Rap content featuring Du Fu, Liu Bang and Sun Wukong has gone viral across the internet, reducing massive numbers of young people online to tears.

Recently, an AI rap song titled *Veterans* invites historical figures including Du Fu, Su Shi and Liu Bang onto the same underground battle stage. They talk about housing loans and KPIs. Separated by thousands of years, the experiences of ancient people unexpectedly overlap with the lives of ordinary people today.

The video quickly went viral after its release, and the number of likes on Douyin has exceeded 3 million so far. Wang Kunzhe (certified LibTV creator Zhe FILM), the creator of *Veterans*, has also drifted through life, experiencing career ups and downs and long waits. He describes his state in the past ten years as never "completely breaking through the water surface".

If we put ancient people in modern times, they would probably have troubles similar to ours: Du Fu, busy making a living, might also worry about renting a house; Su Shi, who suffered setbacks in middle age, might have to find a new job; as for Liu Bang, who had not made his mark in his forties, he would probably not be spared from others' doubts.

Recently, an AI rap song titled *Veterans* invites historical figures including Du Fu, Su Shi and Liu Bang onto the same underground battle stage. They talk about housing loans and KPIs. Separated by thousands of years, the experiences of ancient people unexpectedly overlap with the lives of ordinary people today.

Ancient people sing lyrical rap underground. (Picture: Screenshot of *Veterans*)

The video quickly went viral after its release, and the number of likes on Douyin has exceeded 3 million so far. It has touched many people, who pour out their own situations through it, and this resonance does not come out of nowhere. Wang Kunzhe (certified LibTV creator Zhe FILM), the creator of *Veterans*, has also drifted through life, experiencing career ups and downs and long waits. He describes his state in the past ten years as never "completely breaking through the water surface".

Wang Kunzhe has personally experienced all the frustration and unwillingness in the song. This time, he was finally heard by more people. After the video became popular, *New Weekly* connected with Wang Kunzhe, who was busy in his studio in Wuhan, to talk about the birth of the song and those lives that have not yet reached the end.

Ancient People Are Also Veterans

At the age of 18, Wang Kunzhe could not taste the joy he feels today in any way. At that time, he failed the college entrance examination. Some of his classmates were admitted to first-tier universities, and others went abroad for further study. Admitted to a third-tier college, he looked at his peers who had embarked on different life paths, and felt that he had been left behind.

At a young age, in a frustrated mood, he wrote a demo. Listening to this song today, it seems a little "juvenile and naive", but he has always remembered the last line of the lyrics, "Carry your heavy schoolbag and be yourself". "There is still a gap between the self in reality and the person I want to be. Since I can't achieve it for the time being, I will keep moving forward."

Many years later, Wang Kunzhe gave the demo of this old song to AI, letting it generate new music based on the original materials. He started listening to Michael Jackson and Eminem in junior high school, and tried to write lyrics and make beats when he was a teenager. Originally, he wanted to make a more "energetic and explosive" rap, but AI randomly gave a lyrical version. This song made him realize that the idea of making an emotional and sincere work when he was 18 finally had the possibility to come true today.

Wang Kunzhe is producing the video. (Picture: Provided by the interviewee)

The 18-year-old old song gave him an entry point for emotions, and inviting ancient people into rap is an expression he has tried before.

Before *Veterans* became popular, he had already made several rap videos where ancient people picked up the mic. Li Bai and Du Fu held microphones and dissed each other, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang confronted each other in the underground scene, and the characters seemed to have no connection with the music style. But in his opinion, ancient poets and lyricists were just like the rappers of that era. "They paid attention to rhyming when writing poems, and they also teased each other, criticized current ills, wrote about mountains and rivers, and wrote about their own travels."

Putting ancient people in the rap battle scene, one detached from the secular world and one deeply involved in worldly affairs, he unexpectedly found the common part between ancient and modern times.

Wang Kunzhe has produced several ancient people battle videos before. (Picture: Screenshot of Wang Kunzhe's Douyin homepage)

When he made the third issue of the rap battle, Wang Kunzhe learned about these ancient people in a cramming way, and realized that "their experiences are very similar to those of modern people": Du Fu can correspond to people who are busy working for housing today; Su Shi can correspond to people who face middle-aged unemployment; Xiang Yu's unfulfilled ambitions are just like the unwillingness of many people today.

He started to produce *Veterans*. But he also confessed that besides the common experiences, there is another simple reason for choosing these ten characters: he can continue to use the character assets accumulated before.

When producing the rap battle series, he did not pursue fancy skills. The generation success rate of Lib Image 2.5 is already very high, "functions such as clip reshooting and partial image retouching are rarely used." He spent a lot of effort polishing the prompts, and the generated images of ancient people are completely natural and fit the scene.

Sun Wukong is such an example. He talks about KPIs and others' opinions in the song. Wang Kunzhe also knows that putting a mythical figure among ancient people seems a little abrupt, but he keeps the image of Sun Wukong. On the one hand, he has saved this classic image in the canvas of LibTV; on the other hand, he finds that "those rules and pressures are like a circle, covering the heads of many ordinary people." Thinking of this, he did not want to delete Sun Wukong.

