When Huo Ren arrived at the ivory-white villa, he instinctively looked back at his side, feeling somewhat unaccustomed to the emptiness.
This was his first time recording a variety show alone.
Because of the twenty-day closed shooting, Jiang Shu had dropped him off at the villa’s entrance, offering comforting pats on the shoulder.
“You have five minutes of video call time every evening, I’m your agent, and I can come over to see you anytime.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve checked the doctor and the medicine box, the station director is an old friend of mine, don’t worry.”
Huo Ren waved goodbye to him and pushed his suitcase into the villa.
He was the second-to-last guest to arrive, with everyone sitting in the living room waiting for all the participants to gather.
Among the six people, there were three youths, two middle-aged people, and one elderly person.
The program team had wild ideas when creating the plan, and even the final guest selection was somewhat wickedly amusing.
The middle-aged were a folk singer and a renowned comic artist, and the elderly was a historian and a well-known professor at Shidu University, each having made their mark in different fields.
Huo Ren felt a bit constrained interacting with his elders, greeting them before quickly walking over to the kitchen where he noticed a figure and went to greet him.
A pale young man turned towards him, his eyelashes drooping like crow feathers, giving off a somewhat frail vibe.
“Good to meet you, Mr. Huo.” He reached for the coffee pot, turning his wheelchair to move slowly: “Would you like some Blue Mountain coffee?”
Huo Ren hadn’t expected to see a disabled person here and instinctively took the coffee pot from the young man, moving behind him intending to help push the wheelchair: “Sorry, sorry—”
The frail young man glanced around, not yet starting to record, and with incredible agility, darted to the side to grab a strawberry croissant, sitting back in the wheelchair with a weak demeanor just as the cameraman turned around.
Huo Ren: —!!!
The cameraman filmed them for a few seconds before turning back to capture the living room scene.
“Just call me Qiu Yu,” the young man said, holding the warm croissant and taking a small bite: “I stopped updating for a year and a half to play games—otherwise, I’d be pushed into a wheelchair in public.”
Huo Ren blocked another camera’s view, whispering: “Are you planning to pretend to be paralyzed for twenty days?”
“There’s always a process of recovery,” Qiu Yu waved his hand: “When my editor pushed me to come here… it was with tears in her eyes.”
As they were chatting, a series of crisp bike bell rings sounded outside.
A college student hurried over on a shared bike, bringing only a backpack and some takeout food, almost bumping into a staff member moving boxes.
“Little Sparrow is here.” Qiu Yu glanced out the window, casually pouring himself a cup of coffee with Huo Ren’s wrist, contentedly eating his lunch: “Must have just finished class.”
As the camera turned back to them, Huo Ren pushed him back to the living room, cooperatively helping to place the wet wipes and trash bin back beside the young man.
Han Yang just entered, beaming with vitality: “Hello everyone, I’m late, sorry—brought you freshly baked donuts!”
Huo Ren then realized he was only about 165 cm tall, with a cute baby face, looking like a middle schooler without any sense of discord.
After briefly introducing themselves, they divided the rooms in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere.
The program itself was purely about chasing deadlines, with good living and dining conditions, avoiding any deliberate provocations.
From the windows, you could see the beach and the sea; the fifth floor had a media room and a literature room, and the third floor even had an outdoor swimming pool and a gym.
When it was time to work, the director appeared with a bell ring: “Work time.”
Everyone fell silent, quietly organizing their things to head to their designated workspaces. As soon as they entered, they heard the door lock behind them, leaving only a small window for drinks and snacks.
Huo Ren rubbed his hair and turned to look at the setup in his workspace.
A piano, a computer, a mixer, among other equipment.
Two cameras were set up in the room, one for overhead shots and one for level shots, with a small speaker in the corner for random questions.
A nice place.
He stretched and began to work at full speed.
Five days after recording began, the first episode of the show was quickly edited and released on March 5th, not only going live on all platforms but also securing a prime time slot on satellite TV, truly showing full sincerity towards the guests.
When the news was first released, fans from various circles had differing opinions, with stands and perspectives completely varied.
Readers of comic artists and novel writers were almost jubilant, like celebrating the New Year, knowing their favorite authors were captured to work hard, they even held lotteries with prizes like pigeon clay pot soup, braised pigeon, and canned pigeon, urging the organizers daily to properly supervise and reform the two king pigeons before the show even aired.
Bley and most of the gemstones were surprised that the mystery guest turned out to be Huo Ren, initially thinking he had walked into the wrong show, harboring a hidden worry and unease.
Such a program seemed too low-profile for an idol… With Huo Ren’s level already so high, there was no need for him to participate.
At 8 p.m. on Saturday, a crowd of fans eagerly waited by their screens to watch the show, which opened with the director leading the guests to cut their internet cables.
Wow! Starting off so intensely!
The introduction of the guest identities took only three minutes, and the rules were explained in just five sentences, with a very simple competition format.
Then the scene changed, truly beginning to document each person’s deadline-chasing daily life.
The atmosphere among the middle-aged and elderly group was very peaceful.
