Hello, I’m back 🙂
Due health problems, I abandoned this blog for a while but I’m back now. Still, I happened to come back the same day another translator took it up LMAO so I’ll be handing it over to Cai Cai Translations from now on!
Act One: The Sound of Music
This story began five years ago with a brief meeting.
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“Student Xiang Cai, your transfer application was approved.” Chu Ping walked around the desk. She wanted to pat the boy’s shoulder but when her eyes met his, her hand could only fall weakly against his arm. “… That’s why, on behalf of the singing and dancing major of Huawu School, I welcome you.”
“Thank you” Xiang Cai’s eyes were bent and his eyelashes trembled slightly as he showed a well-behaved smile. “Teacher Chu, I’ll be in your care for the next two years.”
“That’s right, that’s right.” Chu Ping was the head teacher but in reality, she was just a few years older than her students. She looked at the seventeen-year-old boy in front of her and had a lot to say but, in the end, she just fixed her glasses and asked softly, “Do you know anything about our major?”
Xiang Cai replied: “To be honest, no.”
“Have you read any books about it?”
“To be honest, no.”
“Uh…” Chu Ping felt a bit helpless but she always had a good temper, so she explained it gently, “We professionalize in singing and dancing, mainly to train performers. Singing, acting, dancing, all three are important.”
While she spoke, Xiang Cai quietly watched her speak.
Chu Ping sighed inside her heart
The young boy’s body had already matured at this age. Since he had been singing and dancing since childhood, his body proportions were excellent. He was admitted to the Huawu School after ranking first on the ballet exam and, back then, his legs were already 18cm longer than his torso. He was born for dancing and had this hardworking aura. After his accident, the dean of the ballet department visited him many times to solve the matters surrounding the transfer.
What a pity…
Remembering this, Chu Ping couldn’t help glance at his feet.
Her voice became soft as she said: “To short it out, most of our students have gone into acting after graduating. Look, many of the great female and male personalities nowadays came from our department! Of course, there’s also a small percentage of those who went to the Musical Theatre department… Your application said you want to apply for it in the future, right?”
“En.” Thinking about the future, Xiang Cai’s eyes finally sparkled. He didn’t intend on giving up dancing but, due his accident, he couldn’t jump around the stage anymore. Which meant that musical theater was his only hope left.
“That’s good~” Chu Ping agreed. “Compared to your classmates, you’ve fallen behind on acting so you must try hard to catch up with everyone as soon as you can. By the way, how many musicals have you watched?”
“…”
Seeing his eyes avoiding hers, Chu Ping guessed he didn’t do his homework.
“It’s okay, you can say it to me” Chu Ping assured him. “It doesn’t matter if it’s ten, twenty, five or eight.” She paused and became suspicious, “Couldn’t be that you’ve never watched one, right?”
Xiang Cai answered: “I’ve watched one.”
“Really? Which one?”
“The Sound of Music.”
“…” Chu Ping thought ‘if you ask any middle school student around, they will all answer they’ve seen it’.
After completing the transfer procedures, Chu Ping walked Xiang Cai to the singing and dancing classroom.
Huawu Facility had a dorm system with daily classes even on weekends and only two free days in the end of the month so students could go home. Every student had three major classes every day and, by the end of the afternoon, they were all exhausted and sleepy.
Xiang Cai took a piece of bubblegum out of nowhere and chewed a bit, blowing a bubble after another.
Chu Ping heard one ‘pop’ after other and she wanted to tell him to stop but, in the end, she gulped her words down.
Xiang Cai’s application was approved by the school directors. Before him, there was never a student who changed their field in this school, only those who couldn’t keep up with classes and left crying for their mothers.
When the school director handed Xiang Cai’s files to Chu Ping, they told her repeatedly: “You must know this boy’s situation. He was born for the stage. It’s a pity he has parents like that… We have held meeting regarding this matter and I’ve decided I can’t bear to see his talent wasted like that, so I’m handing him over to you. I’m sure he will work hard, so you must do a good job on enlightening him.”
Chu Ping is a young teacher so, naturally, she shouldn’t be in charge of the whole department but, since the original teacher was pregnant, she could only put Chu Ping who had just graduated few years ago in her place.
Better than say she’s a teacher, she’s more like a senior. The year she graduated from Huawu School, she heard rumors about a dazzling young swan between the ugly ducklings in the first year. She heard they were the kind of beauty “one cannot look away from.”
Art academies have always been a gathering place for handsome man and beautiful women but, when Xiang Cai entered this school at the age of 11, he had already a group of seniors who cheered for him at the dance studio.
Even wearing the same uniform, having the same posture or features, Xiang Cai is still better than the average. They all called him the little prince of ballet in a warm way; whenever he went to the cafeteria, the auntie in charge would always serve him a spoonful of the smoothest fish and the biggest shrimp; every time a TV station came for an interview, he was always the one chosen to represent them.
