Chapter 8
Act II: Hairspray (1)
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"Xiang Cai!" The chubby Qi Ji rushed over hurriedly. She lowered her voice, as if she was in an underground street party, and asked him, "Did you see Sound of Jiuxiao's new recruit promotion?"
Sound of Jiuxiao was a well-known dubbing community in the circle, and their talent pool was very strong. It was also the new recruiting season. Other clubs made a few beautiful posters, but the Sound of Jiuxiao directly made a promotional video!
The entire one-and-a-half minute video not only had beautiful hand-drawn illustrations, but also lively and brisk background music, accompanied by more than a dozen loved CV’s passionate voices, which was enough to show the momentum of their large community.
Because the video was short, the director arranged a single sentence for each of the CVs, so they could only show themselves for a limited time.
Wang Qingyun, as the biggest signboard of the group, was naturally the first to speak!
— "Do you want to be a CV and play against the gods?"
A low-pitched baritone flowed into the fans' ears, and every fan who heard this call yelled, "Think about it! Who doesn't want to be a puppy!"
Qi Ji naturally thought that since Xiang Cai liked Wang Qingyun so much, he would definitely sign up for the selection of the radio drama company.
She didn’t think that Xiang Cai would only sit down quietly, unfold a textbook while replying inexorably: "I saw it, but what does that have to do with me?"
"Why wouldn’t it have anything to do with you?" Qi Ji said, "They’re accepting new recruits, and eagerly recruiting male CVs with a clear young voice. The three keywords: clear, young, and male added together, isn't that you?"
Xiang Cai shook his head: "For a large community like that, the assessment must be very rigorous. I have no foundation in dubbing, and I definitely cannot pass the initial test."
Last night, when he saw the introduction of Sound of Jiuxiao’s new recruiting, he really had the thought of enrolling immediately.
But when he listened to the entire promotion, that little thought like a candle dangling in the wind, went out with a ‘pop’.
Whether it was his script foundation or his emotional expression, Xiang Cai felt, they were far away from their standard.
Their Musical Theatre Department also had scripts and acting lessons. Xiang Cai was four years behind his classmates. In each class, while other students were performing in groups, he was taken aside by the teacher to open a small book only to learn the basics.
Xiang Cai peeked into the performance of other classmates - everyone was so outstanding and they stood there confidently. Even if one or two lines were wrong, they would adapt to the situation and continue to perform generously.
Never before had this kind of ‘jealousy for top students’ been experienced by Xiang Cai.
He worked hard to catch up with others. But often, he wondered: what was the point of working so hard?
He didn't belong to the Musical Theatre Department at all. He was a poor worm who had been transferred and was abandoned by ballet. He was out of step with everything in this class. It had been so long since the start of school, but he had hardly spoken to anyone except Qi Ji
He hated reading lines.
So he thought, forget it. What was this recruitment even called? Anyway, people would move on from it in the end.
But Qi Ji didn't think so.
"Xiang Cai, your voice is so good!" She said, "Even if you are a passerby in the radio drama company now, announcing the scenes or something, you can improve step by step, and can surely become a main performer in the future. You will definitely become a star of tomorrow who can act with the Great God!"
In the beginning, their voices were soft, but Qi Ji was born with a passionate and loud voice; her volume got louder.
Her last few words were all heard by the boys at the table next to them.
"Become a star of tomorrow and act with the Great God?" A boy with rimless glasses chuckled, and his mocking eyes unabashedly fell on Qi Ji. "Just you? What are you going to do? Perform Hairspray?"
Qi Ji’s face became instantly red.
They had just finished watching Hairspray in their music appreciation class not long ago. It told the story of an overweight girl who pursued her dreams, participating in a TV draft and moving the world. Not only did she break down prejudice and discrimination against those like her, she eventually became a couple with the male idol she admired.
The male student made fun of her with this musical, not only to sarcastically mock her weight, but also allude to the relationship between her and Xiang Cai.
Xiang Cai didn't know that from the day he had switched to the Musical Theatre Department, he was like a mysterious pearl that attracted the attention of all the girls in the class.
Even though this pearl was dim and dusty, it was still a treasure cherished by countless people.
The teacher coaxed him, and the girls all admired him, but he still always put on a superior expression. He occasionally showed a smile, but he was still distant from others.
The boys in their class had long been displeased when seeing him. Wasn't he the little prince of ballet? Wasn't he recommended by Huawu to become a lead actor after graduating? So why did the head of the department exempt him from the basic dance lessons? He had been there for so long, yet they had never even seen him put on dance shoes!
Xiang Cai was excluded by all the boys in his class. This exclusion was bilateral and mutual.
They didn't dare to find trouble with Xiang Cai directly, so they turned their fingers and threw all the ridiculing words at the fattest girl in their class, Qi Ji.
In all honesty, Qi Ji's body only had a small surplus of weight. If placed on the street, she was definitely not the kind of girl who looked fat at first glance. However, this was Huawu High School. Almost all the girls' weight was controlled to be less than 80 kilograms. So, a round face and a round body like Qi Ji’s could only be considered ‘big and fat’ by comparison.
