Chapter 089: Leaving Behind a Legend

The players could no longer stay calm.

Transcendence was the easiest realm to enter, but it was the most nebulous as well; no one truly understood how the system judged it.

Of course, almost everyone who had come here today was no beginner. They had played through hundreds upon hundreds of songs, if not more.

So this should not be too hard, right?

After barely any hesitation, the players began calling out one after another, “Teacher Little Heaven, come on, let’s all dance together.”

Singing and dancing were meant to express the sincerity in one’s heart. So long as one was not being affected or deliberately hiding oneself, that was transcendence.

Many of the players here today could pass this trial. He was merely giving them a reminder.

At that thought, Little Heaven seized the Thunder God’s Demon Marten Qin and said loudly, “All right, then let’s go dance on the beach.”

The instant he finished speaking, he spent all the gold he had won earlier on a grand new scene.

At once, the Boundless Grand Dance Floor vanished, replaced by an incomparably vast seaside beach.

Bright sunlight poured down. Above was a broad blue sky with white clouds; before them, waves rolled and crashed in rhythmic white froth. There was lush vegetation and a stretch of white sand.

In an instant, the players were ecstatic, their moods transformed.

Before the splendor of nature, all troubles and unhappiness faded away like mist.

And with the change of scenery, the players surged forward in a tide.

Soon, tens of thousands of people were standing on that beach, and the scene became wildly heated.

Seeing that the stage had been set, Little Heaven selected a dance track and announced, “Now, let’s dance to ‘One Hundred Smiling Faces,’ a 198 BPM group dance version. Forget all your worries and move to the music with all your heart! Show me what you’ve got!”

The moment he finished, the players went wild.

“I know this one! It’s such a cheerful song!”

“198? That’s so fast!”

“If Teacher Little Heaven hadn’t gone with 300, we should be thanking heaven.”

They shook out their limbs, settled into their stances, and tens of thousands of players prepared to dance with abandon.

Looking over the whole field, standing on the soft, fine white sand, Little Heaven felt a wave of assurance. A crowd of this size was indeed magnificent.

But he was no longer the Little Heaven of before. This was nothing more than a small scene.

He raised his right hand toward the sky, and the players one after another fell silent, gathering their emotions.

Once the venue had quieted, Little Heaven played the music.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Woo—

The distinctive strings of the shamisen, together with the lingering tones of the shakuhachi, opened this brainwashing hit with its irresistible melody.

Little Heaven lifted his face to the sky and drew out his voice as he began to sing, “Yooooo—!!”

With that female vocal line, the players all became certain of one fact: he truly was the mighty Ziyang!

Hands on hips, swaying left and right, bodies moving with the beat, they stepped on the rhythm and broke into a mass dance.

Not only that, they shouted along with Little Heaven in a chaotic roar: “Ji-ke uwu ji-fee ji-fee ji-jian...”

Finally, after Little Heaven had sung five different female voices by himself, the players found a line they could all join in on: “Washu! Washu!”

Cheerful percussion, explosive string lines, awkward phrasing packed with countless traditional Japanese jokes and invented terms, along with references to historical events and various expressions—there were even plenty of running gags in it, such as a mouse marrying a cat.

But none of these players knew anything about Japan, nor did they care to learn. They simply loved the music itself.

To put it another way, only music could carry everything, including culture.

To express culture, new music had to emerge. Music may have come later, but it was the true foundation.

That sounded a little roundabout, but roundabout was exactly right. Only music could break down the borders between nations.

As the tempo quickened, Little Heaven’s mouth seemed to fire like a string of crackers, the lyrics pouring out without end.

With tens of thousands of people present, the sense of being there in the moment was overwhelming, and the contagion was immense.

Any song could ignite this place. The frenzy of the scene was no less intense than the Olympics.

As a person from Earth, a future maestro of the grand stage, Little Heaven could even understand the deeper meaning of “One Hundred Smiling Faces.”

That meaning was simple: no matter what difficulties one faced, one should meet them with a smile.

Such a culture could be called someone else’s culture.

Halfway through the song, no one could stop anymore. As the chorus reached its peak, Little Heaven swept his gaze across the entire venue and raised both hands. “Everyone, shout with me!”

The players yelled themselves hoarse in wild excitement. “Awooo!”

His sense of rhythm was peerless, and he always cut into the beat perfectly. Little Heaven sprang upward from the very first note and shouted, “Washu, laugh!”

The players, thoroughly infected by the mood, roared as one: “Washu!”

Turning to the other side to stoke the atmosphere even further, Little Heaven shouted with all his might, “Louder! Washu!”

Within his line of sight, the players were like men and women injected with adrenaline, their roars thunderous. “Washu!”

“Washu!” “Washu!” “Washu!”

The waves of sound rose higher and higher, gradually becoming more and more unified, each burst of noise following the orderly pauses of the four-four rhythm.

All the while, Little Heaven kept driving the atmosphere upward, his dancing body infecting everyone around him.

Against the backdrop of the soul-piercing drums, he cried “Washu” again and again, and the players could barely contain their excitement.

Just when it seemed their voices were nearly gone, Little Heaven swung his right arm and bellowed to the heavens, “Yo-ho-ho!”

The tens of thousands of players on site, and the millions watching from the room, all joined in together: “Yo-ho-ho!”

“Yo-ho-ho!”

“Yo-ho-ho!”

“Yo-ho-ho!”

The simple, repetitive four-four beat and the collective roaring were the best at stirring human emotions. That was the essence of arranging every pop song.

Now the atmosphere had completely exploded. The over-the-top anthem had succeeded in brainwashing everyone, and the whole venue was dancing!

Every player was now in a state of excitement so intense it seemed every cell in their body was trembling. They were truly dancing.

Poetry is where one’s will goes. In the heart it is intent; when spoken aloud it becomes verse. When feeling is stirred within, it is expressed in words. If words are not enough, one sighs; if sighing is not enough, one sings; if singing is not enough, one dances without even knowing it.

The meaning of this line is that poetry is the outward expression of a person’s aspirations. In the heart, it is intent; expressed in language, it becomes poetry. When emotion is stirred within the heart, it will surely emerge as speech. If speech cannot express it, one will sigh; if sighing cannot express it, one will sing; and if singing still cannot express it, one will move one’s hands and feet in dance without conscious thought.

Right now, the emotions in the hearts of these millions of players could no longer be perfectly expressed by mere poems or words.

Only dance remained.

While the players were still in the grip of wild excitement, Little Heaven quietly led Chen Fang out of the game.

The players knew nothing of his departure. All they knew was how to dance well in the music, truly dance for the first time in their lives.

As for the items and gold he had gained in the game, Little Heaven left everything behind before he went, as though he had never been there at all.

Yet the shock and artistic wealth he had brought to the players had only just begun...