Chapter 300 - 235: Zhuo ’Cupid’ Ge Goes Online

Chapter 300: Chapter 235: Zhuo ’Cupid’ Ge Goes Online

Inside the recording studio, Roline sat at the piano, her fingers dancing across the black and white keys. A melody flowed out like a stream, transmitted through recording Magic to the control room beyond the soundproof glass.

Zog, along with the Zog Group’s current Entertainment Department Music Director, the Elf Kaelan, as well as the sound engineer and his assistant, listened quietly to the performance in the control room.

The quiet, simple melody seemed to contain a ceaseless Life Force, allowing the listener to feel a moment of beauty in a clamorous world.

Three and a half minutes later, the piece was finished.

Applause erupted in the control room.

Roline calmly walked out of the recording studio.

"That was magnificent, Lady Roline! It’s the second-greatest performance I’ve seen all year, second only to your rendition of ’Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence’ on the ocean stage," Kaelan praised from the heart.

As the composer for *Tom and Jerry*, the young Elf was now a rising star in the Continent’s music scene.

Despite her early fame, she remained humble and approachable, and she loved to shower people with praise.

For any performance, she would always find something good to say. When her expression grew strained and she managed a mere, "It’s alright," it basically meant the performance was utter trash.

Because of this, she was extremely popular in the music department. Whether she was being genuine or not, she always delivered on the emotional validation.

She also really enjoyed the social experience of getting along with everyone. It was so much warmer than the way Elves interacted with each other; everyone was so friendly.

However, she didn’t realize that the reason everyone was so friendly was only partly due to her warmth and kindness. The larger part was that she was currently the hottest genius in the music world, on top of being the music director for the Zog Group.

The world suddenly becomes a very friendly place when you have money and status.

But Kaelan’s praise-based social strategy had been repeatedly shot down lately.

And it was all at the hands of Lady Roline.

Faced with Kaelan’s compliment—no, she didn’t face her at all. Without so much as a glance at Kaelan, she walked over to the mixing console and said to the sound engineer, "Replay."

The poor sound engineer, trembling with fear, hit replay.

Having seldom visited the Human world, Roline, the underground Queen Zor, wasn’t accustomed to restraining her powerful aura—or rather, she simply couldn’t be bothered. This put immense pressure on the less-than-capable staff members.

This had led to Zog having to give staff who worked with Roline an extra mental health stipend.

Of course, the money was deducted from Roline’s own pay. It wasn’t like she cared much about her exact compensation anyway.

After the replay finished, Kaelan still hadn’t given up on trying to build a good rapport.

"A perfect recording. The pitch, timbre, and rhythm are all flawless. It hardly needs any post-production."

"Not good enough." Roline left only those three words behind before diving back into the recording studio.

Kaelan sighed helplessly, her spirits a little low.

"Don’t worry, that’s just how she is. She treats other Zor the same way, let alone an Elf like you," Zog said, consoling Kaelan.

"But..."

"No ’buts.’ Rest assured, any job assigned to her will be executed perfectly."

Zog’s personal view was that between someone who was easy to get along with but terrible at their job, and someone who was difficult but exceptionally talented, the latter was always better.

But what was strange today was that Roline was obsessively pursuing perfection for this recording session.

Since filming for *Beyond Reach* had entered a short break, Zog wanted to get its score recorded.

The main work was the main theme, "Una Mattina," along with various arrangements of the piece.

If translated literally, it would be called *One Morning*, which was a perfect fit for the original film.

Both the composition and performance were by the Italian pianist, Ludovico Einaudi.

Most people were unfamiliar with the name, unlike the thunderously famous names in the film score world.

However, you’d find his works familiar if you heard them, as if you’d heard them somewhere before, pieces like "Experience" and "Nuvole Bianche."

That’s because his works often appeared as background music in short videos, usually for inspirational life stories, epic movie montages, and that sort of thing...

This wasn’t Roline’s first recording session, and the piece wasn’t particularly difficult.

In the past, her attitude toward recording had always been that "good enough" was good enough.

With her level of skill, even her "good enough" was the kind of performance that would make people exclaim, "Wow, that sounds amazing!"

Besides, to a non-professional, the difference between Roline’s "alright" and "perfect" was barely discernible, if at all.

So Zog also agreed with her approach. Recording until it was "alright" was fine; it was faster and more cost-effective.

Everything changed after Roline read the script.

To help her better understand the emotions the score was meant to express, Zog had shown her the script and some of the filmed scenes.

And then she became possessed.

She vowed not to rest until she had polished the piece to be absolutely flawless.

Zog still hadn’t figured out the reason for this abnormal behavior.

Roline had also refused to record phrase by phrase and then splice the best takes together.

This was a common little trick in recording. Some singers sound completely different in the studio versus live, and besides the lack of tuning in a live setting, having to sing the entire song in one go is a big reason why.

But Roline believed it would ruin the flow.

Since her attitude was firm, the scoring team had no choice but to strive for perfection alongside her.

It wasn’t a bad thing, after all.

And so, after Roline had gone in and out of the recording studio eighty times, she finally nodded in satisfaction.

To be honest, after the thirtieth take, Zog couldn’t hear any difference.

He could only turn to Kaelan for confirmation.

"What was different about that last take?"

"It’s a work of art. A flawless work of art. Her control over the timbre... I never imagined a performer could reach such a level."

Kaelan said this with stars in her eyes.

"Alright."

Zog pretended he could hear it too.

He didn’t know how to play the piano, knew nothing about instruments, and couldn’t understand how a pianist’s technique could affect the timbre. ’Isn’t a piano just little hammers hitting strings?’

He glanced at Kaelan again.

’She’s a goner.’

