Chapter 122
Chapter 122
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 123
Chapter Title: The Composition Bet
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Olivia Snow’s snow-white face gradually flushed red.
She was someone who never felt embarrassed.
Her face turning red meant her anger had shot straight to the top of her head.
“I can’t compose?”
“Better than me.”
“You?”
This kid had gotten so arrogant just because he’d written a few songs.
Sure, back-to-back number threes on Melboard were no small feat.
But so what?
Olivia Snow was someone who topped Melboard like it was a daily meal.
She was the top singer-songwriter loved by the Grammys and America.
And yet… she couldn’t compose as well as him?
Olivia Snow snorted in disbelief.
But Yeonwoo remained unfazed.
“It’s obvious.”
“Obvi, obvious?!”
Yeonwoo nodded and said to Jihoon.
“Dad, tell her there’s nothing to learn from her, so I didn’t want to meet.”
“Hey, Yeonwoo. Isn’t that a bit too rude?”
“She was already rude. But she kept pushing to meet even after I nicely turned her down. I thought she’d stay away out of pride if I told her to come over.”
“Well, you’re right…”
Who would’ve thought a world star would show this much interest in Yeonwoo?
“What are you two talking about? Huh? Tell me, what’s wrong with my songs? What’s so obvious about them? Huh?”
Yeonwoo quietly stared at Olivia Snow, who was starting to show a hint of madness in her excitement, then looked away.
Fine, she did provide a clone, after all…
“You know.”
“Huh?”
Yeonwoo sighed and fetched his tablet. He opened the MIDI app and danced his fingers over the virtual keyboard.
“Why that?”
What Yeonwoo played was her signature chord progression.
“Yeonwoo says your songs never stray from this.”
“Most people don’t, right? This kid’s the weird one.”
She knew Yeonwoo wrote songs with completely different chord structures every time.
She admired it, but it had its limits.
It was hard for a human to invent new chords and succeed every time.
That’s why there were those money chords everyone used.
Yeonwoo looked at her and then played again.
Using her chords as a base, he whipped up a phrase on just piano in an instant.
He didn’t stop there, churning out phrases from other songs one after another.
If you had the chords, making a song was easy.
But Olivia Snow, watching it right in front of her, couldn’t stay calm.
Goosebumps prickled from her head to her toes.
Why?
Because Yeonwoo kept producing songs that sounded just like something she would compose, using her own chords.
Some were eerily similar to ideas she’d been mulling over.
“……!!”
The one he’d just played now was exactly like something stolen from her laptop or notebook.
“How?!”
“Obvious. You.”
At Yeonwoo’s words, Olivia Snow was speechless.
Her clone felt the same. Even the clone hadn’t expected Yeonwoo to compose something so similar to Olivia Snow’s style without any help.
What exactly was this kid good at?
While Yeonwoo was lost in thought, Olivia Snow asked again.
“So what’s obvious?!”
Yeonwoo glanced at Jihoon, who translated.
“He says once he analyzes the structure and style of all the songs you’ve made so far, he could crank out hundreds that sound just like yours. Oh, in various genres too.”
As soon as his dad finished, Yeonwoo lightly played a country-style tune on the tablet and shook it up and down like, see?
Olivia Snow felt inexplicably irritated by the sight.
Then Yeonwoo spoke to Jihoon again.
“He says… if you keep going like this, a slump’s coming soon.”
A slump.
What they called a slump was really the end of your peak.
No matter the country or fandom, but especially in America, fame faded in an instant.
Countless celebrities operated across fifty states the size of nations, all ready to go national or global at any moment.
If one slipped, someone else devoured their spot in a flash. That was the American entertainment industry.
After that, you were left with wealth and fame but no popularity, just an old has-been clinging to past glory in the back room.
And there were more than one or two such stars.
“Me, in a slump?”
“Don’t play dumb, he says. You’re starting to feel it, aren’t you?”
“How do you know?”
“He says your latest song shows a lot of worry.”
What?
How did he know?
Was there a way to read someone’s heart through their song?
“Hmm… Is this the right word? Messy? He says it feels messy all over.”
“Not new attempts?”
“Yeah, my English isn’t so bad I can’t tell new from messy.”
“I guess it does look that way.”
Messy…
Truth be told, she had tried something new on this album.
She’d felt her patterns growing repetitive and knew she needed a change.
“…But what does that have to do with avoiding me?”
