It wasn't just the Rose Bar; many bars on Tai Street noticed that they had lost one-fifth of their regular customers today.
Only the bars with a B-level female or several C-level females on staff were unaffected.
However, both types of bars had one thing in common: they were very expensive!
Even though many people had seen the trending topic on the Star Network, most were just focused on how beautiful Jiang Qin's singing was.
They were all males from the middle and lower classes of the city, so practical benefits were more important.
So, only those who were curious or simply enjoyed listening to music went to the Moonlight Bar.
Most people dutifully went to their usual bars, ordered a beer-flavored Inhibitor, and waited for that tiny bit of soothing.
But even this small portion of people was enough to fill the Moonlight Bar to capacity.
You have to understand, this was a bar that could hold twenty thousand people!
You Wei was at the door helping collect the entrance fee, a smile never leaving his face.
"Boss, is your young female performer singing those same two songs tonight?"
"Not necessarily. What she sings is Miss Jiang's choice. Our bar doesn't interfere."
'After all, we hired a soothing master, not a resident singer!!'
Singing was just Miss Jiang's unique method of soothing. As long as she was providing it, it didn't matter if she was singing, dancing, staring into space, or even playing video games.
"Can't you talk to her? We came here specifically for a live concert."
You Wei reminded him speechlessly, "Sir, this is a bar, not a concert hall…"
"I know it's a bar, but a C-level group soothing is pretty much optional for everyone. You might as well just hold a concert. You'd probably get even more foot traffic."
Remember, once those two songs were uploaded, they surpassed ten million plays in just one hour.
While that might not seem like much in a Federation with a population of nearly one hundred billion, at least a third of that population had lived on Barren Stars or spent their years in places with no signal.
Then, if you excluded the old, the young, and those who didn't like listening to music or going online, ten million plays in an hour was already quite impressive.
And the numbers were still climbing rapidly.
Netizens flocked to leave comments:
[It's really hard to believe a song of this quality was originally created by one of our Federation singers.]
[The poster above is wrong. She's not a singer, she's a soothing master!]
[That's true. Very few Beastman females are willing to enter the entertainment industry. Some shows even have males playing female roles.]
[I don't think the Federation is really lacking C-level females, but we're definitely short on quality singers like this. The young female should just leave the bar and become a composer or a singer. It would be a good slap in the face to the Empire.]
[Think about how many Star Coins the Empire makes off us every year. It's all because our Federation's entertainment industry can't get its act together.]
From songs to television and movies, they couldn't compare to the Empire in any category.
This was especially true for plots involving space warfare. The Empire's productions always featured the latest designs, and because they had money, everything was performed with practical effects.
They also spent a fortune modifying the appearance of the equipment.
It looked incredibly thrilling.
Unlike their Federation, which always followed behind, picking up the Empire's scraps and chasing trends.
Over time, the jeers only grew louder.
***
「Main Star.」
Inside the Tianwen Entertainment Company, a man with long, aqua-blue hair tied back was listening to a song with his eyes closed.
As the head of the composition department, Lan Yuyan made time every day, no matter how busy he was, to listen to songs from both the Federation and the Empire's music charts.
It was now June 25th. Generally, singers who wanted to climb this month's charts would have already released their songs before the middle of the month.
By the end of the month, almost no one released new music, saving it instead to compete on the next month's charts.
After all, who would be foolish enough to try and compete with a month's worth of plays in just five days?
But unexpectedly, he actually saw such a fool today.
'Jiang Qin? A newcomer?'
At first, Lan Yuyan wanted to laugh at this person's foolishness for not planning their release time properly. But as he watched the two songs climb the rankings faster and faster, he began to think otherwise.
'Alright, let's have a listen. What's the charm of these two songs that could make people, currently suffering from entertainment fatigue, listen to them over and over?'
'Of course, it's also possible this is a newcomer being promoted by a corporation, in which case the play count would be fake.'
He first clicked on *Anonymous Comfort*.
Only three hours after their release, the two songs had already squeezed into the bottom of the top one hundred.
They were still slowly climbing.
*I no longer shed tears…*
From the very first line, Lan Yuyan could tell this was a young female blessed by the heavens—and quite possibly a Beastman female with the Mermaid Gene.
Her voice was ethereal and clear, making it feel as if his ears were being enveloped by soft clouds.
The lyrics, in particular, pierced straight to the heart.
It reminded him of his own youth.
Back then, he had been so stubborn, refusing to turn back until he'd run into a wall. No matter what he wanted to do, he had to see it through, even if he got battered and bruised in the process.
But when the night grew quiet, he would lick his wounds in solitude.
The warmth in the lyrics was something he had yearned for but could never obtain back then.
He had never been comforted, nor had he ever been blessed by anyone. To get to where he was today, he had gritted his teeth and broken his own back.
After listening to it once, Lan Yuyan silently spent two star coins to download it. He had to listen two or three more times before his emotions stabilized.
At this moment, an image of the young female, Jiang Qin, began to form in his mind.
'To be able to write a song like this, she must be a very gentle, warm female who loves to smile…'
With a thrill of anticipation, Lan Yuyan clicked on *As Wished*.
He had even higher expectations for this song, which was ranked above *Anonymous Comfort*.
You are the long, distant road
And I, a child, walk within your gaze
As Lan Yuyan listened quietly, a mix of complex emotions washed over him after he finished *As Wished*.
He couldn't deny that the song was beautiful, but he was even more captivated by the idyllic world described in the lyrics.
In the history of Interstellar development, there was once a time when they, too, had known years of peace.
Back then, technology wasn't advanced. The ancients used only simple fire-starting tools like matches and lighters. Every household ate white rice, green vegetables, fruit, and farmed meat.
However, these days of peace and comfort only lasted for a mere century in the annals of history.
With the development of technology came environmental pollution. The mother planet began to self-purify; all flora and fauna grew wildly and mutated, natural disasters occurred frequently, and humanity's living space was continuously compressed.
Left with no choice, their ancestors could only abandon their mother planet and immigrate to other worlds.
But space wasn't safe either.
Besides the Human Clan, many other races also lived there.