Drunk On The Night Breeze - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Ruan Lingfeng: Are you at the studio yet?

Tao Zhi: Just reached downstairs.

Ruan Lingfeng: Which elevator are you taking up?

Tao Zhi: ? You even have to ask that?

Tao Zhi: The guest elevator at the very back.

Upon receiving this reply, Ruan Lingfeng temporarily excused himself from the meeting room and wandered over to the guest elevator Tao Zhi mentioned to wait. Tao Zhi arrived outside of peak hours; when the doors opened, he was the only one inside.

Seeing Ruan Lingfeng, Tao Zhi looked slightly surprised: “What are you doing?”

Ruan Lingfeng said: “I need to talk to you about something.”

Tao Zhi asked: “The studio is just a few steps from the elevator, couldn’t you wait for me to walk inside?”

Ruan Lingfeng: “It’s not convenient inside.”

With that, Ruan Lingfeng walked forward and gestured for Tao Zhi to follow. They turned into a deserted stairwell. Once inside, Ruan Lingfeng checked behind them and specifically closed the stairwell door.

This made Tao Zhi look wary: “What is it that’s so mysterious…”

Lately, their relationship hadn’t exactly been intimate, but they spent nearly every day together for work and chatted occasionally. The initial atmosphere of drawn swords and bended bows had long since vanished.

However, aside from that one night when Tao Zhi had a sudden whim to drag Ruan Lingfeng out for late-night snacks, the two had not spent time alone again.

Ruan Lingfeng smiled gently: “Actually, it’s nothing much.”

As Ruan Lingfeng stepped a bit closer, Tao Zhi unexpectedly felt a surge of tension. He had no idea what this Omega wanted to say to him—why couldn’t they say it in the studio? Why drag him out specifically? Surely he wasn’t going to make some strange request. He subconsciously swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Fortunately, the light in the stairwell was dim; he figured Ruan Lingfeng wouldn’t be able to tell his expression was off. He spoke, his voice sounding quite irritable: “If you have something to say, spit it out.”

“Okay,” Ruan Lingfeng said. “It’s really nothing big. I ordered coffee and milk tea this morning. I ordered enough for the number of people in your studio plus a few extra, but I mainly wanted to treat the colleagues on my team.”

“Huh?”

In those few seconds while waiting for Ruan Lingfeng to speak, Tao Zhi’s thoughts had branched out wildly. He couldn’t help but speculate on what Ruan Lingfeng was about to say. In that brief instant, he had imagined many possibilities—he was too embarrassed to think of anything too exaggerated, but he guessed Ruan Lingfeng might be inviting him to a performance. Yesterday, they had gone off-topic discussing a rapper’s upcoming tour in Yuncheng, and Ruan Lingfeng had asked him if he, like certain other rock musicians, viewed rap as the bottom of the musical “contempt hierarchy.”

At the time, Tao Zhi said he hadn’t played rock in a long time and that he believed music shouldn’t be ranked; even a “tacky” square-dance anthem had a reason for becoming popular.

Afterward, Ruan Lingfeng had said they could go see a show together sometime, mentioning he wanted to hear how a professional singer would evaluate a live performance.

Tao Zhi had even started arranging a schedule in his head.

He had even considered bad scenarios—perhaps something had gone terribly wrong with their planning proposal.

The one thing he didn’t expect was for Ruan Lingfeng to say something so trivial.

Tao Zhi had originally acted annoyed to hide his awkwardness, but now he was genuinely a bit miffed: “You brought me out just to say that? If you want to order drinks, just order them. Why tell me?”

“Let me finish,” Ruan Lingfeng said, maintaining his good temper. “When the drinks arrive, say you were the one who ordered them.”

Tao Zhi: “?”

“I’ll be blunt, so don’t get angry,” Ruan Lingfeng glanced at Tao Zhi. He couldn’t see the other’s expression clearly in the dark, but he could feel that familiar “stink face.” He continued, “The younger ones on my team are a bit afraid of you. Have you noticed? Sometimes they have ideas but don’t dare to say them directly.”

Tao Zhi: “Fuck.”

