The Junger Quark had come specifically to enjoy the stage performance, and he was utterly captivated. Out of the three, Wolfgang and Weiner both understood some Japanese, so there was no language barrier for them. They could directly feel the emotion in the song. Even Joachim, who had no interest in Japanese at all, was moved by the melody, sensing the emotions woven into it.
"Mr. Chu's singing technique in the pop field is very strong. If I closed my eyes and only listened to the technique, I would think the singer was fifty years old," Weiner remarked.
"The Japanese song he wrote is different from the 'Orient' described in Edward Said's Orientalism. His Japanese songs are real, authentic," Wolfgang added.
"His singing is better than mine," Joachim admitted simply. He didn't speak about things he didn't understand, like Japanese, but he acknowledged skill when he heard it.
Edward Said, the famous Palestinian critic, argued in Orientalism that the "Orient" described by the West in the 19th century was merely a self-constructed fantasy. Even Westerners who had visited the East projected their own arrogance and prejudice, building up images of what they wanted to see rather than what truly existed.
Wolfgang's words were praise: Chu Zhi's Japanese songs carried genuine Japanese flair, not the imagined version foreigners often created. Clearly, Chu Zhi had studied Japanese culture deeply.
Anyone without some background knowledge would struggle to follow their conversation. And while Weiner, Joachim, and Wolfgang were praising Chu Zhi, each of them carried a small sense of disappointment.
They knew it wasn't Chu Zhi's fault. It was because the songs "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Tears of the River Tess" had set such impossibly high demands for a singer. The truth was, the disappointment lay with themselves.
🎵 "ふとした瞬间に视线がぶつかる,幸运のときめき覚えているでしょ."
"パステルカラーの季节に恋した,あの日のように辉いてるあなたでいてね."🎵
While the three whispered to each other, the prelude of Don't Give Up ended and Chu Zhi began to sing.
What was the weight of ninety percent Angel's Gospel + Immortal Wine + Crowd Freak combined? It was like someone pressed a mute button on the crowd. In an instant, silence fell, as quiet as an examination hall.
It was August in Osaka, the weather hot and heavy. Even at half past six, the sun had not yet sunk fully below the horizon. The orange glow of dusk spilled across the dark mass of people, making for a breathtaking sight.
And yet, in such a magnificent scene, silence reigned. The contradiction was strange, almost like staring at a painting caught between 2D and 3D.
🎵 "Don't give up, keep going, fight on till the very last moment. No matter how far apart we are, my heart is always by your side."
🎵 "Bravely chase that distant dream, no matter what happens."
🎵 "You always put on a careless face, joking with me: there will always be a way."
Chu Zhi continued singing in Japanese, every note seeming to dance, every lyric fluttering like a ladybug spreading its wings, carrying people back to the summers of their youth.
Memories stirred of wild, reckless thoughts, visions of the future unrestrained and fearless.
Among the audience was Airi, who had recently filmed a music video with Chu Zhi. She once said that Chu Zhi, both as her idol and as himself, was her driving force to keep living. Naturally, she had fought for a ticket to the Summer Supersonic Festival.
Now, her idol's voice pulled her back to a bold thought she had at seventeen:
To become a super, super star. A national idol like Hirokumo Ryoko. And then, casually reveal the truth one day, so fans would expose and destroy that disgusting teacher who harassed students.
It had been a fantasy, but that fantasy had supported Airi through a long stretch of life.
🎵 "Tonight, dance with me. Please don't forget, I still love you just the way you are. Don't give up!"
🎵 "Look, the goal is right ahead. No matter how far apart we are, my heart is always by your side."
🎵 "Feel it with your heart, I will always be watching over you. Don't give up, keep going, fight till the very last moment."
That wild fantasy had lasted until Airi really became an idol—an underground idol.
Once she entered the industry, she learned how impossible it was to reach the heights of someone like Hirokumo Ryoko. The road there was nearly impassable.
But recalling that seventeen-year-old excitement, her ears filled with Chu Zhi's lyrics, she felt something again. Tonight. Could it be tonight?
She lifted her head toward the gentle sun setting into the horizon. For the first time, she realized that sunlight falling away didn't matter. She herself could shine.
With Jiu-dian by her side, how could she just watch him soar alone? She had to endure to the very end.
She had already appeared in a music video. The road to stardom was ahead. She couldn't give up.
Airi wasn't the only one. Many people rediscovered those old, outrageous dreams, their hearts beating faster with long-lost excitement.
Like the man standing next to Airi, eyes burning with passion—his dream was to become Prime Minister and pass a law requiring all women nationwide to wear stockings.
Or the badminton youth Zhou Yiyu, whose dream had once been to surpass the marathon legend Mo Farah and become something even greater.
So many unusual fantasies stirred awake.
White-collar workers, lawyers, doctors, students, CEOs—no matter their profession, they were reminded of their first dreams. Unlike the earlier guests who fired up the crowd with hand-waving excitement, Chu Zhi had achieved something rarer.
Anyone could make a festival rowdy. Few could make it fall into silence.
Chu Zhi's gaze swept across the audience as he sang:
🎵 "No matter how far apart we are, my heart is always by your side. Bravely chase that distant dream."
🎵 "Don't give up. Look, the finish line is just ahead."
🎵 "No matter how far apart we are, my heart is always by your side. Feel it with your heart, I will always be watching over you."
When the song ended, it wasn't just beautiful—it was heavenly.
