Backstage.
In the waiting room.
When Zhang Ye came back, he turned around and asked, "Water?"
Han Qi was caught off guard. "Huh?"
Zhang Ye cupped a hand and raised it to his mouth.
Only then did Han Qi understand what he meant and quickly went to get a bottle of mineral water for him.
When Zhang Ye finished drinking the water, he didn"t say a word.
Han Qi said, "Teacher, for your next song…"
Zhang Ye shook his head and pointed at his throat, then waved his hand to signal that he could not say anything right now. In truth, it was not that he could not talk, it was just that he wanted to let his throat rest to the fullest extent. Having sung "Opera," his voice had reached its limits. If he sang it a second time, he might not even finish the song. Singing in falsetto was very tiring and caused the muscles in his nasal cavity and throat to tighten up. Moreover, he had only just recovered from his illness and stabilized his old injuries.
Han Qi understood, then got anxious. "Then what about your next song?"
Zhang Ye smiled and gave her a thumbs up, indicating that she need not worry.
He would not fight a battle that he wasn"t sure of winning. As he had already antic.i.p.ated this situation, he had arranged the order of his songs this way. The second song"s style was decidedly unlike the first song"s. Otherwise, there would be no way for him to sing it. There was still about an hour"s worth of rest left, and he felt that he could use it to recover.
In the studio.
The compet.i.tion was continuing.
Sunflower Under The Starlight had already stepped out on stage.
"Set aflame!
"I"m burning!
"I wanna see blood flowing!
"Set aflame!
"I"m burning!
"I wanna send souls flying!"
Sunflower had chosen a rock song and performed similar to the way he had in the first episode. The only difference was that this song was not as thrilling as his previous two. The audience was still very excited, but seemingly not as excited as they were during the first episode.
Next, it was one of the replacement singer"s turn to appear on the stage.
A very tough-looking masked singer appeared before the audience.
G.o.d of War!
His mask had a postmodern style of design and incorporated many different artistic elements in it. With a black-gray color as the foundation, he looked like a singer with very explosive power.
He looked just as his name suggested.
The moment when this person opened his mouth to sing, a high pitch voice sounded out.
"Oh!
"You"re the sun in my life!
"Lighting my path forward!
"Giving me endless power!"
By rights, if the audience was seeing a new contestant appear for the first time, they should antic.i.p.ate it a great deal. But for some reason, today the audience"s reaction was not that great. Everyone was surprised and still applauded, but it did not match up to the masked singers" expectations.
Some of the audience members even started talking about something else.
"Who do you guys think The Clown is?"
"I really don"t know!"
"For those male celebrities above the B-list, who else could sing so swell other than Chen Guang and those Heavenly Kings?"
"That "Opera" was d.a.m.ned f.u.c.king G.o.dly!"
"Yeah, who the f.u.c.k has ever heard a song without lyrics?"
"I"ve fallen in love with him!"
"Me too! The Clown is amazing!"
"I"m looking forward to his next song!"
"Indeed. And his voice has almost returned to normal. We couldn"t tell from the last song since it was sung in falsetto, but if he sings using his real voice, we"ll definitely know who he is!"
G.o.d of War finished singing.
The voting began.
Sunflower in the Starlight received 222 votes!
G.o.d of War had 177 votes!
About a hundred members of the audience abstained and did not cast a vote!
Sunflower in the Starlight won but did not seem too happy about it.
G.o.d of War gave a bitter smile since he could obviously feel that some of the audience members were not paying attention.
Then it was time for the last pair of contestants to come onstage.
The first to come out was the other replacement singer, Lord Peac.o.c.k. Surprisingly, he sang a ballad song that was very pleasing to the ears as well as very popular.
The next to take the stage was the last singer for today, Sunset Glow. She maintained her style with the choice of a very calm song that she performed rather beautifully. Her performance today was even better than in the first episode.
"A song of yearning.
"Full of bitterness.
"A scene of loving.
"Full of sadness."
Sunset Glow had an overwhelming victory in the final vote!
Sunset Glow: 302 votes!
Lord Peac.o.c.k: 115 votes!
There were still over 80 people who had abstained!
The program team staff could only smile wryly.
Zhang Xia looked to the judges next to her. "What"s going on today?"
Chen Guang had figured it out. "The first pair"s match was so spectacular that the audience"s emotions have all been released."
Amy smiled and said, "Everyone has stopped paying attention to the other matches as they are trying to guess who The Clown is. After all, he revealed that he"s at least a B-list celeb, which has decreased the range of possibilities."
Chen Yidong coughed and said, "I"m already browsing through the list."
His cell phone screen was illuminated and showed the latest Celebrity Rankings Index on it. He was scrolling through all the celebrities on the B-list and trying to match someone with The Clown.
If even the judges were doing so, what could be expected of the audience!
Everyone had been shocked by The Clown"s non-lyrical song!
The filming of today"s show was done according to the broadcast order. Next up would be the elimination round. Of Petal Shower, G.o.d of War, and Lord Peac.o.c.k, only one could remain on the show.
Petal Shower was the first to perform. But after she stuck to using her stunning falsetto to finish singing the song, there was no doubt about the winner.