But this noble prince of ballet, after staying a year out of school, suddenly changed for the singing and dancing department.
Right after the accident, the school leader immediately sent someone to visit him at the hospital. Chu Ping heard that Teacher Yang, who teaches basic skills, cried all afternoon after returning from the hospital.
The star whose future everyone looked forward to seeing shining brightly in the future had fallen.
Fortunately, Xiang Cai was finally able to return. Chu Ping didn’t know, however, if he could fit in the singing and dancing class.
Chu Ping led Xiang Cai inside the classroom.
They were having a self-study period. Of course, there’s no difference between a self-study period without a teacher and nothing. There were people sitting in groups, people chatting loudly, some people playing gomoku with square pieces…
But all stopped when they saw Xiang Cai entering the classroom.
It was almost as if they were suddenly thrown into outer space, without oxygen or sound. They could only open their mouths and looked awkwardly at the boy who walked helplessly into the classroom.
There’s no need for Chu Ping to introduce him.
His name, his appearance, his dancing skills, his story… Without him knowing, everyone in campus already knew who he was.
It’s just that those people never once thought they would become classmates with the legendary student Xiang Cai.
“Uh… Xiang Cai, you can sit in the third row” Chu Ping assigned him the best seat in the room.
“Thank you, teacher, but I’d like to sit in the back” Xiang said, already carrying his schoolbag toward the last row.
Chu Ping was rather helpless and couldn’t help thinking Xiang Cai’s character was very different from the rumors.
Still, when she thought about the terrible things the boy experienced even though he was so young, she felt it was normal for his personality to change so drastically.
Xiang Cai chose a seat by the window, sharing a table with a girl with a slightly round body with a small and round face filled with surprise.
Xiang Cai threw his empty schoolbag on the ground and, before he could sit down, the girl handed him a bag of spicy dried fish under the desk.
“I’m Qi Ji” she said. “Go on, eat!”
Xiang Cai glanced at the package of dried fish and asked hesitantly: “Pardon me for asking, but don’t you have to weight yourself every week in this class?”
Qi Ji’s eyes widened, “… You are so arrogant.”
“…”
“The singing and dancing class is not that strict” Qi Ji answered. “I heard you had to weight yourself every week in the ballet class?”
“Yes,” Xiang Cai answered more arrogantly than before, “with your height, a girl would need to have a weight under 42kg.”
The girl sighed: “I’ve never seen that number on a scale, just on thermometers.”
“…..” Xiang Cai felt that this classmate speech was a little too much.
While they were chatting, the other students were buzzing. Since the teacher was there, none dared to speak so their words were compressed inside their throats, making them sound like bees or flies.
When Chu Ping left, everything exploded.
The countless mouths whispering to each other were like a continuous rain in the middle of the night, its cold droplets hitting Xiang Cai.
But Xiang Cai was used to it.
Over the past year, he became used to people pitying him, looking at regret and sadness.
He pretended not to hear them and turned to his new desk mate: “What are you listening to?” He pointed to the earphones covering her ears.
Her phone was hidden in her pocket and just a long black cord could be seen from the neckline of her school uniform, partially hidden by her hair.
They weren’t allowed to bring phones in class, so when the head teacher came in, she hurried to hide it.
Qi Ji didn’t expect the campus god would start a conversation. With her round face red, she whispered: “You can’t tell the teacher! Ah, I’ve been confiscated three phones already — My favorite cv’s radio drama is over, I’m listening and recording to broadcast later!”
“….”
This was impressive. Such a sentence could touch all blind spots in Xiang Cai’s areas of knowledge.
What’s cv, what’s radio drama and what is a broadcast?
But Xiang Cai has always been too proud to ask.
He answered in a sophisticated tone: “What a coincidence, I also like radio dramas.”
“Really?!!” Qi Ji was in shock. “Which cv do you like?”
Xiang Cai replied unhurriedly: “There’s no specific cv, just those who climb into the charts, you probably understand.”
If Qi Ji ever talked about sports, games or celebrities with him, he would answer the same vague way.
Qi Ji was really surprised by him. She looked at the balled prince whose looks were as exquisite as a porcelain doll and then at the ten yuan earphones she bought on the street market, hesitated for a while and then asked: “What do you want to listen?”
The earphones were gently placed on his ear and the buzzling sound made by the cheap earphones made him frown.
At the same moment, there was a deep, magnetic and gentle male voice echoing from the earphones.
His voice spread through electric waves, stopping time and space, like a thunder splitting a dark cloud in half, penetrating Xiang Cai’s ears and making his soul tremble.
『Don’t laugh at me, guys, I’m really bad at singing so I’ll read it like a poem. The song “My favorite things” from “The Sound of Music”, for you.』
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Rosy Night 