Xue Meng paused, still holding his phone up, looking at the person in front of him in disbelief. “Are you really Liang Zhen?”

“Ah… yes.” Liang Zhen felt a little embarrassed instead, and he didn’t have the posture he had just now, when he couldn’t help but argue with Xue Meng.

“Wow, so you’re Liang Zhen?” Xue Meng exclaimed.

Liang Zhen nodded. He was feeling a bit embarrassed now. Just a few minutes ago, they were both so fiery and stubborn, each with their own temper, refusing to back down. But now, everything was quiet. Indeed, young people were impulsive and fiery, but there were advantages to being young. As soon as there was a gap, they easily let go of their past grievances, let alone hold grudges.

“You seem to know quite a lot,” Liang Zhen remarked. He was self-aware enough to recognize that while Song Yueting, the creator of “Life’s Struggle,” was a milestone figure in Chinese rap, he himself was just a shining cannon fodder who had barely started. He hadn’t even caught fire yet, and for this song and himself, there was only respect from people like Xue Meng. “Life’s Struggle” was a song that even those who didn’t listen to rap could hum a few lines of. So, it wasn’t surprising that Xue Meng knew it. But Liang Zhen was just a newcomer with only one song to his name, and that song happened to be in Xue Meng’s playlist.

“How did you find me?” Liang Zhen was genuinely curious. “I thought this song was only circulated within the circle. How did you come across it?”

“You used to collaborate with Jewish people, right?” Xue Meng explained. “So your name was in my recommendations a while back. I recognized it and clicked on it, and then…” He gestured with his hand, palm up, fingers spread, shaking his hand to express his emotions at the time. “The first time I heard it, I felt this way. It’s too exciting, too gangster!”

“I haven’t heard such authentic dialect rap in a long time. Then I clicked on the musician’s page, and there was only this song. I thought you hadn’t released anything else, so I specifically searched for you online. You know, the photos from performances in livehouses are often blurry, and I couldn’t find any pictures of you.” Xue Meng himself was getting excited. “So do you have any other songs? You should release them!”

“It’s not like I…” Liang Zhen faced his fans directly for the first time and hadn’t even gotten rid of his fan status yet. “Little brother, what do you like about me?”

“Who said I like you?” Xue Meng drew a clear line. “I just like your songs, not you.”

Liang Zhen: “…”

“So, do you have any other songs or not?”

“I do, I do.” Liang Zhen nodded, then glanced slightly at Shao Mingyin leaning against the wall casually. He cleared his throat intentionally and said, as if apologizing, “I came here today to let you listen to them first.”

After Liang Zhen finished speaking, he kept looking at Shao Mingyin, observing his reaction. Shao Mingyin opened the folding table beside him, pulled over a small stool, and gestured for Liang Zhen to play the songs on his phone.

Xue Meng was also delighted. “Can I listen too?”

Liang Zhen asked, “How long have you been listening to rap?”

“Just a few years. I started in third grade with ‘Life’s Struggle,’ and I couldn’t stop since then.”

“How old were you then?” Liang Zhen hadn’t expected this.

“I was just a kid,” Xue Meng replied. “But why don’t we listen together? I’ll give you my feedback.”

There were only two stools in Shao Mingyin’s room. Liang Zhen’s hand drum and accordion were still there, so he sat on the drum, with Shao Mingyin on one side and Xue Meng on the other. Liang Zhen had listened to these songs countless times due to recording every day, so he was immune to their charm. Thus, he spent the whole time watching the reactions and expressions of the two beside him, trying to gauge their opinions.

Shao Mingyin remained his usual self, listening attentively and occasionally nodding, but his expression remained unchanged. On the other hand, Xue Meng was like a shot of adrenaline. He could jump up at any moment with a change in the atmosphere.

After three songs finished playing, Shao Mingyin asked to see the lyrics of the third one. Liang Zhen handed him the phone. As soon as he passed it over, Xue Meng grabbed his wrist and asked when Liang Zhen would upload the songs because he wanted to pay him.

“It’s amazing! How come I never noticed how cool Lanzhou accent is? Ahhhh! That ‘kou’—does that word in each verse blended into the beat have any significance?”

“You mean ‘kou’?” Liang Zhen demonstrated the pronunciation correctly. “In Lanzhou dialect, it means awesome.”

“Wow, it’s really awesome! How can you rap like that?” Xue Meng spread his hands. “I’ve listened to many rappers, each with their own style, but you’re the first one to sing a hook like this. Seriously, with your voice, you could easily go mainstream by singing covers on Zhejiang TV’s ‘The Voice.’ There wouldn’t be any problem.”

“Don’t praise me like that,” Liang Zhen genuinely felt unworthy of it. “I’m really not that good…”

“You really are that good! Upload your songs to a platform where you can charge for them,” Xue Meng was still excited. “I’ll pay you right away. Are you releasing an album? Do you have any upcoming performances? In Wenzhou or Lanzhou? Don’t think I’m vulgar, I can’t dole out compliments, all I have left is money. Seriously, I envy you.”

Liang Zhen didn’t catch on immediately. “Why envy me?”

“I envy that you’re from Lanzhou.”

