After Ding Yun passed away, countless fellow artists, fans, and professional organizations either went to the scene to pay their respects or at least posted tributes. The scale was immense, worthy of a grand funeral. Everything was going smoothly.
Unfortunately, even at this time, someone still sought to cause trouble. On the day of the memorial service, her brother's descendants and relatives specifically came to the memorial service and caused a huge uproar. They claimed they were entitled to inherit their aunt's fortune. They insisted that the donations were just a facade and that they would sue to reclaim the inheritance.
In reality, everyone knew that Ms. Xu Siyan had completely severed ties with her parents and brother years ago. In the end, she only abided by national law, providing a fixed monthly living allowance to her parents once they reached a certain age and covering some of their medical expenses when they were ill, but nothing more. However, an inheritance worth nearly ten billion yuan was too tempting. Thus, they shamelessly came to stir up trouble.
Fortunately, Ding Yun's will and estate had been meticulously prepared before her death, leaving no loopholes for them to even dream of touching the inheritance. This allowed everyone, with the cooperation of lawyers, to expel them. The memorial service proceeded smoothly, and Ding Yun's body was cremated and laid to rest.
As the saying goes, when a person dies, their lamp is extinguished. With Ding Yun's official passing, even though many of her works remained, guaranteeing a certain level of influence, she could no longer create new ones. Coupled with the relentless march of time and trends, her name gradually faded from public discourse. Many younger generations didn't even know who she was or had never seen her work. Artistic works are, after all, neither necessities nor irreplaceable. Ding Yun had not contributed anything that would fundamentally change the artistic world with her works. It was quite normal for these changes to occur over time, especially considering that many of her works still retained copyright, requiring proper attribution when others covered or referenced them.
As her copyrights gradually expired decades after her death, and people no longer needed to mention her name when using her works, she was largely relegated to the dustbin of history. Only a few technically demanding musical and dance pieces managed to endure, becoming classics. Theoretically, after her death, only a handful of her classic works would remain, while the rest would vanish into obscurity, buried by time.
However, the world then experienced a cataclysm. This event ultimately led to her works being reborn from the ashes, just as her online profile proclaimed: a phoenix rising from the flames.
One hundred and sixteen years after Ding Yun's death, humanity encountered its first alien civilization, a race slightly stronger than their own and harboring colonial ambitions. A war between the two species inevitably broke out. While it might sound cruel, it is a fact that many civilizations' periods of technological and ideological leaps often coincide with times of conflict. Hence, it is often said that peace cannot give birth to great works or profound ideas.
As the two civilizations clashed, the rapid development of advanced technology and the collision of cultural thoughts sparked an explosion of wisdom. Although humanity suffered heavy losses in the initial stages, these sacrifices fueled their resolve. With immense effort, they managed to catch up within a decade by reverse-engineering the alien technology. Subsequently, they delved deeper into studying the alien civilization, adopting its strengths and discarding its weaknesses, integrating them into their own. They gradually developed a spiritual energy system and researched mechs, similar to those depicted in novels, mechs controlled by spiritual energy. Finally, eighteen years after the war began, they successfully repelled the invading alien civilization and managed to restore a fragile peace.
However, the spiritual energy system developed by human civilization was not the result of slow technological advancement and self-evolution. Instead, it was developed through alien technology and was akin to pulling up sprouts to help them grow. It involved genetic modification and the forced induction of spiritual energy. Consequently, within less than a decade after the war, numerous problems arose within the system's development. The most significant issue was that many individuals who had awakened their spiritual energy found themselves unable to perfectly control it due to frequent use. They sometimes experienced spiritual energy surges, leading to either madness or death.
Yet, the hostile alien civilization had not entirely given up and continued to watch menacingly. Therefore, humanity could not simply abandon the spiritual energy system due to these issues. Even with its many problems, they had to maintain it. Initially, they believed that this would only involve the sacrifice of a portion of the population, and as long as not everyone awakened their spiritual energy, the impact could be controlled. However, those who awakened their spiritual energy would inevitably marry and have children. Furthermore, not all of them experienced severe problems; a significant number had minor issues or were fortunate enough to have their bodies unaffected.
