Chapter 50: The Birth of Dreamrise Culture

After finishing dinner, Chen Jiang was just about to stand up and clear the table when Yi Yunxue suddenly spoke up, "Don't move, I have another surprise for you!"

Then Chen Jiang watched her stand up and quickly walk into the kitchen. Moments later, she came out holding an exquisite cake.

"Happy birthday! This is the cake I prepared for you."

Yi Yunxue said to Chen Jiang.

The cake wasn't large, only six inches, but one could tell a lot of care had gone into making it. It was decorated with various fruits and lightly dusted with chocolate on top.

"I was afraid we couldn't finish it and it would go to waste, so I didn't make it too big," she explained.

"Thank you." Chen Jiang's gaze fell on the lettering on the cake—Wishing Chen Jiang a happy birthday and joy every day!

He finally understood why Yi Yunxue had adamantly refused to let him step into the kitchen at noon.

"We're full now, so we'll celebrate your birthday a bit later," Yi Yunxue said softly.

"I'll go clear the table first," Chen Jiang said.

After clearing away the bowls and chopsticks, Yi Yunxue placed the cake in the center of the dining table.

"Excluding my mom, you're the first girl to ever celebrate my birthday with me," Chen Jiang said, looking at her with a smile.

Hearing this, Yi Yunxue's face blushed with shyness.

At the same time, she felt immensely delighted inside:

"Does that mean, apart from his mother, no other woman has ever celebrated his birthday with him before?"

"Let's blow out the candles first!" Chen Jiang suggested.

Yi Yunxue turned off the living room lights and lit the candles on the cake.

"Would you like to make a wish?"

Chen Jiang chanted a wish silently in his heart and blew out the candles:

"Hoo!"

"All done," he said.

"What did you wish for?" Yi Yunxue asked curiously.

"I can't tell you. If you say it out loud, it won't come true," Chen Jiang replied with a smile and shook his head.

"It's still a bit of a stretch for the two of us to finish this entire cake," he remarked, looking at the confection.

"Why didn't you invite Sister Li and the others to come over and have some cake too?"

Yi Yunxue bit her lip, a flicker of panic flashing through her beautiful eyes. "They're busy with things."

When they had digested their dinner somewhat, the two of them split the cake.

In the end, working together, they managed to polish off the majority of the cake, while a small portion was sent over for the child at Aunt Liu's place next door.

"Hiccup!" Yi Yunxue couldn't help letting out a burp, rubbing her slightly protruding lower abdomen.

"So full!"

"Drink some water." Chen Jiang poured her a glass of water.

Gulping down a large glass of water, Yi Yunxue let out a long breath.

She had finally recovered!

Watching her look of sweet relief, Chen Jiang couldn't help laughing out loud. "If you couldn't eat it all, you should have eaten less."

"Wasting food is shameful!" Yi Yunxue declared solemnly.

"I think you were just being a glutton," Chen Jiang teased.

"Hmph, it was Orange who bewitched me into eating it!" Yi Yunxue argued righteously.

She grabbed Orange right out of its cage.

Pinning it down on the sofa, she went to town giving its furry belly a thorough petting.

"Meow!" Orange let out a yawn.

With a flip of its body, it broke free from Yi Yunxue's restraint.

It walked over to Chen Jiang and rubbed against his trouser leg.

Yi Yunxue looked at Orange with utter dissatisfaction. "How could you do this! I'm your mother!"

"It must want to eat some canned food. Have you been feeding it these past few days?" Chen Jiang stroked the flesh on Orange's body; it had indeed lost a bit of weight.

It had returned to the normal size of an orange tabby cat.

"I gave it a can a few days ago," Yi Yunxue thought for a moment and said, "Let's give it another one today."

After feeding it a can of wet food, Orange once again rubbed against Chen Jiang's trouser leg.

Chen Jiang was left between laughter and tears. "There really isn't any more."

Yi Yunxue picked it up and locked it back inside the cage.

"You've finally managed to get back to a normal weight, and yet you still want to eat!"

"Several songs from your album have entered the top ten of the hit song charts," Chen Jiang suddenly stated.

"Where?" Yi Yunxue took the phone and looked at the screen.

"Green Light" was ranked tenth.

"Courage" was ranked eighth.

"The Last Page" was ranked seventh.

"The Wind Rises" was ranked fifth!

That previous song, "Meet," had been hovering back and forth within the top three.

Right now, it was sitting at number two.

