ECG -Chapter 49 Wishing You Prosperity

Wu Xiaozhou still didn’t move.

“Fine! Fine!” Lin Hao was completely disheartened. “I’m leaving!”

“Don’t!” Wu Xiaozhou turned around and saw the hurt expression on his face.

“Don’t go, I’ll delete it, I’ll delete it!” After saying that, he gritted his teeth and deleted that character from the game.

After closing the game, he went all the way and, with a ruthless heart, uninstalled the game as well.

Lin Hao let out a long sigh. “Wu Xiaozhou, I have a shortcut, but you don’t have one at all. Take care of yourself.”

After saying that, he turned around and left.

Wu Xiaozhou hung his head in disappointment. He didn’t get up to see Lin Hao off because he knew he had hurt him.

After Lin Hao left, he walked over to the electric bass, picked it up, and gently wiped the dust off it.

……

Time passed quickly. In two more days, it would be New Year’s Eve. Today was the bar’s final day of business before the holiday.

Although light snow was falling outside, there were still quite a few customers inside the bar.

As soon as Lin Hao entered, he saw Zhou Dongbing. He was standing not far from the entrance, talking with a chubby man wearing glasses.

Zhou Dongbing must have attended some important event today. He was dressed very formally, wearing a crisp dark gray suit, with a black mid-length fur coat draped over his arm.

Lin Hao walked further inside and saw that Liu’er and the others had all come over. He felt a little strange—why had they arrived so early today?

Then he thought about it and figured they probably wanted to perform a farewell show. After all, when they had been drinking that day, Liu’er had told him that after the New Year, they would be going to Yanjing.

Lin Hao greeted them, but didn’t go over to chat. Instead, he went straight onto the stage.

He adjusted the strings slightly.

“The First Snow of 2002—this one is dedicated to all of you.”

The guitar rang out, and the noise inside the bar gradually faded away.

Seeing that Chu Yu had arrived, Zhou Dongbing casually handed his coat to her, then said to the chubby man, “Come on, Old Hu, let’s go listen to the song first.”

The chubby man nodded.

“The first snow of 2002,

came later than it used to…”

Liu’er only listened to a few lines before feeling his scalp tingle. Another original song—this Lin Hao was practically a god!

Lin Hao’s hoarse voice carried waves of sorrow. Everyone in the bar felt an intense longing and nostalgia.

When he sang the second verse, everyone put down the drinks in their hands.

This song seemed to open up a painting scroll of memories from the past. Every note touched some hidden place of sadness in their hearts.

“Your red lips have stuck to everything about me,

your tenderness made me passionate once again…”

Daxia had arrived as well. She waved over a server, handed him 200 yuan, and asked him to present two flower baskets.

After the song ended, everyone was immersed in the sadness and unable to let go.

Rarely did Zhou Dongbing shout out, “It’s New Year already, play something cheerful!”

The customers all laughed.

“Alright!” Lin Hao first thanked Daxia and the other customers who had sent flower baskets.

Then he said, “The leader has spoken. In order to avoid getting fired, this next song, Wishing You Prosperity, is dedicated to all of you. I wish Big Brother Zhou, Sister Chu, and all the friends here a prosperous New Year and lots of wealth!”

Someone whistled, someone applauded, and everyone came out of the sadness from just moments ago.

“I congratulate you on getting rich,

I congratulate you on shining brightly…”

The bar erupted into laughter.

Liu’er gently shook his head and whispered, “This is the most low-quality song I’ve ever heard Lin Hao sing!”

The male singer, however, looked thoughtful. “I actually think it’s pretty good. It’s festive!”

Amidst the enthusiastic applause, Lin Hao walked down from the stage. The band went up next, and Zhou Dongbing waved at him from a seat by the window.

“Brother Zhou!”

Lin Hao walked over and called out.

Zhou Dongbing pointed at the chubby man sitting opposite him. “This is Hu Zhigang. You should call him Brother Hu.”

Lin Hao quickly reached out and shook his hand.

“Brother Hu!”

Hu Zhigang’s face was full of smiles. “Good! It sounds great! Little brother, that snow song just now was even better!”

Lin Hao hurriedly responded politely.

Zhou Dongbing moved further inside, patted the chair beside him, and said, “Sit for a while, have a cigarette.”

After saying that, he pulled out a soft-pack Zhonghua cigarette and handed it to Lin Hao.

Lin Hao sat down. Zhou Dongbing was about to light it for him, but he quickly took the lighter and lit it himself.

“Brother, why keep doing real estate? Why not start an entertainment company or something like a record company? Just promote this little brother, he’s guaranteed to become popular!” Hu Zhigang said with a smile.

Zhou Dongbing said, “You understand this stuff?”

Hu Zhigang shook his head.

“There are plenty of businesses in this world that can make money. Doing what we’re familiar with is what makes the most money! Do you think you can just do whatever you see making money?” Zhou Dongbing said with a smile.

Hu Zhigang scratched his head. “That’s true, but no matter what, it’s still better than digging coal, right?”

Lin Hao smiled and said, “Brother Hu, in a few years, you’ll be counting money until your hands cramp up!”

Hu Zhigang gave a bitter smile. “I’ll borrow your good words. Sigh! This coal price… If we don’t dig, we still have to pay the workers’ wages; if we do dig, we’re losing money anyway!”

Lin Hao smiled and didn’t say anything else.

In his heart, he thought: In a few more years, coal bosses will be the real big shots. It just depends on whether you can hold on until then!

