Chapter 38: Shocked Under the Cherry Blossom Tree
"There is no better time to promote than the Winter Olympics... You mean you want to expand into the international market?"
When Jia Wenyan heard this, she immediately understood what Zhen Shuwang meant.
Zhen Shuwang: "Well, I think this is a good opportunity. The Winter Olympics is the best time for overseas audiences to notice Donghuang, so even if the promotion time is a bit tight, I want to release it before the Winter Olympics."
"But your "The Story of the Stone" is a Chinese-style cartoon after all. Are you sure foreigners can accept this style?"
Zhen Shuwang: "I'm not worried about this. The aesthetics of countries around the world are inherently similar. Many of the so-called differences between China and the West are actually the result of information asymmetry."
"Just like many foreigners still think that Donghuang is a very backward country, what we need to do is to take advantage of the Winter Olympics, a time when Donghuang has attracted worldwide attention, to bring our works to everyone."
"Okay, just keep it in mind. If there's anything I can do to help you with follow-up promotion, just let me know."
After Jia Wenyan finished speaking, she was about to hang up the phone. However, before her finger pressed the red hang-up button, she heard a hurried shout in her ears.
Jia Wenyan turned her head and saw the Jiaoweiqin spirit, dressed in a red robe with black patterns, appearing beside her with the guqin in his arms.
Looking at Xuanyin's expression, Jia Wenyan hurriedly wanted to hang up the phone.
However, the other party shook his head and motioned her to look at the music score on the Jiaowei music stand.
"'Tanshi Meng'... is it a song for 'Stubborn Stone'?"
"So that day, when Zhen Shuwang came to show me the sample film, you were also watching it?"
Xuanyin: [Yes.]
[That story is quite interesting.]
Unlike most artifact spirits that want to be remembered by the world, the spirit born from the Jiaoweiqin wants the world to remember the music it plays more than its own sound.
For this purpose, she gave up the opportunity to become the representative of the museum's wooden cultural relics, and instead hoped that Jia Wenyan could serve as a medium and use this piano to play the music she wanted to convey to the world.
However, Jia Wenyan's Jiaoweiqin only stored a trace of Xuanyin's spiritual consciousness, so on weekdays Jia Wenyan did not know whether its main consciousness was inside the guqin.
She also didn't expect that Xuanyin had secretly watched the sample film with her and specially composed such a song.
Although Jia Wenyan still had a lot of confusion, she still nodded as she looked at the transparent music score in front of her.
She was sitting in front of the Jiaoweiqin just as Xuanyin had taught her in the spirit space.
At the same time, Zhen Shuwang, who hadn't heard from him for a long time, thought that Jia Wenyan's signal was bad. But before he could ask, a clear and loud piano sound came from the phone next to his ear.
"This sound is..."
Zhen Shuwang instinctively wanted to ask, but as soon as his words reached his throat, they were blocked by the sound of the piano in his ears, which was like the sound of clear pond water flowing.
The music starts at a very high pitch, and the light and pleasant notes seem like a beautiful picture of a clear pond in the hot sun after the rain.
The jumping of the sound notes is like raindrops gently dripping from the tips of leaves after the rain, creating ripples under the slow flow of sunlight and water.
It was a beautiful illusion that seemed like being in a paradise, but all this beauty became dull the moment the girl's fingers began to exert force.
After that signal that sounded like the breaking of branches and leaves, the atmosphere of the entire melody began to take a sharp turn for the worse.
The sunny and peaceful weather turned into a pile of bones in the wilderness. But what is puzzling is that although this depression is cold, it is not bone-chilling.
The feeling is like a mother's hands that are almost cold from washing clothes in winter. Although they are cold, when they gently stroke the clothes, they always convey tenderness that will never change.
Zhen Shuwang's hand, which was tightly holding the phone, began to tremble unconsciously under the surge of piano music. As the main creator of "The Story of the Stubborn Stone", he certainly understood the meaning of Jia Wenyan's performance of this piece of music at the first time.
The images in his memory were constantly overlapping with the music in his mind.
When the song ended, Zhen Shuwang stared blankly at the street in the distance.
After a while, he finally came back to his senses and said excitedly with an expression of disbelief:
"This song... is..."
Jia Wenyan: "Um... it's the manuscript that Grandma Xu gave me. She saw that I got this Jiaowei Guqin from Director Liu, so she gave me a manuscript whose origin is unknown."
Zhen Shuwang: "A fragment of a manuscript whose origin is unknown?"
"Yes, the currently known information does not indicate which ancient musician created the work, and judging from the style of the music I have restored, the music scores here should not have come from the same musician."
"I even saw a lot of classic songs like 'High Mountains and Flowing Water' that have been passed down to this day."
"There are classics as well as unknown ancient music. I think this should be a score compiled by a music lover in ancient Donghuang."