The number one spot belonged to an old song by a legendary heavenly king, which had recently been rediscovered by netizens and had exploded in popularity on short-video platforms.

Yi Yunxue searched further down the rankings.

Maya's "Wild Grass" had cooled down slightly in popularity over this period and sat at the fifteenth position.

"An early congratulations to our Heavenly Queen Yi!" Chen Jiang said with a smile.

"Don't speak too soon; it'll be quite awkward for me if I end up missing the cut," Yi Yunxue said cautiously.

"Your title as a gold-medal lyricist and composer is practically locked in for this year."

With a carefree attitude, Chen Jiang remarked, "For me, whether I get this title or not doesn't really matter."

Other lyricists and composers needed these titles to boost their reputation in the industry, but Chen Jiang wasn't even heavily invested in this circle.

He only wanted to help Yi Yunxue build up her studio and had no interest in taking on outside work.

"That's true. Given your reputation in the industry, whether you have this title or not doesn't seem to matter anymore," Yi Yunxue nodded in agreement.

She assumed Chen Jiang meant that, given his achievements, claiming this title was as easy as child's play without the slightest bit of difficulty, and thus he simply didn't care about it.

After all, Chen Jiang's current level had already surpassed the vast majority of gold-medal songwriters.

"Don't get me wrong. What I mean is, apart from the artists in our own studio, I won't be writing songs for any other artists unless they join our Dream Beginning Studio," Chen Jiang clarified.

"Let's build this studio bigger and stronger together!"

Hearing his words, Yi Yunxue smiled radiantly and said, "Okay!"

"Now that the company's development is getting on track, let's change its name in a while," Chen Jiang suddenly suggested.

"I actually had the exact same thought," Yi Yunxue agreed.

In truth, Dream Beginning Studio had always operated on the scale of a "limited liability company," and when the business license was first obtained, it followed the procedures for a limited company.

Initially, Yi Yunxue had been afraid the company wouldn't succeed, which was why she used "Studio" as the suffix.

However, since they had already achieved some notable results, it was time to change the name.

Otherwise, it didn't sound very imposing.

"What name should we change it to?" Yi Yunxue asked for Chen Jiang's opinion.

"Let's call it Dream Beginning Culture," Chen Jiang thought for a moment and said.

"Alright, then once Sister Dan releases her song, I'll go to the Administration for Industry and Commerce to apply for the change," Yi Yunxue nodded.

"When is Heavenly Queen Dan releasing her song?" Chen Jiang inquired.

Yi Yunxue shook her head. "It hasn't been finalized yet, but it should be after June. Sister Dan said she wants to refine things a bit more before going in to record the vocals."

"Heavenly Queen Dan is quite rigorous in how she does things," Chen Jiang smiled.

"It's getting late. I should head back first."

"Okay! Bye-bye!"

...

[Sweet Potato]: Brother Jianghe, a friend of mine started a new book and wanted to trouble you to help promote it with a chapter shoutout.

Having just finished showering, Chen Jiang looked at the message sent by Sweet Potato and typed back: [What genre?]

For Sweet Potato to personally come and ask for a chapter shoutout on someone else's behalf, it seemed this author was indeed very close to him.

[Sweet Potato]: It's also a Western Fantasy Cthulhu theme.

[Sweet Potato]: The book title is...

[Sweet Potato]: [Jianghe]: Alright, I'll recommend it for him tomorrow!

[Sweet Potato]: Thanks a lot on behalf of my friend!

[Jianghe]: You're welcome.

Chen Jiang raised an eyebrow. Cthulhu theme?

No wonder Sweet Potato came looking for a chapter shoutout.

Chen Jiang searched for the book on Read-Point.

It truly was a Western fantasy-backed Cthulhu-themed novel.

Upon reading the synopsis, the protagonist's golden finger left Chen Jiang utterly astonished.

"A stat-allocation system?"

Chen Jiang was dumbfounded. One had to realize that web novels in this world had not yet developed the concept of a "system."

The golden finger in this book wasn't called a system either. Instead, the protagonist brought a bracelet from his past life into the world after transmigrating.

By slaying monsters, he could acquire eerie points to enhance his various physical stats.

"What a talent!" Chen Jiang exclaimed with emotion.

Although it wasn't yet the complete form of the system-genre novels from his past life, the basic framework was already there.

Chen Jiang estimated that once this book was published, it would quickly be heavily imitated, and system-genre novels would soon conquer half the web novel landscape.