15 Chapter 14 – Poached sPearls” with Conch 5 (2/2)
Given her mood tonight, her voice would sound floaty for sure. How could she make it sound like a romantic, seductive young nobleman? She might just end up sounding like a vulgar little boy... Especially since she needed to sing…
Gu Sheng: Mr. President, could you please find a guy?
Association president: Your organization needs you, Sheng Sheng Man!
Gu Sheng: ...
Association president: I told Zou Diao'er to sing it as a duet with you. One will be gong and the other, shou.[1]
Gu Sheng: ...
Association president: You'll be the 'gong!'
Gu Sheng: ...
Although her inbox had thirty to forty or so songs that she still owed, this was a song debt to her own association. She could not hide from it, even if she tried.
After doing some organizing, she settled herself in and started. In her own room, while listening to the accompaniment, she practiced, practiced, and practiced some more … Such a difficult type of style to sing and so damaging to her vocal cords. And it had to be a gong voice, too … She muddled up the lyrics numerous times and suffered into the middle of the night before she finally managed to submit her vocal recording. By now, her voice was already raspy. She sent off the recording in an email and then private messaged the association president. When she checked the time, it was nearly 12:30 a.m.
The sound insulation in her home was pretty good. Should she try to pay off … another singing debt?
She cleared her throat tentatively and could tell there was no chance of that happening.
Now, in this time when she had nothing to do but was also not feeling the least bit drowsy, she suddenly received another private message.
She had thought it would be the association president, but unexpectedly, it turned out to be … Toupai.
Qiang Qing Ci: Mm. Awake now.
As she stared at those three words, she felt an unexplainable sense of … nervousness, like she was afraid of being found out.
She mulled over her response for quite a while before finally sending something back.
Gu Sheng: A 36-hour shift must be very tiring, right? DaRen, do you need to have a drink of water or something and then go back to sleep?
Qiang Qing Ci: Mm. Checking emails right now.
Toupai was trying to say, he was busy?
While Gu Sheng was contemplating whether she should keep bothering him, Qiang Qing Ci had already sent another message: Busy?
Gu Sheng: *shaking head* Just finished with nothing to do now. Just handed in a song.
Qiang Qing Ci: Oh? Which one?
Gu Sheng: ... ”The Prince's Poem” sung in a false male voice...
Qiang Qing Ci: LOL
Gu Sheng: ...
After a few seconds, he sent over a longer message.
Qiang Qing Ci: Lying drunken on the beauty's knee; awaken to hold the control of the nation in my palm? Wine may not have intoxicated me for I have intoxicated myself? A warm canopied bed and covers? How could it be a crime to embrace one on my left and encircle another in my right arm? Attracting a beauty's affection can lead to exhaustion, exhaustion, exhaustion?
Gu Sheng looked fixedly at the screen. DaRen really knew how to make his selections. The most suggestive lines in the song were all written right there…
At this moment, in the quiet of the night, she actually only needed to look at these lines of text and then her mind was able to conjure up Toupai's voice reciting them. And, particularly because she had just spent several hours recording the song, even the background music was resonating crystal clear in her mind, you know…?
Simply … too vivid a mental picture … T T
She struggled over her reply: Mm-hmm … That one.
Qiang Qing Ci: The lyrics are pretty amusing. Just looked it up on Baidu.
Gu Sheng: Uh-huh. Pretty amusing. O(∩_∩)O Haha~
She cleared her throat again. It was still very hoarse.
Unexpectedly, the next second, Qiang Qing Ci's reply came: Next time, don't sing in a false male voice. It's very damaging to the voice.
...
Gu Sheng stared at the screen in a daze.
DaRen …. You said … That one sentence, where you said you liked my voice the most …
You weren't serious … Were you?
[1] Just a recap of slang terms we had introduced in earlier chapters: 攻or 'gong' is slang term used for the more stereotypical domineering half in a boy-love relationship while 受 or 'shou' is the more effeminate half. So here, the association president is telling Sheng Sheng that she needs to be the more manly voice in the duet while Zou Diao'er (who is really a guy) will sing more submissively and gently.