Winning awards at the BMA unquestionably made Kaleido the biggest winner this winter.
The early exposure of the main song from their winter album, which they had performed at the awards ceremony, led this album to win 13 consecutive titles during the flurry of competitions at the end of the year. The sales volume also climbed up, breaking the previous boy-band sales record, which was set by Kaleido themselves.
The six boys didn’t have any time to rest at all, immediately throwing themselves into the long and slow concert preparation. The first concert was originally planned to be held in Beijing, but due to problems in finalising the venue, the first concert was then scheduled to be held in Guangzhou on June 3. During the preparatory period of half a year, Kaleido came up with completely new arrangements for each song, and also invited a world-class dance stylist team and an accompanying dancer team to participate with them. Each member devoted himself to the process while also jointly executing the other various plans drafted for Kaleido’s first concert. Star Chart also specially arranged for a film crew to film them, not only filming the process of how they started planning their tour from scratch, but also to capture the blood, sweat, and tears of this group of boys.
Fang Juexia had started imagining the day of their concert since long ago, but he hadn’t expected that the day would arrive so quickly. Sometimes, when he fell asleep after practicing in the rehearsal room and woke up, he felt that everything was a dream.
In the midst of the preparations for the concert, something happened. In order to practice for the concert, Fang Juexia, who was almost living in seclusion by now, was urged by Cheng Qiang to conduct a single-person livestream in the practice room. He wasn’t very good at telling jokes, so he just asked his fans to tell him about the things that had happened to them recently.
The barrage sped past very quickly, but he still managed to notice a specific message from a person, which stated that he was very sad and felt that his heart was being pulled around in suffering every day.
That person’s ID consisted of just a string of numbers, but Fang Juexia’s memory was most sensitive towards numbers.
“Why are you sad? If you can, please let me know exactly what happened,” Fang Juexia said to the screen seriously, “I’m not very good at joking around and making people happy, but I’m a qualified listener.”
Yet, in the two-hour livestream, that ID made up of a string of numbers never appeared again. Fang Juexia remembered this incident for a long time and told Pei Tingsong about it. Pei Tingsong could only comfort him by saying that maybe that fan had just been in a bad mood that day.
Two weeks later, a letter was sent to Star Chart, and it was written by the fan behind the ID of numbers in the livestream. The fan was a middle school student with gender dysphoria; their sex was male, but they identified as female. She wrote in the letter that she had discovered that she was different from the boys around her when she was very young; she didn’t like basketball, but she liked dancing, singing, skirts, long hair, and makeup. But in order not to be different, she tried very hard to imitate other boys and get rid of the “sissy” label. She thought she could live a bit easier that way.
But it didn’t work that way; as she grew more and more aware of herself, she found herself increasingly unable to stand the fake persona she had created.
At the end of the letter, she wrote—
“I don’t know if Juexia Gege will read what I have written, but I very much appreciate having a listener who will let me know that it’s not time to give up yet.”
After reading this letter, Fang Juexia didn’t fall asleep that whole night.
The next day, he composed a song, and tried to write lyrics for the first time. When he showed the song to Pei Tingsong, he just said with a smile, “You should sing it to them at the concert. It’s not just for that child, it’s also for yourself and for everyone else.”
At the end of April, Star Chart and Kaleido’s official Weibo officially announced the news of the tour online and released a poster of the six people’s backs. At the top of the poster was written “Ego,” which was the theme of the concert.
Since June 3, when the news that the tour would start in Guangzhou was released, the fans had been itching to go grab tickets for the concert. Who would have known that the tickets would be sold out in a second, and even Star Chart’s own employees wouldn’t manage to grab any.
Fang Juexia wrote back to the child with gender dysphoria, and attached a concert ticket with his letter.
Well into summer, the cicadas cried and clamored. Guangzhou’s summer didn’t have the kind of heat that ignited people, it was more a hot steam that enveloped this green city.
“Hot.” Pei Tingsong leaned against Fang Juexia, whose skin remained cool in the summer, so rubbing against him felt really good.
Fang Juexia was wearing a mask, an especially roomy white T-shirt, white shorts, and a Klein Blue fisherman’s hat, which was covering his whole face. When he looked up, only his eyes could be shown. He stared at him, but he didn’t push Pei Tingsong away.
“Who told you to wear black? As soon as the sun shines on you, of course you would get hot,” Ling Yi complained beside him.
“What’s wrong with black?” Pei Tingsong bickered with him, “At least it doesn’t attract peacocks over.”
“Juexia, see!”
“I don’t want to look at him either.”
“Wow.”
“The life of a cold-shouldered Pinot Tree Supreme~”
“Don’t fuss, or else it’ll get photographed by the fans in a bit.”
After arriving at Guangzhou, none of the six people wasted time in going to the hotel, instead heading straight to the concert venue to rehearse until 11 p.m.
“Is this light okay, Juexia?” Cheng Qiang repeatedly confirmed the brightness of the stage lighting with him.
Fang Juexia nodded. “Yes, I can see.”
In order to make sure that Fang Juexia wouldn’t fall down from the stage and get hurt, Star Chart had spent a lot of money on lighting design, to keep his field of vision as clear as possible every second he was onstage. Cheng Qiang and Chen Zhengyun both hoped that starting with this stage, Fang Juexia could reduce the amount of practice he did, but he was already used to that kind of practice. Even if the stage was bright enough, he still wanted to put in twice as much practice time as the others like before.
On the morning of the concert, it rained. Fang Juexia was worried that the fans would get wet on their way, but fortunately, the rain stopped at 10 o’clock, with the weather also cooling down a bit. They had also paid and arranged for emergency aid out of their own pockets, preparing iced milk tea and ice cream for each fan, as well as wet wipes printed with their cartoon images; each fan could get one when they came in to get their tickets checked at 3 p.m.
Everyone showed off their gifts on Weibo one after another, which attracted a lot of admiration.
More than 10,000 fans entered the concert venue, where giant screens hung above the stage, two in each direction, so that the performance on the stage could be seen clearly.
The second surprise was a Klein Blue kaleidoscope lamp present on every fan’s seat. After everyone sat down, they felt very excited and restless. While these fans were reviewing their support plan, they were also waiting for Kaleido to appear. There were still 15 minutes to go before the appointed start time, but to the surprise of all the fans, Kaleido’s faces suddenly appeared on the big screen, completely bare and devoid of makeup.
Standing in the very middle, Fang Juexia adjusted the camera and said with a smile, “Hello ah, everyone should have already all sat down in the stadium now ba.”
The whole crowd was instantly ignited, and the screams almost drowned out the sound coming from the big screen.
