Chapter 163 Grand Finals Performance Theme

Friday afternoon.

Fang Xing was practicing his vocals in the company's practice room. After finishing, he glanced at his phone.

Half an hour ago, Lu Xiang'er had sent a WeChat message.

Lu Xiang'er: What do you want to eat tonight? I've decided to try cooking myself today.

Fang Xing: Whatever. Make whatever you can. The fire extinguisher is in the leftmost cabinet, just pull the safety pin and spray.

Lu Xiang'er: What do you mean by that?

Fang Xing: Just being prepared for any contingency, that's all.

Lu Xiang'er: Tell me quickly, what do you want to eat?

Fang Xing: Then shredded pork in garlic sauce, I suppose.

Lu Xiang'er: Um... how do you generally make shredded pork in garlic sauce?

Fang Xing: Simple. You pick up your phone, unlock the screen, find the yellow app, open it, type in "shredded pork in garlic sauce," click order, wait half an hour, and the dish is ready.

Lu Xiang'er: You don't trust me. (Angry dragon roaring.jpg)

Fang Xing: How could that be? Of course I trust you...

Fang Xing: No, seriously, that won't work.

Lu Xiang'er: This is too much, this is too much. Our relationship is currently on the verge of collapse.

Lu Xiang'er: Hmph!

...

6:00 PM.

Fang Xing came home from the company, opened the door, and saw no billowing smoke. The situation was much better than anticipated.

The living room was relatively dim, and Fang Xing was just about to turn on the light.

Lu Xiang'er's voice suddenly came from inside: "Don't turn on the light, just come straight in."

Finding it a bit odd, Fang Xing placed his keys on top of the shoe cabinet and walked inside to take a look.

He saw the flickers of two candles on the dining table.

The dim, warm candlelight gently swayed, illuminating the living room and creating a soft atmosphere.

On the dining table, three dishes, one soup, and two drinks were neatly arranged.

Clearly, this was a candlelight dinner specially prepared by Lu Xiang'er.

Fang Xing felt a bit strange inside. Usually, she seemed rather ditzy, but he hadn't expected her to put in the thought to set up this kind of ambiance.

"Sit down quickly." Lu Xiang'er pointed to the seat opposite.

Fang Xing sat down and glanced at the dishes on the table.

Lu Xiang'er pursed her lips and smiled, asking, "How is it?"

Fang Xing raised an eyebrow and said, "Looks pretty decent. Which restaurant did you order this from?"

Lu Xiang'er put on a straight face, pretending to be angry: "What are you talking about! I... I made this."

Fang Xing picked up his chopsticks, turned over the shredded pork in garlic sauce, and said with a suppressed smile, "Green pepper shreds, carrot shreds, pork shreds, all cut so neatly. You can't achieve this without a decade or two of knife skills.

"It seems I'm in for a treat. My girlfriend turns out to be a hidden culinary master."

Lu Xiang'er's cheeks flushed slightly, and she confessed, "Alright. This dish was made using the method you taught me. At least, at least I made this dish."

She pointed to another bowl of seaweed and egg drop soup.

Fang Xing used his chopsticks to fish around in the seaweed and egg drop soup again: "These egg ribbons are beaten so delicately; not a single solid piece of egg is left. Besides, seaweed and egg drop soup from restaurants usually doesn't include baby bok choy. The processing is quite good."

Lu Xiang'er widened her eyes: "You can tell even from that?"

Fang Xing shook his head with a smile: "Though adding this baby bok choy is a good touch, exceptionally good."

Lu Xiang'er pouted and said, "I saw there were leftover greens, so I washed some, processed them a bit. At least I made it with my own hands."

...

Fang Xing gave a thumbs-up and said, "Very talented, simply wonderful."

Lu Xiang'er always felt those words sounded a bit odd. She patted the rice cooker and said, "At least I cooked the rice. That's definitely the absolute truth."

Fang Xing glanced at the rice cooker and asked uncertainly, "Did you put water in when you cooked the rice?"

"Do you take me for a fool? Of course I did, and I even searched for how much water to add. There's no way it's wrong," Lu Xiang'er assured with absolute confidence.

"Alright then, let me try the rice."

With that, Fang Xing picked up the rice paddle, opened the rice cooker, and prepared to dish out the rice.

However, the moment the rice cooker lid opened, the paddle froze mid-air.

"What's wrong?" Lu Xiang'er asked, puzzled.

"This rice looks a bit strange. The rice is rice, and the water is water. It's quite pristine and primordial," Fang Xing evaluated with a serious expression.

Lu Xiang'er frowned in confusion, stood up to look inside the rice cooker, and instantly froze.

Just as Fang Xing described, inside the rice cooker, the rice was rice and the water was water, looking exactly the same as when it was first put in.

Lu Xiang'er widened her eyes in disbelief: "Did I forget to press the switch?"

Fang Xing pulled the plug from the back of the rice cooker and said, "You didn't forget to press the switch; you didn't even plug it in!"

Pfft!

Lu Xiang'er burst out laughing, covered her mouth, walked aside, and draped the curtain over her head.

"It's fine, quite good actually. At least it didn't burn."

Saying this, Fang Xing plugged it in and started the rice cooker to cook the rice properly.

Lu Xiang'er ducked behind the curtain, laughed for a while, poked her head out, and warned: "You are not allowed to tell anyone about this, especially Ning Xiaoyun. Otherwise, she'll laugh herself to death."

Fang Xing said with a suppressed smile, "She should already be used to your knack for getting yourself into messes, shouldn't she?"

Lu Xiang'er stubbornly shook her head: "No way! Whenever I'm with Ning Xiaoyun, I'm always the one taking care of her."