\"I also thought this song was a good match so I took it out to try it out. How does it work?"
"Can it be used? Once this is released, it will be able to compete for the best movie score of the year."
"Wait a minute, I'll contact the recording studio right away..."
Zhen Shuwang turned around and prepared to coordinate the recording and the subsequent film soundtrack modification. It was his hasty running that caused him to bump into Xu Yonghe who was eavesdropping on the stairs.
Zhen Shuwang: "Grandma, what are you doing......"
"Hello, I...I accidentally dropped my earring when I was going upstairs just now."
Zhen Shuwang: "Earrings... didn't you say your ear holes had grown back a long time ago?"
"Um... so I'm wearing magnetic earrings, really... these magnet things just aren't that useful."
"I'll go down and see if he fell down."
After saying this, Xu Yonghe stood up and fled the scene.
Zhen Shuwang withdrew his hand awkwardly.
He just wanted to ask his grandmother if there were any copyright issues with the music she gave Jia Wenyan. But he was very tactful and didn't ask further.
That night, he ran around arranging the subsequent recording and editing work.
He knew very well that given Jia Wenyan's current work status, it would be impossible for her to give him too much time.
For this reason, after getting the music score, he also tried to use computer synthesis or have others play it for him to reproduce the song "Tanshi Meng".
But what is incomprehensible is that even though he found a teacher at the music conservatory through his family connections, he was unable to recreate the "artistic conception" that Jia Wenyan had when she performed.
He was very puzzled by the situation.
He admitted that the Jiaowei Guqin collected by Director Liu of the National Museum of China could not be an ordinary piece. But the collection of the Conservatory of Music would not be some cheap goods that can be found everywhere.
Amateur players beat professionals? Even if Jia Wenyan has a deeper understanding of the music through the process of restoring the music, it is unlikely that she will really surpass the years of accumulation of professional musicians.
He didn't know how long Jia Wenyan had studied before, but at least during the time he knew Jia Wenyan, he had rarely seen Jia Wenyan play the piano.
He even suspected at one point that he was under too much pressure at the time, which caused him to over-imagine "delicious food" like a person does when hungry.
After thinking it over and over again and still being puzzled, he finally made up his mind to shamelessly go to Jia Wenyan.
No matter what the result is, he hopes to give himself a definite answer.
This was his first time in the renovated workshop.
Thanks to the construction team's previous feat of "digging up the water pipes", the renovated Yong'an Workshop was further improved after being combined with the space of Yong'an Pawnshop.
He followed his memory and walked towards the workshop where Jia Wenyan was.
The production of state gifts was far more hectic than he had imagined.
Especially after the senior leaders saw the first batch of works including pandas, polar bears and bald eagles, they were full of expectations for Jia Wenyan's subsequent works.
Zhen Shuwang didn't dare to disturb her rashly, for he was afraid that his sudden appearance would affect Jia Wenyan's work state.
However, who would have thought that when he tiptoed from the yard to the window of the workshop.
His eyes were shocked by the cherry blossom tree in the studio that was more than two meters tall.
"This is?"
He asked unconsciously, and at the same time, on the scaffolding in the workshop, Jia Wenyan, who had already seen his figure, lay on the fence and waved at him:
"How is it? This is my latest all-ceramic cherry tree. Isn't it very visually impactful?"
Jia Wenyan, standing on the scaffold, proudly displayed her work.
Although at this moment the cherry tree is still a semi-finished product with only part of the crown completed.
But the all-ceramic cherry blossoms with a pink and white gradient already possess a beauty that far exceeds ordinary people's imagination.
This was the first time Zhen Shuwang had seen such porcelain. In his impression, porcelain should represent exquisiteness and refinement.
But the huge crown of the cherry blossom tree in front of us truly shows the majestic vitality through porcelain.
Zhen Shuwang had not expected that Jia Wenyan could improve porcelain to such a level, but he quickly came to his senses and realized another problem.
Isn’t this cherry tree a little too big?
Zhen Shuwang didn't say there was anything wrong with doing it on a large scale, mainly because Jia Wenyan's goal for this assignment was to prepare national gifts for the countries participating in the upcoming Winter Olympics.
On this basis, the overly large and delicate porcelain will not only be unable to meet the construction schedule, but will also inevitably face various transportation difficulties afterwards.
So at the beginning, when Jia Wenyan hesitated about whether to use "red-crowned crane" as the theme of Neon Country's porcelain because her design was "ruined", Zhen Shuwang immediately suggested that she use the theme of cherry blossoms instead.
This is the only theme redesigned by Zhen Shuwang in Jia Wenyan's hands, but the problem is that the design he made at that time was obviously just the size of a tree pot. Why did Jia Wenyan make it look like a complete cherry tree?
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