Chapter 6

Act I: The Sound of Music (4)

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It was too difficult to play the piano.

The ballet prince on the piano bench did not know how many times he'd failed today.

Xiang Cai looked down at his hands on the black and white keyboard and fell into deep self-doubt.

Why on earth did he feel he was suitable to play the piano?

He turned to look at the music teacher standing beside the piano, and after seeing her loving face, could only swallow all the complaints back into his stomach.

"Very well, let's do it again." The piano teacher clapped her hands for him, "Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti ... let's add the left hand: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la and right-hand crosses ti ..."

Unfortunately, his luck this time was not good. Although it was the simplest C major scale, the fingering of the two hands were completely different. Xiang Cai could play smoothly with one hand, but when both hands were placed on the keyboard at the same time, they become two pig’s trotters fighting each other, taking care of the left side but not the right.

He thought that when Mr. Jin Yong wrote about the little dragon girl with his two-fingered hands, he probably wouldn't have worked harder than him.

He held the piano hard and didn't let the frustrated expression climb to his face.

He wanted to dismiss the teacher. "Teacher, I'll do it myself. Go and see other students."

In the piano classroom, there were seven other students taking the piano performance class as an elective like him. They started to learn the piano when they were 11 or 12 years old, just as they entered school. Everyone had a thick stack of music sheets on the piano stand in front of them. Bach, Hanon, Czerny, and yet he was still only facing the elementary tutorial for practicing scales.

While he was practicing, his classmates stopped their own practice. One by one they curiously extended their necks, watching him like they were watching a lively event that had not been seen for 800 years.

Xiang Cai guessed that he was really ‘lively’.

The music teacher also noticed those lazy classmates. She turned her head and bluffed a straight face, saying, "Why did you stop? Did I let you rest? Whoever doesn't practice the piano well, come during the night-study today and report here!"

As soon as these words came out, the students were scared back to their heads, and their hands played sonatas. It was just a flicker; their heads turned 90 degrees again, their minds were not on the score in front of them.

Xiang Cai could only bite the bullet and continue playing.

The music teacher coaxed him: "It doesn't matter. You’re starting four years later than everyone else. At this stage, it is normal to have a gap. You can definitely catch up with everyone if you practice well."

Xiang Cai was a little persuaded and thought, ‘Since when did I become a “gap” and a “person who can't keep up with everyone"?’

After the piano lessons in the morning, the students hurried to the cafeteria. There was an hour-and-a-half break at noon. If they ate fast enough, they could go back to the dormitory to sleep after lunch.

Xiang Cai didn't go, he stayed alone in the piano classroom, and ding, ding, bang, banged on the keys.

A head poked through the doorway.

The girl's lively voice said, "Let's go, Xiang Cai! Why aren’t you excited to eat?"

Xiang Cai could not say it, he wanted to practice the piano.

Qi Ji walked into the room: "Your first piano lesson did not seem to go well?"

"... I can't even play scales. I really should have chosen harmonica." Xiang Cai looked up hopefully, "Can I still transfer?"

"If you can, you can. But there is no harmonica class in our school."

"..."

Qi Ji sat down beside him and opened his sheet music: "If you ask for help, you will be safe ~ I have learned everything just leave it to me.

This posture seemed to be practicing the piano with him.

In order to accompany him, Qi Ji, who loved food so much, didn't even eat lunch. If you had a friend like this, what do you want in a partner?

Xiang Cai was particularly touched and cheered up. He was hungry but made noises for an hour, and finally—learned how to play the five scales.

Qi Ji coaxed him like a kid: "Awesome, so good, so amazing. Your progress is so fast that in time, you will be a great musician!"

She quickly took his arm and said anxiously, "So, great musician, can we go to lunch now?"

"..."

The two hurried to the cafeteria, but only the leftovers were left in the window.

The student cafeteria of Huawu Affiliated Academy was well-known for being unpalatable. This was not because the chefs in the cafeteria were not skilled enough, but the school. In order to control the weight of the students, all the dishes in the school had less oil, less salt, and less seasoning. There were no chicken or beef left, only steamed fish.

Qi Ji ordered a scrambled egg with garlic and spit it out just after taking a bite.

The girl complained, "I heard from students in XX schools that their school cafeterias are all using pig food. I now think that pig food is also good, at least the pig food has oil and water."

Xiang Cai also dully ate with his chopsticks. He seriously suspected that the garlic sprout is more than 70 years old/

It was too unpalatable to eat.

Qi Ji couldn't stand it after she ate half of it, so she took out a small cell phone from the sleeve of her uniform and shoved it between them.

Qi Ji said, "You lean against me and help me block my phone!"

Xiang Cai: "Why are you using your cell phone during lunch?"

Qi Ji: "Are you really a high school student? If you don’t play with your phone while you eat, why should you eat?”

"..."

Qi Ji opened her mobile Weibo, read a post, and ate a bite. She said that the food in the cafeteria was too unpalatable, and she had to "add some spice" to her life from the feed to swallow the food.

Suddenly Qi Ji’s eyes lit up, and she grabbed Xiang Cai’s arm, drawing the screen directly under his eyes.

"Look!" She said, "Wang Qingyun God has posted a Weibo! And it’s a video!!!"

Hearing the familiar name, Xiang Cai quickly gazed at the screen.

