Work Prophet
Chapter 289 - 47 - Pun Meme Fine

Chapter 289: 47 Chapter Pun Meme Fine

Ireya carefully weighed her words before speaking. "Hua Meiniao, I can tell that you’re trying to do something very new, but isn’t your creative concept a bit too avant-garde... Personally, I think you could consider scaling it back a bit, don’t push so hard."

After giving her review, Miss Rabbit was about to hold up her sign, but Hua Meiniao became anxious. Even though he had received direct affirmation from Li Yu, who said his chosen direction was worth exploring, the pressure of a first-show failure weighed heavily on his shoulders.

Unlike the other competitors, he didn’t come to participate in the Green Field’s open-mic missionary event for the substantial rewards behind it, but rather to prove his own choices, to prove that Li Yu hadn’t misjudged him.

So he didn’t want to be eliminated in the first round. Hua Meiniao pointed at the clock in front of the Lady and said, "Sir Ireya, isn’t there still time left? Please give me another chance. I actually have another song here, called ’The Lone Warrior’. I’d like to dedicate it to Maurice and Sabbath Meier, who sacrificed themselves during the missionary work."

"Oh, oh, oh, then keep on singing." Miss Rabbit put down the wooden sign she had half lifted, and glanced at Li Yu beside her, noticing that the latter’s body shook at the mention of those three words.

Li Yu was truly surprised at how Hua Meiniao could stir things up, launching one bomb after another. After "Wild Wolf Disco," he even managed to include an elementary school battle song in his lineup.

Others might just be music tailors, but he’s become a music thief.

Shamelessly exploiting the lack of royalty fees in Green Field.

With the Lady’s permission, Hua Meiniao quickly cleared his throat and began to strum the Layakin once more.

Compared to "Wild Wolf Disco," the rhythm of "The Lone Warrior" was much more relaxed, especially the first half, and it was more readily accepted by the locals on the Bratis Continent.

And so, more and more people began to immerse themselves in Hua Meiniao’s singing.

When Hua Meiniao sang, "I love your solitary walk through dark alleys, I love your unbowed demeanor, I love how you faced off against despair, refusing to weep..." many Sabbaths also thought of their own missionary experiences and the various dangers they had faced, feeling deeply moved.

And those who had been close with Maurice and Sabbath Meier found their eyes reddening with emotion.

When Hua Meiniao roared out "Fight, yes, fight!" the entire crowd was ignited in an instant.

Even Quintus, who had snuck in to listen, felt something ignite inside him. Although he had never met the two Sabbaths from the Double Rest Sect, their towering figures seemed to materialize before his eyes, never to return.

Missionary work is tough, and even Priests from the Silver Moon Sect face grim odds when encountering robbers in the wild, for in the desolate wilderness, it’s hard to know who did the killing.

Thus, Quintus also listened with empathetic engagement to the song.

But precisely because of this, Quintus fell silent. He detested transmitting the faith through music, even though the Silver Moon Sect spent money every year hiring Minstrels to compose hymns of praise for Pisya and to sing them in various places.

However, in Quintus’s view, this was always the Minstrels’ job, and as a bona fide Priest, he wouldn’t stoop to that level.

And yet, at that moment, he had to admit that Hua Meiniao’s singing had a powerful infectiousness that was no less impressive than a successful sermon.

Even the not-so-successful first song, odd as it sounded, had a wicked catchiness. It would occasionally pop into Quintus’s mind, compelling him to repeat it.

Quintus was inwardly alarmed. Had he been unsuspectingly beguiled by the Double Rest Sect? Had he fallen under some curse? Otherwise, he couldn’t explain why he couldn’t get that bizarre tune out of his head.

Actually, Hua Meiniao mainly prepared "Wild Wolf Disco" for the competition, as he was almost addicted to his own song, had fully adapted it, and his changes to "The Lone Warrior" weren’t significant. Fortunately, the lyrics of the latter were already easy to comprehend.

There was no confusing stuff like beepers, 007, or Spring-Heeled Jack.

With just a few modifications, the song could be used as is, and this time, the result finally improved. After the performance, the applause from the audience was unending, and some people even shouted for an encore.

Hua Meiniao himself didn’t mind going back onstage, but considering there were other contestants waiting, they moved on to the scoring segment.

First came the professional judges’ scores, from Ireya to Li Yu, who gave 8 points, 6 points, 9 points, and... 9 points in turn.

The last nine points were reluctantly given by Li Yu.

Hua Meiniao’s final come-from-behind song "The Lone Warrior" was a clever choice. Moreover, to a certain extent, he exploited the deaths of Maurice and Meier, two Sabbaths, to further stir the audience’s emotions.

Li Yu himself wasn’t very fond of this approach, but he had to admit that a good missionary should be able to understand the times and know how to manipulate human hearts. From this perspective, Hua Meiniao hadn’t done anything wrong.

Of course, the most important reason was that music evangelism was a direction Li Yu always wanted to promote, as music inherently holds power and is incredibly easy to spread, even faster than people can travel.

In short, music was a very cost-effective investment for evangelism, especially since Li Yu had access to a constantly updated vast music library, which contained many catchy songs that could be adapted.

The nine points he gave were more encouraging in nature. As a result, Hua Meiniao’s final professional score was fixed at 32 points, just one point less than the first performer, Yadun.

In the public voting segment, Hua Meiniao’s score was only two points lower than Yadun’s, earning a high score of 55 points.

Hua Meiniao was quite satisfied with this score and played a brief segment of "Havana" on his Layakin as a thank-you.

Next up was another young Sabbath.

Li Yu could tell that he must have been inspired by stand-up comedy, attempting to combine it with missionary work. This broad direction was fine, but the issue was that he focused on puns.

This approach was clearly off the mark. Despite painstakingly crafting many jokes, such as the one where he encountered a Silver Moon Church priest while out preaching. The priest had lost his book and asked him, "Where did I lose (’lose’) my book?"

The young Sabbath even paused for several seconds, but only a sparse few laughs arose.

And Miss Rabbit didn’t hesitate to raise her wooden card. Zero points!

The other three judges gave generally low scores too, and as for the audience, their reaction was minimal. If it weren’t for the ambient sound already being at thirty decibels and everyone politely clapping a couple of times, his public score probably would’ve been zero as well.

Just when everyone thought stand-up comedy was a dead end, another person took to the stage.

And this person was well known to everyone, the emerging big talker of Green Field, Anton.