The quiet crowd felt like they were holding up a delicate, colorful bubble together. Fragile, so fragile, as if it might burst at any moment.
"We must never give up, okay? I won't give up either."
Chu Zhi's voice broke the bubble. The audience snapped back to reality, erupting into thunderous applause and cheers.
"What a gentle kind of strength. Just like in 'Once I Also Wanted to End It All,' after listening, I feel like I can keep walking through this world."
"I don't want to give up either."
"I actually cried. I remembered how positive I used to be. What happened to me now?"
"Chu-san's songs hold a billion units of positive energy!"
Voices of praise spread everywhere. Some fans even shouted for an encore. The overseas support group led by Ojima, more than a hundred strong, roared especially loud.
Even though everyone knew that the festival schedule was fixed and encore performances would only cut into other singers' time, which was basically impossible, they still wondered: what if?
"The quality of the other songs in the album doesn't matter anymore. As long as it has Don't Give Up, Chu-san's new album will sell like crazy. That's my judgment," said a staff member with a slicked-back haircut.
"You're right," the planning division section chief agreed seriously. "Another signature work."
Chu Zhi waved to his fans but didn't continue to hold the stage. With clean decisiveness, he stepped down and gave the floor to the next performer.
The singer who followed, Japanese artist Inuzuka Mie, was still caught in the lingering emotions of Don't Give Up, so she didn't step up immediately.
Anyone scheduled to perform after Chu Zhi was in a tough spot. Inuzuka Mie could only be pitied in silence.
The other artists watching from the passageway had the strongest reactions. Their state wasn't much different from Inuzuka Mie's. Insiders with trained ears were shaken to the core.
Amazed. Explosive. Overwhelmed.
Those three words summed up the feelings of Junger Quark's band members Weiner, Wolfgang, and Joachim. The experience was completely different from their performance at Wacken Open Air.
"It felt like listening to a saint's hymn, overflowing with hope," said Weiner. "If my mother were here, she would have wanted to pray. I forgot to mention, my mother isn't even Catholic."
Wolfgang pushed his glasses up with his fingertip. "I agree. If this guy went to preach, in at most twenty years he could inherit the Pope's seat at the Vatican."
"Because I don't understand Japanese, and that's not a disadvantage, I mean it allowed me to feel the emotions more directly," Joachim said. "It felt like the little house of hope in my soul was renovated. The last time I felt this way was attending mass at the Milan Cathedral, hearing the boys' choir with their pure voices."
The band Junger Quark shared one common thought: thank goodness this was a two-day festival. They still had another chance.
Each stop of the festival lasted two days. That meant Maishima Island would host performances again tomorrow. Today, Junger Quark played three songs. Tomorrow, they would play another three.
There was no doubt about tonight's MVP. It was Chu Zhi. Junger Quark felt they had a shot at taking tomorrow's.
"Perfection… no, flawless perfection," Haebin Kai evaluated silently.
"Higuchi had the nerve to tell me that Chu Zhi was overrated and that his stage presence wasn't anything special. Looks like Higuchi has been proven wrong again."
Haebin Kai had been teammates with Hanabito for many years, so he knew well that Higuchi was the type who loved networking and forming cliques. But whenever his advances were rejected, he would lash out destructively.
There had even been a promising singer who ended up blacklisted by Higuchi Hanabito, their career destroyed.
But Chu Zhi was already established. His wings had grown strong. He could not be destroyed. At the moment, he circled back to the resting area, not heading to the passage right away. Instead, he hurried to change out of his performance clothes, which were stifling and hot.
The performance itself hadn't been exhausting, but sweat beaded on his forehead.
"Why isn't brother Jiu here yet? I have to ask him for tips. His singing is too amazing," said Zhou Yiyu. Of course, asking for guidance was just an excuse—what he really wanted was to emphasize his closeness to someone of Chu Zhi's caliber.
Someone who truly had that thought was Yang Ziquan. Four songs, and each stage better than the last. That was no joke.
"Mom, if one day I could stand on a stage of this level, I'd be willing to be 8 cm shorter," muttered Leng He to himself in a voice only he could hear.
Zhou Yiyu pulled out his phone, opened WeChat, and sent Chu Zhi a meme of a panda man holding a nuclear bomb with the caption: [Bro, light up the big one].
The festival went on, but compared to Chu Zhi's stage, the acts that followed felt like makeshift fillers, overshadowed completely. It was the effect of cross-dimensional suppression.
At eight in the evening, the first day of the Summer Supersonic Festival Osaka stop came to an end.
"Ojima-kaichō, what's wrong?" asked a tall, thin young fan in a cat café uniform, worried at his distracted expression since the festival had ended.
"I can't give up. I can't be a coward. Only cowards run away," muttered Ojima Matsushika.
Don't Give Up hadn't soothed Ojima Matsushika. After all, the pressure he had endured since childhood couldn't be resolved so easily.
He thought of his "dark thought": things would be fine once his father died.
But no—Ojima Matsushika's fighting spirit was burning again. He would outlive his father, he was certain. At most ten or twenty years more, and this shadow would be gone forever.
With that thought, Ojima Matsushika suddenly felt happy.
Another happy man was Omori Gento. He had just received a report from the planning division chief, confirming that his promotional strategy was approved.
Chu Zhi's Japanese-language album was going on sale.
===
負けないで (Makenaide) by ZARD