"Are you sure?" Fang Xing looked deeply skeptical.

"Of course," Lu Xiang'er nodded with absolute certainty.

"I'll just pretend to believe that. Come over and eat your dishes quickly. Eat for half an hour, and the rice will be just about ready." Fang Xing began calling her over to eat.

As they ate, Fang Xing praised, "Not bad, not bad. These dishes were ordered quite well."

Lu Xiang'er rolled her eyes repeatedly.

After finishing the meal, Lu Xiang'er brought out a plate of fruit.

As it approached eight o'clock, Lu Xiang'er turned on the television, and the two of them watched TV by the candlelight.

She watched with extreme focus, especially when Fang Xing was singing.

She had been right there at the scene, and watching it again on television now filled her with a special sense of fulfillment.

When she was at the live performance, she had worried intensely that the song wasn't meant for her, which left her mind in a whirl.

Now she no longer needed to worry, and watching these footage felt entirely different.

"Oh right, you don't need to record *The Voice* anymore after this, do you? Are you quite free now?" Lu Xiang'er remembered something and asked.

"What? Want me to take you out for a trip?" Fang Xing guessed.

Lu Xiang'er shook her head and said, "Didn't I win a placement in my violin competition last time? I got the qualification to participate in the Paganini International Violin Competition, and the competition is next month. So I need to practice seriously. If you're quite free, our schedules might not match up."

Fang Xing said, "Actually, I'm preparing for the Spring Festival Gala program, so I'm not entirely free. I'll be flying to Kyoto for rehearsals next week."

Lu Xiang'er immediately widened her eyes and exclaimed in surprise, "Really? You're going to be on the Spring Festival Gala?"

"It's not entirely certain yet; it depends on the dress rehearsal results," Fang Xing didn't speak too definitively.

"Oh right, you have so many songs suitable for the Spring Festival Gala. Which song is going to be on?" Lu Xiang'er's eyes sparkled as she eagerly pursued the question.

"For now, *Song of the Seven Children* and *A Youthful China* are tentatively chosen," Fang Xing replied.

"This is way too fast. To actually make it to the Spring Festival Gala so quickly." Lu Xiang'er's eyes were full of stars, her excitement surpassing even Fang Xing's.

...

At that moment, the latter half of the eighth episode of *The Voice* was broadcasting.

Zhong Yuanxun had won third place for the night, and during the final post-interview segment, he vowed assertively that he would take first place, stating that he had already figured out the characteristics of domestic audiences—they simply loved singers hitting high notes.

Whichever singer hit the highest notes received the highest vote counts.

After this interview segment aired, numerous debates erupted across the internet:

[Though this guy's manner of speaking is somewhat annoying, he isn't wrong. The judges of *The Voice* just love high notes.]

[Domestic audiences are just like that, only knowing that hitting high notes makes you great.]

[Not entirely true, though. Fang Xing didn't win several of his matches through high notes.]

[An occasional exception or two doesn't count. From the first season of *The Voice* until now, eighty percent of the songs only ranked high because of high notes.]

[Even though I find this fellow extremely grating, what he said is a fact. You have to admit it.]

Lu Xiang'er frowned as she watched the television and said, "I always feel this person is somewhat repulsive."

Fang Xing smiled and asked, "Is it really appropriate for you to evaluate someone like that?"

Lu Xiang'er said matter-of-factly, "I'm just expressing my feelings, what's wrong with that?"

Fang Xing nodded earnestly: "You're right."

Lu Xiang'er asked again, "If he makes it to the finals, will you two end up facing each other?"

Fang Xing thought for a moment and said, "Hard to say yet. I'm still not clear on the finals' format."

Lu Xiang'er said seriously, "I've watched the previous seasons of *The Voice*. In the past seasons, the first match of the finals was always a one-on-one duel. The winner advanced to the final battle, and the loser was directly eliminated."

Fang Xing had also reviewed previous seasons of *The Voice* and thus knew this situation. He nodded and said, "I know about that too. It truly is a one-on-one duel."

"If by any chance you go up against this Zhong Yuanxun, can you win?" Lu Xiang'er asked with a hint of worry.

Fang Xing thought for a moment and replied, "Should be able to."

"The way you say that doesn't sound very confident," Lu Xiang'er said suspiciously.

"I'm just being relatively modest," Fang Xing replied as a matter of course.

Lu Xiang'er widened her eyes: "You? Modest? Since when?"

"I've always been very modest," Fang Xing said with a deadpan expression.

...

Over the next two episodes, Zhong Yuanxun seemed as though he had turned on cheat codes.

With two consecutive classic English songs, relying on his soaring high notes, he clinched back-to-back victories.

Moreover, by the tenth episode, he successfully broke through the siege and advanced to the "King of Singers" battle.

Winning first place two weeks in a row seemed to prove his theory correct—that domestic audiences only evaluate a singer's strength based on high notes.

These past two weeks, Fang Xing had been busy preparing for the Spring Festival Gala, traveling to Kyoto every week to rehearse with the children's choir, so he hadn't paid much attention to the progress of *The Voice*.

Once the tenth episode concluded and Zhong Yuanxun advanced to the "King of Singers" battle, Fang Xing also received notification from *The Voice* production team, confirming the date of the grand finals' "King of Singers" battle as well as the competition theme for the guest duet segment of the first round of the finals.

The competition theme for the first round of the finals turned out to be "Dust of History."

Furthermore, guests were allowed for duet support in the first round of the finals.

Consequently, the strength and popularity of the guest supporting artists would exert a massive influence on the match results.