Sure enough, a new Weibo floated to the top of the mobile phone screen. In just a few minutes, comments, likes, and reposts had been captured by fans of the Great God.

@CV Wang Qingyun: It sounds good. [Share Video]

On the cover image of that video, a pair of slender hands were playing on eighty-eight keys composed of black and white.

Xiang Cai’s heart skipped a beat. Just as he learned to play the scales today, the Great God posted a video related to piano ... He hurriedly urged Qi Ji to start watching. Embarressed, the girl replied that she didn't have headphones and was afraid to listen to the amplifier.

The two can only turn the phone to mute, and in a silent state, "watched" this one-minute piano performance video, heads touching.

Although they couldn’t hear the melodious music, just watching the hands dancing on the keyboard was already intoxicating.

It was said that dancers used both feet to dance, while pianists used both hands to dance on the keyboard.

Looking at the slender fingers with distinct joints, the master of the hands was a real artist. Every time he tapped and played, one could feel the sound of the piano pulsing in their eardrums, even without the volume.

Many fans posted enthusiastic comments in response to the video.

Someone asked the Great God the identity of the person playing this piano piece.

Wang Qingyun replied: It is a new friend I've met today.

After Xiang Cai "watched" the video, he asked Qi Ji glumly, "How many years do I have to practice the piano to achieve this level?"

Qi Ji raised her hand and touched his forehead: "No fever?"

"..."

Qi Ji said: "This person is a genius, he has probably practiced longer than us. If you fantasize about playing the piano like him, you might as well fantasize about becoming a friend of the Great God."

Xiang Cai busily asked: "How can I be a friend of the Great God?"

Qi Ji cut in: "If I knew, wouldn't I be a friend of the Great God?"

"..."

※

When Yao Yin told Tan Yiming that he was his voice-over guide, Tan Yiming felt it was a bit ridiculous in his heart.

Playing piano belonged to the piano, and dubbing belonged to dubbing. Even if Yao Yin played the piano well, no matter how well he played, his piano skills and his dubbing skills were too far apart.

However, this point did not matter. After Tan Yiming walked into the recording studio, his doubts disappeared instantly.

The professional recording equipment that had only been seen on TV, and the facilities that others had only heard of, Tan Yiming was in it. He felt that one pair of eyes was not enough to take everything in.

The recording studio was divided into an inner and outer room, separated by a transparent sound-proof glass.

Don't look down on such a piece of glass, even if two people, separated by the glass shouted at each other face to face, they could not hear each other at all.

Outside there was an audio console and several sets of sofas to allow the accompanying people to rest.

The inner room was a completely enclosed soundproof room. Tan Yiming walked in, closed the door, only to feel that the whole world was suddenly quiet. It was as if he was the only one present, and even the sound of his quiet heartbeat was clear and audible.

The soundproof room was not large. In the middle stood a professional recording microphone. Large monitoring headphones were hanging on the side.

Tan Yiming stood in front of the microphone, took the headphones, and buckled it on his head.

The LCD TV hanging on the wall had been turned on. The TV screen was connected to the external console. The recording teacher responsible for recording was rewinding the movie and jumped to the place in the animation demo where the protagonist first spoke.

The soundproof room was too quiet.

It was ... the ultimate silence.

Tan Yiming could hear nothing but his own breathing. He could only see people coming and going through the large soundproof glass behind him.

George was chatting with his girlfriend Shang Xiaorui.

The recording teacher was frowning at the demo.

Yao Yin stroked the cross pendant on his chest with one hand, Tan Yiming wondered what he was thinking.

No one was watching Tan Yiming.

At this moment, Tan Yiming remembered a horror novel that he had read before: a man was "thrown" to the back of the mirror. He was in the mirror and could observe others through the mirror, but no one knew that the was there.

Tan Yiming felt that he was now thrown to the back of the mirror. He looked at the others through a glass, and behind the glass, he was alone.

He wanted to turn his attention to the script in his hand, but when he glanced at it, it left only a series of meaningless, connected characters.

Tan Yiming knew that he was nervous.

Very nervous.

Just then, a slight buzzing sound came from the headphones.

And after that buzz, a crisp male voice poured into his ear.

"Talk to me, can you hear me?"

Outside the glass window, Yao Yin pressed the connection button of the call microphone.

"..." Tan Yiming pushed the headset, "Heard."

Because the sound insulation effect was too good, if the people inside and outside wanted to communicate, they must use equipment buried in the wall.

"That's good." Yao Yin said kindly. "The recording has not started yet. You don't have to be so nervous. Relax and try the mic effects. You can also walk around the room."

"I'm not nervous." Tan Yiming didn't know why he said this, "I'm ..."

He wanted to make an excuse for his awkwardness.

He suddenly noticed that in front of the mic, there was a set of "handle-bars", the kind of pole-shaped bars commonly used in dance classrooms, which could allow young girls to put their legs up and stretched their muscles, etc.

Tan Yiming immediately changed the subject, and started one of the worst jokes of his life: "Why is there a bar here? Is it for me to dance ballet and record it?"

His voice passed through the microphone in exchange for the silence in the room.

A short while later, Yao Yin pressed the call button: "No. It takes a long time to stand for both recording and dubbing. The bar is so that in case the artist is too tired, they can be supported by it."

***

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