“To reiterate, that aside, rest is most important…”
“I get that. I’m asking for another reason. What’s the connection between my lousy composing and avoiding me?”
“As much as I hate to say it… my son says there’s nothing to learn from you, so he didn’t want to see you.”
Yeonwoo chimed in at his dad’s words.
“Plus nagging. From me.”
“Nothing to learn, and you avoided her because you might end up nagging?”
Yeonwoo nodded.
“Fight then. I hate fights.”
“Ha! Why would I fight a brat like you?”
“You got mad earlier.”
“That’s because you were too blunt!!”
“Blunt?”
Yeonwoo glanced at his dad, understood, and said.
“Sorry, my English still sucks.”
Olivia Snow sighed. Fine, getting mad at a little kid was ridiculous.
But she couldn’t ignore the composing skill he’d just shown.
She didn’t want to admit he was better, but hey, she could take some tips, right?
“So, do you have the answer?”
Yeonwoo pointed to his ear.
“Open your ears.”
“Ears?”
“And listen. To other people’s songs.”
“Me? Why?”
Yeonwoo sighed at her incredulous expression and told his dad.
Jihoon translated right away.
“He says you need to listen to other people’s songs, find ones that match your taste, learn from them, and create your own. You can never make anything new just from your head.”
“I know that mu—”
Olivia Snow, about to say she knew, shut her mouth.
Before becoming a singer, she had definitely listened to great or popular songwriters, learned, and grown.
But at some point, she stopped really listening to others.
Because she thought she was the best.
She’d only checked Yeonwoo’s songs out of curiosity because a kid had made them and succeeded.
‘Come to think of it, I haven’t listened to anything lately.’
“If you’re not stopping here, study, he says.”
Study.
As Olivia Snow reflected on herself, her deflated pride and arrogance reignited, burning in her chest.
“Someone like me needs to study? Studying’s for kids like you.”
“I study. Even during breaks like now.”
Yeonwoo always listened to music on the go or before bed, thought about music while watching scenery, and tried to capture emotions in songs while eating.
Yeonwoo never stopped making music.
“Oh yeah? If you’re so great, play something for me.”
“What kind?”
“A song for me—one so good even I can’t make a peep, better than me.”
Olivia Snow never took songs from anyone. Never accepted anyone’s producing.
She believed no one composed better than her, and no one dared produce her.
“Why should I?”
Yeonwoo looked at her like she was absurd.
Me? Why? On purpose?
“This is a bet. If you give me a song I acknowledge, I’ll grant you one wish—anything you want. If not, you publicly post on your SNS that you can’t match my music and respect me.”
Yeonwoo thought about it.
Anything he wanted?
Olivia Snow had wealth, fame, influence—everything.
She could probably do more than he imagined.
Hell, she could hand over ten billion won if he asked.
So, could he make a song to satisfy or subdue Olivia Snow?
‘Of course.’
A little effort(?) and he’d get a genie granting one wish from a lamp.
No downside. Yeonwoo nodded.
“Okay.”
“No backing out?”
“But I have a condition too.”
“What?”
“No forcing it. Judge honestly. Got it?”
“What do you take me for? I’ll be cold and objective.”
“How do I trust that?”
At that, Olivia Snow turned to Jessie and pushed her forward.
“My manager. She knows me better than anyone. She can tell my reaction just from my face when I hear your song.”
“She’s biased.”
Olivia Snow shook her head.
“She’s fair. That’s why she tries to scold me when I’m wrong. She’s dying to chew me out for betting with a kid like you. She’s probably hoping you win inside, so I’ll regret it and reflect.”
Jessie nodded without realizing.
“Absolutely no forcing it. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
With that, Yeonwoo stood up.
Olivia Snow asked, watching him rise right after the bet was on.
“What, going to bed like a kid?”
“Nah, getting gear.”
“Gear?”
“Gonna make it while eating.”
“Eating what?”
Yeonwoo asked Jiyeong to help carry the stuff, then looked back at Olivia Snow and answered.
“I’ll make it now. While eating bulgogi.”
Olivia Snow’s face twisted weirdly at his words.
“You’re saying you’ll make a song to make me submit… right now, while enjoying barbecue?”
She thinks I’ll submit to something thrown together like that?
Arrogance or confidence?
Yeonwoo replied to her with a perfectly calm expression, like it was no big deal.
“What’s so hard about that?”