Life goes on. Every afternoon after school, Cheng Ran would walk up the stone path and into a small courtyard with stone walls. The sycamore trees in the courtyard were showing off their green leaves. Clear music could be heard from the piano room, and the setting sun was scattered all over the ground.
After listening quietly outside the yard for a while, Cheng Ran would step into the piano room. The concert would stop temporarily. Qin Xizhen and others were in the room, looking at him inquiringly.
Shanan Luomu would bring two bags of packed stir-fried dishes from a nearby restaurant into the piano room, and everyone would spread out the lunch boxes on a stone table under the sycamore tree in the yard outside, with a piece of newspaper spread out.
Cheng Ran also ate with them. There was only this old stone table and one stone bench left in the yard. The other three were nowhere to be found due to their age. There were only broken pieces on the ground. So everyone tried their best to find the bench. The only intact bench was given to Qin Xizhen, who was recognized by everyone as a future star. Qin Xizhen was the first one to suggest that Cheng Ran should sit there, after all, he had contributed the most.
Cheng Ran waved his hand, and Qin Xizhen had to sit in the "upper seat" with the crowd. Ning Yuan spread out a small cross-folding stool that she carried with her. Sometimes when she performed outside, there was no seat backstage, and when she was tired, she would sit on this stool with her guitar in her arms, waiting for the performance. Liu Pei took an empty paint bucket and sat on it upside down. Shanan Luomu moved a big broken drum and moved half of his butt to Cheng Ran. The two sat on the drum and ate lunch at the stone table. This scene of flowers and clusters with their own merits was really too beautiful.
After dinner it was time to rest. Outside the yard was a ten-step stone staircase, and the terrain was a slope. Next to it was a ridge extending from the yard, about seven or eight meters from the ground. Qin Xizhen blew the high stone surface of the ridge clean, sat down with her legs dangling in the air, and Cheng Ran also sat next to her. From this position, one could just see the Shanhai city area.
The International Tourism Festival is being held. The city is full of colorful flags, banners can be seen everywhere, and the road railings are painted white. The whole Shanhai City seems to be brand new, lively and festive.
If you look at the lakeside, you can see a colorful scene on the other side of the lake. That is the starting field for the mountain bike race. Four-meter colorful flags are fluttering in the wind. The 20-kilometer lakeside road from Dazu Temple to Caobapo has been set up as a race venue. This afternoon, piles of racing bicycles rushed to the track at the sound of the starting gun.
In the urban area, Shanhai City has deployed more than 2,000 police officers, and traffic control has been implemented on most of the main roads. There are government meetings to attract investment, tourism fairs... There are projects running around every day.
At this point, a lot of people have already started gathering at the lantern festival venue.
It can be felt that the Tourism Festival was extremely successful, so the Mountain and Sea Music Festival from the 13th to the 15th is even more anticipated.
"The music festival is this Friday..." Cheng Ran said softly, "We have almost finished preparing for it. The rest is just a matter of doing our best and leaving the rest to fate."
Cheng Ran knew that there was not much he could do. At this time, with such a large-scale music festival, there were many variables that he could not control. He could only hope that the songs that existed in his memory could still shine in this time and space. Of course, this was also closely related to the performers. What kind of chemical reaction would Qin Xizhen produce when paired with these songs
"I said I was so nervous that I didn't want to participate. Do you believe me?" Qin Xizhen smiled, then reached out and patted his arm, saying, "You're kidding! I've participated in competitions many times before. To be honest, when it comes to performing in public, I was a little nervous the first time I went on stage. After that, I didn't feel nervous anymore. I just wanted to play music or sing with all my strength. It seems that I might be a natural singer. Who knows, I might become famous all over the country!"
"Well, I think it's possible. Maybe you will really become famous overnight and reach the top. At that time, your life will be completely different from now. Maybe I will have no choice but to look up to you then."
Maybe he was also making history. Whenever he thought about this, Cheng Ran had a vague sense of anticipation.
Originally, she thought it was a funny joke, but Qin Xizhen frowned for the first time. After thinking for a while, she glanced at Cheng Ran and said, "Are you worried that one day, our worlds will be torn apart and separated?"
"I'm just saying, don't forget the poor relatives in the corner when the time comes..."
Qin Xizhen said, "You think so much, but you are not famous yet... Maybe this is just my last madness, it will just bubble up, poof! It's gone, I still have to do what I should do in the future. If you are a poor relative, I will sleep under the overpass or on the main road. When the time comes, you who can afford porridge, don't forget to help me who don't even know where to eat my next meal!"
"Can you afford to wear clothes?"
After Cheng Ran finished speaking, there was silence for 0.05 seconds, and then Qin Xizhen pinched and hit him, slap! slap! slap! leaving bruises on his arms and shoulders.
What did I say to deserve this disaster?!
Seeing Qin Xizhen's gnashing teeth, Cheng Ran felt a little warm in his heart, knowing that she was using this method to carefully smooth over the possible discussion between the two sides about the separation of their future lives. It could even be said that she was maintaining her own self-esteem.
The problem is that shouldn't I just be a child in front of her? Where does the self-esteem of a big man come from? In the past, I called her Qin Xizhen and she scolded me for being disrespectful, and she even used her identity as a teacher to retaliate in various ways. Now, does she not regard me as a child
But it's no wonder. Cheng Ran remembered when he sang those songs to Qin Xizhen in front of the hillside, and when he helped Qin Xizhen proofread recently, Qin Xizhen respected him from beginning to end. Maybe it wasn't because of him as a person, but for people who love music, music itself is the most respectable thing.
