review

As Lin Ting was leaving work, she wondered how many of Zhao Qinfeng's videos he had watched. What kind of person did he think of him after watching them? Was it because he had seen Zhao Qinfeng's previous evaluations of him that he didn't blindly believe the haphazardly edited ten-second clips on the trending topics?

He has a clear and distinct understanding of himself. He likes himself quite a bit, so he doesn't care whether others like him or not. People who enjoy his content will naturally come to watch, while those who don't might leave some unpleasant comments or privately complain to others, "I saw a strange person today," but they will eventually leave. Although everyone is a passerby in life, there are differences between passersby. There is a fundamental difference between a fleeting encounter and a moment spent side by side. He writes so many music reviews and makes so many videos, primarily to express himself, and secondly, to express his gratitude to those who are willing to walk a part of the road with him.

So what about Zhao Qinfeng? Who is Zhao Qinfeng? Lin Ting returned home, opened his homepage, and searched for Zhao Qinfeng, but found that only a few videos popped up.

Oh, right, Lin Ting thought to himself, if he were to analyze a song or a performance, he would usually only list the song title, not the singer's name. Lin Ting vaguely remembered someone complaining that it was very difficult to find videos featuring a specific singer on his homepage, and asking if he could create compilations or categorize them.

Lin Ting thought that if he really wanted to categorize, he could just write the singer's name in the title, but he didn't really want to do that.

In fact, each of his videos is not just for the singers, but also for the behind-the-scenes workers who create the skeleton of the work and fill it with flesh and blood. Their names can be listed in a long string in the lyrics of music software. He imagined himself putting them all in the title, which seems a bit ridiculous.

So he simply cut it off completely, not including anything, only noting the song titles and the general topics to be discussed.

He wrote so much about Zhao Qinfeng, spanning more than nine years, scattered in various places, discussing all sorts of things. Now, facing his own videos and updates, he doesn't know how to search and review them.

Just as he was feeling troubled, he saw an exceptionally long comment among the comments he had recently received. It contained numerous links, organized by year, all of which mentioned videos and updates featuring Zhao Qinfeng.

The comment begins: "Reposted from Weibo. A teacher compiled all the content about Zhao Qinfeng that this blogger has done on this platform. I obtained permission to repost it and am bringing it here in the hope that it will be convenient for fellow enthusiasts!"

Lin Ting spent a long time scrolling to the bottom. He couldn't imagine how much time the person who compiled this information had spent, and he was also shocked by how much he had written about Zhao Qinfeng.

Since there were no urgent tasks that evening, Lin Ting turned on her computer and slowly read through the comments from beginning to end, following the link provided.

After all, it was something he typed out word by word and then recorded himself. When Lin Ting opened each video, he could vaguely recall the relevant content, and even his state of mind and condition at that time.

However, after so many years, Lin Ting's mindset has changed, and while watching the video, she mercilessly criticized her past self in her mind.

At that time, he had just started learning video editing. His editing skills were not much, and he basically just pieced things together. His strength lay entirely in the content. Fortunately, the audience who were willing to listen to his nonsense came for his content and did not dislike him because of his sloppy editing skills in the early days.

The earliest videos only contained audio, because Zhao Qinfeng didn't seem to have many opportunities to appear on screen during that period. Lin Ting couldn't quite remember; he hadn't been paying attention to Zhao Qinfeng at the time. He paused the video playing in front of him, searched for Zhao Qinfeng online, opened his Wikipedia page, scrolled down to the section on his acting career, and discovered that in the first three years of his debut, he had almost no opportunities to perform on stage. Lin Ting silently browsed for a moment, then returned to the video playback screen to continue watching.

In the following years, Zhao Qinfeng began appearing on some variety shows, including music shows and reality shows, but these were mostly low-budget productions with limited popularity. However, these shows gave Zhao Qinfeng the opportunity to perform on stage, and these performances brought him considerable exposure—relative to his popularity at the time.

Lin Ting's video also included some stage clips of Zhao Qinfeng from that time. Back then, Zhao Qinfeng looked like a young man who had just debuted; his face showed obvious signs of naivety, and he even seemed a little nervous in front of the camera. However, his singing was unmistakable, already demonstrating a very good level of skill. Lin Ting recalled Zhao Qinfeng's current demeanor in front of the camera: composed, at ease, and displaying complete control of the stage when he sings.

One night wasn't enough for Lin Ting to watch all the videos. When he opened a video from three years ago, he noticed it was getting late, so he prepared to close the page first.

However, he noticed the video's release date first and vaguely felt that the timing was very important. So he searched for the release date of the song the video discussed and found that it was the day Zhao Qinfeng established his personal studio.

He shut down his computer and watched the screen go black. Lin Ting reflected on the videos he had just watched, a sense of感慨 (gan3 kai3, a feeling of mixed emotions, including nostalgia and reflection) washing over him. His videos were never entirely filled with praise; there were always areas for improvement, always shortcomings. Just like the talented music arranger he had met, even he had flaws in his work. Lin Ting didn't shy away from these shortcomings in his videos, but this was precisely his way of showing respect and reverence for those works and for everyone who put in the effort to present them.

