owlsbooks Chapter 377 EA and Sakura Games Collaboration
Chapter 377 EA and Sakura Games Collaboration
The RV departed from Xiamen and continued southwest along G228.
After passing Zhangzhou and entering Guangdong Province, the scenery on both sides of the road changed again.
The mountains in Fujian Province are rounded, green hills covered with vegetation, while the mountains in Guangdong Province are steeper, with more exposed rocks and less dense vegetation, making them look much more rugged.
Shen Yuege peeled the dried sweet potato that Aunt Chen had given her in the passenger seat. She took a bite, chewed it, and said, "This tastes much better than the ones sold in the supermarket. The ones in the supermarket are too sweet, but this one is just the right amount of sweet."
"Of course. The ones in supermarkets are mass-produced in factories, with lots of added sugar and additives. Aunt Chen's are homemade, all-natural."
"Why do you talk like a health expert?"
"I'm living life with clarity."
Shen Yuege rolled her eyes at him and continued eating her dried sweet potato.
Upon entering Guangdong Province, the first thing Lu Ran noticed was that the text on the road signs had changed.
In Fujian Province, road signs are in both Chinese and English, but in Guangdong Province, there is an additional line of Cantonese pinyin on the road signs.
After all, the Lingnan region had very little interaction with the Central Plains in the long past.
Lu Ran still speaks Cantonese, after all, he sang "The Legend of the Condor Heroes," and you can't even tell he's not a local from his pronunciation.
"Who taught you Cantonese?" Shen Yuege asked, addressing Lu Ran's excellent Cantonese.
"Of course I learned it from watching TV, otherwise how could a system have fallen from the sky and taught me?" Lu Ran replied without blushing, his heart pounding a little.
"So, since you're here in Guangdong this time, are you going to write a few more Cantonese songs? I don't have a Cantonese album yet!" Shen Yuege said with a mischievous grin.
Seeing Shen Yuege's expression, Lu Ran replied with the same mischievous grin:
"It's possible, but it depends on your performance."
"What was his performance like?"
"You'll find out tonight, hehe."
"Hmph, judging from your frivolous look, it can't be anything good."
Lu Ran coughed guiltily and changed the subject: "There's a service area up ahead, do you want to stop? I'm a little hungry."
Shen Yuege glanced at him, knowing he was changing the subject, but didn't call him out on it, and nodded and said okay.
The two of them had a meal at the service area.
The restaurant in the service area is small, with seven or eight tables, and it sells fast food. Two meat dishes and one vegetable dish cost 38 yuan per person.
When Lu Ran paid, his eyebrows twitched again, but Shen Yuege pretended not to notice.
After dinner, Lu Ran went to get the car, and Shen Yuege went to the restroom.
As the two continued their journey, the sky began to darken.
Winters in Guangdong Province are not as cold as in Shanghai, but on cloudy days, when the wind blows, it can still feel a little chilly.
Shen Yuege zipped her coat all the way up, curled up in the seat, and looked at the scenery outside the window.
There are many lychee and longan trees planted on both sides of the road. They don't bear fruit this season, but the canopies are very large, standing one by one on the ridge of the field, like a bunch of big umbrellas.
"Do people who speak Cantonese all speak very loudly?" Shen Yuege suddenly asked.
"Where did you get that conclusion?"
"When I was eating at the service area just now, the people at the next table were talking so loudly that I thought they were arguing. But after listening for a while, I realized they were just having a normal conversation."
Lu Ran laughed: "That's just how Cantonese is. It has many tones, so people naturally speak louder, otherwise they can't pronounce some sounds. It's not that they have loud voices, it's just that the language itself is hard on the voice."
"How do you know everything?"
"I looked it up. I looked at it when I had nothing else to do."
Shen Yuege shook her head: "The things you watch when you have nothing to do are too weird. Normal people watch short videos and play games when they have nothing to do, but you study the pronunciation principles of Cantonese when you have nothing to do."
"I play video games. I play League of Legends every day, you just didn't know that."
"You call that playing games? You call that going to work. When you play League of Legends, your brow is furrowed more than when you're in a meeting."
Lu Ran opened his mouth, but found that he really couldn't refute it.
I've developed a bit of an occupational hazard, and I'm determined to correct it this time.
When the car reached the vicinity of Shanwei, Lu Ran decided to find a place to stop and not continue driving.
He parked his RV on the edge of a small seaside town. The town was small, with a main street running north to south, lined with old houses in the arcade style, with shops on the ground floor and living quarters on the second floor.