On the screen, Ling Yi squeezed over to Fang Juexia’s side, hugged his neck, and said, “Hi! Did you guys eat the ice cream we bought? I just ate the same one oh.“
“You ate two, okay?” Pei Tingsong sat on the other side of Fang Juexia and put his hand up on him naturally. “You’re not afraid of getting a stomach ache in a little bit when we go on stage?”
The fans in the stadium couldn’t help screaming when they saw this scene.
“Don’t always scold Ling Yi.” Fang Juexia turned the camera to show He Ziyan and Lu Yuan, who were at the side and doing handstands. “What are you guys doing?”
Upon seeing the abs of the handstanding duo, the venue boiled over in a blink of the eye.
Jiang Miao appeared with a glass of water. “They bet against me, saying that the rain wouldn’t stop before 12 o’clock. They lost, so now they’re doing handstands.”
Fang Juexia crouched on the ground with a smile, and the camera was aimed at their faces, which had gone red from maintaining the handstand. He solemnly admonished, “Don’t casually bet against the group leader, he is the god of gambling.”
The alarm on the cellphone lying on the ground started ringing, and the two handstanding people finally pulled themselves upright. He Ziyan went directly to the sofa and spread out against Pei Tingsong.
“Hey!” Pei Tingsong, who was being squashed, was very dissatisfied, but Lu Yuan also followed and squashed himself on top of He Ziyan. “Come and play Jenga!”
“I’m coming!” Ling Yi specially stepped back to perform a run up and with a smack, jumped onto Lu Yuan.
“All of you get up!”
Fang Juexia and Jiang Miao sat on the floor in front of the sofa, holding the camera and chatting.
“What time does it start?”
“At six, you can take a nap first.”
Ling Yi, having turned the tables on the group tyrant, was so happy that he hated that he wasn’t a 200 pound child. “Great, I’m going to sleep right here!”
“…… You guys just wait.”
The pile of indistinct people in the back argued and kicked up a fuss, but Fang Juexia looked at his watch and then held up his index finger. “Shh, it’s time to start the countdown.”
Staring at his wrist, he called out accurately, “Ten—”
The six people on the screen started to shout, “Nine—”
All the fans in the audience followed and yelled, “Eight!”
Pei Tingsong, who was being squashed at the bottom, held up his hand weakly and obstinately made a number with his hand. “Seven—”
“Six—”
All of a sudden, the screen went black, with a countdown appearing, which started to tick, counting down as the six boys’ voices called out.
“Three—”
At the corners of the stage, something seemed to sparkle.
“Two—”
Blue flames also erupted into the space, one after another.
“One!”
The flames went out in a flash.
On the dark stage, a loudspeaker-like voice sounded out, with a monologue that everyone in the audience was familiar with.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to flight Kaleido. Next station is……”
All the fans yelled out— “Future!!”
The sound of the loudspeaker suddenly turned into an electronic sound of something diffusing away in circles, and a line from the lyrics of their song leaped over as it was projected onto the middle of the stage.
“Say hello to my EGO.”
Six spotlights suddenly shone down from high above. Six boys jumped down from the stage lift to land steadily on the stage. They appeared in front of their fans who had been waiting for them for a long time already, and as all the lights came on, their faces appeared on the big screen. The opening song was their debut song “Kaleido.” After being remixed, the drums were even more shocking, exploding the whole scene in an instant.
Especially the chorus part, where the whole audience sang along, giving it the atmosphere of being a war song.
“We gonna fight! Fight! Fight!
With the face in the mirror
Yes we’ll fight! Fight! Fight!”
The light coming off the kaleidoscopic lamps was very strong, and the huge auditorium seemed to weave a dreamy Klein Blue ocean. The fans’ chorus was so powerful that it almost drowned out Kaleido’s voices. Every single person was immersed in the music and the lights, even though this was just the first song.
“Never flinch, standing shoulder to shoulder
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Enjoy falling in the wild wind
Fight! Fight! Fight!
You will remember me after the storm.”
At the end, Fang Juexia’s clear soprano voice steadily held the note long, bringing this war song-like atmosphere to an end.
“Just born for passion.”
With all this emotion in the air, many fans below the stage already couldn’t help but shed tears after listening to this song. A year and a half ago, Kaleido had persisted in singing this song to the end onstage even with the sound failure, something which had made many people get to know them.
Now, they finally could have their own concerts.
Following the opening song were three songs in succession, all of which were from their first album. There weren’t any breaks between the songs, and Kaleido just finished singing and dancing the first four songs in that manner before finally getting the opportunity to stop and chat.
After performing for more than ten minutes in a row, their faces were all covered with sweat. Jiang Miao took the water and paper towels from the staff and handed them to everyone separately.
“Hello everyone ah.” He Ziyan wiped the sweat dripping down on his forehead with a paper towel. “It’s so hot ah.”
The fans watching the stage immediately took the opportunity and yelled in unison for him to take off his clothes.
He Ziyan listened for a while, but it was Fang Juexia who helped the fans convey their wish clearly, “They want you to take off your clothes.”
Hearing this, He Ziyan’s eyes suddenly widened, but he still didn’t forget to joke around. “So scared, being thanked until I fall.”
“Hahahaha!”
Pei Tingsong drank his fill of water before passing the water bottle to Fang Juexia. After taking it, as Fang Juexia directly took a sip from it, the fans suddenly and unexpectedly started to scream.
Jiang Miao began to chat with them. “Thank you everyone for coming to our first concert. It’s been three and a half years since we debuted, and finally getting to tour, it’s just really exciting.”
“We also feel that way!”
Hearing the voices of the fans, Jiang Miao laughed. “None of us could sleep last night, and we suffered from collective insomnia.”
Lu Yuan nodded. “And we played ‘Fight the Landlord’ at the hotel.”
The fans shouted from below the stage. “Who won the most?”
“Me.” Xiao Pei proudly raised his hand and shamelessly praised himself, “Powerful people do everything powerfully.”
Ling Yi directly cut out the ground from under his feet. “That’s because at first Juexia was practicing and hadn’t joined in. After he came, he kept watching Xiao Pei play, and then he counted cards for him!”
There was another loud scream from below the stage.
Lu Yuan said with a smile, “By the way, we have learned a few Cantonese words from Juexia.”
After that, they began to introduce themselves one by one in very poor Cantonese, just like a little comedic sketch. Every time they said a sentence, Fang Juexia would have to correct them.
Pei Tingsong said to himself, “if we go on like this, we will really receive the notice from the real comedians.”
“Hahahaha!”
“Okay, so we’ll be singing a quieter song next.” The lift behind them appeared again, this time holding a huge white piano, and a staff member also brought a wooden guitar on-stage. Jiang Miao built up some suspense. “You guys, guess which song it is?”