Zog concluded that the young Elf had completely fallen for the Queen Zor.

A one-sided admiration, at that.

’The world really is one giant masochist, easily admiring those who give them the cold shoulder.’

"Great. Can we call it a day now?" Zog stretched his limbs.

He was tired. He felt like he was starting to hear the melody of *One Morning* in his head.

"I’ve found another small flaw," Roline said suddenly.

"That’s enough!" Zog immediately stopped Roline, who was about to dive back into the studio. "It’s already perfect. I can’t hear any flaws. Even if there is one, we’ll just call it imperfect beauty, alright? We’re done for the day."

"Imperfect beauty?" Roline seemed struck by the phrase and suddenly pulled out her phone.

Unlike her nimble, fluid fingers on the piano keys, Roline’s typing method consisted of holding the phone in one hand and pecking at the letters one by one with the index finger of her other hand.

It looked exhausting.

Zog wondered when he should develop voice-to-text to save these seniors who struggled with typing.

’I’m not a big fan of voice-to-text myself. Voice messages always seem to contain so much useless information, and they’re a pain to listen to. At least with typing, you have to think about what you’re writing.’

’Wait, why is Roline typing on her phone?’

Zog noticed the problem.

Roline had never shown much interest in the internet before. Even if she browsed forums for information, she never posted anything.

At most, she would use the search function, and not frequently either. She’d search for something and be done with it.

She would never be typing away furiously like she was now.

’The great detective, Sher-Zog Holmes, is on the case!’

Zog quietly circled around behind Roline, slowly floated up, and found the perfect angle to peek at her phone screen.

’How can this be called invading an employee’s privacy when it’s the boss doing it? This is called understanding an employee’s well-being.’

Completely engrossed, Roline didn’t notice what Zog was doing.

Thanks to his excellent vision, Zog saw everything on the phone.

It was a chat window.

’How rare. I never thought Roline would be chatting with a friend.’

’Could she be one of those types who are ultimate social recluses offline but social terrorists online? Doesn’t seem like her.’

’Whoa! They have a huge chat streak. They must talk a lot.’

’Who’s the other person?’

’What a long name.’

’Go... Go... what was it... Craig...’

Zog narrowed his eyes, observing more carefully.

’Ah, it’s Sir Gordo Craig.’

’How interesting. Why would someone use their real name online? If they ever made an inflammatory comment, they wouldn’t even need to be doxxed; they’d have doxxed themselves.’

’Wait.’

’Who?’

Zog’s face was a picture of shock.

’Is this Gordo Craig the same Gordo Craig I’m thinking of?’

’How did these two get connected?’

’So that’s why Roline was so obsessed with getting the score recorded perfectly. She’s trying to win him over with a borrowed gift, isn’t she?’

Morris had reported to Zog that Sir Gordo had someone he chatted with every day, and that it would be best to dig them up and have them appear directly in a Shadow of Evil.

Zog had originally planned to just look up the identity of that account; all accounts on his social network required real-name registration in the backend.

But he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Besides, he was afraid that if it turned out to be some slob picking his feet, a scammer after his money, Sir Gordo wouldn’t be able to handle it.

’Online relationships... the fantasy is always beautiful.’

’Who knew reality could be even more surreal than a slob picking his feet.’

Zog carefully observed the chat content of this middle-aged online romance.

He had to admit, the content was indeed very middle-aged.

For example, they liked to use the yellow-bean-laughing emoji, the thumbs-up emoji, and the single rose emoji.

Roline would type something, delete it, then type it again, agonizing over a single sentence several times. She even chewed her nails nervously.

’So much for the image of the Queen Zor.’

’It seems this is a one-sidedly transparent online romance; Roline knows who Gordo is.’

Of course she knew. They were both on *Feilin’s Best Songs*—one was a mentor, the other the director.

’Shocking! A certain variety show member gets involved with the director just to get on the show!’

Zog had just thought of a way to make the show’s popularity soar even higher.

But he wasn’t that unscrupulous.

The phrasing in their chat was very formal and literary, several academic degrees ahead of the cultural level of Zog and Furin’s conversations.

It looked like Roline was trying to casually mention "imperfect beauty."

To encourage Sir Gordo, and to hint that she didn’t mind.

But it was a little too subtle.

’I wonder if Sir Gordo will get the hint.’

Love stories between long-lived and short-lived races were not uncommon.

This kind of relationship had one universally known drawback: one partner was destined to die early.

At the same time, it also had an advantage that many people didn’t notice: for the long-lived partner, the relationship could always feel fresh.

After all, for Roline, Sir Gordo’s remaining few decades were just "a sweet but brief romance."

Zog decided to give them a little push.

Eighty percent of his reason was to make *Beyond Reach* turn out better.

The other ninety-two percent was that he wanted to watch the drama unfold.

It was just too interesting.

He absolutely couldn’t wait to see Sir Gordo’s reaction when they both revealed their identities.

Zog landed on the floor. "AHEM."

He faked a cough.

Lady Roline jumped, hastily putting her phone away in a fluster.

"I just had a great idea," Zog said. "As the composer for this Shadow of Evil, you’ve worked so hard for its completion. How about this? Why don’t you play a minor role in it?"

"Why would Lady Roline appear in a Shadow of Evil? She’s never liked that sort of thing. Boss, you’re being too presumptuous," Kaelan said directly.

In her eyes, Lady Roline was surely a pure artist, devoted to her craft and unconcerned with other matters.

"Alright," Roline answered without a moment’s hesitation.

Kaelan’s eyes went wide, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"Excellent."

As Zog spoke, he noticed Roline’s hands fiddling with the hem of her clothes.

’Seriously? A Zor who’s hundreds of years old, acting like a nervous teenage girl?’