Chapter 13
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The maliciously edited post instantly became popular.
Not only was it more popular than the previous post about Cecilia saving someone in the school hall during the school anniversary celebration, but it also surpassed the gossip about Juliana being cheated on.
Obviously, someone was deliberately manipulating the situation.
At this time, Cecilia didn’t know about the post yet. She had already entered the recording studio.
She handed the song, lyrics, and synthesized accompaniment to the sound engineer and asked, “Can we start now?”
The sound engineer uploaded the accompaniment into the system while looking at the song and lyrics.
“Give me five minutes. I’ll listen to the accompaniment first and see if it matches the song and lyrics,” the sound engineer responded.
The sound engineer was more serious since he was someone brought over by Yvette.
Cecilia nodded. “Okay, thank you.”
Whenever she recorded songs before, the sound engineers were quite perfunctory. In addition, she didn’t want to be too picky about it. So, the songs she handed in were just good enough to pass the test.
But this time, she wanted to defeat Juliana in terms of capabilities.
The sound engineer listened to the accompaniment while looking at the song and lyrics. He tapped his knee with his fingers rhythmically, completely immersed in the beautiful melody.
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After the accompaniment ended, he took a while to come back to his senses, then looked at Cecilia excitedly.
“The songs and lyrics written by an anonymous person provided by Mr. Lane to Yates Corporation were all written by you, right?” he asked.
Everyone had their own music style. Even if one deliberately made adjustments to the songs, he could tell who wrote them when listening to them.
Naturally, as someone from the Yates family, Yvette was aware of “Anonymous Songwriter.”
Back then, Calvin even wanted to make this person join the Yates Corporation, but Hendrix refused to reveal anything. Thus, Calvin gave up.
“Ceci, I didn’t expect you to be ‘Anonymous Songwriter‘. That’s impressive. I like every song very much, especially those of the traditional style. I can listen to one song on repeat for one month straight.”
Cecilia looked at Yvette, who had a look of admiration, and neither admitted nor denied the latter’s remark.
Cecilia looked at the sound engineer and asked, “Can I record a song now?”
“Sure!” the sound engineer responded.
He wanted to know how the person, who could write countless popular songs, would perform when she sang.
Cecilia entered the recording studio. After getting ready, she looked at the sound engineer outside.
The sound engineer made a gesture to her, and the accompaniment in her headphones rang.
Then, an ethereal and beautiful singing voice overflowed from between her pink lips.
As soon as she began to sing, everyone in the recording studio
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was astounded.
The sound engineer swallowed and looked at Cecilia like a starving wolf.
Even Christopher, who had no interest in music, was fascinated when listening to her sing.
It went without saying that Yvette looked at Cecilia obsessively with admiration in her eyes.
Suddenly, Yvette’s phone rang. She hung up in a hurry and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Cecilia was not affected.
The next second, her phone rang again. She held down the power button directly.
A second before the screen went off, her friend who was calling sent her a link. There was another sentence below the link: [Yvie, look! It has something to do with your idol!]
The phone was turned off right after the message appeared in a flash.
Yvette didn’t read it all, but she caught a glimpse of the word “idol.”
Her idol was Cecilia. Therefore, she hurriedly turned on her phone again. She clicked the link and saw the maliciously edited video clip on the campus forum.
At the beginning of the video, the assistant was being interrogated by Cecilia, who wanted to know who was the person behind the scenes. Then, the assistant’s lower leg was kicked.
Yvette was the person who kicked the assistant. But in the video, there was only a close–up of the legs. Thus, the narrative became Cecilia kicking someone.
After that, Cecilia called Hendrix, and the assistant was fired. The assistant was also kicked away for slandering Cecilia.
The scene involving Christopher was cut off here, and it turned
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into Cecilia kicking the assistant away as well.
Therefore, students who didn’t know the truth began to insult Cecilia.
The comments wrote: [Damn it. As soon as I switched from a hater to a fan of Cecilia, she did this. It’s like a heavy blow to the back of my head. I’m so disgusted that I’m about to throw up last night’s dinner.]
