Chapter 166: Actors Are Heartless, Yet Possess a Heart

Chen Fang’s pure acapella rendition did not feel monotonous at all. After all, the emotion was so profound that it made one completely oblivious to the absence of instrumental accompaniment.

Le Mi’s captivating eyes flickered.

Her interest in Chen Fang was growing by the minute.

Only a man like this was worthy of her.

Setting aside his striking appearance, Chen Fang’s talent was equally admirable.

As a paragon among her peers, Le Mi had always possessed exceptionally high standards; almost no man had ever caught her eye. She had never expected to encounter Chen Fang so soon after returning to the country, let alone a man who could effortlessly awaken her initiative.

Returning home this time was truly the right decision.

The next second, Le Mi’s eardrums vibrated gently.

Her entire soul trembled in unison.

The chorus had arrived.

Chen Fang was singing the chorus.

What shocked Le Mi was that Chen Fang was employing traditional operatic falsetto techniques to deliver this section of the song.

"He knows how to sing traditional opera!"

A look of utter astonishment crossed Le Mi’s eyes.

Given Le Mi’s personality, only Chen Fang could evoke such a complex wave of emotional fluctuations within her in such a brief span of time.

Le Mi was intimately familiar with operatic vocal styles.

After all, her grandfather, Le Gusi, was a fervent enthusiast of traditional Chinese opera.

Not only did Le Gusi love listening to opera, but he also enjoyed singing it himself. However, due to his advanced age, he could now only practice at home, unable to bring this passion back to the stage.

Because of this, Le Gusi frequently invited prominent masters of traditional opera to be guests at their estate.

Le Mi rarely returned to the country, but whenever she video-chatted with her grandfather, nine times out of ten Le Gusi would be singing opera, and the remaining time he would be listening to someone else perform.

Immersed in this environment for years, Le Mi had developed a profound understanding of traditional Chinese operatic vocals, second only to her expertise in filmmaking.

Never had she imagined she would hear such an extraordinarily authentic operatic vocal technique from Chen Fang’s lips today.

What is a true operatic vocal delivery?

The pitch rises and falls without ever sounding grating.

The melody twists and turns with dramatic cadence, yet feels completely natural.

Operatic singing is not merely about forcefully pinching one’s throat to raise the pitch; rather, it is the seamless weaving of high-pitched, deep, crisp, and resonant tones into a rich tapestry of textures. Only through such dramatic emotional undulations can a song forge a powerful resonance with the audience’s soul. This was the true charm of operatic vocals.

This much was common knowledge to many.

The crux of the matter, however, was that achieving this level of mastery required years and years of unremitting practice.

The masters of traditional Chinese opera could produce such effects because they had spent decades honing their craft; the moment they opened their mouths, one could instantly recognize the heirs of ancient national heritage. But just how old was Chen Fang? At most, he was twenty-five. Furthermore, he had likely never received specialized professional training, relying entirely on his own innate talent.

It was simply too exaggerated!

Could a single person truly be this exceptional?

Le Mi began to doubt herself.

She had always been confident, perhaps even arrogant.

After all, born into the Le family, she possessed all the capital and pride to be so.

Yet she was not foolish.

If she were to swap backgrounds with Chen Fang, he would undoubtedly be even more brilliant and outstanding than he was now. But what about herself? Could she have accomplished the very things Chen Fang had achieved?

The answer was painfully obvious.

No, she could not.

The excellence of the younger generation was largely dependent on the backing of their families.

How many legends of grassroots success and class-crossing triumphs were there truly in this world? Those who supposedly made it big through sheer individual effort, upon closer examination of their family backgrounds, almost always shared a common thread: perhaps a father in political office, a mother running a corporation, a grandfather with vast connections, or a grandmother from a distinguished scholarly lineage...

Among such people’s relatives, one could always find someone superior to ordinary folks.

Le Mi was no exception.

She was well aware that although she had ability, her competence had not yet reached a level entirely detached from her family’s support.

Yet Chen Fang relied entirely upon himself.

A person who had grown up without parents, barely managing to finish high school on the meager relief funds granted to orphans by the state—he had absolutely no one to lean on.