Qi Ji had a straightforward temper, so she rose up against their opposition and scolded them: "Yes, yes, you are thin, you are the most reasonable. Three steps, and you take a breath, five steps, and you'll feel dizzy*. Feeding you pig food, you will not grow fat. Isn’t your life in the world a pure waste of food?"
[T/N: * = instructions mimicking a breathing exercise, like three steps, then take a breath, five steps, then take a breath. However, 'and you'll feel dizzy' means that the person is weak(write the correct meaning in the chat if you think you know).]
She raised her chin: "What's wrong with being fat? I am full of energy and I have a wide vocal range: I can sing the high, high C. You have a male duck voice, and you had to pay to enter the school, am I right?! In the future, I will play the female lead and you, don't even mention lines, you will be part of the backup dancing group in the back! "
"You...you ..." The boy was poked in his sore spot about his voice, and his hair was about to explode. He had a good voice when he was a kid, but as he matured, his voice suddenly became a baritone, and he couldn’t even sing the scales. "Qi Ji! Don't think that just because you are a girl, I dare not strike you!"
"Come on, come at me!" Qi Ji poured out a bag of dried fish, pickled chicken feet, and Mongolian beef jerky from her schoolbag, squeezing it heavily in her hand. "You really think I, the ‘big and fat’ Qi Ji, am vegetarian? "
Suddenly, the class became a pot of porridge.
Fighting was strictly forbidden in the school. If a boy hit a girl, he would not only be punished, but he would be so embarrassed that he wouldn't be able to show his face in front of any classmates.
The male classmates were busy blocking the impulsive boy while Xiang Cai was busy blocking the Godzilla, fire-breathing, Qi Ji.
Qi Ji was indeed not a vegetarian, and her heavy artillery shells showed it. She banged her elbow on Xiang Cai’s ribs, and he muttered in pain, guessing that his ribs were going to turn green.
In the end, it was Chu Ping, their class teacher, who arrived hurriedly and stopped the farce. As soon as she entered the classroom, she didn't even need to open her mouth, for as she swept her eyes over them calmly—in an instant, whether it was the prince of ballet, the girl who ate meat, or the boy who was the first to provoke them, all were silenced.
The cheap provocative ghost was punished by Chu Ping to go to the last row of the classroom and reflect.
It was just that the dancers' thoughts were different from that of ordinary students.
She made him sit on the floor facing the wall with his legs opened at 150 degrees and put his feet on the skirting boards at the end of the wall while he wore a bitter face, so that his legs and the wall appeared to make an obtuse angle.
The provocative ghost trembled, begging for mercy: "Teacher Chu ... I ... I was just joking with Qi Ji."
Chu Ping said, "Is this 'joking'? Only your classmate, Qi Ji, can decide that." So she asked Qi Ji, "Do you think he was just joking with you?
Qi Ji replied: "No! Definitely not!"
So Chu Ping sneered, sitting back to back with the boy.
Then she pushed hard backward--
"Teacher, wuuuuuuh!" The boy yelled as his face flushed instantly, and his entire neck became strained.
As Chu Ping's strength increased, the boy's upper body got closer and closer to the wall, and his originally 150° split gradually expanded.
...Finally, the boy's upper body was completely attached to the wall, and his legs were split to 180°!
At this time, he already had tears and snot on his face due to the pain.
If one asked him at this time if he regretted it or not, he would say, ‘Regret, regret it to death!’.
That was right, the dancers' thoughts were not just reflection, they also must be punished!
Boys were inherently less flexible than girls, and the angle of their pelvic development was also different. Girls in the same class could easily do cross-cutting, but the boys could only cry father and mother.
The whole class sympathized with him yet wanted to laugh at him.
Chu Ping said, "I won’t punish you for too long, just for the time of a song. When the song ends, you can get up."
When Chu Ping searched her mobile phone's song list to find a suitable song, Xiang Cai, who had not spoken, suddenly raised his arm up high.
Xiang Cai asked "Can I choose a song and sing it?"
"..." Chu Ping froze. They had taken a lot of vocal lessons, and in each lesson, the teacher encouraged students to take the lead. Because of this, Xiang Cai had been mingling with his classmates.
Chu Ping could see very clearly: the real crux of today's conflict between boys and girls was not Qi Ji, but Xiang Cai who stood next to her. It was just that Xiang Cai didn’t speak from beginning to end, and she didn't expect him to suddenly pop up at this moment.
Countless thoughts flashed through Chu Ping’s head and she said, "Yes, of course. What are you going to sing?"
Xiang Cai moved away from the crowd and walked up the stage step by step.
He turned and stood still, his beautiful eyes revealing himself clearly: "Since my classmate likes Hairspray so much, I will give him the song ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’.”
You can’t stop the beat.
No one can disrupt his rhythm. No one can stop him.
The author has something to say:
Today’s small class of musical theatre-
Hairspray was first released as a movie in 2007 and was a great success. The male lead is the actor from High School Musical.
[T/N: Okay, so Hairspray was originally a movie from 1988, with the same songs and plot, I believe. It was made into a Broadway musical in 2002, and then a movie was made from that musical in 2007, which is the one that Zac Efron was in. And then it was made into another musical, possibly based on the movie. Also, the title of Hairspray in this chapter was originally translated as Hairspray Star Dream. PS: John Travolta is the bomb.]
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