Chapter 126: Rising Fame and the Mining Industry

The song ended, and for a few seconds, the venue was silent before erupting into thunderous applause. A good song is a good song; even if people cannot articulate why, they know how to appreciate it. This is the music industry: talented individuals thrive, while those without talent find every step an uphill battle. Every year, hundreds of thousands of songs are released worldwide, yet fewer than a hundred ever become hits that endure. Those that can withstand the test of time and still be sung decades later are rarer still. In the relentless churning of the tide, no one can say for certain what will remain.

It is precisely for this reason that the most talented people scramble to break into the entertainment industry; it offers not only the brilliance of the limelight but the eyes of countless people. For an entire week, Gao Ning and Xia Luo, operating under the name "Black and White," performed over a dozen new songs in various nightclubs. Each was a timeless classic capable of standing the test of time. Coupled with the unique vocal characteristics of the duo, the added benefit of a "protagonist halo," and Gao Ning’s voice, which had been enhanced by a universal medical pod, they had every resource and advantage. With no lack of money or connections, it would have been a travesty if they hadn't become a sensation.

Gao Ning’s hard-earned hacking skills finally came in handy. He spent a fortune ordering several servers from abroad. Using these as a springboard into the early internet, he frantically added friends on blogs and various social media platforms, constantly reposting videos of their performances. Through his hacking, he manipulated the view counts, and within a single week, their performance videos had garnered over 20 million views—a terrifying figure for an era when computer penetration was still relatively low.

Such immense buzz naturally caught the attention of the news media. Just before the Beer Music Festival, a local news reporter tracked Gao Ning and Xia Luo down to request an interview. Gao Ning, having prepared in advance, pushed forward the agent he had poached via a headhunting firm. After filtering questions online, they officially accepted the interview. Although they only appeared on a talk show for less than five minutes the following day, Xia Luo was ecstatic. Gao Ning, however, remained calm, apart from the occasional cold, mechanical voice notifying him of the concrete figures regarding his popularity. He hadn't expected there to be interim reports.

The mechanical voice had become slightly more humanized; it no longer merely announced task completion or failure. It now provided updates: "Current progress: 1/100; popularity count reached 100,000." Gao Ning had initially felt uncertain, but upon hearing the mechanical voice, he felt at ease. It turned out that the requirement for being a "great star" was simply to have 10 million loyal fans. While this seemed like an almost impossible task in this day and age—even the stars of the Spring Festival Gala might not have that many—Gao Ning was unconcerned. The task had no time limit. As mobile phones became more widespread and entertainment exploded, the number of fans would snowball. With over 10 billion people in the world, his financial resources, his hacking skills, and the classic songs Xia Luo could produce from the future, reaching 10 million fans would be simple.

Realizing this, Gao Ning stopped worrying. He discussed it with Xia Luo, and they decided to slow their pace. They wouldn't release songs too quickly, lest they appear too monstrous and attract too much scrutiny. In this era, writing songs like one is eating beans—especially when every single one is a classic—without a consistent style or emotional depth would invite suspicion once the volume grew too high. If some pedantic critic were to point out the inconsistencies, it could cause a massive uproar. Fans are fickle, and the slightest disturbance can cause the most upheaval. Thus, while Gao Ning relied on fans to complete his task, he didn't take them to heart.

The Beer Music Festival went smoothly. Aside from a few bands brought in to provide support, Gao Ning and Xia Luo carried the entire concert themselves. While they couldn't sell tickets for the beer festival, the sea of people and the massive roar of the crowd felt much like a real concert. This thrilled Xia Luo; he had just decided to enter the music industry and had immediately stepped onto a concert stage. Although the venue was slightly different from what he had imagined, it was packed with heads, and the sea of synchronized glow sticks made it look even more dazzling. After the three-day Beer Music Festival concluded, overwhelming media coverage flooded Xihong City.

The sudden emergence of the Black and White duo, combined with their dozen classic songs, became the talk of the town. As the news spread through television, radio, and the internet, Gao Ning received two more updates from the mechanical voice within just half a month. The start had been smooth; after just one music festival, their fan count had reached 300,000. Gao Ning’s entertainment company in Jincheng quickly relocated to Xihong City, and after finalizing contracts, he began waving his money around to poach top talent from across the globe. To complete his task, he invested heavily in advertising and distribution. Suddenly, handsome photos of Gao Ning and Xia Luo appeared on streets, buses, and billboards throughout Xihong City and all major first-tier cities. The Black and White duo seemed to explode in popularity overnight.

Meanwhile, the "suit-wearing thugs" Gao Ning had dispatched to Southeast Asia, Europe, and America completed the establishment of his group’s branches. Waving their cash, they forcibly entered the power and mining industries. Power plants were manageable; power generation technology wasn't particularly profound—whether coal-fired or nuclear, it essentially boiled down to boiling water. The mining industry, however, was murky; several major groups held a near-global monopoly. Buying a mine was easy, but getting a good price for the output was difficult. Fortunately, Gao Ning never intended to sell the raw ore; he could turn it directly into money at his ore refineries. Furthermore, a small magnetic power plant produced electricity that rivaled a large-scale coal-fired plant.

By simply mining and then disguising his magnetic power plants as coal-fired ones, Gao Ning could sell the electricity. He pretended to use large amounts of coal to generate power, then sold the electricity to the market. This simultaneously explained the destination of his ore and the source of his power, allowing him to kill two birds with one stone while reaping an unexpected windfall. Under Gao Ning’s relentless maneuvering, his previously plummeting funds miraculously leveled out after two months and even showed signs of rising. Overjoyed, Gao Ning continued to expand his mining operations.