fans. Listening to a complete stranger sing online is different from listening to someone you know in real life. You subconsciously compare the voice with the real person, and it overlaps with the real person, which is a very strange feeling.
After their first meeting, Xiang Kun knew that Tang Baona was very passionate about ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games), but he didn't expect her to be a popular content creator on Bilibili and to be such a great singer.
After listening to music and watching videos for a while, Xiang Kun felt that the effects he had just experienced had mostly dissipated.
It seems that the ability to remotely influence other creatures, while powerful, also has a significant impact on oneself.
If it's like being in a flower and bird market, simulating the emotions and state of a "Giant Owl patrolling its territory and reigning supreme," then even if there's a backlash, the impact on oneself will be limited.
However, if one puts oneself in a violent and brutal state like tonight, it might be okay during the day, but at night, one is very likely to be consumed by violence and even lose control.
If it were in front of a lot of people, that would be a disaster.
In the future, it seems we need to control this sense of deterrence and avoid going to extremes, especially when using it after sunset.
Xiang Kun got up and went to the kitchen, tidied up the mess on the floor, and carefully cleaned up the bloodstains that had been sprayed everywhere.
Upon seeing the blood, Xiang Kun couldn't help but lick his lips, feeling a slight urge to taste it. However, perhaps because several hours had passed, the blood had lost its effect on him, so he didn't need to suppress it too much.
Throughout the entire process, the three rabbits, the chicken, and the duck, which were also kept in cages, did not dare to make a sound, as if they did not exist.
After cleaning the kitchen, Xiang Kun turned off the camera and returned to his room to watch the recording.
He originally intended to record the condition of the rabbits, chickens, and ducks under his influence, but he never expected that he would now be observing his own condition.
Rewinding to the very beginning of the video, we can see that Xiang Kun was initially in a normal state, his expression was focused, and at most his eyes seemed somewhat indifferent.
But soon, his expression began to twist uncontrollably, his eyes filled with ferocity, violence, and madness. Then he suddenly raised his right hand and slammed it down, so fast that it was impossible to see his movements clearly in the video.
After being filmed, the pain and the sound quickly brought him back to his senses.
Even Xiang Kun, watching this video, could feel a great sense of pressure emanating from himself, who was in a berserk state and on the verge of losing control.
It was a brutal and insane ferocity, like that of a ravenous beast, devoid of any reason. He even somewhat understood the feelings of the rabbits, chickens, and ducks in the cages on the stove behind him in the video footage...
He told himself silently that no matter what, he must not let his consciousness be devoured or completely influenced by those violent and crazy thoughts. He must control them, not be controlled by them.
Xiang Kun turned off the video, thought for a moment, then deleted it. He then opened a webpage and continued listening to "Sugar Bean Princess's" songs on Bilibili.
He discovered that his favorite songs to listen to were her covers of "Swords and Blades Like a Dream" and "Desert Sea." The former brought out the best in her voice, while the latter gave a different, free-spirited interpretation of the song, which was supposed to be somewhat melancholic. It was very moving to listen to.
After a while, he suddenly remembered that when he first met Tang Baona, she mentioned the anime "One-Punch Man." Later, she and Yang Zhen'er even called Xiang Kun "Saitama-sensei" for a period of time.
So he found the first season of the anime online and started watching. He was quite surprised at first glance. The animation quality, action design, fight scenes... Have TV anime reached this level of production quality now? And this seems to be a work from two or three years ago?
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