Lu Yuan immediately gave a hint, pointing out into the distance. “It’s gone dark outside.”
The fans immediately understood. “Night Trip!”
“That’s right.” Four of the boys spread out to the four extensions on the stage that went deep into the fans. Fang Juexia walked to the piano alone, while Pei Tingsong, who took hold of the guitar, sat on the stage with it. He adjusted the strings and looked back at Fang Juexia.
The two men began the accompaniment in tacit agreement.
The solo version of “Night Trip” was like two-way secret love that continued to draw closer, while the six person version was more like two people in love with each other, holding each other’s hands while having fun by the sea on a summer night.
“The coastline is overgrown with green algae, like my wishful thoughts of you.
Flowers suddenly bloom, want to kiss your heart, nowhere to hide from view.”
When Fang Juexia, sitting at the piano, sang these two lines, fireworks suddenly appeared in the night sky. Although they were only a projection, they were very lifelike, and it seemed that the audience and the six boys singing on the stage were really at a fireworks show on a summer night.
The fans looked up at the fireworks and the beautiful faces of the six people on the screen. Every blast of fireworks resounded in their hearts, and every second had been carefully prepared by these boys. The fans tacitly sang the chorus back to these six boys, to return this precious regard, all the way until the fireworks gradually disappeared, and until Pei Tingsong, who was strumming the guitar, gently sang the last verse.
“You blame me for being good at lying, alright, I say summer is so long and a delight.”
Summer was here.
They hoped it would last a bit longer.
After “Night Trip,” the six people went backstage to change their outfits. On the big screens, the behind-the-scenes preparation process for their concert started to play. There were scenes of several of the boys discussing the new remixes, and scenes of them practicing all night in the dance studio and then sleeping on the floor.
Every shot was a picture that the fans wanted to treasure.
At the end of the behind-the-scenes highlights, Ling Yi, wearing a white suit, appeared on an ever-rising platform. This was his solo moment. Everyone was free to choose anything for their solo, so he had chosen one of his favorite English songs.
Ling Yi’s voice was very penetrating, especially when singing in treble. As he rose higher and higher, a projection of a blue whale surrounded him, making him look like a little prince in a fairy tale. At the end of the song, the huge whale shattered and transformed into countless spots of light.
The fans couldn’t help reaching out to touch the light.
“Thank you everyone.” Ling Yi stood on the stage and chatted with them. “The theme of our concert this time is ego, otherwise known as confidence, right?”
“Right!”
“This song says, don’t be afraid to face your true self, and believe in your own power, which actually also means just that.” Ling Yi leaned against the railing with a smile. “Don’t just watch me being silly and happy every day, in fact, I have also had times where I was very confused. During that time, I often listened to this song, which gave me a lot of strength. So, I hoped to sing this song myself, to give all of you some strength as well.”
He chatted with everyone about his previous singing competition as he descended from the lift step-by-step, and then suddenly, he seemed to have gotten some inspiration. “You see, I was like this back then. After you win some kind of glory, you may be trapped on a high lift, unable to leave and unable to go any further. So you have to learn how to get down first.
“Only by returning to your point of origin and finding yourself can you go out to the wider world.”
After that, Ling Yi went back to his old self. “Ah, I’m so philosophical ah, I should go study philosophy.”
The fans were completely amused into laughter again.
“Whose solo is next?” Ling Yi was building up suspense, and he heard the names of the five other members chaotically yelled out. He was about to say it when he heard a large scream.
He looked back, only to see that Lu Yuan had already appeared. Ling Yi was so angry that he immediately complained, “Hey, what’s the matter with you, there’s no tacit understanding at all. I haven’t even finished my speech yet.”
“You talk too much.” Lu Yuan raised his chin at him. “Look, there’s the exit, go ba.”
“You’re chasing me off.” Ling Yi shrunk his mouth and said, “Okay, I’ll go.” After that, he really went over to the lift and pretended to wipe away his tears as he waved to everyone.
Lu Yuan’s solo was a dance that he had spent over a week choreographing, and he incorporated 15 backup dancers into it. It combined many kinds of dances, and its effect on-stage was quite gorgeous. After the dance, he announced some good news to everyone: the dance company that he and several other choreographers had founded would soon be holding its first public performance, and after that, it would begin to participate in competitions all over the world.
“This is the most basic wish in my heart. I’ve been going around and around, and I have finally realized it.
“It’s my ego!”
The fans under the stage were really happy for him, and echoed this sentence loudly with him.
After two solo performances, the whole group gathered on the stage again, singing and dancing “Ice War,” “Hunt,” and “Xmas.” Then, the others left, and Jiang Miao took off his coat to reveal a wide-sleeved robe inside. He sat in the center of the stage made ethereal through dry ice, and played the guzheng piece, “General’s Order” for his solo. The awe-inspiring sound of the guzheng built the atmosphere layer by layer, until it reached the highest level.
Under the spotlight, Jiang Miao’s slender hand raised, and the last note sounded. Another two spotlights appeared on the stage, one on the left and one on the right, illuminating He Ziyan and Pei Tingsong. The stage lights became a blaze of color at that moment, with silver and blue light interlacing, constantly flashing to the rhythm that He Ziyan had set.
Through a holographic projection, blue lyrics with a three-dimensional effect appeared above the stage, the visual effect bursting into view.
Pei Tingsong appeared, and accompanied by He Ziyan’s electro music, he covered a remix of “Rap God” and “Lose Yourself,” and finally showed off his amazing rapping speed through this concert. At the fastest parts, even the projected lyrics couldn’t change fast enough to keep up with his speed of rapping.
The two most gong members in the group worked together to blow up the entire scene as usual.
At the end of their performance, all the fans in the audience were shouting their names. After they exited, all four platforms went dark, and the screen above had also gone dark.
The fans discussed things as they waited for their next pleasant surprise. “Is it going to be Juexia’s solo?”
“It seems to be!”
The screen lit up again, showing Jiang Miao as he removed his fake nails for playing the guzheng, one by one. His voice also appeared—
“They said, you have no money, so you shouldn’t go learn this useless thing. No one listens to guzheng now.”
The image changed into Lu Yuan dancing in the practice room.
“They said that you should go become a choreographer. It’s too much of a waste to join a boyband, or is it because you just want to make some quick money ah?”
Next to appear on the screen was Ling Yi as he took vocal lessons, practicing high notes again and again.
“They said that your conditions are really ordinary, and you have no talent, and singing won’t let you put food on the table.”
The image changed again, this time with He Ziyan sitting in front of a drum pad.
“They said you should make up a presentable family background.”