Liang Zhen laughed. “You, the young master from Wenzhou, are pretty good too. When you tell people you’re from Wenzhou, everyone treats you like a VIP, saying you’re rich. It’s quite prestigious.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Xue Meng clicked his tongue. “It’s about the singing style, you know? Like, why has Sichuan-Chongqing rap developed so well? It’s because of that accent and tone, you see. It’s distinctive, but still understandable. But if you listen to Wenzhou dialect, like Jewish, now he’s a leading figure in Wenzhou dialect rap. Everyone in the Wenzhou underground scene knows him, but once you’re out of Wenzhou, even people from other Wu-speaking areas can’t understand what he’s singing. If he wants to go mainstream, he’s at a disadvantage.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. Many people don’t understand Cantonese either, but look at how strong Cantonese rap is.”

“But Cantonese sounds more international. There are plenty of Cantonese songs, what does Wenzhou have?”

“We do songs that everyone in the country knows.” Liang Zhen nodded confidently.

Xue Meng recoiled, feeling rejuvenated. “What songs?”

“‘The Jiangnan Leather Factory Has Shut Down.'”

Xue Meng: “…”

Xue Meng felt struck and he remained silent. Shao Mingyin noticed their conversation fading, so he placed his phone on the table and slid it toward Liang Zhen, selecting two lines: “‘You really write anything for the sake of rhyming. ‘In a boat, helping brothers block knives and fights, tonight, not going home in the Mihlan Alley.’ How old were you then, getting into fights and not going home? Not going home, were you looking for girls?!”

“That was back then,” Liang Zhen, being so real, couldn’t just make things up for the sake of rhyming. These were all real incidents. “There’s a street in Lanzhou called ‘In a Boat.’ I went to ‘In a Boat’ Elementary School. Back in fifth or sixth grade, we all watched those gangster and cop movies. It’s inevitable to get into some fights.”

“What about spring knives and triangular knives? Are those also real?” Shao Mingyin pointed accusingly at Liang Zhen’s forehead. “You were in sixth grade. How did you get restricted knives?”

“They weren’t mine! I went to break up the fight. Officer Shao, give me some face. Let me add some artistic flair. Blocking the knife was real. I had a very good friend involved in the fight. You know how it goes with these elementary school grudges. Everyone brings weapons, and depending on who has more people, that side usually wins. But that day, things got out of hand, and real fighting broke out. Of course, I had to intervene, and then… there was an accidental injury.”

Shao Mingyin sighed. His concern was hidden deeply. “Where were you stabbed? How deep was it?”

“I didn’t get stabbed. It was winter, and I was wearing thick clothes.”

Shao Mingyin: …

“And about not going home tonight, it’s actually the name of a drink in Mihlan Bar. I drank it that day and really didn’t go home. The alcohol content was too high, so I just slept there.” Liang Zhen leaned closer to Shao Mingyin as he spoke, resting his chest on the table, tilting his head up to wink at Shao Mingyin. “I’m just talking about brotherhood. It was wrong for a minor to go to a bar, I apologize, I apologize. But I really didn’t look for girls, and I don’t have any.”

“Whether you have girls…” Shao Mingyin paused. “Whether you have girls is none of my business.”

“Of course—”

Before Liang Zhen could finish, Shao Mingyin’s phone rang. After checking the number, he patted Xue Meng’s shoulder. “It’s your teacher.”

Hearing it was the homeroom teacher, Xue Meng, who had closed himself off again, bloomed like a flower—opening up. He answered the phone. He behaved quite well in front of the teacher, even shyly stifling his laughter. After hanging up, he returned the phone to Shao Mingyin, saying the teacher was waiting for him at the south gate of the residential area.

Since it wasn’t the gate they came through, Shao Mingyin was worried Xue Meng might not find it, so he decided to accompany him. Liang Zhen originally wanted to accompany the little fan, but Shao Mingyin seeing his thin clothing and the strong wind outside, he wasn’t allowed to follow. After reaching the gate of the neighborhood, sure enough, there was a car parked there. The person leaning against the door wearing a windbreaker should be Xue Meng’s teacher. Approaching, Shao Mingyin estimated his height, which should be similar to Liang Zhen’s.

The teacher patted Xue Meng’s head, opened the door, and let him in first. Shao Mingyin joked that they’d see each other next time. The teacher smiled faintly, his voice low, thanking Shao Mingyin for taking care of Xue Meng, but there wouldn’t be a next time.

Since it was already cold, Shao Mingyin didn’t chat much with the teacher and started heading back. He had the keys, so he didn’t ask Liang Zhen to open the door. After entering, seeing Liang Zhen’s appearance, even if he knocked, he felt Liang Zhen might not have gotten up to open the door.

Approaching, Shao Mingyin stood by the bedside. Liang Zhen, wrapped tightly in the quilt, only showed his head like a silkworm cocoon.

Shao Mingyin gestured toward the folding bed beside him. “The person has left. Go sleep on your bed.”

“That’s my bed, but I don’t want to sleep there today.” Liang Zhen was straightforward. “I don’t care. Anyway, you promised me outside the door. You said I could sleep in the big bed tonight!”