Su Ming was woken by a phone call on the third morning. He glanced at his phone — unknown number, area code Donghai. He answered. The caller introduced himself as Agent Liang from Fang Zimo's studio.

"Mr. Su, Boss Fang wants to talk to you."

"About what?"

"About a deal. Those copyright registration records you have — Boss Fang is very interested. Five million. For all the records you have related to him. Sign the agreement and the money hits your account immediately."

Su Ming sat up.

"Five million?"

"That's right."

"Not selling."

There was a pause on the other end. Agent Liang's voice dropped a register. "Mr. Su, you're a smart man. This price is already very high. Even if you took those registrations to court, you wouldn't get this much."

"First — those copyright registrations aren't mine. They're Zhou Yuan's. Second — even if they were mine, I wouldn't sell. Third — tell Fang Zimo I've put together a complete traceability report. If he contacts Zhou Yuan and publicly apologizes within three days, I won't release it. If he doesn't — I'll release it for him."

"Mr. Su—"

"I'm done talking."

Su Ming hung up.

His phone rang again. Same number. Su Ming didn't answer. He declined it. It rang again. He declined it again. The third time, he picked up without saying a word.

Agent Liang's voice was urgent now — nothing like the composed negotiation tone from before. "Mr. Su, listen to me. Five million isn't my bottom line. Name your price. Give me a number. I'll do my best to meet it."

"I'm not doing business with you."

"Do you have any idea what you're doing? There's more behind Fang Zimo than just one person — it's an entire industry chain. You touch this line, and you won't have a single friend left in this business."

"I didn't have many friends to begin with."

"Eight million," Agent Liang said, speaking fast. "I have the authority to decide on this call. Eight million, you delete everything. Fang Zimo has nothing to do with you anymore. Eight million is enough to buy a really nice apartment in Pengcheng. Think about it."

"Listen carefully." Su Ming's voice was calm. "I said I'm not selling. Period. It's not about the price. Your side stole someone else's work, and now you want to buy back the evidence. That logic doesn't work. Did you give Zhou Yuan a single cent when you took his songs? You didn't. Now you're offering eight million to buy his silence — don't pin that bill on me."

"Then what do you want? A collaboration? I'll credit you as producer. From now on in the industry—"

"I only want one outcome — those songs go back where they belong."

There was a long silence on the line. Su Ming heard Agent Liang sigh — not a helpless sigh, but the kind that said he thought Su Ming was being unreasonable. "You'll regret this." Then he hung up.

Su Ming put his phone on the pillow and lay back down, staring at the ceiling. He wasn't asleep. He was trying to imagine what Zhou Yuan looked like. What Zhou Yuan's last two years had been like. What kind of life a person lived when they'd written twenty-nine songs and couldn't put their own name on a single one. He rolled over and saw the design draft he'd just revised on his nightstand — he'd spent a week adjusting the color palette on that cover, and the client said "Think it over again." It suddenly hit him — if one day someone else put their name on this design, he'd probably stay quiet for a long time too, just like Zhou Yuan. He remembered what Agent Liang said — an industry chain. Suddenly, he really wanted to see how long that chain really was.

That afternoon, Fang Zimo's studio released a sharply worded statement accusing Su Ming of "malicious defamation" and claiming they'd already retained legal counsel to gather evidence. The comments section was a wall of fan spam: "Reported," "Stand with Teacher Fang on protecting his rights," "First Su Ming leeches off Lin Qing, and now he's coming for Fang Zimo?" Su Ming read through it without replying. He opened the Copyright Vault, screenshotted the original registration info for all twenty-nine of Fang Zimo's works, saved them, and didn't post a single one.

He was waiting for someone.

Su Ming opened WeChat and found a number he'd spent two days tracking down — Zhou Yuan. He sent a message: "Bro Yuan. My name is Su Ming. I want to talk to you about Fang Zimo." Two hours later, Zhou Yuan replied with just one word: "Who?" Su Ming said: "Someone who got harassed online. Just like you."

Ten minutes later, Zhou Yuan replied with a voice message. His voice was hoarse, like he hadn't talked to anyone in a long time. "How did you find me?" "The Copyright Vault." "You have it too?" "Mm." Zhou Yuan was silent for a long time. Then he asked: "So what are you going to do?" Su Ming said: "Give your songs back to you. One by one."

Zhou Yuan didn't reply again. But Su Ming saw his WeChat status change from "Busy" to "Online."

Day four. Fang Zimo's studio statement was still pinned. Su Ming opened Weibo and posted the report he'd prepared — nine screenshots. The first four were a summary of the original copyright registrations for Fang Zimo's twenty-nine songs. The middle three were timestamps from Zhou Yuan's original creation files. The last two were a comparison table of crediting dates. No captions. Just nine images.

After posting, he went to pour himself a glass of water. When he came back, his phone was buzzing nonstop. The Weibo notification badge had jumped from double digits to triple digits. He tapped in — reposts had already passed ten thousand. He turned off notifications and finished his water.

Two hours later, #FangZimoGhostwriting hit number one on trending. The comments exploded: "None of the 29 songs were written by him?" "Who's Zhou Yuan? Never heard that name before" "That's exactly why it's so tragic — wrote 29 songs and couldn't put his own name on a single one." Fans were still insisting the screenshots could be photoshopped. So Su Ming posted a video — he opened the Copyright Vault interface and walked through the complete traceability records one by one, the entire process screen-recorded with no cuts. "This is the National Copyright Administration database query page. Not screenshots — original records at the data level. Every claim I make has a registration number backing it."

After the video was posted, the comments quieted down. The people who'd been cursing him moments ago fell silent. Some quietly deleted their comments. Others reposted the video with a line: "Zhou Yuan deserves an apology." Someone wrote in the comments: "I admit I was too loud earlier." Someone replied: "Yeah, you really were."

Half an hour later, Fang Zimo's studio deleted the statement.

Day five. They put out a new statement — no denial, no explanation. Just: "Registration was irregular. We deeply apologize." Su Ming screenshotted it and sent it to Zhou Yuan. "See that?" Zhou Yuan replied with a single word: "Yeah."

Su Ming set his phone on the table. The sunlight outside was beautiful. Three days ago, he'd sat in this same spot while eight million people cursed him. Now they'd stopped. He didn't feel happy — he just felt that those songs could finally go back where they belonged.

He turned off his phone and went back to editing the draft. He'd adjusted the navy blue seven times and ended up switching back to dark blue anyway. The client wouldn't notice the difference — just like a lot of things before. But that was okay. Some things had changed. Some things didn't need to.

Nine in the evening. He went downstairs to buy water from the convenience store. Someone was standing in line ahead of the register, playing a song on speaker — the melody was familiar. It was that Fang Zimo song that had just been exposed for having the wrong credits. The young person in line hummed along, completely unaware that this song wasn't originally by Fang at all.

Su Ming stood behind and listened. The fluorescent lights in the convenience store were harshly white. The cooler hummed. He suddenly realized — starting tomorrow, the creator credit on this song would show a different name. People would see "Zhou Yuan" when they listened, find it unfamiliar, look it up, and learn what happened. He'd gotten twenty-nine songs back for a creator he'd never met. And himself — he was just a passerby buying water, standing in line behind this humming young person. This bottle of water cost three fifty.

He stuffed the water bottle into his pocket and walked out of the convenience store.

The autumn night breeze of Pengcheng brushed against his face — not cold, not warm.

End of Chapter 4: Big Fish Surfaces