Under the stage, there were already some fans on the verge of crying, and then Pei Tingsong’s face appeared on the big screen. He casually scratched his head.
“They told me not to dream of being a hip-hop singer, but to learn to be a mature adult like them.” The corners of Pei Tingsong’s mouth rose. “I said to them, ‘fuck off.’”
The voices of the five people overlapped, and then,there were many, many other voices in the recording. With the use of the projector, these words appeared above the stage in the form of seals of white paper and black words. They stacked in layers and stole away everyone’s breath.
[Don’t do this, don’t become like that. You are very ugly, you are very ordinary, you should be like so-and-so and be a more likable person.]
[You need to grow up, you need to mature, you need to change yourself.]
[As this kind of person, you really make me feel sick.]
[You need to learn to shut up and be patient.]
[Why don’t you just go die ah!]
[How do you deserve to talk about dreams ah? You don’t deserve it.]
[You are so annoying.]
[You don’t matter at all.]
When the stage lit up, Fang Juexia was sitting in the center, holding a guitar. His gentle smile appeared on the big screen, and after adjusting the mic stand, he said, “There are a lot of voices in this world, right?”
The fans cheered for him, their voices pouring in like waves.
“I grew up amidst these voices, too.” Fang Juexia casually plucked at the strings with his hand, his cold voice very suitable for narrating. “As you all know, I was born with many conditions that were contrary to the dream I wanted to pursue.
“So everyone stopped me from pursuing my dream because they thought it was impossible. Being born and then living within the word ‘impossible,’ I spent a long time practicing to be a normal person, to adapt to the dark and to avoid making mistakes.
“So I got into the habit of avoiding mistakes. For this reason, I lost the ability to feel this world and locked myself in a small dark room like a calculator. As long as I could achieve this impossible dream, I could give up anything.”
The fingers on the strings stopped, and Fang Juexia laughed at himself. “But human beings are social animals.
“Living in this society is like running a shop.”
As he spoke, the projection began to change into cartoonish shops, each next to each other.
Fang Juexia continued, “In order to be able to do business smoothly, we try our best. The simplest thing to do is to of course compare: the opposite store isn’t bad, so we should try our best to decorate our store similar to others, so that we at least meet the normal standards. In order to make more people like it, we need to change our popular products and even stay open 24 hours a day.”
All of a sudden, this remark pierced many fans’ hearts.
Holding onto the kaleidoscope lamp, with millions of spots of lights all over them, it seemed as though each of these spots was a struggling store.
Fang Juexia continued pleasantly, “But what we don’t know is that the store opposite us is actually the same. He also will compare himself and change himself day by day, observing all the other stores next to him, and running his business in imitation of them.” At this point, he looked into the camera, and his eyes were like spring water. “So in the end, who is the correct and proper example?
“No one knows, it’s a paradox. A paradox about running a business.”
Fang Juexia bowed his head and laughed. “In the end, we become similar; we converge, and every shop on this street becomes pretty much the same. It’s the same with all the people in this society, because at least like this, we can still keep operating, still keep living on.
“Some time ago, I received a letter from a small struggling shop. She was about to be unable to keep operating, so she told me her story. I was very moved by it, so I wrote back to her after writing this song. This is what I said—”
Fang Juexia looked at the camera and said softly, “Hello, I also went through this when I was young; in order to be the same as others, I kept correcting any deviations and reducing errors in order to get closer to the correct example while still preserving my self. All because I was afraid of making mistakes, and because I knew that this world didn’t tolerate any faults. If I even made a mistake once, I would then have to shutter the whole business.
“Now I just want to say— Who cares?” He laughed, his eyes and his birthmark connecting on the same line, looking as beautiful as a crescent moon.
“Going out of business is fine, and staying in operation is also fine, but either way, I don’t just want to chase after what is right and proper anymore.” He bowed his head, played the prelude on the guitar in his arms, the minor key soothing and warm, and said the last sentence, “I want to be the weirdest shop.”
“Today’s sign isn’t hung straight
They don’t say welcome, but they do give a hug at the gate
It’s dark inside, be careful you don’t step on a butterfly and fall on the crate
No need to turn on the light, fireflies always light up early and wait.”
Fang Juexia sang softly and occasionally looked up at everyone with a smile of relief on his face.
“Thank you every guest for coming in
But any recommendations are just for you to pin
If you don’t like it, you can visit the next door inn
Not operating today is fine and will cause no chagrin.”
Many people wearing big mascot costumes, with there being even koala and giraffe costumes, suddenly appeared on the stage. They carried small baskets with candy and walked around awkwardly.
“Gentle people will receive gifts posthaste
Children are always welcome here in this place
It’s so weird that it doesn’t make sense
But this is myself with no pretense.”
In the midst of Fang Juexia’s warm singing, they scattered the colorful candy down below, giving them to all of the fans.
“Misclassification is also a lot of fun
Searching shelves will find surprising treasures for one
Error marks have special significance to be spun
Who says trademarks have to be cookie-cutter and done.”
A lot of stars suddenly appeared in the night sky, and in the middle of the stage, a small shop appeared, which even had its sign askew. Fang Juexia, holding a guitar, seemed to be sitting in front of the shop. All the little animals came back to surround him.
“Why is this shop so strange
How can you be loved by everyone with no change.”
Fang Juexia pressed the strings with his hand, raised his eyes, and sang the last lines.
“But as said by my most frequent guest
He likes the real me best.”
The author has something to say:
————Lyrics warning————
“Strange Store”
Composition: Fang Juexia
Lyrics: Fang Juexia
Arrangement: Pei Tingsong
The right of final interpretation: Zhichu
Today’s sign isn’t hung straight
They don’t say welcome, but they do give a hug at the gate
It’s dark inside, be careful you don’t step on a butterfly and fall on the crate
No need to turn on the light, fireflies always light up early and wait.
Thank you every guest for coming in
But any recommendations are just for you to pin
If you don’t like it, you can visit the next door inn
Not operating today is fine and will cause no chagrin.
Gentle people will receive gifts posthaste
Children are always welcome here in this place
It’s so weird that it doesn’t make sense
But this is myself with no pretense.
Misclassification is also a lot of fun
Searching shelves will find surprising treasures for one
Error marks have special significance to be spun
Who says trademarks have to be cookie-cutter and done.
Thank you every guest for coming in
But any recommendations are just for you to pin
If you don’t like it, you can visit the next door inn
Not operating today is fine and will cause no chagrin.
Gentle people will receive gifts posthaste
Children are always welcome here in this place
It’s so weird that it doesn’t make sense
But this is myself with no pretense.
Why is this shop so strange
How can you be loved by everyone with no change
But as said by my most frequent guest
He likes the real me best.