"We often sing and overuse our voices, so my dad taught me a method called bubble sound to rest my vocal cords. To put it simply, you should tilt your head back, relax your face and larynx, and make a sound like you yawn, gargle your throat, and let the air in the chest reach the larynx to vibrate and make a sound, like this..."
Then Qin Xizhen raised her head without any ladylike manner and made a series of foamy sounds, then she laughed again and said to Cheng Ran, "Try it!"
Cheng Ran followed suit and opened his mouth, but suddenly his lips felt cold. It was Qin Xizhen's hand covering him, and she threw something into his mouth.
This is such a routine!
Cheng Ran looked at her in astonishment, feeling the taste in his mouth spreading, "What kind of poison did you use? ... Smiling Half-Step Dian?"
"One day of heartbreak powder!"
Qin Xizhen's right cheek was puffed up, and he waved his hand. In his palm was a small bag wrapped in gold. "I'm afraid of gaining weight, so I keep a small bag of food in stock. I don't usually give it to other people... Is it delicious?"
Cheng Ran originally thought it was throat lozenges, but he did not feel the cool taste of cooling oil in his mouth as he expected, but instead a strong fragrance.
It's chocolate.
“Sweet…”
"not bad."
…
March 12. Shanhai Music Festival opens.
At the opening ceremony, the Standing Committee Member of Shanhai Municipal Party Committee, the Deputy Mayor, and the Minister of the Propaganda Department delivered speeches in succession, expressing their prospects for a successful tourism festival. They also hoped that the Shanhai Music Festival would become a pioneer in the country and that the future Shanhai Music Festival would become bigger and bigger, playing a leading and guiding role in the domestic music field.
The opening ceremony was held simultaneously in six venues. A brochure available for free at the display board at the entrance of the venue listed the list of performing bands and singers for each day, and this information was also displayed simultaneously on the display board at the entrance of each venue.
The music festival starts at 1:30 pm and lasts until 9 pm, with each session lasting approximately 40 minutes. Different bands and singers will perform at various venues in each session.
Of course, the main venue attracted the most attention. The tickets for the main venue, which can accommodate tens of thousands of people, were almost sold out, and the noise coming from there was the most intense.
Relatively speaking, the five sub-venues only had a few thousand people at most. But in fact, the scene still looked quite impressive. There was not as many people as the main venue, but it also had the atmosphere of a small performance.
Qin Xizhen and the band members were backstage at the No. 3 branch venue. She did not compromise with Wang Zhonghua, so when she saw her name on the list of the main venue, she was naturally eliminated. The No. 3 branch venue was a position she could get by using her connections. Secondly, Wang Zhonghua could not target her on the list of the branch venues. For an old fox like him, it would be too obvious. In fact, in Wang Zhonghua's opinion, the main venue was the real focus of the Shanhai Music Festival. It was the main stage that all music critics, record companies, and the industry paid attention to. The branch venues were all some miscellaneous bands that came as a foil. It was just the intention of the Shanhai City leaders to make the entire music festival look grand.
In fact, the real main stage is still the main venue. The main venue has a large number of people, which can form the most clustering effect. Any good bands and singers can be known to the public. As for the branch venues... who really cares about who goes to the branch venues? The number of people is far from enough to influence.
Therefore, not being able to attend the main venue basically means that it is impossible for anyone to take you seriously.
The searchlights overhead shone directly down from the stage. Qin Xizhen's performance was at 7:30 in the evening. It was actually a bit of a disadvantage to go on stage at this time, because after all, a group of people were diverted due to lunch. Although the tickets for the branch venue were not expensive, the DNA people might not necessarily buy tickets to continue watching the last two hours of the performance.
However, because of this time period, Cheng Ran came here after school in the afternoon. Now that the national trend of reducing the burden on students is in full swing, the principal of the No. 1 Middle School in the city, Ma Weiguo, had no choice but to respond to the call and announced that the evening self-study classes for the first and second year students could be cancelled in the first few months and added when the end of the semester is approaching.
So Cheng Ran still had time to come. Qin Xizhen put on makeup, with sparkling eyeshadow, and wore a black sequined performance costume, with her hair tied up in a bun, and her upper and lower eyeliners closed at the corners of her eyes to form an eye tail like ink calligraphy, charming yet heroic, and charming everyone.
When the band in front left and the host called out Qin Xizhen's name, she nodded to Cheng Ran.
Then he stepped onto the stage.
On the left and right sides of the venue, a cluster of floodlight poles overhead projected dazzling light onto the stage.
Qin Xizhen stepped onto the stage amid the cheers of the crowd below. At this moment, an even more violent roar erupted from further away.
That is the stage of the main venue.
It was also the real core of the festival. The music industry was focused on it, like a storm. The branch venue where she performed was a corner away from the storm, as if it was forgotten. There were only about 1,000 to 2,000 people at the venue, probably all of whom came here to join in the fun because the tickets for the branch venue were cheaper.
But Qin Xizhen was not discouraged. The band behind her was ready, and she walked to the microphone with two spotlights overhead. For a moment, the venue became quiet again, with only occasional boos that were probably because of her appearance.
She adjusted the long-pole microphone with her hand, retracted her left hand to hold the guitar earpiece, stretched her right hand straight up to the sky, put her middle finger and index finger together, and snapped her fingers.
Her eyes were cold and indifferent, as if she was already the queen ruling this place.
All of them before her were her subjects, eager to submit to her.
Subjects of the music world.