To facilitate the progress of the concert planning, Tao Zhi’s studio had carved out a small meeting room for Ruan Lingfeng’s team. Initially, Ruan Lingfeng came alone to get a feel for Tao Zhi’s working style, but no concrete plans had been finalized then.

As the progress moved forward, to avoid constantly commuting back and forth, Ruan Lingfeng had his team clock in and work from here. It made looking for reference materials easier and reduced the hassle of coordinating with Tao Zhi’s side.

An artist’s schedule is mostly dictated by their public appearances. Tao Zhi was no exception, but since he didn’t take many external gigs, he had plenty of free time left over after recording and practice sessions.

Logically, Tao Zhi didn’t need to specifically come to the studio during his downtime. However, since Ruan Lingfeng’s team started working there, Tao Zhi also began showing up early every morning. He would sit in the meeting room listening to their discussions even when he had nothing to do, frequently adding his own insights, only leaving when he had other business to attend to.

After all, Tao Zhi placed great importance on this performance.

Truth be told, although the final proposal had to be presented to the “Party A” (the client), and they were working on-site to solve problems immediately, the entire process was being followed by the Party A representative himself—and the one who looked the hardest to please. This made the team members feel somewhat inhibited.

Sometimes when they had ideas to discuss, they were afraid Tao Zhi would shut them down the moment they opened their mouths.

When Ruan Lingfeng first brought his team over, he had only thought about convenience. He had already figured out how to communicate with Tao Zhi, so he had momentarily forgotten that people who weren’t familiar with Tao Zhi would find him very difficult to get along with.

Ruan Lingfeng repeated softly: “Don’t be mad.”

Unexpectedly, Tao Zhi glared at him: “I’m not mad. Don’t use that tone like you’re coaxing a child, it makes me sound like some dumbass who only knows how to throw tantrums. It’s annoying.”

Aren’t you, though? Ruan Lingfeng thought to himself.

“Of course, I didn’t mean that you’re ‘bad’ in that way,” Ruan Lingfeng weighed his words before adding, “How should I put this… the people under me, though they’ve done several projects with me, are still quite young and have certain limitations. I think you’re actually quite tolerant, so maybe you could take the lead to break the ice… After all, they’re creatives. If they can say whatever is on their minds, it might make our proposal richer, right? And I know that you actually want to hear as many different ideas as possible.”

In Ruan Lingfeng’s view, even though Tao Zhi had initially made a bunch of ridiculous demands and looked like an uncompromising dictator, he was actually willing to listen to others and liked it when people debated him.

Tao Zhi was very displeased: “I said I’m really not mad. There’s no need to be so cautious and weave all this high-sounding nonsense. I know a lot of people can’t stand me… but you’re right.”

Ruan Lingfeng had been worried that Tao Zhi’s pride would make him reject the suggestion outright; he had prepared a whole mental script to persuade him. He hadn’t expected Tao Zhi to agree so easily. Ruan Lingfeng breathed a sigh of relief.

“Okay… then when the drinks arrive later, I’ll have to trouble you to organize it,” Ruan Lingfeng said. “I specifically didn’t order based on their favorite flavors—I just picked random stuff, otherwise they’d realize immediately that it was me.”

“Got it, you talk too much,” Tao Zhi made a move to leave the cramped stairwell, but after two steps, he suddenly remembered something. “What about mine?”

“Yours?” Ruan Lingfeng realized. “Of course I ordered yours. Your portion wasn’t random—I got you a Flat White, substituted with oat milk.”

“That’s more like it,” Tao Zhi hesitated for a second before adding, “…By the way, is this how you usually win people over?”

Ruan Lingfeng: “…What do you mean ‘win people over’?”

“Scheming Omega.” Tao Zhi ignored him and walked off with long strides, hands in his pockets.

Everything went smoothly at first. Tao Zhi followed Ruan Lingfeng’s instructions, using every ounce of amiability he possessed to distribute the drinks to the planning team. He even spoke candidly, telling them he hoped everyone would speak their minds during the discussion and that it was okay to argue, as long as they argued about the work.

Of course, Ruan Lingfeng didn’t expect one small gesture to liven up the atmosphere completely, but after Tao Zhi delivered the “condolences,” the team members relaxed quite a bit.