Winning awards at the BMA unquestionably made Kaleido the biggest winner this winter.
The early exposure of the main song from their winter album, which they had performed at the awards ceremony, led this album to win 13 consecutive titles during the flurry of competitions at the end of the year. The sales volume also climbed up, breaking the previous boy-band sales record, which was set by Kaleido themselves.
The six boys didn’t have any time to rest at all, immediately throwing themselves into the long and slow concert preparation. The first concert was originally planned to be held in Beijing, but due to problems in finalising the venue, the first concert was then scheduled to be held in Guangzhou on June 3. During the preparatory period of half a year, Kaleido came up with completely new arrangements for each song, and also invited a world-class dance stylist team and an accompanying dancer team to participate with them. Each member devoted himself to the process while also jointly executing the other various plans drafted for Kaleido’s first concert. Star Chart also specially arranged for a film crew to film them, not only filming the process of how they started planning their tour from scratch, but also to capture the blood, sweat, and tears of this group of boys.
Fang Juexia had started imagining the day of their concert since long ago, but he hadn’t expected that the day would arrive so quickly. Sometimes, when he fell asleep after practicing in the rehearsal room and woke up, he felt that everything was a dream.
In the midst of the preparations for the concert, something happened. In order to practice for the concert, Fang Juexia, who was almost living in seclusion by now, was urged by Cheng Qiang to conduct a single-person livestream in the practice room. He wasn’t very good at telling jokes, so he just asked his fans to tell him about the things that had happened to them recently.
The barrage sped past very quickly, but he still managed to notice a specific message from a person, which stated that he was very sad and felt that his heart was being pulled around in suffering every day.
That person’s ID consisted of just a string of numbers, but Fang Juexia’s memory was most sensitive towards numbers.
“Why are you sad? If you can, please let me know exactly what happened,” Fang Juexia said to the screen seriously, “I’m not very good at joking around and making people happy, but I’m a qualified listener.”
Yet, in the two-hour livestream, that ID made up of a string of numbers never appeared again. Fang Juexia remembered this incident for a long time and told Pei Tingsong about it. Pei Tingsong could only comfort him by saying that maybe that fan had just been in a bad mood that day.
Two weeks later, a letter was sent to Star Chart, and it was written by the fan behind the ID of numbers in the livestream. The fan was a middle school student with gender dysphoria; their sex was male, but they identified as female. She wrote in the letter that she had discovered that she was different from the boys around her when she was very young; she didn’t like basketball, but she liked dancing, singing, skirts, long hair, and makeup. But in order not to be different, she tried very hard to imitate other boys and get rid of the “sissy” label. She thought she could live a bit easier that way.
But it didn’t work that way; as she grew more and more aware of herself, she found herself increasingly unable to stand the fake persona she had created.
At the end of the letter, she wrote—
“I don’t know if Juexia Gege will read what I have written, but I very much appreciate having a listener who will let me know that it’s not time to give up yet.”
After reading this letter, Fang Juexia didn’t fall asleep that whole night.
The next day, he composed a song, and tried to write lyrics for the first time. When he showed the song to Pei Tingsong, he just said with a smile, “You should sing it to them at the concert. It’s not just for that child, it’s also for yourself and for everyone else.”
At the end of April, Star Chart and Kaleido’s official Weibo officially announced the news of the tour online and released a poster of the six people’s backs. At the top of the poster was written “Ego,” which was the theme of the concert.
Since June 3, when the news that the tour would start in Guangzhou was released, the fans had been itching to go grab tickets for the concert. Who would have known that the tickets would be sold out in a second, and even Star Chart’s own employees wouldn’t manage to grab any.
Fang Juexia wrote back to the child with gender dysphoria, and attached a concert ticket with his letter.
Well into summer, the cicadas cried and clamored. Guangzhou’s summer didn’t have the kind of heat that ignited people, it was more a hot steam that enveloped this green city.
“Hot.” Pei Tingsong leaned against Fang Juexia, whose skin remained cool in the summer, so rubbing against him felt really good.
Fang Juexia was wearing a mask, an especially roomy white T-shirt, white shorts, and a Klein Blue fisherman’s hat, which was covering his whole face. When he looked up, only his eyes could be shown. He stared at him, but he didn’t push Pei Tingsong away.
“Who told you to wear black? As soon as the sun shines on you, of course you would get hot,” Ling Yi complained beside him.
“What’s wrong with black?” Pei Tingsong bickered with him, “At least it doesn’t attract peacocks over.”
“Juexia, see!”
“I don’t want to look at him either.”
“Wow.”
“The life of a cold-shouldered Pinot Tree Supreme~”
“Don’t fuss, or else it’ll get photographed by the fans in a bit.”
After arriving at Guangzhou, none of the six people wasted time in going to the hotel, instead heading straight to the concert venue to rehearse until 11 p.m.
“Is this light okay, Juexia?” Cheng Qiang repeatedly confirmed the brightness of the stage lighting with him.
Fang Juexia nodded. “Yes, I can see.”
In order to make sure that Fang Juexia wouldn’t fall down from the stage and get hurt, Star Chart had spent a lot of money on lighting design, to keep his field of vision as clear as possible every second he was onstage. Cheng Qiang and Chen Zhengyun both hoped that starting with this stage, Fang Juexia could reduce the amount of practice he did, but he was already used to that kind of practice. Even if the stage was bright enough, he still wanted to put in twice as much practice time as the others like before.
On the morning of the concert, it rained. Fang Juexia was worried that the fans would get wet on their way, but fortunately, the rain stopped at 10 o’clock, with the weather also cooling down a bit. They had also paid and arranged for emergency aid out of their own pockets, preparing iced milk tea and ice cream for each fan, as well as wet wipes printed with their cartoon images; each fan could get one when they came in to get their tickets checked at 3 p.m.
Everyone showed off their gifts on Weibo one after another, which attracted a lot of admiration.
More than 10,000 fans entered the concert venue, where giant screens hung above the stage, two in each direction, so that the performance on the stage could be seen clearly.
The second surprise was a Klein Blue kaleidoscope lamp present on every fan’s seat. After everyone sat down, they felt very excited and restless. While these fans were reviewing their support plan, they were also waiting for Kaleido to appear. There were still 15 minutes to go before the appointed start time, but to the surprise of all the fans, Kaleido’s faces suddenly appeared on the big screen, completely bare and devoid of makeup.
Standing in the very middle, Fang Juexia adjusted the camera and said with a smile, “Hello ah, everyone should have already all sat down in the stadium now ba.”
The whole crowd was instantly ignited, and the screams almost drowned out the sound coming from the big screen.
