Chapter 161: Everyone's Darling

Xu Yunzhou hadn't yet figured out how to respond to those weighty words when the phone in his pocket buzzed.

He pulled it out and saw a WeChat message from Shen Jie—his childhood friend who worked in real estate:

"Brother Xu!!! Holy shit!!! You're missing out by not being here!!! Song Jiaru looks insanely gorgeous today!!! The energy, the stage presence—absolutely unbeatable!!!"

Attached was a short video, clearly taken from the back of the stands on a phone, a little shaky, but still conveying the rabid fervor of the live crowd.

Xu Yunzhou looked at the screen, then at the radiant figure on the stage below, then at Xu Nuo beside him, and then at Song Jinxuan, who was busily brewing tea nearby...

A slightly awkward, slightly amused expression crept onto his face.

How was he supposed to answer this?

With the truth?

"Yeah, I'm sitting in a VIP box watching it live. The view's decent—her boss personally brewed me tea."

No matter how he phrased it, it would sound like deliberate showing off. A max-tier Versailles humble-brag!

He rubbed his nose and finally sent a vague, information-free reply:

"Yeah... she really is beautiful."

...

Over the two-plus hours that followed.

Onstage, Song Jiaru burned herself completely—and set thirty thousand people ablaze along with her.

She sang her early debut tracks, green yet sincere.

She sang the legendary masterpieces that had swept every major award.

She sang the heart-wrenching melodies she'd composed for films.

And she sang a private demo never released anywhere—a song dedicated to one person alone, existing only in this moment.

The fans went from frantic screaming and tear-streaked faces in the opening, to standing throughout the middle of the show, waving glow sticks and hoarsely singing along in perfect unison, and then to many of them overcome with emotion, clutching each other and sobbing, choking out her name, hurling paper airplanes scrawled with blessings toward the stage...

This was no longer a simple idol-and-fan relationship.

This was a resonance of souls. A flood of emotion. Unconditional trust and the most profound expression of love forged through more than a decade of growing together.

It was the most extreme, the most pure, the most moving form of two-way devotion between an idol and her fans.

...

When the prelude of "Light Years Away" began—in a slower, even more tender arrangement—

Xu Nuo, who had been sitting quietly on the sofa watching the stage, her gaze flickered almost imperceptibly.

Her eyes followed the woman onstage, a luminous being within the spotlight.

She watched for a long, long time.

Then she turned her head slightly toward the equally entranced Xu Yunzhou and said, in a voice so soft it was barely a breath:

"Teacher..."

Her voice paused, as if searching for the most accurate words, then dissolved into an almost inaudible sigh.

"...She's truly beautiful."

"Beautiful as..."

Another pause. Seeking a metaphor.

"...moonlight that should never be touched by any shadow."

Then she gently added the more crucial sentence:

"...She should be the one most suited for you."

Xu Yunzhou's heart felt like it had been knocked—gently, yet squarely—by those featherweight words.

Those words... that tone...

They felt familiar.

Just yesterday, at the tea house by West Lake, Lin Ruoxuan had said something similar.

With the same wistfulness, and a certain... almost entrusting, almost resigned undertone.

But then again.

Among all these bizarre, time-spanning "nurturing" relationships of his, Song Jiaru truly did seem to be the one who had been protected the best.

Wu Xiuyun, with a promise spanning a century and a formidable background, had personally served as her escort, clearing away the most dangerous shadows on her path of growth.

Lin Ruoxuan had poured in enormous sums of capital and tilted top-tier resources her way more than once, paving a smooth, broad thoroughfare to the summit of the entertainment world.

Even Xu Nuo... from across the ocean, in her own way and with her own power, had silently deflected the covetous gazes and threats from the dark world.

It was as if she had been bestowed with the adoration of thousands—a "group pet," tenderly cherished and shielded by everyone.

Everyone seemed to have agreed, without ever saying it aloud: to lift the best of everything, the cleanest stage, the brightest road ahead, and lay it before her.

