A Star Reborn: The Queen’s Return

What did she mean by “there are many in your team behind you that are preparing to be beaten by her”? She was simply insulting the entire team, not even bothering to leave herself an escape route.

There was a mix of cheers and jeers from the crowd, which were so loud that it seemed like they were going to blow through the roof.

The emcee and broadcast director were delighted. This Ye Xingling, was she an angel for drawing in the viewers? She had successfully and skillfully heated up the atmosphere in the place. With her around, it would be difficult for their show to tank when it was released.

In that instance, they felt even more impressed with Ye Xingling.

“Give her a few more solo takes.” The broadcast director said. “Many her look pretty… the audience loves her.”

He was being biased, completely ignoring the fact that there was another person called Zhao Wanyang still on stage.

Zhao Wanyang was struggling to keep in her anger and made up her mind to make life difficult for Xia Ling. Since she had already butchered “Meteor Wings,” then she needed to make sure that Xia Ling sang even worse than her to be able to save some face. With that thought, she put on an amicable expression and said, “Then I’ll pick an easy song for Miss Ye. My song titled ‘Flower that Isn’t a Flower.’ It’s an easy one to sing.”

Offstage, the veteran heavenly king, Bai Murong, grumbled. “Isn’t she just being shameless?”

“Yeah, she is.” His teammate piped up. “A song from more than ten years ago. I think Ye Xingling was still in primary school when this song was released. It wasn’t even a popular song. She’s probably never heard of it before, and now she has to sing it?”

He lifted his head towards the stage to see how Ye Xingling would react.

This newbie had surprised him time and again. Perhaps this time she would surprise him another time.

Bai Murong himself did not realize that he had developed more expectations and confidence in this girl.

Xia Ling cocked her head slightly and replied, “Okay.” While this song was not mainstream, unfortunately for Zhao Wanyang, Xia Ling had heard it before. Too bad for Zhao Wanyang… her debut period was too close to Xia Ling in her past life. Xia Ling was vaguely familiar with most of Zhao Wanyang’s songs.

Xia Ling’s memory was excellent when it came to music, and could easily remember a song even if she had only heard it once. What’s more, this song wasn’t a difficult one at all.

Zhao Wanyang thought that Xia Ling was bluffing and silently laughed. Ye Xingling, let’s see how long you can keep up the pretense!

However, Xia Ling’s performance left her in shock. When the background music started playing, Xia Ling smoothly sang along to the accompaniment. Her rendition was skillful and dynamic, better than the original version!

The audience listened transfixed.

Xia Ling looked resplendent onstage in her white dress as if she were a goddess from within a dream. Her performance of “Flower that Isn’t a Flower” was almost to perfection.

At the end of the song, the applause sustained for a long time.

Xia Ling took a bow and turned to look straight at Zhao Wanyang. “You’ve lost.” Behind her, the huge screen was tabulating the final scores, and her vote count was several times that of Zhao Wanyang. It was a resounding victory for Xia Ling.

Zhao Wanyang’s face turned white. That’s impossible… how does she know how to sing this song? However, the reality was right there in her face. Xia Ling knew the song, and she had done a brilliant job of it.

Zhao Wanyang stumbled offstage as the emcee announced Ye Xingling from Feng Kun’s team to be the winner for this first head-to-head battle between Chen Xiaomin’s team and Feng Kun’s team. There was thunderous applause from the crowd.

Xia Ling smilingly stood tall in the center of the stage. “Next.” She never did things half-heartedly, and could not help but add. “Please send someone stronger upstage this round.”

The brazen challenge made Chen Xiaomin’s team jump with anger.

“Zhao Wanyang, what happened to you? How could you lose to a newbie?” Someone complained. “See how arrogant she is right now?”

Having just been publicly embarrassed, Zhao Wanyang was still boiling with anger and snapped. “If you’re so great, why don’t you try?!”