On the screen, Ling Yi squeezed over to Fang Juexia’s side, hugged his neck, and said, “Hi! Did you guys eat the ice cream we bought? I just ate the same one oh.“
“You ate two, okay?” Pei Tingsong sat on the other side of Fang Juexia and put his hand up on him naturally. “You’re not afraid of getting a stomach ache in a little bit when we go on stage?”
The fans in the stadium couldn’t help screaming when they saw this scene.
“Don’t always scold Ling Yi.” Fang Juexia turned the camera to show He Ziyan and Lu Yuan, who were at the side and doing handstands. “What are you guys doing?”
Upon seeing the abs of the handstanding duo, the venue boiled over in a blink of the eye.
Jiang Miao appeared with a glass of water. “They bet against me, saying that the rain wouldn’t stop before 12 o’clock. They lost, so now they’re doing handstands.”
Fang Juexia crouched on the ground with a smile, and the camera was aimed at their faces, which had gone red from maintaining the handstand. He solemnly admonished, “Don’t casually bet against the group leader, he is the god of gambling.”
The alarm on the cellphone lying on the ground started ringing, and the two handstanding people finally pulled themselves upright. He Ziyan went directly to the sofa and spread out against Pei Tingsong.
“Hey!” Pei Tingsong, who was being squashed, was very dissatisfied, but Lu Yuan also followed and squashed himself on top of He Ziyan. “Come and play Jenga!”
“I’m coming!” Ling Yi specially stepped back to perform a run up and with a smack, jumped onto Lu Yuan.
“All of you get up!”
Fang Juexia and Jiang Miao sat on the floor in front of the sofa, holding the camera and chatting.
“What time does it start?”
“At six, you can take a nap first.”
Ling Yi, having turned the tables on the group tyrant, was so happy that he hated that he wasn’t a 200 pound child. “Great, I’m going to sleep right here!”
“…… You guys just wait.”
The pile of indistinct people in the back argued and kicked up a fuss, but Fang Juexia looked at his watch and then held up his index finger. “Shh, it’s time to start the countdown.”
Staring at his wrist, he called out accurately, “Ten—”
The six people on the screen started to shout, “Nine—”
All the fans in the audience followed and yelled, “Eight!”
Pei Tingsong, who was being squashed at the bottom, held up his hand weakly and obstinately made a number with his hand. “Seven—”
“Six—”
All of a sudden, the screen went black, with a countdown appearing, which started to tick, counting down as the six boys’ voices called out.
“Three—”
At the corners of the stage, something seemed to sparkle.
“Two—”
Blue flames also erupted into the space, one after another.
“One!”
The flames went out in a flash.
On the dark stage, a loudspeaker-like voice sounded out, with a monologue that everyone in the audience was familiar with.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to flight Kaleido. Next station is……”
All the fans yelled out— “Future!!”
The sound of the loudspeaker suddenly turned into an electronic sound of something diffusing away in circles, and a line from the lyrics of their song leaped over as it was projected onto the middle of the stage.
“Say hello to my EGO.”
Six spotlights suddenly shone down from high above. Six boys jumped down from the stage lift to land steadily on the stage. They appeared in front of their fans who had been waiting for them for a long time already, and as all the lights came on, their faces appeared on the big screen. The opening song was their debut song “Kaleido.” After being remixed, the drums were even more shocking, exploding the whole scene in an instant.
Especially the chorus part, where the whole audience sang along, giving it the atmosphere of being a war song.
“We gonna fight! Fight! Fight!
With the face in the mirror
Yes we’ll fight! Fight! Fight!”
The light coming off the kaleidoscopic lamps was very strong, and the huge auditorium seemed to weave a dreamy Klein Blue ocean. The fans’ chorus was so powerful that it almost drowned out Kaleido’s voices. Every single person was immersed in the music and the lights, even though this was just the first song.
“Never flinch, standing shoulder to shoulder
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Enjoy falling in the wild wind
Fight! Fight! Fight!
You will remember me after the storm.”
At the end, Fang Juexia’s clear soprano voice steadily held the note long, bringing this war song-like atmosphere to an end.
“Just born for passion.”
With all this emotion in the air, many fans below the stage already couldn’t help but shed tears after listening to this song. A year and a half ago, Kaleido had persisted in singing this song to the end onstage even with the sound failure, something which had made many people get to know them.
Now, they finally could have their own concerts.
Following the opening song were three songs in succession, all of which were from their first album. There weren’t any breaks between the songs, and Kaleido just finished singing and dancing the first four songs in that manner before finally getting the opportunity to stop and chat.
After performing for more than ten minutes in a row, their faces were all covered with sweat. Jiang Miao took the water and paper towels from the staff and handed them to everyone separately.
“Hello everyone ah.” He Ziyan wiped the sweat dripping down on his forehead with a paper towel. “It’s so hot ah.”
The fans watching the stage immediately took the opportunity and yelled in unison for him to take off his clothes.
He Ziyan listened for a while, but it was Fang Juexia who helped the fans convey their wish clearly, “They want you to take off your clothes.”
Hearing this, He Ziyan’s eyes suddenly widened, but he still didn’t forget to joke around. “So scared, being thanked until I fall.”
“Hahahaha!”
Pei Tingsong drank his fill of water before passing the water bottle to Fang Juexia. After taking it, as Fang Juexia directly took a sip from it, the fans suddenly and unexpectedly started to scream.
Jiang Miao began to chat with them. “Thank you everyone for coming to our first concert. It’s been three and a half years since we debuted, and finally getting to tour, it’s just really exciting.”
“We also feel that way!”
Hearing the voices of the fans, Jiang Miao laughed. “None of us could sleep last night, and we suffered from collective insomnia.”
Lu Yuan nodded. “And we played ‘Fight the Landlord’ at the hotel.”
The fans shouted from below the stage. “Who won the most?”
“Me.” Xiao Pei proudly raised his hand and shamelessly praised himself, “Powerful people do everything powerfully.”
Ling Yi directly cut out the ground from under his feet. “That’s because at first Juexia was practicing and hadn’t joined in. After he came, he kept watching Xiao Pei play, and then he counted cards for him!”
There was another loud scream from below the stage.
Lu Yuan said with a smile, “By the way, we have learned a few Cantonese words from Juexia.”
After that, they began to introduce themselves one by one in very poor Cantonese, just like a little comedic sketch. Every time they said a sentence, Fang Juexia would have to correct them.
Pei Tingsong said to himself, “if we go on like this, we will really receive the notice from the real comedians.”
“Hahahaha!”
“Okay, so we’ll be singing a quieter song next.” The lift behind them appeared again, this time holding a huge white piano, and a staff member also brought a wooden guitar on-stage. Jiang Miao built up some suspense. “You guys, guess which song it is?”