Shen Yuege got out of the car, stretched, and took a deep breath: "The air here is different from that in Fujian Province. Fujian Province has a stronger sea breeze, but the air here has a... indescribable smell."
"Fish sauce," Lu Ran said.
"What?"
"Fish sauce. A common condiment in Cantonese cuisine, made from fermented small fish and shrimp. People here like to add fish sauce to their cooking; that's the smell that fills the air."
Shen Yuege took another deep breath: "It does have a salty and savory taste. If you hadn't said so, I would have thought it smelled like the sea."
The two walked around the main street. The town wasn't big; it only took about twenty minutes to walk from one end to the other.
There weren't many people on the street. A few elderly people were playing chess under the arcade, a woman was picking vegetables at her door, and two stray dogs were lying in the middle of the road sunbathing. When someone passed by, they would lazily lift their eyelids and then continue sleeping.
Shen Yuege saw a dessert shop and pulled Lu Ran inside.
The shop is small, with five or six tables. A handwritten menu is posted on the wall, offering more than a dozen kinds of sweet soups, including red bean paste, mung bean paste, sesame paste, almond milk, double-skin milk, and ginger milk curd. The most expensive one costs eight yuan a bowl.
"Two bowls of double-skin milk pudding, please," Shen Yuege called out to the back of the counter.
An elderly woman with completely white hair walked out from behind the counter, but she was in good spirits and walked with a brisk pace.
She glanced at Shen Yuege and said in Mandarin with a Cantonese accent, "Double-skin milk pudding? Okay. Please have a seat."
The old woman turned and went into the kitchen, and a few minutes later she brought out two bowls of double-skin milk.
The bowl wasn't big, it was a white porcelain bowl, and the milk skin was wrinkled and floating on the surface. It didn't look very appealing, but it smelled delicious.
Shen Yuege scooped up a spoonful and put it in her mouth, her eyes immediately lighting up: "Delicious. Much better than the desserts in those Shanghai dessert shops."
Lu Ran also scooped up a spoonful. It had a rich milky flavor, just the right amount of sweetness, not cloying, and melted in her mouth. It was indeed delicious.
"Grandma, how long have you been running this shop?" Shen Yuege asked.
The old woman sat down on a stool nearby and thought for a moment: "How long has it been? It was there when I married into the family. I'm seventy-three this year, so this shop... must have been around forty or fifty years."
"Forty or fifty years? So you've been making double-skin milk pudding for forty or fifty years?"
"I do it. I do it every day. I can do it with my eyes closed now."
Shen Yuege glanced at Lu Ran, her eyes saying, "Look at other people."
Lu Ran pretended not to see and lowered his head to eat double-skin milk pudding.
After finishing their double-skin milk pudding, the two strolled around the town for a while longer.
Shen Yuege bought a palm-leaf fan at a general store, saying she could use it in the summer.
Lu Ran said, "It's only winter now, why are you buying a palm-leaf fan?" Shen Yuege replied, "It's cheaper to buy in winter, it'll be more expensive in summer."
Lu Ran was defeated by her consumption logic and didn't say anything more.
Back in the RV, it was already dark.
Lu Ran turned on the car lights and prepared to cook dinner.
He opened the refrigerator and saw that the things Aunt Chen had stuffed in were still there: braised chicken feet, braised duck necks, and braised tofu, packed full.
When they left, they were determined not to accept the gifts, but Aunt Chen insisted on putting them all in the car.
However, Lu Ran and his companion did not take advantage of her. Before leaving, they left two thousand yuan under Chen Dama's pillow as a thank you for the hospitality they had provided for the past day or two.
"Let's keep it simple tonight. Just heat up these braised dishes and cook some rice," he said.
"Okay. You handle it."
Lu Ran took the braised food out of the refrigerator and heated it in the microwave.
I washed the rice again and put it in the rice cooker to cook.
Shen Yuege sat in a booth, flipping through the travel guide that she had almost worn out.
"Where are we going tomorrow?" she asked.
"Continue west to Foshan."
"Foshan? To see the lion dance?"
"Yes. Foshan is the hometown of lion dance and the birthplace of Wong Fei-hung. Haven't you seen the movie 'Once Upon a Time in China'? Go and experience it for yourself."
Shen Yuege thought for a moment and said, "Okay. Then let's leave early tomorrow."
After they finished eating, while Lu Ran was washing the dishes, Shen Yuege was wiping the table next to him. Suddenly, she said, "Lu Ran, why do you think Cantonese songs sometimes sound so good?"