“I’ll go then!” That person was called Luo Ye, who was also a fairly well-known female singer. “I don’t believe I can’t take her down!” She confidently walked onto the stage.

Now, Xia Ling was the defender. According to the rules of the competition, the defender would always pick the song for her opponent to sing first, before it was then her turn to sing. Xia Ling did not even give it so much as a thought as she said, “Let’s do ‘Meteor Wings’ again… I’ll not raise the difficulty for you guys.” Reading between the lines, she seemed to be saying, “If you guys can’t get ‘Meteor Wings’ right, why even bother trying ‘Glass Fingertips’?”

A double-whammy of an insult.

The audience could not help but think… were all these singers in Chen Xiaomin’s team just serving themselves up on a silver platter to be ridiculed by Ye Xingling?

Luo Ye got a taste of what Zhao Wanyang had experienced on stage, feeling like she was about to burst with anger but not being able to show it entirely. “Okay, fine, I’ll sing ‘Meteor Wings.’ I’m going to sing it so well that you won’t be able to say anything.”

The melody of the introduction rang out.

Luo Ye did not disappoint as a current A-lister, her rendition was of much better quality than Zhao Wanyang’s. Her version of “Meteor Wings” was pleasant to the ears, and could be said to be very refined.

The audience applauded her generously when the song was over.

Seeing the good reaction from the crowd, Luo Ye became full of herself. “Ye Xingling, what do you have to say?”

Xia Ling slowly lifted the microphone to her lips, which was curled into a tinge of a smile. “It’s a little better than that of Zhao Wanyang’s.”

Just a little better? This sentence made Luo Ye see red. “Aren’t you generous with your compliments now? Are you, as the original singer, feeling uneasy because I did too well?”

Since everyone in the music festival was being direct with their comments, the audience would think that the insults hurled were merely to bring out the battle atmosphere. Only the singers themselves were truly aware of whether their statements were said in a joking fashion or as an insult.

Xia Ling lightly said, “There were at least three places where you made mistakes.”

“Huh?” Luo Ye was stunned.

“One, you were off-key when you started — it was flat by a half-key. Even though you brought it back quickly after, but the transition was awkward. Two, the falsetto was too strained — it was weak and screeching. Three, the ‘Wings’ of the line ‘Wings of stars’ was too rushed — your breath was too short and couldn’t hit the note. There’s a lot of room for improvement.” She astutely pointed out all the mistakes, not leaving any room for rebuttal.

The audience was also stunned at hearing her criticisms. Was it that bad? It seemed fine to them.

The screen behind them started to replay bits of Luo Ye’s singing in relation to Xia Ling’s criticisms. There was indeed minor issues with the three parts that Xia Ling had pointed out.

The audience was impressed. “Wow, Ye Xingling is amazing. She was able to spot all those issues even though they were so minor.”

“Yeah… so professional. She’s definitely got the skills.”

Luo Ye’s expression became grave. After all, she wasn’t singing her own song, and it was natural to have some areas that were not perfect. She had already tried her best to cover up these imperfections, but her rival had seen right through them.

“Sorry. I’m not the original singer and did not practice the song as long as you have.” Luo Ye said, half meaning it as an insult, and half as a defense for herself. She was insinuating that Ye Xingling was acting like a know-it-all being the original singer and was picking on her.

Xia Ling did not react much to this statement, but Wei Shaoyin was furious.

Wei Shaoyin was known to be biased to people he liked. How could he tolerate someone insulting his favorite singer? His cold voice rang out. “Xiao Ling, are you an idiot? Did you only see three issues? She came in too quickly at the fourth line; her lyrics were wrong in the fifth; she was off tune again in the sixth… Did you miss all these problems?! And…”

Wei Shaoyin continued eloquently, lecturing Xia Ling.

Xia Ling was used to his style and calmly listened to him. Luo Ye, on the other hand, could hardly stand still. He was clearly making an act of lecturing Xia Ling to insult her singing!