[This country bumpkin Cecilia is quite impressive. She even won our chancellor over. No wonder she never gets kicked out of school even if she kept missing class for no reason.]
[What a playgirl! Not even a two–timer can compete against her. Isn’t she afraid of contracting diseases from serving so many men at once?]
[Cecilia brazenly made the chancellor abuse his power. That’s too arrogant. Everyone, let’s report the chancellor to the Ministry of Education! Let the chancellor scram!]
[I support the previous comment! I’ll report him right now. There can’t be a bad apple in Quilton University!]
Seeing this, Yvette was furious and vigorously tapped the screen. She commented: [The video is out of context. I’m at the scene, and this is not the whole picture of the truth. Don’t be used as a pawn, guys.]
Someone replied: [Get lost, whitewasher!]
After Yvette explained, she became the target of attack and was scolded miserably.
She didn’t care about herself being scolded, but she couldn’t stand Cecilia being scolded.
And she couldn’t argue with many people alone, so she was so angry that she reported the post.
Unfortunately, the campus forum administrator of Quilton University wasn’t working during the school anniversary celebration’s three–day vacation.
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Otherwise, a post involving Hendrix would have been deleted long ago.
Yvette was extremely anxious and was about to ask Christopher for help. Right then, Cecilia came out of the recording studio. She walked quickly to Cecilia and said anxiously, “Ceci, hurry and check the post on the campus forum.”
Then Yvette handed over her phone.
Cecilia seldom came to school, so she didn’t really know Quilton University’s campus forum.
She took Yvette’s phone and looked at the most trending post. Her pink lips raised, outlining a sneer. Then she returned the phone to Yvette.
Seeing that Cecilia was not going to do anything, Yvette asked in surprise, “Ceci, aren’t you going to contact Mr. Lane and ask him to delete the post?”
If Cecilia let this slide, more people who didn’t know the truth would misunderstand her, and the rumors would become even
worse.
Cecilia didn’t care what others thought of her.
The fake video couldn’t be real. The more serious the situation became now, the more beneficial for her when she turned the tables in the future.
“Ms. Yates, deleting the post now will only cause
counterproductive effects. Don’t worry. I know what to do,” Cecilia said.
Cecilia thought, “This is a good opportunity to tear Juliana’s disguise apart. I have to make good use of it. Besides, I’m sure Mr. Lane has already known about the post. The reason he hasn’t dealt with it yet is that he hasn’t found the person who is promoting the scandal.”
Seeing that Cecilia was very confident, Yvette felt relieved.
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Thinking of the song that she didn’t get to finish listening to just now, Yvette said regretfully, “It’s all because of this post that I didn’t get to finish listening to your song, Ceci! It sounds so beautiful!”
When Cecilia read the post just now, she saw Yvette’s
comments defending her. Although Cecilia didn’t like to deal with interpersonal relationships, she would not be cold to those who were kind to her.
“If you like it, I will send you a copy after I finish the post–processing,” Cecilia said.
Yvette shrieked happily, “Ceci, why are you so kind? I love you
so much!”
Seeing that Yvette was about to hurl herself at Cecilia, Cecilia immediately took a small step back. “It’s a small matter. Don’t worry.”
Christopher took the opportunity to ask, “Can I have a copy as well?”
Listening to Cecilia’s song, he felt relaxed.
Cecilia didn’t want to get too involved with Christopher, so she said, “Okay. I’ll ask Ms. Yates to pass it to you by that time, Mr. Forte.”
Then she looked at the sound engineer and asked, “Have you saved the dry recording?”
The sound engineer nodded and handed the USB drive to Cecilia reluctantly.
“Your voice is clean and your timbre is good. Are you interested in selling this song? I’ll give you a satisfactory price, and I promise to make this song popular,” the sound engineer asked.
Cecilia refused directly, “This song is for my final exam. I won’t sell it.”