Lu Ran's hands didn't stop moving: "Because Cantonese has nine tones. Mandarin only has four. The more tones there are, the more room there is for the melody to play. The same melody paired with different tones will have a completely different feel."
"So when you wrote 'The Legend of the Condor Heroes,' you used the tones of Cantonese?"
"Yes. First, decide on the melody, and then adjust the word order according to the tones when writing the lyrics. Some words sound smooth in Mandarin, but are difficult to sing in Cantonese. And vice versa."
Shen Yuege leaned against the kitchen door frame, watching his back as he washed the dishes. After a moment of silence, she said, "Your theory is enough to write a thesis."
"Why would I write a thesis? I'm not a music major. I'm just a game developer."
"You've gotten so caught up in the game that you've forgotten your roots. Your queen of pop hasn't received a new song in days, and you're still not taking the initiative," Shen Yuege teased.
Lu Ran put the last bowl into the cupboard, wiped his hands, and turned to look at her: "No problem, I'll definitely write a song for you when we get back this time."
"Do you have any new Cantonese songs in your head right now?"
Lu Ran thought for a moment. He did have a lot of classic Cantonese songs from his previous life in his mind, but the timing of those songs was wrong.
Now, when I'm on a road trip, without recording equipment or a music production team, just writing a demo is useless.
Moreover, Shen Yuege was watching him closely. If he were to take out his phone and write another song, she would definitely become suspicious.
"The timing isn't right; I can't write now. Writing songs still requires some inspiration."
Shen Yuege glanced at him but didn't ask any further questions.
After washing up, the two lay down on the bed.
Shen Yuege slept inside, and Lu Ran slept outside.
After spending one night in that farmhouse in Fujian Province, the two of them never mentioned the small bed again.
The single bed was always folded up; the booth area remained a booth area and never turned back into a bed.
Lu Ran turned off the light, and the carriage became dark.
The town outside the window was quiet, with the occasional bark of a dog, then silence again.
Shen Yuege turned over to face Lu Ran, stretched her legs out from under the covers, and pressed them against his calves.
Her feet were very cold, and Lu Ran shivered from the cold.
Why are your feet so cold?
"That's how it is in winter. Insufficient Qi and blood."
"You drink pork rib soup every day, yet you still suffer from blood and qi deficiency?"
"Pork rib soup isn't for replenishing blood. It's for replenishing calcium."
Lu Ran sighed, reached out and tucked her feet between his calves, warming them with his own body heat.
Shen Yuege hummed comfortably and buried her face in the pillow.
The two lay there quietly, neither of them saying a word.
After about five minutes, Shen Yuege suddenly spoke: "Lu Ran."
"Um?"
Of all the songs you've written, which one is your favorite?
Lu Ran thought for a moment. He had written many songs, each one a classic from his past life, each one wonderful. But if he had to choose a favorite…
"The Prodigal Son Returns"
Shen Yuege paused for a moment, probably not expecting this answer. She thought he would mention "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" or "Sing If You Want," as those songs were more famous and widely sung.
Why?
"Because that song saved someone's life."
Shen Yuege did not ask who she had saved.
She knew he was referring to Chen Xiaoming.
She simply stretched her foot further between his calves and whispered, "Then you should write more songs like this in the future."
Lu Ran smiled and said, "It's not like you can just write a song whenever you want. You have to wait for the right time for this kind of song to come out on its own."
"So, have you waited for it yet?"
"not yet."
Shen Yuege kicked him from under the covers: "Then you'd better wait."
Just as Lu Ran was about to retaliate with a kick, his phone rang.
The ringing bell rang out in the quiet carriage, startling both of them.
Shen Yuege peeked out from under the covers, frowning. "Who is it? It's so late."
Lu Ran reached for his phone from the bedside table, the bright light on the screen making him squint.
He glanced at the caller ID—Zhou Mingzhe.
"Brother Zhou," he said to Shen Yuege, and pressed the answer button.
"Hey, Brother Zhou. What's up?"
On the other end of the phone, Zhou Mingzhe's voice remained calm, but there was a clear hint of anxiety in his tone: "Um, Lu Ran, where are you and Yuege hanging out?"
"Guangdong Province. What's wrong?"
"Is it convenient for you to talk? Is Shen Yuege nearby?"
Lu Ran glanced at Shen Yuege in his arms and said, "Yes. It's nothing. Go ahead and tell me. What's the matter that's so urgent?"
Zhou Mingzhe was silent for two seconds, took a deep breath, and then said something that made Lu Ran frown immediately.
"Sakura Games has partnered with EA."
...