They all felt that a girl so beautiful, so persistent, whose voice could heal souls...

Deserved the purest, most complete, most blessed ending.

...

Beside them, Song Jinxuan—who had just raised the purple clay teapot with a lifted wrist, pouring from a height to brew "Phoenix Nods Three Times"—paused mid-gesture.

(TL: A traditional Chinese tea ceremony technique in which the teapot is lowered and raised three times while pouring, both to brew the leaves evenly and to show respect to the guest.)

The corner of her mouth twitched. A torrent of bullet comments screamed through her mind:

Hmm... judging from how Jiaru is ready to throw away her career to confess in public—yeah, she's definitely determined to marry him...

But Lord Nuo, isn't that a little too direct?

It sounds like you just finished "selecting a consort" for Xu Yunzhou and slammed down the final verdict—appointing the official main wife!

Though... given the asura field chaos of the past few days, the facts aren't that far off, are they?

Forget it...

I don't understand the world of these bigshots.

Get used to it. Just get used to it.

...

The concert drew toward its end, the atmosphere pushed wave after wave to a higher, fiercer peak.

Just as the echo of the final song hadn't yet faded, with the audience still suspended in that extreme rush of emotion, the deep, vast night sky of Binzhou was suddenly—without the slightest warning—set alight by countless beams of light soaring upward from every corner of the city at once!

"Zzzh—BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!"

Breathtakingly gorgeous fireworks rose and detonated from multiple preset points around the city, all centered on the stadium!

Golden waterfalls. Purple hearts. Blue galaxies. Blood-red roses...

Fireworks of every shape, every color, opulent enough to make jaws drop, instantly transformed the night sky of Binzhou into a dreamlike fairy-tale world.

A true spectacle of burning money like burning spirit money—a grand feat whose visual impact shook the entire city!

This was far, far beyond the scope of an ordinary concert celebration!

This was more like a lavish tribute—planned for years, sparing no expense, paying any price!

A coronation ceremony, crowning a single name with the most extreme brilliance!

The entire city marveled!

Feeds and social media were instantly flooded with fireworks photos and videos under the same theme!

Then—an even more breathtaking scene appeared!

Above the stadium, hundreds of precisely programmed, centrally coordinated drones rose silently and rapidly shifted their formation in the night sky.

First, they formed a giant, gorgeous, romantic cartoon portrait of Song Jiaru smiling—lifelike, her glow gentle.

Then the portrait slowly dissolved. The swarm swirled like a drifting nebula and reformed into four enormous, shimmering, dazzling artistic characters—

"Jiaru—Most Beautiful."

The soft yet resolute light illuminated Song Jiaru's face below as she looked up in delighted surprise, tears welling in her eyes once more.

It illuminated the entire stadium, now boiling with frenzy. And through countless lenses, it entered the eyes of tens of millions—even hundreds of millions—of people watching this magnificent spectacle.

...

Meanwhile.

Shanghai. Tangong Manor.

Lin Ruoxuan, dressed in casual loungewear with bare feet curled beneath her on the wide sofa, had the live broadcast of the Binzhou concert playing in real time on the massive screen before her.

When she saw the fireworks bursting across the night sky and the words formed by the drones, a faint smile curled the corner of her lips—the expression of one who held everything in her grasp.

She picked up another private phone and sent a command prepared long in advance:

"Project Star-Crown: initiate Phase Two. Unlimited budget."

"Tonight, over Binzhou, I want fireworks and stars alike to crown only her alone. I want every inch of light she sees when she lifts her head to be written with blessings."

"Tomorrow, I want every media headline—entertainment pages and society pages alike—to carry only one name. I want her smile stamped on the opening page of this era's memory."

"I want this concert, from its first note to its final ray of light, to become a classic that can never be replicated—an eternal image etched into the life memories of billions, the one that inevitably surfaces whenever they think of 'youth,' 'passion,' and 'romance.'"

This was not a business decision.

This was not a public relations strategy.

This was a meticulously orchestrated, everything-on-the-line sacrifice and offering.