The elderly professor was writing a paper while listening to Suzhou Pingtan with reading glasses on, the folk singer was cleaning his guitar while holding a beer, and the comic artist was napping on the desk.
The camera then shifted to the youth trio, causing fans to be gradually shocked.
The sickly beautiful writer tied up his hair with chopsticks, and his fingers flew over the keyboard so fast that only afterimages were seen, achieving a speed of four thousand words per hour.
The young illustrator had no pauses when drawing lines, with a redo frequency so low it was almost godlike, so focused that he didn’t even pick up the coke at the door.
Both fans felt reassured.
[Heavens! Qiu God finally resumes serialization!!! After twenty days, I want to see a million-word burst update, thank you!!!]
[I knew Qiu God must have been in an accident to stop updating for so long, wuwuwu, I’m not mad anymore as long as you write…]
[Little Sparrow looks so cute in real life, wuwuwu, remember to eat more fruits mua!]
The guest with an even more terrifying hand speed turned out to be Huo Ren.
The all-around idol acknowledged by a crowd of girls, who dances like a charming white wolf, was now seen writing songs in front of the camera.
To be precise, he was playing the piano while manually printing sheet music.
Everyone actually knew that Crown had outstanding business capabilities, being one of the few young idol groups in the country capable of participating in the OSC Crown Awards selection.
But most thought the creation process was poetic—writing songs and lyrics probably similar to ancient poets.
Taking three days to form a line, five years to compose half a verse, leisurely waiting for inspiration, all delicate work.
Huo Ren’s lyric and composition teacher was Xie Lianyun.
In front of the program’s camera, he played the piano on a whim, creating tunes with just three or five keys effortlessly, not only exuding a sense of free and easy indulgence but also creating melodies so pleasing they were maddeningly catchy—
Both composing and scoring require a deep foundation in classical music; the more one understands classical music, the better they grasp the essence when playing pop or rock.
Huo Ren’s classical music teacher was Bo Jue.
Years ago, not being proficient in Bach or Chopin would earn one a disdainful poke on the forehead from the Black Swan.
He had long been accustomed to the omnipresent camera lens, able to completely relax even when working alone.
While playing the piano, he first followed Teacher Bo’s long-standing advice, practicing for two hours to solidify his technique, then playing melodies and notating them, casually writing a few lines before switching the composition motive and starting over.
Many had doubted Xie Lianyun’s record of two thousand compositions at seventeen, but only after seeing this program did they suddenly realize.
Holy crap, are these songwriters jukeboxes incarnate???
Once Huo Ren entered his work mode, he was fully immersed, with no intention of performing or pleasing the audience.
He wrote one song after another, as if sitting beside an imaginary strict judge wearing glasses, who would shake his head while sipping coke through the air—
“No good.” The handsome young man frowned slightly, crumpling the sheet music into a ball and tossing it into the trash can, unconsciously denying himself: “This doesn’t sound good.”
Indeed, the new environment had an effect… If he took this song back to Xie-ge, he would be laughed at…
The audience was blown away.
[Don’t throw it away ahhhh—how can this song not be good?!! I’m signing a petition for Huo Ren to release this song, I really want it as my ringtone!!!!]
[I always thought they squeezed out twelve songs a year… Turns out it’s from selecting among a mountain of songs??]
[Damn, no wonder Huo Ren came to this show, if Huo Ren’s this fast, how intense must Yao Yao and Xie-ge be #ShockedFace #ShockedFace]
[The real unscientific thing about Crown is only releasing one album a year??? The queen next door drops three albums in two years, with Crown’s capability, four albums a year would be no problem at all???]
[Personally, I think this isn’t for show, who could produce so many good songs just for show… I’ve decided to go back and listen to their fifth album again.]
Many onlookers finally realized why Corona was so popular.
—Every song in the album is a chosen gem, selected from hundreds of excellent works, a powerful presence.
Other artists do the same, but most of them have outsourced teams, with dozens of lyricists and composers frantically working to prepare a rich library of songs for selection.
But Crown never outsources, the six of them are enough.
#HuoRenSuperFastHandSpeed immediately topped the trending searches.
The gems never expected the captain to show off to this extent, they started to clip segments from several previous album production documentaries, pushing recommendations to the public in various ways.
SlantedCloudsClearSkies: #HuoRenSuperFastHandSpeed When every member writes songs, each one is focused and serious! Look at my home’s Xie Lianyun writing songs, handsome for over three seconds, get to know the fox-eyed handsome man! [Weibo Video]
InnocentTruthAllHuoRenTheMostReal: #HuoRenSuperFastHandSpeed One album full of high-energy ancient music symphonies! The second album’s psychedelic electronic music! The third album’s perfect acappella! The fourth album’s superb pipa and guqin! The brand new fifth album is a click away, come listen to the songs! [Weibo Link]
GemsGemsBrightShiny: Watching the captain write songs live today made me suddenly super want to cry, being serious about their work even after being popular for five years, only our Crown is like this wuwuwu it’s so lucky to be their fan…
Everyone thought this segment would be the highlight of the first episode, but one high-energy scene followed another, endlessly entertaining.
The production team not only edited the high-energy working hours but also kept the slacking-off time.