Near noon, they were discussing changing several middle tracks—ballads primarily featuring piano and strings—into a rock band live arrangement. A preliminary proposal was ready, and Ruan Lingfeng went up to present it.

His logic was that Tao Zhi wanted the audience to be excited. There are many ways to achieve excitement; making the songs more “aggressive” was one direction. Using the “big three” of rock instruments (guitar, bass, drums) for accompaniment would change the style of the songs.

Furthermore, Tao Zhi had mentioned he used to be in a band and was a drummer. If he could perform a live solo, the fans would surely be surprised and thrilled.

Ruan Lingfeng believed this was one of the conclusions he had drawn from observing Tao Zhi recently—Tao Zhi loved bands. He would say a few extra words whenever band-related topics came up, and he listened to a lot of rock music. Ruan Lingfeng didn’t know why he had left the band; he had asked once, and Tao Zhi only said they had drifted apart because everyone’s pace of life was different.

Ruan Lingfeng felt that Tao Zhi should still be willing to play the drums.

However, this time, Ruan Lingfeng miscalculated.

When the band format was mentioned, Tao Zhi frowned slightly but didn’t voice any objection.

Then Ruan Lingfeng pressed the slide clicker, and several candidate bands appeared on the screen. He had originally tried to find Tao Zhi’s old band, but he couldn’t find a trace of them. Tao Zhi wouldn’t tell him, and when he asked Chen Ping, Chen Ping only said it was a band Tao Zhi had put together casually in high school and wasn’t anything professional.

Ruan Lingfeng pointed to the first picture: “This small band called ‘Fever’ is one that you all might not have heard of. They aren’t famous; they’re very underground and don’t even release songs online. But their live performances are very stable, and I think their style is unexpectedly a great fit for Teacher Tao Zhi’s songs…”

A fit? It was a “fit” alright. Back then, if their musical tastes hadn’t been similar, he wouldn’t have formed a band with the members of Fever. Tao Zhi sat there, thinking, how the fuck could it be such a coincidence? Out of everyone, Ruan Lingfeng had to find the exact former band he had a falling out with.

Just looking at those familiar faces in the photo brought back a flood of pleasant and unpleasant memories. Because things ended on a bad note, the pleasant memories only felt ironic, and the rest were just a mess.

Tao Zhi didn’t think Ruan Lingfeng had found them because he knew Tao Zhi used to be in Fever. He remembered Ruan Lingfeng had designed stages for them before, so it wasn’t strange that they stayed in touch. Recommending them when a suitable opportunity arose was normal.

Tao Zhi obviously wouldn’t accept a collaboration with this band, but despite his mood plummeting upon hearing the band’s name, he still patiently listened to Ruan Lingfeng.

Until Ruan Lingfeng said: “Meeting them was also a coincidence. I was traveling to another city and randomly found a Livehouse. I saw they were selling tickets at the door, so I went in. Because there weren’t many people in the audience, I chatted with the lead singer after the show, and we exchanged WeChat.”

Tao Zhi interrupted him: “Lin Yiming asked for your WeChat?”

His voice was low. Unlike his usual impatience, there was a genuine edge of anger in those words.

Ruan Lingfeng was surprised. He hadn’t expected Tao Zhi to be able to name the lead singer directly, nor did he understand which “landmine” he had stepped on this time. He nodded.

“You’ll give your WeChat to just anyone who asks.” Tao Zhi paused, looked around at the other team members who were staring at each other in the small meeting room, and restrained himself from saying anything harsher.

He picked up his phone, which had been tossed casually on the conference table, stood up, and walked out.

When Ruan Lingfeng was just introducing the band, he was annoyed but could still tolerate it.

But hearing that the two had exchanged contact information at a performance venue, he didn’t know why, but he felt like he was about to explode.

Fever’s lead singer, Lin Yiming, was notoriously promiscuous. He loved sleeping with “Groupies*” and had taken countless beautiful Omega fans home from performance venues to spend the night.

Tao Zhi had assumed they met through a professional connection.

He hadn’t expected they met like that.