In the biggest stadium in the largest city in the country, tens of thousands of fans were roaring and crying as the screens on the stage displayed flashing videos of people dancing suggestively, to laser lights dancing to the pumping music that shook the ground. Fireworks shot up from the stage, and a single red, billowing aerial silk descended from the ceiling. Smoke shot up and spread out on the stage with a loud hissing sound, and once the smoke cleared, a group of dancers in black and a lead singer in white appeared, their costumes rather scant in coverage and dazzling in the lights.
The music stopped dramatically, and the lead singer sang a run with his husky, airy voice—delicate but strong, ethereal but with a hint of sensuality.
This was Xie Lian, who became this generation's biggest international pop star at the tender young age of 17.
The airy but thumping music returned as he continued singing, and the aerial silk descended to Xie Lian, who grabbed it and was hoisted up in the air as the dancers below danced vigorously. He started twirling in the air a few times with the silk, and the silk itself moved around on stage, causing the loose fabric to billow and float behind him, making him look like some heavenly creature who floated above the crude dancers below.
They say that Jun Wu, the CEO of the record label Heaven's Capital, accidentally came across Xie Lian singing as he swung around on an aerial silk gracefully while he was rehearsing for a competition. Jun Wu's daughter was participating in the same competition, hence why he was there. He saw great potential in him, signed him into his label, and debuted him with a sound the pop world had never heard before—heavy with the base as usual, but with sections that sounded ethereal, heavenly even. It became Xie Lian's signature style.
He soon started topping the charts, the paparazzi and fans were stalking him left and right, and he made appearances everywhere, from talk shows to award shows to commercials to guest appearances in TV dramas, to random ads promoting colognes or what-have-you on buses and even trucks. This was before the Internet and social media blew up, though, so thankfully he didn't deal with those—yet.
And people loved him, not only because he was so talented, but also because he was reportedly such a good human being. It was rumored that he always told his assistants exactly what he needed because he didn't want to stress them out, though other celebrities thought that they deserved assistants who could anticipate their every need for all the work and stress they go through. Though the press usually only heard from upset, mistreated assistants, for Xie Lian his assistants were so impressed by his extra good nature that they went behind him to gush about him to the press. Xie Lian was very giving with his wealth as well, despite his age—stars his age usually wanted to spend money on parties and drugs and unnecessarily expensive cars and such (though Xie Lian did not want to be judgemental of his peers who wanted to try all those exciting things out)—but Xie Lian kept anonymously giving large sums of money to random homeless people and nonprofits that some of them bothered to tell the press about it.
They say that Xie Lian's extremely giving and humble nature came from his stint being a Buddhist monk for a year or two. A Buddhist monk?! What a weirdo, many thought. He talked in interviews about how he got used to begging for food from the locals every day and having very little ownership of anything as a monk, so he felt all right with giving away so much of his money, expecting very little of his personal assistants, et cetera, et cetera. In short, his experience as a monk let him fill his own cup more easily than most other people, so he could have very little and feel satisfied, and be able to give everything else away. He decided to go back to living a more normal life, though, because, according to him, he wasn't quite ready to let go of all his worldly attachments yet—he still wanted to practice aerial silk dancing and other acrobatics, as well as music. He was just thankful that his parents were wealthy enough to support him in all his crazy interests.
One of the institutions that Xie Lian regularly donated to was a local orphanage. He would visit them in secret several times as well, of course without alerting the press about it because that was Xie Lian's personality. His publicists would often scold him for refusing such a positive public relations opportunity, but Xie Lian just plain did not want his life to be more public than it already was. He received enough attention as it is, and he felt that he was not as good of a person as everyone made him out to be. He did not want to see more articles about how saintly Xie Lian was, and set a public expectation of himself so high that he did not feel comfortable meeting.
He would play with those orphan kids and perform small performances for them every once in a while, and he invited those who were old enough to this very concert, and gave them relatively expensive seats. Not so expensive that the VIPs and the press would notice and try to dig into why a bunch of poor-looking kids were sitting so close to the stage, though. The kids were having the time of their life, dancing in their spots, smiling up to the nice guy who came to play with them once in a while, who also appeared on TV a lot. One particular boy with black hair and one missing right eye—from an accident that killed his parents—was gleaming at Xie Lian more than the others, looking absolutely star-struck.
The current music ended, and the next number came on. Multiple poles appeared, and Xie Lian and his dancers were spinning up and down on it, and even jumped from pole to pole sometimes. Then there were some ballads, some more dance music, and the concert concluded for the night. The crowd roared one final time for the night, and Xie Lian thanked everyone and left the stage.
A few years later, however, Xie Lian's concerns about the public having too high of an expectation from him came true. His music and performance wasn't as new and interesting as it used to be, and when his popularity inevitably waned, those who doubted his talent and saintliness became louder and louder. The paparazzi paid close attention to him, trying to find every little thing Xie Lian did that could be considered rude so that they could exaggerate it and sell their magazines. Xie Lian was used to the industry at this point, but it did wear on him through the years.
One day, however, he seemed to have snapped. There were rumors of him starting to be more demanding of his assistants, and even that he started doing drugs—which wasn't usually surprising with celebrities, but with Xie Lian it made the headlines for multiple weeks. There were reports that he would miss his rehearsals entirely from time to time, and that he'd even forget the lyrics to his music, sometimes in concerts, then on major award shows. Granted, pop singers were known for lip syncing from time to time, but he wasn't even lip syncing at this point.
The public was already starting to be tired of his music and performances, and these news headlines lowered their opinion of Xie Lian even further. Was he always lip syncing? Was his talent real? Was his saintly personality overexaggerated? Was his good nature staged in front of the press? The golden boy was no more, and it was somewhat disappointing that Xie Lian was human like everyone else, after all.
Until one day, Xie Lian publicly resigned from his record label.
He could have signed with another one if he wanted, obviously, or he could have built his own team of songwriters, assistants, publicists, and so on with his level of fame and fortune, but he did not return to the public eye at all. Some say they spotted him homeless (wasn't he wealthy? Aren't his parents wealthy?), some say they saw him working as a barista (doesn't he have other skills?), but there was no proof anywhere. After a few months, the public started fixating on something else, and after a few years, the public forgot about him entirely. And he proceeded to disappear from the public for about a decade and a half.
His fame had entirely faded by then.