Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

In the Class of ’14 vocal classroom.

After hearing the folk song performance from Room 204, Liu Min, the Music Production and Songwriting instructor, gave a calm little round of applause and said, “The time was admittedly short, but to be honest, this song of yours doesn’t pass with me. The melody has no originality — it’s completely pieced together — and the lyrics have no depth…”

The four girls glanced at one another, all lowering their heads a little in embarrassment.

For them, writing a song in two days really was extremely difficult — even among professional singers in the industry, not many could produce truly original material.

Fortunately, Liu Min hadn’t held high expectations for them either. After delivering her critique, she waved a hand. “Alright, you can step down. Which dorm is up next?”

“Teacher, that’s us.” Zhang Ruowei raised her hand.

Liu Min nodded and gestured for them to come up. Zhang Ruowei shot her three roommates a look, and Jiang Yu, Shen Xinyi, and Chen Qingqing quickly moved to the performance area together.

“Be quick about it. Once you’re ready, you can begin.”

“Okay.”

If today’s performance had been a solo, Chen Qingqing would surely have been nervous, even in front of her own classmates. But with three roommates beside her, she was relatively relaxed.

She adjusted the guitar’s position, and once all four were ready, Zhang Ruowei said, “Teacher, we’re ready.”

“Good, go ahead.”

Before class, every dorm had had to submit their score. Liu Min was now holding the sheet for this song called Sheng Sheng Man, and she’d already been drawn in by the lyrics.

When they began to play, she shifted her full attention onto the four of them.

After a graceful, lingering intro…

Chen Qingqing opened first: “Green bricks paired with glazed tile, a white horse treads fresh mud…”

Then Zhang Ruowei took the next passage.

“Rain scatters off the eaves, cooking smoke curls and rises, wandering, tossing and turning…”

The song was simple, and they’d divided it up — each person singing a short passage, and in the chorus, one taking the lead while the others harmonized.

Halfway through, the classmates in the room were stunned.

Of the groups that had performed earlier, few had earned any praise from Liu Min — getting a single word of encouragement was already doing well. But this group clearly made her sit up.

The moment the song ended, warm applause broke out across the room, and even Liu Min dropped her stern expression and clapped along with a smile.

She asked, still smiling, “Who wrote this song?”

Zhang Ruowei said quickly, “Chen Qingqing wrote the melody, and we came up with the lyrics together — we drew inspiration from Li Qingzhao’s Sheng Sheng Man.” [TL: Li Qingzhao (1084–c.1155) was the most celebrated female poet of the Song dynasty, and her ci poem 《声声慢》 — famous for its opening cascade of reduplicatives — is one of the most revered works in the classical canon. Attributing the modern song’s “inspiration” to it is a plausible cover story that also flatters the instructor’s classical sensibilities.]

Xu Ye had made it clear from the start that they couldn’t tell anyone he’d written the song, so Zhang Ruowei had come up with this cover story the day before.

Chen Qingqing hadn’t expected Zhang Ruowei to say that, and was caught off guard. But at that moment, no one noticed the flustered look on her face.

“Not bad. This is the song I’ve been most satisfied with so far. Both the melody and the lyrics are excellent — there’s not a flaw to pick at. It’s a very complete song. You did well.”

“Thank you, teacher~”

Liu Min smiled, picked up her pen, and quietly made a mark on the paper. She’d just been about to offer a few concluding remarks when the dismissal bell rang right on cue. She capped her pen. “That’s all for today’s class, everyone can head back.”

The whole class rose together, saying in unison, “Goodbye, teacher.”

At an art school, this much courtesy was still expected — every teacher who taught here held no small amount of resources in their hands, and no one dared offend a faculty member.

…

Coming down from the teaching building.

Jiang Yu said excitedly, “When we were walking out of the room, I saw the list in Teacher Liu’s hand.”

“What was on it?”

“She’d used a red pen to mark A, B, C, or D after each name. All four of us looked like A’s.”

“Looks like our participation grades are going to be high.”

Shen Xinyi laughed. “Good thing we have our master!”

Seeing Chen Qingqing stay quiet, Zhang Ruowei deliberately slung an arm over her shoulder and grinned. “Lucky your boyfriend was around, or the four of us would’ve been done for in that class.”

Jiang Yu chimed in. “When you put it that way, Xu Ye really is impressive in every department — tall, rich, a little bit handsome, and he can do music too. It’s ridiculous.”

“Why else would our Qingqing have fallen for him?”

“Haha.”

The back-and-forth left Chen Qingqing’s face red. She shrugged her shoulder loose and huffed, “Stop talking about him. He’s not as great as you’re all making him out to be.”

“Then tell us — what’s wrong with him?”

Chen Qingqing thought about it. “He’s never serious about anything.”

“Who’d ever fall for some stiff, dull guy?”

“Exactly.”

Chen Qingqing tried again. “He’s stingy.”

“He’s not the least bit stingy with you.“

“Exactly.”

Chen Qingqing thought hard for a long moment, then said, face flushing, “And he’s also… a lech!”

“Please~”

Zhang Ruowei rolled her eyes. “You really haven’t seen anything of the world. Aside from gay men, what man on earth isn’t a lech?”

Chen Qingqing couldn’t out-argue them. She stamped her foot, embarrassed. “I’m not talking to you all anymore.”

“Haha~”

…

Night fell.

Xu Ye and Zhang Xinzhou rode the scooter to the base of Feng Shaoping’s residential building.

Parking the scooter and covering it with a rain poncho, Zhang Xinzhou sighed. “Riding this piece of junk out to do business — I’ve got no confidence at all. I need to figure out a way to sweet-talk my old man into buying me a car.”

“Your old man won’t even spring for that?”

“I’ve got to get my license first, then find a legitimate reason to ask him for the money.”

Xu Ye said, “Just tell him you and Yanqing live far apart and it’s inconvenient to meet up on weekends.”

Zhang Xinzhou’s eyes lit up. “Right, that’s a perfect reason.”

“What’s actually going on with you and Yanqing?”

“How do I put it — we grew up together, childhood sweethearts, more or less. My old man and her old man served in the army together when they were young, and back when we were kids, the neighbors were always teasing the two of us. Then in school we were classmates again, and she kept me on a tight leash.”

“An arranged childhood match.”

“Something like that.”

Xu Ye said, “No wonder the two of you seem so close.”

Zhang Xinzhou smiled. “We’ve had our fights, though. One time I even made her cry, and my dad found out and gave me a whipping with his belt — it was Yanqing’s father who came over and shielded me in the end.”

“That’s nice.”

“The thing is, before I even started university, my whole future was already laid out. My old man planned everything for me — he even had a fortune-teller work out ahead of time which year I’d get married. Shenzhen isn’t far behind Shanghai, and the reason I came all the way out here was partly to get away from all of it.”

“Yanqing didn’t object?”

“Most of the time, she goes along with what I want.”

Xu Ye smiled. “Then count your blessings… Come on, let’s get this over with — the sooner we finish talking, the sooner we head back.”

Zhang Xinzhou nodded and led Xu Ye up toward Feng Shaoping’s apartment.

(End of Chapter 134)