Chapter 097: Santana and Mercedes-Benz

Zhang Tan’s clear voice echoed through the room.

After more than half a year of practicing guitar, his fingers worked the strings with practiced ease, drawing out a lively, rising and falling melody.

“Spicy Crawfish” was bright and cheerful.

When he finished, Liu Yicheng and the others broke into enthusiastic applause.

After that, all the other leaders from the organizing committee left except Liu Yicheng. Since the theme song project was essentially contracted out, once the song itself had been chosen, everything else would be handled by Liu Yicheng.

With the senior officials gone, the atmosphere no longer felt so false or formal.

“So, Xiao Zhang, you want to sing the theme song yourself, is that it?”

“Yes. Brother Liu, what did you think of my singing just now?”

“Pretty good.” Liu Yicheng nodded. “The style of this song is broad and accessible, with a very straightforward feel. But I’ve got to say, your voice isn’t especially striking. It doesn’t have much of a personal signature. If you really want to make a career in singing, it won’t be easy.”

Zhang Tan knew exactly where he stood when it came to singing, and he wasn’t discouraged. He took it calmly.

“Maybe it all comes down to chance. Whether a song catches on depends on the voice, of course, but the lyrics and accompaniment matter too. If I can find my own style, it’s not as if I have no chance at all.”

Liu Yicheng patted Zhang Tan on the shoulder.

“You’re right. At the very least, ‘Spicy Crawfish’ suits you well. Your voice is clean; you can bring out that simple, innocent quality.”

Zhang Tan asked, “What about ‘The Stone of Hefei’? I feel like that song would sound good in my voice too. Want to try it?”

“Sure, but not here. Come to my studio. I’ve got a small recording booth there. We’ll record ‘Spicy Crawfish’ first—the theme song has to be used for publicity for the Crawfish Festival right away. We can also have a quick listen to you singing ‘The Stone of Hefei.’ Let’s get it done early; I’ve still got a mountain of work to deal with.”

So Zhang Tan went downstairs with Liu Yicheng.

Parked below was an aging Santana 2000, probably the higher-end “Era Man” trim, since the rear badge read “1.8 GSI,” the displacement marking for that model.

This Era Man was Liu Yicheng’s car. If it had been the previous year, the roads would still have been full of Xialis and Jettas, and a Santana 2000 GSI would have counted as a fairly good car. But after China entered the WTO and began to connect more closely with the wider world, many models had arrived in the country after the Spring Festival this year.

Brand-new Boras, Sail, Palios, and Polos were already racing through the streets, and another batch of models such as the new Bluebird, the Zhonghua, and the Elysee had already begun taking preorders.

The Santana 2000 GSI no longer stood out nearly as much. In fact, the newer Santana 2000 “Era Prodigy” had already been launched, clearly intended to replace the Era Man.

Men sometimes treat cars with more passion than they treat their wives.

After getting in, Zhang Tan and Liu Yicheng kept chatting endlessly about small cars.

Zhang Tan had long wanted to buy a car for daily transport, so he often kept an eye on the market. In his previous life, he had never been willing to buy one. He had worn out stacks of car magazines without ever buying a car, because every cent of his salary had gone into his mortgage. Ridiculously enough, even by the time he was reborn, he still hadn’t finished paying it off.

Now that he had money, of course he wasn’t going to be without both a house and a car.

“I’ll be getting the final payment from the television station in a while, and then I’m planning to switch to a new Bluebird. Japanese cars are more fuel-efficient. But I’m still thinking about whether to go with the 2.0-liter engine or the 2.5-liter. The new Bluebird costs more than two hundred thousand yuan, which is a bit brutal. I can’t make up my mind. If I take that plunge, I’ll probably have to scrimp and save for at least a year or two.”

Liu Yicheng spoke with a grin, clearly proud of being able to afford a car worth more than two hundred thousand yuan.

Zhang Tan disliked Japanese cars. There wasn’t any great reason for it; he simply hated the Japanese, and by extension disliked Japanese products.

