I will never work with someone like you 7

Baiyu Studios.

Today was the day for the recording of Liu Qiao Qiao and Lu Zhiyuan's track for his album. To prepare for the recording Liu Qiao Qiao had taken good care of her voice.

She avoided eating cold drinks and food so as not to catch a cold. She also avoided eating spicy food and had regular vocal training. She had rehearsed a few times with Lu Zhiyuan to get more familiar.

Liu Qiao Qiao didn't smoke so she didn't have to avoid that but she avoided drinking alcohol. All these were normal restrictions observed by mid musicians since a musicians best instrument was their voice.

Liu Qiao Qiao arrived very early, she was seated in the recording booth with Lu Zhiyuan going through the sheet music. After working together for weeks they had gotten in sync with each other.

Thanks to Lu Zhiyuan's guidance Liu Qiao Qiao understood the concepts of rock music. She had even grown to like it, though it was completely different than the genre she sang during her girl band days.

They ran through the song from start to finish straightening out a few rough edges that were initially missed. While the engineers and other staff members got everything ready.

When everything was all set, the mic was connected and they began to record. The music was titled "Minotaur". It told the story of a wanderer that had traveled around the world searching for his true self.

Along the way, he had made some questionable decisions that left him trapped in a Labyrinth.

Stuck with no other way out, the man was about to give up when he remembered all the pain he went through to get where he was. He decided to stand up and fight for his freedom.

The pace was very stable and grew from slow to fast. The recording progressed fast, after just two talked they were done.

When the audio recording was done, Liu Qiao Qiao and Lu Zhiyuan went into the control room to listen to the audio.

"Wow, this is good, You did well Qiao Qiao," Lu Zhiyuan said raising his hand for a high five

"Thanks" replied giving him a high five.

Since the vocal audio recording was done, the Editing and mixing process began. This could go on for weeks depending on the speed of the Production team.

***

The Entertainment industry was still trying to adjust to the murder of Mandy Lee when the death of the Former Boy band "The Five" Leader was announced.

The announcement had been made by his younger sister on his webpage. She had announced that her brother had died in the early hours of the morning, after a two years battle with lung cancer.

The funeral was scheduled to hold for a few days.

The funeral had been made very private so no member of the press was invited. Only close family, friends, and colleagues attended. Among them were his former bandmates.

The funeral was held at a funeral home, the guest all paid their respects before leaving. Lai Zhiqiang and the rest of the teammates had all stayed back until the last guest had left.

Li Cheng didn't have any family members apart from his younger sister. They had all stayed back to lend a hand. After over a decade of bad blood, they had all let go of the bad feelings.

Li Cheng's death had changed their outlook on life. His death served as a reminder to them all, that death was inevitable. Why waste what little time they had to spend on earth holding grudges.

They had all taken a taxi to their old hangout, a small clubhouse behind their old agency. There wasn't much guest present, so they didn't bother with their masks. The clubhouse was still as it was years back, there weren't many improvements.

They sat down on their usual booth at the back and reminisced on old times. It had been a while since they had sat down together for drinks. Since the band disbanded, everyone had gone on their own.

They were all doing their stuff, they barely ever saw each other more than a few times. The once-tight group of friends had fallen apart.

"wow Li Cheng had a way of bringing everyone together," Tj said sighing deeply, resting back on his seat.

"Yup for all his fault he was a good leader" Lai Zhiqiang replied taking a sip of his beer.

"Li Cheng always sent me flowers during all my performances and on my birthday. I Knew that he regretted his actions and wanted to make amends, but I never let him.

"I always had my assistant send them back. it's quite funny, everyone always accused Lai Zhiqiang of being rude and Arrogant but I wasn't any better." Shen Xue said head bend.

"You weren't the only one Shen Xue, we all refused to give him a chance. It took him being on his deathbed to get us to hear him out", Lu Zhiyuan placed his hands on Shen Xue's shoulders.

"Even in his death, Li Cheng is still bringing us together. We should make the best of it" TJ said setting down his glass of beer.

"You all can rest assured, I am still the meanest of is all, I don't think any of you can beat me at that. I visited Li Cheng a few days before he died.

"He kept on saying, how he would like to have a reunion but I didn't take him seriously. I even joked how he wanted to use our successful careers to revive his dead careers.

"I regretted my words as soon as I said them but I couldn't take them back because of my pride. Now that he is dead I regret not just humoring him, I didn't have to say those things to him."

"Don't beat yourself up Zhiqiang, too shut him down when he made those same suggestions during our first visit. I even threatened him never to speak. about that at all or I would make his short life miserable" said Shen Xue covering his face with his hands.

"Damn Shen Xue that's harsh." Lu Zhiyuan said.

"Yeah it's so not your style at all," TJ said.

"I convinced myself that I was protecting you all but right now I can see that it was all my fear speaking."

"Since it's Li Cheng's wish why Don't we make it a reality. We can perform together at LINT TV stations music festival" Lai Zhiqiang said

"It's a few months from now so we can come together and prepare a song and dedicate it to him." Lu Zhiyuan said

"why to stop at a song let's make it an album. We were halfway through the production of our album when the band was disbanded. we can use the songs from that album.

"A few of the songs were completed, Li Cheng's sister sent me a copy of the album yesterday." Lai Zhiqiang said.

"that's a great idea. Let's release the completed tracks in the reunion album then add a few more" TJ replied.

"Then it's final, the band is back." Lu Zhiyuan shouted.

"Yes," they all replied in unison.

They stayed back to discuss a few aspects of the album before they began to leave one after the other.

Lai Zhiqiang and Lu Zhiyuan had attended the funeral together so they also left together on Lai Zhiqiang's Range Rover.

A few minutes into the drive Lu Zhiyuan turned to his cousin and asked

"Zhiqiang do you have any plans for lunch tomorrow"

"No"

"let's have lunch together"

"Why"

"I would like to introduce you to someone"

Lai Zhiqiang could already guess who that someone was. He had been expecting this, he replied

"alright"