Lu Yuan immediately gave a hint, pointing out into the distance. “It’s gone dark outside.”
The fans immediately understood. “Night Trip!”
“That’s right.” Four of the boys spread out to the four extensions on the stage that went deep into the fans. Fang Juexia walked to the piano alone, while Pei Tingsong, who took hold of the guitar, sat on the stage with it. He adjusted the strings and looked back at Fang Juexia.
The two men began the accompaniment in tacit agreement.
The solo version of “Night Trip” was like two-way secret love that continued to draw closer, while the six person version was more like two people in love with each other, holding each other’s hands while having fun by the sea on a summer night.
“The coastline is overgrown with green algae, like my wishful thoughts of you.
Flowers suddenly bloom, want to kiss your heart, nowhere to hide from view.”
When Fang Juexia, sitting at the piano, sang these two lines, fireworks suddenly appeared in the night sky. Although they were only a projection, they were very lifelike, and it seemed that the audience and the six boys singing on the stage were really at a fireworks show on a summer night.
The fans looked up at the fireworks and the beautiful faces of the six people on the screen. Every blast of fireworks resounded in their hearts, and every second had been carefully prepared by these boys. The fans tacitly sang the chorus back to these six boys, to return this precious regard, all the way until the fireworks gradually disappeared, and until Pei Tingsong, who was strumming the guitar, gently sang the last verse.
“You blame me for being good at lying, alright, I say summer is so long and a delight.”
Summer was here.
They hoped it would last a bit longer.
After “Night Trip,” the six people went backstage to change their outfits. On the big screens, the behind-the-scenes preparation process for their concert started to play. There were scenes of several of the boys discussing the new remixes, and scenes of them practicing all night in the dance studio and then sleeping on the floor.
Every shot was a picture that the fans wanted to treasure.
At the end of the behind-the-scenes highlights, Ling Yi, wearing a white suit, appeared on an ever-rising platform. This was his solo moment. Everyone was free to choose anything for their solo, so he had chosen one of his favorite English songs.
Ling Yi’s voice was very penetrating, especially when singing in treble. As he rose higher and higher, a projection of a blue whale surrounded him, making him look like a little prince in a fairy tale. At the end of the song, the huge whale shattered and transformed into countless spots of light.
The fans couldn’t help reaching out to touch the light.
“Thank you everyone.” Ling Yi stood on the stage and chatted with them. “The theme of our concert this time is ego, otherwise known as confidence, right?”
“Right!”
“This song says, don’t be afraid to face your true self, and believe in your own power, which actually also means just that.” Ling Yi leaned against the railing with a smile. “Don’t just watch me being silly and happy every day, in fact, I have also had times where I was very confused. During that time, I often listened to this song, which gave me a lot of strength. So, I hoped to sing this song myself, to give all of you some strength as well.”
He chatted with everyone about his previous singing competition as he descended from the lift step-by-step, and then suddenly, he seemed to have gotten some inspiration. “You see, I was like this back then. After you win some kind of glory, you may be trapped on a high lift, unable to leave and unable to go any further. So you have to learn how to get down first.
“Only by returning to your point of origin and finding yourself can you go out to the wider world.”
After that, Ling Yi went back to his old self. “Ah, I’m so philosophical ah, I should go study philosophy.”
The fans were completely amused into laughter again.
“Whose solo is next?” Ling Yi was building up suspense, and he heard the names of the five other members chaotically yelled out. He was about to say it when he heard a large scream.
He looked back, only to see that Lu Yuan had already appeared. Ling Yi was so angry that he immediately complained, “Hey, what’s the matter with you, there’s no tacit understanding at all. I haven’t even finished my speech yet.”
“You talk too much.” Lu Yuan raised his chin at him. “Look, there’s the exit, go ba.”
“You’re chasing me off.” Ling Yi shrunk his mouth and said, “Okay, I’ll go.” After that, he really went over to the lift and pretended to wipe away his tears as he waved to everyone.
Lu Yuan’s solo was a dance that he had spent over a week choreographing, and he incorporated 15 backup dancers into it. It combined many kinds of dances, and its effect on-stage was quite gorgeous. After the dance, he announced some good news to everyone: the dance company that he and several other choreographers had founded would soon be holding its first public performance, and after that, it would begin to participate in competitions all over the world.
“This is the most basic wish in my heart. I’ve been going around and around, and I have finally realized it.
“It’s my ego!”
The fans under the stage were really happy for him, and echoed this sentence loudly with him.
After two solo performances, the whole group gathered on the stage again, singing and dancing “Ice War,” “Hunt,” and “Xmas.” Then, the others left, and Jiang Miao took off his coat to reveal a wide-sleeved robe inside. He sat in the center of the stage made ethereal through dry ice, and played the guzheng piece, “General’s Order” for his solo. The awe-inspiring sound of the guzheng built the atmosphere layer by layer, until it reached the highest level.
Under the spotlight, Jiang Miao’s slender hand raised, and the last note sounded. Another two spotlights appeared on the stage, one on the left and one on the right, illuminating He Ziyan and Pei Tingsong. The stage lights became a blaze of color at that moment, with silver and blue light interlacing, constantly flashing to the rhythm that He Ziyan had set.
Through a holographic projection, blue lyrics with a three-dimensional effect appeared above the stage, the visual effect bursting into view.
Pei Tingsong appeared, and accompanied by He Ziyan’s electro music, he covered a remix of “Rap God” and “Lose Yourself,” and finally showed off his amazing rapping speed through this concert. At the fastest parts, even the projected lyrics couldn’t change fast enough to keep up with his speed of rapping.
The two most gong members in the group worked together to blow up the entire scene as usual.
At the end of their performance, all the fans in the audience were shouting their names. After they exited, all four platforms went dark, and the screen above had also gone dark.
The fans discussed things as they waited for their next pleasant surprise. “Is it going to be Juexia’s solo?”
“It seems to be!”
The screen lit up again, showing Jiang Miao as he removed his fake nails for playing the guzheng, one by one. His voice also appeared—
“They said, you have no money, so you shouldn’t go learn this useless thing. No one listens to guzheng now.”
The image changed into Lu Yuan dancing in the practice room.
“They said that you should go become a choreographer. It’s too much of a waste to join a boyband, or is it because you just want to make some quick money ah?”
Next to appear on the screen was Ling Yi as he took vocal lessons, practicing high notes again and again.
“They said that your conditions are really ordinary, and you have no talent, and singing won’t let you put food on the table.”
The image changed again, this time with He Ziyan sitting in front of a drum pad.
“They said you should make up a presentable family background.”