Even so, Chen Fang had grown into someone this extraordinary.

At this moment, Le Mi felt a genuine sense of admiration for Chen Fang.

Even an art form like operatic vocalization, which demanded decades of painstaking foundation off the stage, was something he could master with such effortless fluidity.

Suddenly, a thought stirred in Le Mi’s heart.

Perhaps she could arrange for Chen Fang to meet her grandfather, Le Gusi.

She believed that upon hearing Chen Fang’s operatic vocals, Le Gusi would be more than delighted to meet and converse with him.

The audience below pass by, their former colors unseen,
While the figures upon the stage sing songs of heartbreak and parting.
Affection is hard to brush onto ink; she must harmonize her song with blood.
The curtain rises, the curtain falls—who is merely a guest?

Le Mi’s red lips parted slightly.

She repeated and murmured these lines of the chorus under her breath, the adoration in her eyes growing increasingly intense and burning.

She loved the lyrics of this song.

Setting the melody aside, the lyrics alone were worthy of being called a masterpiece.

Of course, the most dazzling element of all remained Chen Fang’s operatic vocals.

To deliver these lines of the chorus with the most authentic operatic technique was nothing short of a fatal blow—striking straight to the soul and sending waves of exhilarating shock through the listener.

And it did not end there.

Chen Fang’s operatic vocalization shifted abruptly.

Following the first part of the chorus, there was no brief respite, but rather the ethereal chanting of Kunqu opera.

Deep passions regret being earnest,
Looking back, all is but an illusion,
Who stands before me now...

It was enough to make one’s scalp tingle!

Just three simple lines, completely unaccompanied, forming a pure, flawless feast of the human voice.

More crucially still, Chen Fang had stripped away the fusion of operatic styles with modern genres, rendering these three lines in the purest, truest sense of traditional operatic chant.

In a trance, Le Mi felt as though Chen Fang were no longer inside a recording studio, but standing upon a towering stage. There was no theatrical troupe around him—only Chen Fang alone, draped in vibrant crimson theatrical robes, every single chanted lyric exuding the ultimate degree of feminine grace and delicate melancholy.

Using a male voice to mimic a female operatic role was not only exceedingly difficult; if executed with too much deliberate artification, it risked earning one the derisive label of being effeminate.

Yet Chen Fang executed it to absolute perfection.

Feminine grace and delicacy were not the same as effeminacy.

In just three lines, he conjured the phantom of a legendary master of the stage.

It was hard to imagine that an art form like traditional opera, cherished only by the older generation, could reveal the hope and future of its cultural inheritance in a young man in his early twenties.

Chen Fang was born to make a living with his voice.

At the very least, domestically, no one could rival Chen Fang.

Perhaps only those internationally renowned, globally celebrated top-tier singers could slightly dim the brilliance of Chen Fang’s radiance.

The song gradually drew to its conclusion.

In the latter half, Chen Fang dropped all pretense, performing entirely in operatic falsetto, with his falsetto portions vastly outnumbering his natural voice.

Operatic vocalization could also be considered a form of showing off one’s skills.

After all, to most singers, operatic singing was a specialized performance technique rather than an independent musical genre.

You take your turn to sing as I step down to perform;
Do not mock the romance of wind and moon, nor deride the absurdities of men.
We too have questioned the fate of the realm, we too have sung of the rise and fall of nations with ringing metallic tones.
Are we to call it merciless, or affectionate—how shall we ponder this?
Are we to call it merciless, or affectionate—it demands our deepest thought!

How shall we ponder this?

It demands our deepest thought!

As the emotions subsided, everything was laid to rest with detachment, much like the final two lines of the song:
Though of humble station, I never dared forget to worry for my country.

They always said that actors are heartless.
Yet actors possess a soul.

They harbor a resolute heart forged by the tribulations of home and country, and a righteous heart indignant at the injustices of the world.

Others might not know the creative background of this song, but Chen Fang knew it intimately. And precisely because he understood it, his emotions ran so profoundly deep.

The raging fire ignites,
Reducing a grand pavilion to ashes.
Yet that play has never truly ended.