“Brother Liu, if you buy a Japanese car, you should be careful. If tensions ever flare up between China and Japan and there’s another boycott of Japanese goods, and people mistake your new Bluebird for some Japanese import and smash it up, you won’t even have anywhere to cry.”

“Haha, that joke isn’t funny at all. What do I have to be afraid of? If anyone dares smash my new Bluebird, I’ll make them pay for it until they’re ruined.”

“And if they can’t find the main culprit and just say the whole crowd is at fault, you’ll be the one losing out big time.”

Liu Yicheng wasn’t worried in the slightest.

“Don’t talk about these impossible things. China and Japan are getting along just fine right now. Boycotting Japanese goods? Do you think this is still the revolutionary era?”

Zhang Tan shrugged and said no more.

In truth, the boycott of Japanese goods probably became a major uproar around 2005. That year, the Japanese were being obnoxious again, trying to join the permanent ranks of the United Nations Security Council. It sparked a wave of public boycotts of Japanese products in the country, and people lost control for a while, leading to smashed windows and damaged goods. Japanese products, especially Japanese cars, suffered a lot.

But however fierce that boycott was, it was ultimately ineffective. Many Japanese products were simply irreplaceable in the domestic market. Ten years later, no boycott would even be necessary; homegrown products would wipe out competitors across the board. By then, it would be other people boycotting Chinese goods.

Liu Yicheng, lost in dreams of Japanese cars, changed the subject.

“Xiao Zhang, if you were buying a car, what would you choose?”

Because Zhang Tan was so talkative and mature, Liu Yicheng had already forgotten his age and unconsciously treated him like an adult, someone whose opinion was worth hearing.

Zhang Tan had long since made up his mind.

“If I were buying one, I’d get an Audi. As soon as I get my driver’s license, the first thing I’d do is buy an Audi A6. If conditions allowed, I’d upgrade to a Mercedes. I’ve got my eye on the Mercedes S600.”

“Huh? An Audi A6? A Mercedes S600?” Liu Yicheng took Zhang Tan’s words as a joke. “Let’s not even talk about the S600. Do you even know how much the cheapest Audi A6 costs? More than five hundred thousand! Even a regular Audi costs at least two or three hundred thousand. Where are you getting that kind of money, Xiao Zhang?”

Zhang Tan wasn’t interested in showing off how much he could earn, so he merely smiled lightly.

“What if I just happen to have the money?”

Liu Yicheng laughed so hard he could barely breathe.

“Haha, I’m finding you surprisingly funny.”

Funny?

Zhang Tan thought to himself that once his royalties were settled, it would scare the life out of him.

Of course, he wasn’t the sort of person who liked to brag deliberately. If he could keep a low profile, he would. So he changed the subject and decided to actually be funny for once, by telling a joke.

“Here’s one: an old man wanted to buy a small car so he could look impressive. One day, he withdrew two thousand yuan from his savings book and went to a car dealership.”

“Two thousand? And then?”

“The old man slapped the two thousand yuan on the table and said loudly to the salesperson, ‘Bring me a Santana!’ The salesperson said, ‘Sir, two thousand yuan isn’t enough to buy a Santana.’ The old man got upset. ‘Isn’t it written on your sign out front, Santana 2000?’”

“Haha, you’re making fun of my Santana 2000!”

“There’s more. The salesperson froze for a moment, then pointed across the street and said, ‘Sir, you might as well go over there. The Mercedes across the road only costs six hundred...’”

Inside the bland exchange of jokes and chatter, the car came to a stop in a residential complex in the Yaohai District.

Liu Yicheng’s studio was located in that neighborhood, in Unit 3 of Building 6, on the sixth floor, where he had two adjoining apartments—one serving as the studio and the other as the recording booth.

“I spent more than a hundred thousand yuan setting up this recording booth. Most of the time, it’s just for people who like singing and want to record a track or two. Singers and bands don’t come here often. There aren’t many people making music in Hefei. It’s a shame.”