A Star Reborn: The Queen’s Return

Groggily, Xia Ling took the newspapers and sat up slightly.

The headlines read — Ye Xingling, do you dare take up the challenge?

What in the world?

She was more awake now, skimming through the article quickly. It was Xia Yu’s written challenge, and in it, Xia Yu had listed all sorts of bad deeds on Xia Ling’s part, including insulting the deceased, turning violent and remaining unrepentant…

The end of the challenge read: You’ve said it yourself that we’ll compete publicly, so we’ll do it that way! One month from now, we will both perform the theme songs to the brands’ launch at Lin Gang Stadium and have the audience decide on the result! If you win, I will make a public apology to you, but if I win, you’ll have to kneel before my sister’s grave and apologize!

Xia Yu was seldom this aggressive, and the media seemed to be aware of this point, hence commenting “Kinship runs deep, the submissive and often sickly Xia Yu stands up in courage when it comes to matters concerning her sister; admirable indeed”.

Xia Ling read the article and scoffed.

Interesting, the challenge was already agreed on and held the previous day at Four Seasons Restaurant. With the challenge that Xia Yu had issued earlier today, now it appeared as if Imperial was taking the initiative to fight for justice.

She ruffled through her quilt and pillows for her tablet and wrote on it for Sister Mai Na: If my vocal cord can recover, it won’t be hard for me to teach her a good lesson. But, can it?

She ended the sentence with an exceptionally huge question mark.

Before coming up to look for Xia Ling, Sister Mai Na had already bumped into Li Lei on the way — this lazy girl sleeping till midday, in that time her Big Boss had already attended several meetings. Almost helpless, she ruffled Xia Ling’s hair. “You… don’t worry, your vocal cords will be fine. Get your stuff packed when you’re up later, Boss has booked a flight in the late afternoon and you’ll look for a specialist overseas. James has already given the specialist a look at your medical record, and they are 90% sure they’ll be able to cure you.”

Really? Xia Ling’s eyes were sparkling.

This was the best news she had heard in a while. She now understood why Li Lei had readily accepted Imperial’s challenge — he had everything planned.

“Of course.” Sister Mai Na sensed her joy and rubbed her head once again while smiling. “I wonder where you, little girl, got your good fortune from that Boss could be so nice to you.”

She smiled shyly, her face turning red.

Li Lei had arranged for a private jet in order to avoid having news spread to Pei Ziheng. In the next few weeks, she received treatment and underwent surgeries overseas. With therapy and recuperation, her vocal cords recovered day by day.

The hospital ward was bright and neat.

The translucent curtains allowed just the right amount of natural light in, the rays falling on the walls and furniture. By the bedside was a flower vase handcrafted by an artisan, filled with lilac iris flowers and bundles of baby’s breath — the flowers were in full bloom, creating a beautiful sight.

Meanwhile, Li Lei fed Xia Ling the last bowl of medicine.

“How are you feeling?” He asked with some apprehension. The main doctor had said that after Xia Ling finished this last bowl of medicine, they would be able to tell how much her vocal cords had recovered. The vocal cords were a very sensitive part and even slight damage could cause the quality of the voice to change. This was not an evident or significant problem to an average person, but to a singer, it could turn into an Achilles’ heel.

Li Lei had always appeared confident in front of Xia Ling, reassuring her that she would definitely recover fully. Truth was, he was more nervous than anybody else.

Xia Ling opened her mouth slightly, attempting to make a sound.

Xia Ling was actually already able to speak more than a week before, but she felt the strain often and her voice was not consistent, and neither was she able to sing. This last bowl of medicine was different from the rest. According to James, it contained the essence of many rare herbs, and every single drop was as valuable as gold — no, even more valuable than gold; gold had a price to it, this formula was priceless.

A few minutes later, Xia Ling felt the scratchy feeling in her throat dissipate, and in its place was a cool, comfortable sensation. It was as if no damage had been done to it.

She told Li Lei, “I want to try singing.”

When she spoke, her voice let out a pleasant sound, void of the hoarseness that came with it before it recovered. She sounded just like she did before the injury, but if listened to conscientiously, one could tell a very slight difference. Li Lei could not pinpoint what the difference was, but Xia Ling’s voice was even better than before it was damaged, as if the voice she had now was more aligned with her spirit, like a gift she was born with.

He smiled and nodded. “Go on ahead, I’ll listen.”

Xia Ling thought for a bit and sang “Glass Fingertips,” her soothing voice filling the otherwise quiet space. Li Lei was so immersed in her singing that he took a while to snap back to reality after she had stopped singing.

“It sounds even better than before,” he commented. Although he was the boss of Skyart Entertainment, he had not gone deep into learning about voices and songs. A simple word, that it was “better”, was enough to express the change in her voice.

“Better?” Xia Ling smiled. “This is a blessing in disguise. If I haven’t got a wrong sense of it, my pitch range seems to have expanded, and my voice is also more refined than before. In the future, I’ll be able to present more and richer layers in a song… No, I should put it this way, many of the layers I’m able to present now can never be achieved by most other singers due to their innate limitations.”

“Even though I don’t quite know what you’re saying, it does sound like you’re really good now.” Li Lei smiled innocently.

Xia Ling’s spirits were lifted tremendously as she explained. “Basically, Ye Xingling’s voice used to be just slightly better than an average person’s — you can easily find people with such ability in Skyart. As for Ye Xingling now, her voice is incomparably good. She is way above the rest.”

“That good?” Li Lei was pleasantly surprised.

“Of course.” Xia Ling raised her chin teasingly, pleased that her voice had gotten even better.

“How is your voice now compared to the Diva Xia Ling’s?” Li Lei asked as someone who did not quite know music. “I heard that Xia Ling was the most talented singer in close to a century.”

In her past life, she was in fact very unique and talented, which was why Pei Ziheng was so attracted to her.

The person she was now, however, was not very much different from her previous life. “I’m different from the Diva Xia Ling,” she explained to Li Lei patiently. “Xia Ling’s vocal range was very wide and she needed no effort to reach the high and low notes. Her voice was clear and bright, extremely suitable for valiant songs. But she had a weakness — because her voice was so bright, it was difficult for her to express the finer details and emotions in a song.”

She began smiling as she spoke. “But I’m different, although my voice isn’t as loud and bright, it’s a lot finer and more layered. In this aspect, I’m now unbeatable.”

“Little girl, you’re amazing.” He liked it when she was in high spirits, like a contented kitten. “In that case, let’s return soon, the competition date is approaching and I want to see you defeat your opponent.”