"Let's see..." After all this time, the phone's battery was naturally fully charged. Robin inserted the SIM card and opened a video streaming app called Kuaishou, or K-Station for short. It was one of the country's most popular video platforms, roughly equivalent to Bilibili in her previous life, but far more successful.
As mentioned earlier, the entertainment industry in this world had developed similarly to her previous life in terms of overall development. However, due to different historical circumstances, there were significant differences in the details. Many of the animations, movies, and games from her past life simply didn't exist here.
For instance, the first thing Robin did when she got her phone was search for Star Rail and Mihoyo, but she found nothing.
Although she still had a mountain of things to take care of—the large bag of groceries she'd bought earlier was still piled up by the door—Robin was now far more focused on the Songstress Identity and how to achieve its objective.
The simplest experiment would be to record herself singing a song and upload it to the platform to see if the progress percentage would change.
"But... singing..." Unfortunately, Robin had been completely tone-deaf in her previous life. She couldn't sing at all and had barely ever sung. When she listened to music, she only registered the sound. For her, a song was simply either "good" or "bad," and anything more nuanced was beyond her comprehension.
Calling her tone-deaf would be entirely accurate. So, even though the famous songs from her previous life didn't exist in this world, Robin couldn't easily become a musical plagiarist.
No, perhaps she could still dredge up a few timeless classics, like the "iKun Song," but... better to leave that be.
Instead of plagiarizing songs, she decided to cover a popular one. That would generate more buzz. Robin entered the music section of Kuaishou and glanced at the charts, looking for songs frequently covered by different artists. Such songs typically had open copyrights and guaranteed quality and popularity.
Before long, she found her target: a song called "Hymn of the Stars." The lyrics... Robin didn't fully understand them, but the gist seemed to be a celebration of courage. It was likely the theme song for a movie. She found the original version and started listening.
Robin knew nothing about music—high notes, low notes, or anything in between. Her only method for learning a song was brute memorization: listening repeatedly, singing along often, and hoping for the best.
As the music began, Robin listened intently, completely focused. She had never listened to a song so earnestly before; this was a first for her.
Without even realizing it, she started nodding gently to the rhythm, her legs swaying in time with the beat, and her lips unconsciously humming along.
If anyone had witnessed this scene, they would undoubtedly have been charmed by the girl's adorable demeanor. But sadly, no one was there to appreciate this lovely sight.
On the first listen, Robin merely hummed along to the beat. By the second, she was singing along to the video with confidence, convinced she was hitting all the right notes. After the third complete run-through, she murmured to herself, "Huh, seems... not too hard after all?"
Perhaps this was innate talent.
It's like asking two people to study advanced calculus: one might grasp the solutions effortlessly, while the other could rack their brain without making sense of it.
Robin's musical talent in her current body was undeniably maxed out.
Despite having no formal musical training, barely any prior singing experience, and hearing this song for the first time, she had "learned" it and could sing it within ten minutes.
Robin turned off the video, activated the recording function (not to record herself), and walked to the windowsill. Facing the gradually darkening sky, she aimed the camera at the scattered, solitary stars and began to sing acapella.
Yes, without accompaniment or any preparation, Robin sang the entire song flawlessly from memory after listening to it only three times.
Her voice was as crisp and melodious as a babbling brook, as graceful and resonant as dew drops on bamboo leaves. If one word could capture its essence, it would have to be "heavenly."
In the game Star Rail, a poster of Robin mentions:
When the bird hatched from its shell, its first chirp drew the gaze of the stars.
Destiny had already laid out a red carpet for her. To become the radiant star of a universal grand spectacle, illuminating the cosmos, was both her destined and only path.
On a stage crafted from countless precious gems and crushed diamonds, she sang her heart out, celebrating the beauty, kindness, genuine emotion, and vibrant life that still existed in the world.
Below, bathed in a kaleidoscope of light and shadow, the audience wept tears of joy, forgetting all the brokenness, ugliness, falsehoods, and desolation in their lives.
Of course, this might be an exaggeration, but it clearly demonstrated Robin's extraordinary talent.
The three minutes flew by. As the final note faded, Robin released the record button on her phone.
Her cheeks flushed crimson, perhaps from the night breeze on the balcony, or perhaps from the lingering exhilaration of her impromptu performance. Feeling like she'd been caught red-handed, she quickly turned and darted back inside.
"I just wanted to test it out casually, but it flowed so smoothly I ended up singing the whole thing in one breath... I hope no one's home next door? I hope no one heard me?"
Robin opened the recording she'd just made, and her clear, melodious voice filled the room. As she'd admitted, she knew little about music theory—only whether something sounded good or not. To her own surprise, this impromptu acapella performance actually sounded surprisingly good.
"Maybe I should just upload this video as is?" Robin wondered. It was as basic as it could be, but with her current equipment, she couldn't produce anything better.
Perhaps this was the power of the internet. Just moments ago, singing on the balcony where a few people might have overheard her had filled her with overwhelming embarrassment. Yet now, uploading her song online, she felt surprisingly calm.
Registering an account on Kuaishou and becoming a Content Creator was straightforward. Fortunately, she had just turned eighteen that day; otherwise, it might have been more complicated.
For her username, Robin typed in "Robin" without hesitation, only to find it already taken. Well, that's hardly surprising. After a moment's thought, she settled on "Robin_Official."
As for her profile picture, she hesitated briefly before pointing the camera at herself. She flashed a peace sign, forced a warm smile, and snapped a selfie.