After chatting for a while, Lin Hao gave them his early New Year greetings, then stood up to say goodbye.

Second-floor office.

Chu Yu smiled and said, “These last few days, less than ten days in total, plus the flower baskets, it came to 3,400 yuan!”

Lin Hao smiled and accepted the money.

Chu Yu then took out a red envelope. “This is what Dongbing and I prepared for you. No matter how much it is, it’s just a little token of our feelings. It’s New Year’s, so you can’t refuse this, right?”

Lin Hao grabbed it immediately and laughed. “How could I refuse? Wouldn’t that make me an idiot? Thank you, boss!”

Chu Yu giggled with laughter. In her heart, she thought: This reaction is finally more like that of a big kid.

“We open again on the sixteenth day of the first lunar month. You have to show up on time!”

“No problem!”

When Lin Hao left, he hesitated for a moment. He remembered that Liu’er had said they were planning to leave, but after thinking about it, he decided against saying anything. They could probably handle it themselves. He shouldn’t meddle anymore.

……

The end of the year, the end of the year.

For poor people, celebrating New Year was like crossing a hurdle.

But for Lin Hao, because he had been singing at the bar, he had become much more financially comfortable.

The father and son bought quite a lot of New Year goods. There were also some Zhonghua cigarettes and Moutai liquor at home, all of which Lin Hao had brought back last time.

Originally, when Lin Hao and Wu Xiaozhou returned to school, they had wanted to bring a few cartons of cigarettes with them, but both fathers had sternly rejected the idea. If a student was smoking Zhonghua cigarettes, what would other people think?

On the second day after the bar closed for the holiday, Lin Hao used the red envelope Chu Yu gave him to buy two second-hand mobile phones.

Chu Yu’s red envelope was quite generous—a total of 5,000 yuan. After buying the two used Nokia 3210 phones, he still had more than 1,000 yuan left.

Holding the two Nokia 3210s, Lin Hao felt deeply moved.

In the blink of an eye, it had been almost twenty years since he last touched this kind of phone. In his previous life, he had bought this model during the Spring Festival of 2000. At that time, it had only recently been released, and he used it for more than four years.

Seeing this phone reminded him of Ren Qing.

When he bought this phone back then, she had accompanied him. She had been a well-behaved and adorable girl, and at that time she was still a sophomore in college.

The two of them had been together for more than three years, but in the end, their relationship didn’t even last as long as that phone. Ren Qing’s mother had cried, caused scenes, and even threatened suicide, forcibly breaking them apart.

As the saying goes, everything is destined by fate.

Although this world didn’t have the exact same people as his previous life, there were still many things that overlapped with it, especially history, technological development, and many brands.

Unfortunately, in his previous life, Lin Hao had only been a down-and-out musician.

Even though he clearly knew the future development of society and technology, when it came to things like the stock market, business operations, and so on, he was completely an outsider.

He had once thought about using his spare time to write novels. After all, there were so many classic works from his previous life, and if he copied them over, he could definitely become an overnight sensation.

But unfortunately, there were two problems.

First, he couldn’t remember them.

In his previous life, most of his free time had been spent practicing martial arts. He had read very few novels. The ones he remembered best were the Four Great Classics, Ordinary World, White Deer Plain, and To Live. He remembered some plots deeply, but saying he could copy them down was simply impossible.

Although this world’s modern era didn’t have those few books, the Four Great Classics were still present. Only the authors’ names were different. The literary path was completely impossible for him.

Second, he didn’t have the time.

He had just entered university, and the books Fan Gang gave him were already enough to give him a headache. In his previous life, his technical skills and music theory had all come from practice, and he lacked too much theoretical knowledge. This life was the perfect chance to make up for it.

Even if he managed to spare some time, he still had to quickly write down those classic songs from his previous life and apply for music copyrights as soon as possible.

Although he was familiar with and had sung too many classic songs, and the melodies were no problem, actually writing them down was not easy. Not only did he need to arrange the instruments and write the harmonies for the songs, but most importantly, there were occasionally parts of the lyrics he couldn’t remember clearly, forcing him to rack his brain and painstakingly think.

In this life, from the confusion he felt when he had just been reborn to finally understanding himself, he had spent a very long time.

As for the future, he had repeatedly weighed it countless times in his heart. In the end, he came to one conclusion:

Every profession can produce a champion. You can’t always look at one mountain while standing on another.

The thing he was most familiar with was the field of art, and this industry would only flourish even more in the future.

Whether it was singing, being in a band, becoming an actor, or becoming a director, these were the things he was good at. And in this life, he also had the opportunity to study them properly.

Speaking of music, in his previous life, from playing keyboard accompaniment in dance halls when he was a teenager, to traveling all over the country doing performances, and later working in countless nightclubs, music restaurants, and bars…

Whether as a keyboard accompanist or later as a resident guitarist and singer, nearly thirty years of performance experience and countless classic songs—after singing them over and over every night, even if the person standing on stage had been a pig, those melodies would still be impossible to forget…

Back then, aside from practicing martial arts, his remaining free time was spent on only two hobbies.

Either he went to the boxing gym to exercise, or he stayed at home watching movies online.

From the hundreds of gigabytes of treasured island action movies, to domestic classics, to Hollywood blockbusters, he had watched far too many!

Some popcorn movies were forgotten after watching them once, but those universally recognized classics from both China and abroad, he would watch again every year or two, and each time he would have a different feeling.

He had figured it out long ago:

Do what you know best. If you do it well, you’ll become the king!