Prodigal System in the Flourishing City

After the shock, came the scramble for talent.
Grandma Jia Yi didn’t even wait for Ning Feiping to introduce himself before she eagerly said,
"Young man, you are incredible! You’ve truly astounded us!"
"I’ve been in the industry for forty years, and I’ve never heard a man sing a woman’s song in a way that sounds even more like a woman than a woman does—this isn’t meant in a derogatory sense, your voice is just so unique!"
"And your singing skill is just too remarkable! The emotion and mood that you convey in each word, especially in the undertones at the end of each line, is so touching!"
Fang Li patted her chest as she exhaled, "I need to compose myself first, you really scared me, scared all of us, with that voice, it’s simply indescribable!"
Chen Wen kept repeating that one phrase, "Incredible!"
Sun Wanqi’s eyes sparkled with light as she smiled and said, "Well, why don’t we all calm down for a moment and you give us a self-introduction?"
Ning Feiping quickly said, "My name is Ning Feiping."
Fang Li asked, "I’m very curious, why are you dressed like this today?"
His clothes were old and tattered.
In Fang Li’s view, this didn’t match the contestant’s voice or singing skill at all, it seemed like a deliberate attempt to appear poor or to create a sensation.
Was he dressing himself up to look miserable on purpose?
Or did these clothes have some special significance to the contestant?
Ning Feiping scratched his head and said, "This is how I usually dress... always."
"Oh? What’s your profession?" Sun Wanqi followed up.
Ning Feiping continued scratching his head, "I fix bicycles."
"Pfft!"
Everyone felt a twinge in their liver.
What?
A bicycle repairman?
Impossible!
Chen Wen said, "Xiaoning, you can’t be joking."
Ning Feiping quickly said, "I’m not joking at all."
Grandma Jia Yi was also somewhat incredulous, asking, "How long have you been repairing bicycles? When did you start? Where do you work? We can check, you know."
Ning Feiping thought for a moment, "It’s been quite a few years, I started by learning from a master, and later I was able to repair bikes myself, over on the east side of the bridge."
Grandma Jia Yi took a deep breath, "You really repair bicycles?"
Ning Feiping said, "Really, Young Master Bu said everything has to be real, I wouldn’t lie."
The audience was also staggering around, dizzied, damn!
Fang Li’s mouth twitched, "With your singing ability, there aren’t many formally trained music university graduates who can sing better than you, I would believe you if you said you were a music teacher!"
Just now she had admitted that this contestant was not inferior to her, and now he turns out to be a bicycle repairman, how is she supposed to feel?
Ning Feiping quickly waved his hands, "No no, I haven’t attended college, let alone been a teacher."
Chen Wen spread his hands, "I’m at a loss for words, this is just too unbelievable!"
Sun Wanqi teased, "How many times have you said ’unbelievable’ since just now?"
Chen Wen spread his hands, "But it is, it’s just so unbelievable!"
There, he said it again!
The audience all laughed.
But they also understood.
After all, the word ’unbelievable’ was in everyone’s mind.
Fang Li blinked her eyes and said to Ning Feiping, "But your speaking voice seems pretty normal, so why does singing turn into this kind of voice? Are you deliberately imitating a woman’s voice? Cross-dressing?"
Sun Wanqi suddenly said with certainty, "It’s not cross-dressing."
"Oh?" Fang Li was taken aback.
Jia Yi also puzzled, "This is his natural voice?"
Chen Wen also waited for Sun Wanqi’s explanation.
Sun Wanqi, with a gleam in her eye, smiled and said, "If I’m not mistaken, Ning’s voice when he sings is probably his most natural tone, the least controlled."
"And when he speaks, that’s when he’s deliberately using a technique similar to ’reverse-voicing,’ intentionally lowering his pitch."
Fang Li pondered, "Is that so?"
Chen Wen was somewhat skeptical, "So he normally speaks with a deliberately altered voice? I can’t believe it, wouldn’t that be too tiring?"
Sun Wanqi continued to explain, mainly for the audience’s benefit.
Of course, it was also to showcase her skill and to strengthen her impression in Ning Feiping’s mind.
This man, she decided, was hers.
"It might be tiring at first, but after a while, it would become habitual."
"It’s really quite simple, like how different dialects have varying tones, the same sentence might sound higher in one region and lower in another. It all becomes second nature over time."
With that, Sun Wanqi herself said a sentence in two different ways.
"Like this voice."
A very sharp voice.
"Or like this."
A very deep voice.
Sun Wanqi said, "I can produce many different kinds of voices myself, and if I used one of those voices continuously for several years, my regular speech would also change to that."
"So, the thing about voices is that they’re quite malleable, once you get used to it, you might really just get used to it."
However, she paused and then said, "But no matter how habitual, the core quality of a person’s voice won’t change dramatically outside of a specific period or without destructive damage."
"My analysis is that Ning’s voice never broke, or if it did, it was brief."
"This results in him still having the voice from his childhood, while other boys’ voices have deepened significantly, his has not, as markedly."
"That’s why we’ve had the fortune to hear such an ethereal female voice, which I believe is the most natural for Ning, even if he tries to cover it up with a lower speaking range."
Ning Feiping chuckled dryly, somewhat embarrassed, scratching his head non-stop.
Sun Wanqi continued, "Could you speak a few words in your most natural voice for us to hear?"
Ning Feiping was indeed embarrassed, but still pressed on, speaking in a very neutral voice, "Um, is this okay?"