“Then are you interested in singing the interlude for Yates
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Corporation’s new film?”
“No.”
Hearing that, the sound engineer hurriedly shot a look at Yvette, signaling her to help persuade Cecilia.
It would be better if Cecilia could sign a long–term contract with Yates Corporation.
It was a big bonus if the songs in a film were chosen well.
Now that Yvette admired Cecilia, she naturally wouldn’t force the latter to do anything the latter didn’t want. She just ignored the sound engineer.
Seeing that there was no chance, the sound engineer muttered with regret, “It seems that we can only have Juliana sing the song.”
Upon hearing that, Cecilia asked, “Are you going to let Juliana sing the song you just mentioned?”
“Yes. Juliana’s singing skills are the best, and she’s the most famous person at Quilton University. Yates Corporation has cooperated with her on many songs, which have worked well.” Although the sound engineer said so, he knew that the main reason why Juliana’s songs were basically popular was due to the Yancey family’s help.
Of course, Juliana had a certain level of capabilities as well.
Hearing what the sound engineer said, Cecilia immediately changed her mind. “It’s not impossible for me to sing the interlude, but I have a condition.”
The sound engineer didn’t even ask and immediately agreed. “As long as you are willing to sing, I’ll accept your condition no matter what it is.”
“Have you confirmed with Juliana that she’s going to sing the interlude?” Cecilia asked.
“Not yet, but I mentioned it to her before. She agreed. Now the
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only thing remaining is the final confirmation letter,” the sound engineer replied.
“Spread the news out in secret. I want everyone to know that Juliana will sing the interlude for Yates Corporation’s film.” The sound engineer was confused. “What do you mean?”
Cecilia chuckled maliciously. “It means I want to snatch the song from Juliana openly.”
“Is it unnecessary? Juliana has a lot of fans. It’s not beneficial for you if you cause a scene.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. Just do as I say.”
The sound engineer was slightly troubled. Since snatching a song was a scandal, it was not conducive to later publicity and could also have a negative impact on the film.
“This must be agreed by Mr. Yates first. I’ll call and ask,” he said.
Cecilia hurriedly stopped the sound engineer, “How about you call him after I tried singing it?”
“Of course,” the sound engineer answered happily and handed the revised song and lyrics to Cecilia. “I’ll play the
accompaniment. You feel the rhythm first, and then record the song after you get familiar with it.”
“Okay.”
Cecilia listened to the accompaniment and hummed the lyrics.
After that, she changed a few lyrics to improve the artistic conception of the song.
Then the official recording of the song began.
Traditional–style songs were always Cecilia’s strong point. As
oon as she started singing, it astonished the crowd.
The people who were listening to the song seemed to see the ights of thousands of families during peaceful times, the ron–clad horses during chaotic times, the devastation after the var, and the final peaceful and prosperous times.
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When Cecilia came out of the recording studio, only Christopher came to his senses. He said, “You sing well. Yates Corporation’s movie will become famous because of this song.” Cecilia remained humble after being praised. “Thank you.”
After saying that, she said to the sound engineer who was still immersed in music, “Bring the vocal sample of the song to Mr. Yates. He will agree with my request.”
The sound engineer came back to his senses and said, “I agree with your request.”
It was worth every effort to keep this kind of soulful singer. Cecilia was satisfied with the sound engineer’s sensibility and said, “When the news about the snatching of the song spreads, you have to make a public selection.”
Cecilia thought, “I want to trample on Juliana in front of everyone!”
“That’s a good idea. As long as you win, all rumors will automatically be busted.”
As for the grudge between Cecilia and Juliana, the sound engineer was not interested in it at all.
What he wanted was just a good song.
When Cecilia was leaving, the sound engineer said, “Ms. Yancey, if you want to record a song, you can come at any time.”
“Okay, thank you,” Cecilia said.
After leaving the recording studio complex, Yvette planned to invite Cecilia for dinner again.
“Ceci—” As soon as Yvette spoke, she was interrupted by Cecilia’s ringing phone.
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