The mythical figure Sun Wukong suddenly appears among a group of ancient people. (Picture: Screenshot of *Veterans*)

When he was young, Wang Kunzhe imagined a more confident and more expressive self. He liked the free and easy, eloquent appearance of rappers, but in reality he was rather introverted and not good at expressing himself. "They are all versions of myself in my imagination, but I am helpless that I can't reach the goal."

When he wrote that line of lyrics back then, he did not know how many years it would take for this "self" to gradually come close. Now, he hands it over to AI, and re-hears that old song that was late for more than ten years, bringing some emotions that he could not express clearly in the past to more people.

Never Completely Break Through the Water Surface

Wang Kunzhe is 35 years old this year. Looking back at his experience, he cannot summarize it as a rising curve.

He graduated with a major in radio and television directing, and caught up with the local TV station in Wuhan opening a new channel. He took the exam and got the job smoothly. At that time, in the eyes of his family and the general expectations of society, this was a stable and decent job, and he also planned to be a good director and a good reporter in a down-to-earth manner.

During his time working at the TV station, the seeds of warmth had been quietly planted. When he first started working, he shot square dance programs. The protagonists in the program were uncles, aunts, grandparents who danced all over Wuhan. Wang Kunzhe remembered that those elders were extremely happy when they appeared on TV, and they liked these young people who just graduated very much. "Under their kindness, I felt that the work was particularly interesting."

In 2015, Wang Kunzhe worked at the TV station and went to Paris for shooting. (Picture: Provided by the interviewee)

Later, he left the TV station. When asked about the reason, he only summed it up in four words: "Young and impulsive". After leaving the TV station, he worked as a corporate photographer and also took freelance projects. In 2021, he set up his own studio. Life seemed to change track, but it did not become smooth as a result.

After the epidemic, the number of projects dropped sharply, and Wang Kunzhe had problems with his cash flow. To support his life, he had to sell all his photography equipment — a mirrorless camera, two lenses, as well as gimbals, drones, fill lights and other equipment, which in total brought him about 20,000 to 30,000 yuan. "At that time, I was the so-called 'one-man army' in photography, which was equivalent to selling my 'tools for making a living'."

In 2019, Wang Kunzhe worked at the TV station and shot at Hanzheng Street in Wuhan. (Picture: Provided by the interviewee)

But when Wang Kunzhe mentioned this matter many years later, he did not describe it as a self-rescue in a desperate situation, but only said that he was quite sober at that time: first get the cash flow back to maintain life, and equipment can be rented if there is no equipment.

Similar gaps have appeared more than once. In the past year, he has devoted almost all his energy to AI creation. The business volume of the film and television industry has declined, investing in AI requires subscription fees and computing power costs, and participating in various competitions may not get results. He still envies those who make excellent works, and will be anxious about when he can reach that level.

What is closer to his real feeling is a long state of pending uncertainty. "For more than ten years, I always feel that I have never completely broken through the water surface. Sometimes I am underwater, and sometimes I struggle to flutter in the water."

When creating *Veterans*, Wang Kunzhe thought of Liu Bang, "who was still only a village chief in his 40s, and later stepped onto the historical stage". He can understand the feeling of trying many times but getting no results for a long time. "I am 35 years old now, which is not considered a late bloomer, and I am very grateful that the things I made with my heart have been noticed by everyone a little bit."

Wang Kunzhe chose Liu Bang because he can empathize with him more. (Picture: Screenshot of *Veterans*)

He once hesitated about the name *Veterans*. Young people may not like to listen to the reasoning of people who have gone through more things, and may even swipe away as soon as they see the title. But after thinking about it, he still kept this name. After all, those ancient people did go through their own lives. "The power of reality is very strong. People like Du Fu, Su Shi and Liu Bang are fully qualified to bear the title of 'veteran'."

Precisely because of this, he deliberately avoided preaching in his works, and wrote the line "I am not here to teach you, I am here to walk this journey with you" into the lyrics. He knows that this sentence is a little deliberate, but fortunately the audience recognizes this sentence, "These ten characters have different choices and different lifestyles, which give people the strength to walk through this period together with everyone."

The Wind of the Yangtze River That Year Blown into AI Creation

Wang Kunzhe's attention to ordinary people did not start with *Veterans*.

He is good at aerial photography and city scenery, and he still remembers a friend once said: "No matter what role a person plays in society, the wind of the Yangtze River can blow and comfort everyone." Wang Kunzhe thinks this sentence is very romantic and has always remembered it, so when shooting Wuhan, he often puts the river water and lake water into the frame.

Wuhan under Wang Kunzhe's lens. (Picture: Screenshot of *My Hometown by the River*)

However, urban scenery is a highly competitive track, and the scenery has its "emptiness". The Yangtze River Bridge, the lake surface and the city skyline are magnificent, but it is difficult to carry a person's life alone. Therefore, Wang Kunzhe began to deliberately add people's lives to the scenery, so that the film has a little real emotion. He asked his friend to do the voiceover, wrote the copy by himself, and combined scenery, humanities and lyrical music to create a set of expression methods suitable for urban videos.

His lens is aimed at the gradually recovering Wuhan, and the people who reunite again. The rushing Yangtze River flows around the city, the East Lake is sparkling, and the three towns face each other across the river. On the river beach, relatives and lovers meet and snuggle with each other, old people take children to fly kites, and the river wind sends laughter and kites to the sky together.

He also often goes to Lingbo Gate