G.o.d of War sang with all his might.
Lord Peac.o.c.k did not hold back either.
However, Petal Shower still clinched the victory with an absolute advantage. There was no other outcome as she had the highest support base among all the contestants on King of Masked Singers, and her singing was flawless as well. Unless a heaven-defying big name singer came along, it would be very difficult to shake her.
"Take it off!"
"Take it off!"
"Take it off!"
The audience shouted in unison!
G.o.d of War hesitated for a while.
Dong Shanshan looked at him. "G.o.d of War, please make your choice."
Eventually, G.o.d of War smiled and simply took off his mask.
When the audience saw who he was, they exclaimed in surprise!
"Brother Howling!"
"It"s Brother Howling!"
"d.a.m.n, it"s him!"
"I totally didn"t expect that!"
"Ah!"
"I thought that it was his voice earlier when I heard it!"
Brother Howling was a nickname given by the netizens. His real name was Li Dongguo, a somewhat obscure name. But this man was last year"s champion on a singing talent show that rode on the coattails of The Voice"s popularity. Due to his singing style belonging to the type of screaming in which his voice would frequently explode in the extreme pitches, the netizens gave him this nickname. Since he was a very talented singer who came through the ranks of a talent show, a lot of people recognized him to be an elite singer. No one had expected that he would actually come onto the King of Masked Singers" stage!
"So he"s still not good enough!"
"Brother Howling got eliminated immediately in his first appearance? He couldn"t even make it past this episode?"
"Who said that he was an elite singer?"
"The professionals did!"
"Hai, not everything stands up to comparison!"
"Yeah, I did not think this way in the past and felt that Brother Howling was a fantastic singer. But when compared with people like The Clown, Petal Shower, and Sunflower, he"s still not at their level. Is this the difference between an amateur and a professional singer?"
"G.o.d of War had the explosiveness, but the firmness of his voice is leagues away from Sunflower"s control of his!"
"But Brother Howling is a champion who came up through the ranks of a talent show! How could he have lost so terribly?"
"What about Lord Peac.o.c.k?"
"Take it off!"
"Take it off!"
The audience started to shout again!
After some time, Lord Peac.o.c.k also chose to take off his mask!
"Wu Hefan!"
"Ah!"
"It"s him!"
"It’s Wu Hefan!"
"d.a.m.n, wasn"t he overseas? When did he come back?"
Wu Hefan was another very popular celebrity. He was a professional singer who had won the Best Newcomer award in the Greater China region two years ago and was nominated for the Most Popular Celebrity award last year. He was das.h.i.+ng and was one of the best-looking people in the music industry. However, his singing and performance abilities had never been acknowledged or gotten the attention of the audience. This was due to the fact that he had always been singing relatively mainstream and catchy songs.
"So Wu Hefan can also sing quite well!"
"Yeah, I really did not expect for him to come and compete!"
"Aiyo, if I knew it was him, I would have voted for him instead!"
"d.a.m.n, he"s my prince!"
"Our Wuwu got eliminated just like that? Nooooo!"
A lot of the female audience members" hearts were shattered by this reveal. Many of them stood up and started shouting Wu Hefan"s name.
But Wu Hefan just laughed it off as he raised his microphone and said, "Actually, I am only here to partic.i.p.ate and learn from my seniors. After this contest, I can say that I"ve indeed learned a lot from them." Then he gave a wry smile and said, "They really are amazing. I lost fair and square and have no objections."
Amy said in regret, "Little Bro, I knew it was you the moment you opened your mouth and sang."
Wu Hefan laughed and said, "h.e.l.lo, Sister Amy."
Amy looked very young, just like the other members of Spring Garden. However, they definitely were not as young as they looked.
Amy sighed, "What a shame."
Wu Hefan was fairly cheerful. "It"s alright, Sister Amy."
Amy said, "You chose the wrong song today. With your talent, you can easily sing much better than that."
Dong Shanshan suddenly smiled. "Actually, there"s still a chance for the eliminated contestants to make a comeback."
Amy was taken aback. "Ah?"
Both Brother Howling and Wu Hefan looked at her.
Dong Shanshan smiled and said, "Before the grand finals begin, there will be a revival round for the eliminated contestants to compete for a spot in the grand finals."
Wu Hefan grinned. "I"ll be back."
At once, Amy replied, "All the best, Little Bro. You can definitely do it!"
Chen Guang said, "All the best to you too, G.o.d of War. Your vocals are really good. Let"s talk later if there"s a chance."
When Brother Howling heard that, he got very excited as Chen Guang had always been his idol. "Thank you, Teacher Chen. I"ll be very honored to hear your advice!"
Chen Guang quickly said, "It"s not so much giving advice to you, but rather for us to learn from each other."
The contestants exited the stage.
Then it was time for the second episode"s battle for Masked King!
Thinking of this, the judges were invigorated.
Some of the audience members shed their inattentiveness and concentrated fully on the next segment!
It was here!
It was finally here!
If the unmasking round was just a sideshow for many of the audience, then the following round was clearly the main event!
The Clown would be appearing onstage again!
And no one could guess what song he would be singing this time around!