Under the stage, there were already some fans on the verge of crying, and then Pei Tingsong’s face appeared on the big screen. He casually scratched his head.
“They told me not to dream of being a hip-hop singer, but to learn to be a mature adult like them.” The corners of Pei Tingsong’s mouth rose. “I said to them, ‘fuck off.’”
The voices of the five people overlapped, and then,there were many, many other voices in the recording. With the use of the projector, these words appeared above the stage in the form of seals of white paper and black words. They stacked in layers and stole away everyone’s breath.
[Don’t do this, don’t become like that. You are very ugly, you are very ordinary, you should be like so-and-so and be a more likable person.]
[You need to grow up, you need to mature, you need to change yourself.]
[As this kind of person, you really make me feel sick.]
[You need to learn to shut up and be patient.]
[Why don’t you just go die ah!]
[How do you deserve to talk about dreams ah? You don’t deserve it.]
[You are so annoying.]
[You don’t matter at all.]
When the stage lit up, Fang Juexia was sitting in the center, holding a guitar. His gentle smile appeared on the big screen, and after adjusting the mic stand, he said, “There are a lot of voices in this world, right?”
The fans cheered for him, their voices pouring in like waves.
“I grew up amidst these voices, too.” Fang Juexia casually plucked at the strings with his hand, his cold voice very suitable for narrating. “As you all know, I was born with many conditions that were contrary to the dream I wanted to pursue.
“So everyone stopped me from pursuing my dream because they thought it was impossible. Being born and then living within the word ‘impossible,’ I spent a long time practicing to be a normal person, to adapt to the dark and to avoid making mistakes.
“So I got into the habit of avoiding mistakes. For this reason, I lost the ability to feel this world and locked myself in a small dark room like a calculator. As long as I could achieve this impossible dream, I could give up anything.”
The fingers on the strings stopped, and Fang Juexia laughed at himself. “But human beings are social animals.
“Living in this society is like running a shop.”
As he spoke, the projection began to change into cartoonish shops, each next to each other.
Fang Juexia continued, “In order to be able to do business smoothly, we try our best. The simplest thing to do is to of course compare: the opposite store isn’t bad, so we should try our best to decorate our store similar to others, so that we at least meet the normal standards. In order to make more people like it, we need to change our popular products and even stay open 24 hours a day.”
All of a sudden, this remark pierced many fans’ hearts.
Holding onto the kaleidoscope lamp, with millions of spots of lights all over them, it seemed as though each of these spots was a struggling store.
Fang Juexia continued pleasantly, “But what we don’t know is that the store opposite us is actually the same. He also will compare himself and change himself day by day, observing all the other stores next to him, and running his business in imitation of them.” At this point, he looked into the camera, and his eyes were like spring water. “So in the end, who is the correct and proper example?
“No one knows, it’s a paradox. A paradox about running a business.”
Fang Juexia bowed his head and laughed. “In the end, we become similar; we converge, and every shop on this street becomes pretty much the same. It’s the same with all the people in this society, because at least like this, we can still keep operating, still keep living on.
“Some time ago, I received a letter from a small struggling shop. She was about to be unable to keep operating, so she told me her story. I was very moved by it, so I wrote back to her after writing this song. This is what I said—”
Fang Juexia looked at the camera and said softly, “Hello, I also went through this when I was young; in order to be the same as others, I kept correcting any deviations and reducing errors in order to get closer to the correct example while still preserving my self. All because I was afraid of making mistakes, and because I knew that this world didn’t tolerate any faults. If I even made a mistake once, I would then have to shutter the whole business.
“Now I just want to say— Who cares?” He laughed, his eyes and his birthmark connecting on the same line, looking as beautiful as a crescent moon.
“Going out of business is fine, and staying in operation is also fine, but either way, I don’t just want to chase after what is right and proper anymore.” He bowed his head, played the prelude on the guitar in his arms, the minor key soothing and warm, and said the last sentence, “I want to be the weirdest shop.”
“Today’s sign isn’t hung straight
They don’t say welcome, but they do give a hug at the gate
It’s dark inside, be careful you don’t step on a butterfly and fall on the crate
No need to turn on the light, fireflies always light up early and wait.”
Fang Juexia sang softly and occasionally looked up at everyone with a smile of relief on his face.
“Thank you every guest for coming in
But any recommendations are just for you to pin
If you don’t like it, you can visit the next door inn
Not operating today is fine and will cause no chagrin.”
Many people wearing big mascot costumes, with there being even koala and giraffe costumes, suddenly appeared on the stage. They carried small baskets with candy and walked around awkwardly.
“Gentle people will receive gifts posthaste
Children are always welcome here in this place
It’s so weird that it doesn’t make sense
But this is myself with no pretense.”
In the midst of Fang Juexia’s warm singing, they scattered the colorful candy down below, giving them to all of the fans.
“Misclassification is also a lot of fun
Searching shelves will find surprising treasures for one
Error marks have special significance to be spun
Who says trademarks have to be cookie-cutter and done.”
A lot of stars suddenly appeared in the night sky, and in the middle of the stage, a small shop appeared, which even had its sign askew. Fang Juexia, holding a guitar, seemed to be sitting in front of the shop. All the little animals came back to surround him.
“Why is this shop so strange
How can you be loved by everyone with no change.”
Fang Juexia pressed the strings with his hand, raised his eyes, and sang the last lines.
“But as said by my most frequent guest
He likes the real me best.”
The author has something to say:
————Lyrics warning————
“Strange Store”
Composition: Fang Juexia
Lyrics: Fang Juexia
Arrangement: Pei Tingsong
The right of final interpretation: Zhichu
Today’s sign isn’t hung straight
They don’t say welcome, but they do give a hug at the gate
It’s dark inside, be careful you don’t step on a butterfly and fall on the crate
No need to turn on the light, fireflies always light up early and wait.
Thank you every guest for coming in
But any recommendations are just for you to pin
If you don’t like it, you can visit the next door inn
Not operating today is fine and will cause no chagrin.
Gentle people will receive gifts posthaste
Children are always welcome here in this place
It’s so weird that it doesn’t make sense
But this is myself with no pretense.
Misclassification is also a lot of fun
Searching shelves will find surprising treasures for one
Error marks have special significance to be spun
Who says trademarks have to be cookie-cutter and done.
Thank you every guest for coming in
But any recommendations are just for you to pin
If you don’t like it, you can visit the next door inn
Not operating today is fine and will cause no chagrin.
Gentle people will receive gifts posthaste
Children are always welcome here in this place
It’s so weird that it doesn’t make sense
But this is myself with no pretense.
Why is this shop so strange
How can you be loved by everyone with no change
But as said by my most frequent guest
He likes the real me best.
