Song Shi'an slept until eleven in the morning before finally stirring awake.
With no alarm and no scheduled appearances, he rolled over in bed and buried his face in his pillow, letting out a sigh of comfort.
After washing up, he grabbed a bowl of beef noodles with Lin Fan near the hotel. Compared with the Capital, Rongcheng's prices were practically touching: two bowls of noodles and a plate of braised beef cost less than a hundred yuan.
Once he got into the car, he knew this trip wouldn't go too smoothly.
Between the last day of the short holiday and the concert, every car in the city was pouring in the same direction.
The driver was a local middle-aged man with a string of prayer beads hanging from his steering wheel. Stuck in traffic, he leisurely rolled the beads through his fingers. "Off to the concert, young men? This road's so jammed today, it's livelier than New Year's."
Lin Fan hurriedly said, "It's fine, it's fine, as long as we get there before it starts."
Song Shi'an was feeling a little carb-drowsy after lunch and leaned back in his seat, half asleep.
He picked up his phone and scrolled through the local trending searches. The screen was filled with "Rongcheng traffic jams" and "Ye Qinghe concert."
Someone posted on Weibo that they'd been waiting outside the venue for four hours, someone showed off their floor ticket, and someone else wailed that scalpers had already driven ticket prices up to fifty thousand.
Fifty thousand? Song Shi'an instantly woke up and instinctively felt for the VIP ticket in his pocket.
What he carried wasn't a piece of paper. It was a gold brick.
They finally inched their way outside the venue around five. Before the car had even stopped, they could already see a dense sea of people.
Fans wore matching support T-shirts, holding illuminated signs and hand banners, with stickers bearing Ye Qinghe's name on their faces.
A row of fan-support stalls along the road handed out freebies, thrusting something at anyone who passed.
Song Shi'an was handed a little illuminated sign too. A girl with twin ponytails pressed it into his hand without leaving room for argument, said, "Qinghe forever," then ran back to keep handing things out.
He looked down at it. It was a glowing "He" character, and the workmanship was quite fine.
He studied the switch, then shoved it into Lin Fan's arms.
After having their tickets checked, the two headed toward the VIP section. They were making their way down the aisle when a girl suddenly appeared from the side and blocked his path.
"Hello, sorry to bother you."
Song Shi'an stopped and instinctively tugged his mask up. "Hello, can I help you?"
The girl raised her head and was just about to speak when her gaze landed on the face before her, and she suddenly froze.
A black mask, a cap pulled low, and only a pair of slightly upturned eyes showing.
The venue's lights fell across him from the side, tracing the clean curve of his brow bone.
The whole speech she'd prepared evaporated without a trace.
When she didn't speak for a long while, Song Shi'an tilted his head. "If there's nothing you need, I'll be going?"
She snapped out of it, her face flushing red all the way to her ears, and hurriedly recovered her words. "Um... I'm really sorry, but are you in the first row of the VIP section?"
Although Song Shi'an didn't know what she wanted to ask, he still nodded politely. "Yes."
The girl tightened her grip on her ticket, gathered her courage, and poured it all out in one breath. "I know this might be a little presumptuous, but I'm in the VIP section too, except I only managed to get the second row. I flew here especially from out of town, and I've liked Qinghe for years. This is my first time coming to her concert, so I really want to be a little closer to her. Could I pay you extra to swap seats with me?"
Song Shi'an didn't think it was necessary. What difference was there between the first and second rows? Weren't they both just a little closer to the stage?
He shook his head politely. "Sorry, my friend used his connections to get this ticket for me, so it wouldn't really be appropriate to swap."
The girl withdrew her hand, looking a little disappointed. "All right, I'll ask someone else. Thank you."
Song Shi'an turned and continued forward. He had only taken a few steps when he faintly heard the girl speaking to her companion behind him, sounding rather dejected. "I don't even know if twenty thousand will be enough to get someone to swap. I'll wait a little longer and see if anyone's willing."