When Lin Ting watched these videos of himself, he tried his best to pretend that he was a stranger, someone who knew nothing about the blogger "Lin Ting". The shame of seeing his early embarrassing history and the urge to dig his toes into the ground did fade a lot under his efforts. In its place, he developed a strong interest in Zhao Qinfeng through the videos.

Lin Ting wasn't curious about how this person overcame initial difficulties and how he gradually accumulated strength through hard work. But when he put his past videos together, he genuinely wanted to know the answers to these questions.

Lin Ting opened her phone and sent a message to Zhao Qinfeng, saying, "You said before that you had read my music review for 'Floating Gold'. Have you read my other music reviews or videos?"

In fact, Lin Ting guessed that since Zhao Qinfeng had seen his video, it was either because he was specifically searching for other people's comments on "Floating Gold" online, or because he was actually following him and had watched his videos.

Which one could it be? Lin Ting waited for a while but didn't get a reply from the other side. She guessed that Zhao Qinfeng was probably busy or had already rested, so she put her phone on the bedside table to charge and went to wash up first.

When Lin Ting returned, Zhao Qinfeng still hadn't replied. He opened the video app, and perhaps because he had watched a lot of videos about Zhao Qinfeng that night, the platform started pushing videos about Zhao Qinfeng to him: Zhao Qinfeng's recent situation, Zhao Qinfeng's stage performances, Zhao Qinfeng's whereabouts... He also checked the comment he had referenced and found that it had become the top comment under his latest video.

He scrolled down casually and saw his old friend Shuangye. This time, Shuangye didn't seem to have anything to add, simply expressing her support and saying that what he said in this video made sense.

Lin Ting had seen Shuang Ye's comments from time to time before. In recent years, the platform started to display the user's IP address. Lin Ting noticed that Shuang Ye's IP address was always changing, so he suspected that she was a poor working person who had to travel all over the country.

Shuangye posted the comment this afternoon. At the time, the IP address was in a northern province, more than 2,000 kilometers away from Haicheng.

Lin Ting didn't receive a reply from Zhao Qinfeng before going to sleep, so she left a message saying "I'm going to sleep now" and then drifted off to sleep.

When Lin Ting woke up, he glanced at his phone. Zhao Qinfeng had replied to him around 3 a.m., saying that he had just finished recording the show and had just gotten his phone back. He also said that he had seen it, and quite a few, but he was afraid that if he brought it up when he had just met Lin Ting, it would make him feel awkward. After all, when he mentioned "Floating Gold" separately, Lin Ting's reaction was still awkward, so he decided to leave it at that for now.

Lin Ting wasn't fully awake yet, and he vaguely wondered to himself, did Zhao Qinfeng really need to be so cautious? Although he did feel awkward, it wouldn't hurt to bring it up; he wasn't a petty person...

Lin Ting wasn't used to replying to messages right after waking up, so he got up and dressed himself up for work, which made him truly awake. He picked up his phone and reread the message Zhao Qinfeng had sent.

Once his thoughts started racing, Lin Ting began to think a little more while reading the messages. As he read, he recalled how he felt the moment he clicked on a video from nine years ago yesterday. Even though he was alone in front of the computer, he still felt a tingling sensation down his back, his toes curled up, and he was plunged into an indescribable awkwardness.

If Zhao Qinfeng had actually said something like, "I've been a fan of yours for years and have watched many of your videos," when they weren't familiar with each other, he would probably have internally screamed in despair, then maintained a facade of politeness before hastily fleeing.

The current situation is alright. Lin Ting took the initiative to ask, so she already had a guess in mind, and she and Zhao Qinfeng were already quite familiar with each other. Although being acquainted with someone in this situation would bring a different kind of awkwardness, it was something Lin Ting could handle; a few deep breaths and it would be fine.

Before leaving, Lin Ting replied to the message, saying, "Although it's so embarrassing, so embarrassing, so embarrassing, thank you for your company! Don't tell me which one you are yet, let me guess!"

Zhao Qinfeng later replied, "Okay, you can guess slowly. I won't tell you for now."

Lin Ting recalled the usernames of the fans he remembered. There were actually quite a few. Many people had accompanied him on a long journey. Of course, he also remembered the names of some old fans who had gradually stopped appearing under his videos.

However, if we really want to speculate, there's a more efficient way: just pay a little attention to IP address changes. Zhao Qinfeng's job requires frequent business trips, and his itinerary can be found online, so it's not difficult to find out.

Now that he had a direction, Lin Ting was no longer in a hurry and decided to look for it while he was reviewing the videos he had made that involved Zhao Qinfeng.

He walked downstairs to the company and was about to clock in when he caught a glimpse of a dark figure rapidly approaching him. He looked up, then stepped aside to avoid the figure.