Thus, within just two or three generations, many newborns no longer needed artificial induction to awaken their spiritual energy. They would naturally activate it, with some even able to use it from birth. Spiritual energy ceased to be a special outcome of activation; it became a dominant human genetic trait. Those who activated their spiritual energy naturally fared much better than those who had it forcefully induced. Even those who awakened it at birth, if they used it sparingly, would typically only experience problems in their forties or fifties. Regular meditation and visualization could even allow them to live into their eighties or nineties before issues arose. Some fortunate individuals could even live past a hundred in good health after awakening their spiritual energy. However, these were exceptions. Most people did not have the luxury of extensive meditation, so the latent dangers of spiritual energy cast a significant shadow over humanity.
This continued until a rehabilitation center, specializing in providing end-of-life comfort to those experiencing spiritual energy surges, accidentally discovered that since the change in their director and the switch to playing music the new director preferred, the number of deaths at the facility had plummeted. Days later, even patients with severe spiritual energy surges showed signs of improvement, transitioning to mild cases or even recovering. This discovery filled them with immense joy, as mastering this technique would be akin to holding a fortune. Its value would undoubtedly rival the development of cancer drugs in ancient times.
Therefore, they soon began in-depth research, investigating whether patients were taking new medications or if there had been any recent changes. After numerous verifications, they were finally compelled to conclude that what truly worked was likely not any special medication or treatment method, but rather the songs of Xu Siyan from over a hundred years ago. Furthermore, not all songs were effective; only those from her late thirties and onwards were useful, and they had to be soothing and upbeat.
Initially, the rehabilitation center tried to keep this discovery a secret. However, the patients were not oblivious, and news of this quickly spread. Especially after people attempted to verify it and found it to be true, it rapidly became a trending topic. The Human Civilization Alliance quickly responded. Upon confirming the authenticity of the news, they immediately began collecting all of Xu Siyan's works, regardless of their nature, and meticulously tested them for efficacy. Simultaneously, they hoped to analyze the reasons behind this phenomenon and understand why some of her songs were effective, in order to better treat others.
In an instant, the value of Ding Yun's remaining works skyrocketed. Even digital copies could fetch considerable prices, let alone physical copies and the holographic versions she sold later in life. After extensive verification, the Human Civilization Alliance soon grasped the general effects of Xu Siyan's works. Her soothing and gentle songs could stabilize spiritual energy surges, while her elegant dances could cleanse spiritual energy. Even some of her television dramas, by immersing viewers in the experience, could improve their control over their own spiritual energy, thereby reducing the frequency of spiritual energy surges. The combined effect of these three was like a triple additive multiplier. Anyone not on the brink of death could slowly recover. The only drawback was that only works with physical storage media and the holographic chips released in her later years were truly effective in completely healing humanity's spiritual energy issues. Replicated and distributed online, their effectiveness would diminish with each transmission, eventually resulting in only a soothing and inhibitory effect.
In response to this situation, the Human Civilization Alliance dedicated all its efforts to researching these materials. They also continuously encouraged people to imitate Ding Yun's works, hoping their performances would have some effect. As for the results? With the concerted efforts of all of humanity, they finally discovered faint traces of spiritual energy far superior to their own within the storage devices containing Ding Yun's works and the holographic chips from her later years. It was these threads of high-quality spiritual energy, combined with the works, that produced the miraculous effects. Without the spiritual energy as a catalyst, the replicated copies naturally lost their potency.
They then proceeded to analyze this high-quality spiritual energy, attempting to learn and improve, while also urging everyone to learn her songs, dances, and performances, and to actively channel their own spiritual energy to cooperate. The outcome was that some individuals indeed succeeded, with their performances being as effective as watching holographic videos. The reasoning was simple: Ding Yun's remaining works had been passed down for over a hundred years, and even though the imitations had slightly weaker spiritual energy and less advanced techniques, the direct live performance compensated for the technical shortcomings, making the effect comparable to holographic videos.
At this point, everyone finally saw hope and began to respectfully refer to Ding Yun as the Mother of Spiritual Therapists. From then on, those who imitated her music, dance, and performances also acquired their own professional titles, such as Audio Therapists, Dance Therapists, and Immersives. Only those who mastered all three were qualified to be called Spiritual Therapists.
As time progressed, human civilization made significant advancements in this field. Later, they even developed works of their own that were as effective as, or even better than, Ding Yun's. Yet, Ding Yun did not fade into obscurity as she had after her death. This time, because the changes she brought were earth-shattering and saved humanity, and because her works could be used freely without copyright restrictions, she achieved a form of immortality.