Creative Ancient Style was primarily intended to promote Huaxia's traditional music, so the rules required every song to feature at least one traditional Huaxia instrument.
The initial hundred songs would be put to an online vote with the contestants' names revealed, and the top twenty would advance.
Then the twenty would be whittled down to ten, then five, before a winner was decided.
The judges would rank the top ten; the audience would vote the initial hundred down to twenty, one ballot at a time.
Yun Xiaoran opened Creative Ancient Style's voting website. His Preface to the Orchid Pavilion was still outside the top fifty, which was rather embarrassing.
Even with so many active fans on his account, he could not get them to vote for him. He could only rely on them to guess which song he had made.
Audrey Cat: "Great God Lone Cloud, which one did you write and sing? I can't make out the words at all, let alone tell which one is yours."
"Well..."
Yun Xiaoran wanted to tell Audrey Cat, too, but the competition had rules. Who knew whether this girl would immediately expose his name to the public?
"You have to judge by the style of the lyrics and the feel of the singing. There are only a hundred or so songs. It shouldn't be too hard."
Yun Xiaoran typed his reply while clicking through the songs and listening to them one by one.
He found that the mandatory requirement Creative Ancient Style had imposed on the songs had seriously hampered many contestants' performances.
The most commonly used instrument was the Chinese zither, though its sound was barely audible unless you listened closely. The pipa came second, but only a handful of people had used it properly.
Yun Xiaoran's Preface to the