Song Shi'an's right foot, which had already stepped out, traced an arc through the air and came steadily back.
He turned around, his politely distant expression becoming as warm as a spring breeze. "There's really not much difference between the first and second rows. If you'd like to swap, let's swap."
The girl's eyes instantly lit up. She looked at him gratefully, her eyes even reddening a little. "Really? Thank you! I've been listening to Qinghe's songs since high school, and I finally managed to get a ticket this time. I just asked seven or eight people, and none of them were willing to swap. Thank you so much!"
Her sincere gratitude left Song Shi'an feeling a little guilty.
He took the ticket she offered and handed his own over. Once she had it, she insisted on transferring money to him. His mouth said, "No, no need," while his hands had already very honestly opened his payment QR code.
At her vehement insistence, he tearfully accepted the twenty thousand yuan.
Lin Fan, who had stood watching beside them the entire time, had his mouth open wide enough to fit an egg.
Song Shi'an turned and saw his expression. "What is it?"
Lin Fan hurriedly closed his mouth and shook his head furiously. He used to think the artist he worked with was an innocent, harmless little bunny. Now he realized he seemed to be the bunny instead.
Lin Fan looked at the ticket in his hand and offered it to him. "Bro, you take the first row, then. I'll sit in the second."
Song Shi'an patted his shoulder and pushed the first-row ticket back. "You sit in the first row. I'm the one who swapped seats with her, and you got the tickets in the first place. That wouldn't be right. I'll be listening wherever I sit." With that, he walked straight toward his second-row seat.
Lin Fan stood there looking at Song Shi'an's retreating figure, so touched he nearly cried.
After finding his seat and sitting down, the first thing Song Shi'an did was take out his phone, open his transfer history, and look at that number again.
Twenty thousand yuan! I'd come to a concert and actually made twenty thousand! I got the money and got to hear the concert. Absolutely perfect!
Before long, the venue gradually filled up. Song Shi'an glanced at the first row and spotted several familiar faces.
There were two singers whose names he'd seen online, an actress who starred in a recently popular idol drama, and someone in sunglasses he couldn't identify.
Fans went over in twos and threes to ask for autographs and photos, and the celebrities obligingly signed for them.
The people sitting beside him were getting restless too, whispering, "Several big names have come to show their support. I wonder if Su Ling will come."
"Didn't you know? Those two fell out!"
"When did that happen? How did I miss that tea?"
"Just last month. Weibo was in an uproar, and you actually didn't know?"
Song Shi'an silently pricked up his ears, tugged his mask higher, and pretended to scroll through his phone. Friendships in the entertainment industry really did have a shorter shelf life than instant noodles.
At seven sharp, all the lights abruptly went dark.
The lift at the center of the stage slowly rose, with Ye Qinghe standing on it, her long silver dress glittering dazzlingly beneath the lights.
She smiled and waved to the audience, and the cheers nearly lifted the venue's roof off.
Song Shi'an's seat was right in the middle of the second row, theoretically an excellent vantage point.
But the stage happened to be a little high, so he had to tilt his head back to see Ye Qinghe's whole figure. Sitting up front didn't seem so great either.
The opening numbers were all slow, lyrical songs, setting the atmosphere to the max.
Song Shi'an initially tried to stay reserved, but by the third song, he couldn't keep it up anymore and started swaying along with the people beside him.
When they reached the classic "Isolated Island," Ye Qinghe sang two lines before pointing her microphone toward the audience.
The girl who had swapped seats with him happened to be in the first row. She stood up and sang a few lines, her voice choked with emotion.
Ye Qinghe walked over to her and gently patted her shoulder with a smile, then drew back the microphone and told the audience, "Let's get hyped, everyone! For the next one, let's sing something with a little more kick!"
The moment Song Shi'an heard that lead-in, he knew which song it was.
"Night of Unbridled Revelry," the biggest crowd-igniter of all Ye Qinghe's songs. There were practically no young people who didn't know how to sing it.
As soon as the intro began, the entire audience stood up.