130: Loose hoop

Ye Xi sprang up as if launched from a catapult,

Her hands quickly went behind her back, like a primary school student caught red-handed doing something wrong.

That previous wildness was completely gone,

Only the awkwardness cultivated by years of strict upbringing remained.

In front of a professor of Yu Yan's caliber,

"Playing randomly" was not only impolite but also a blasphemy against art.

What's more, what she had just played,

Couldn't even be called a song; it was purely treating the piano as a punching bag.

Yu Yan walked in silently, her soft-soled leather shoes making no sound.

Her gaze, from behind her tortoiseshell glasses, first swept across the piano keys,

Then looked at the still buzzing strings, and finally landed on the two young faces.

Ye Xi's lips were pale; she opened her mouth, about to speak.

"I..."

A lazy voice broke the dead silence.

Lin Que stepped out from the shadow by the door and stood in front of Ye Xi,

Casually pulling up the zipper of his still-warm red vest, his face showing indifference.

"I saw this piano looked pretty high-end just now, my hands got itchy, and I couldn't resist pressing a couple of keys."

Lin Que scratched his head, smiling like a bumpkin who had never seen the world.

"Expensive things really are different; even casual presses make such a big noise."

Ye Xi suddenly looked up, staring at Lin Que in disbelief.

That lie was too clumsy.

Anyone with a little knowledge would know that although that passage was chaotic,

The control of force and the explosive power of the fingers,

Could absolutely not have been played by an amateur.

Yu Yan said nothing.

She turned her head and gave Lin Que a deep look.

"Are you sure you played it?"

"Yep."

Lin Que nodded unblushingly.

"I'm not good with musicality; I'm purely strong."

"Indeed, you are strong."

Yu Yan walked to the piano, her fingers gently caressing the bass keys that had been heavily struck.

"The syncopation in the treble clef was handled as finely as chopping dumpling filling,

The chords in the bass clef were slammed as if to dismantle the soundboard.

Without any method, chaotic rhythm, simply noise."

Ye Xi's head drooped even lower, her cheeks burning.

Every criticism felt like a negation of her more than ten years of effort.

"But..."

Yu Yan didn't pick up on his words; instead, she walked to the piano.

Her brows furrowed slightly, as if to dust off residual dust from the keys,

Her fingers slowly brushed over the bass keys that had just been heavily struck.

There was a full three seconds of silence; the air pressure in the lounge was suffocating. Just as Ye Xi thought a storm was coming, Yu Yan's tightly furrowed brows inexplicably relaxed a little,

Her tone showed no discernible emotion, but carried a hint of emotion: "It was a bit chaotic, all noise.

However... it sounded quite satisfying."

Ye Xi suddenly looked up.

"Students nowadays, even the top students in professional academies, play too 'flat'."

Yu Yan sighed, her fingers unconsciously tapping on the piano lid.

"Each one like a precise machine; if the score says forte, he plays forcefully.

If it says piano, he holds back.

The technique is impeccably perfect, but you can't tell if there's a living person or a dead person inside."

"But that passage just now..."

Yu Yan narrowed her eyes, seemingly savoring the string of violent notes she had heard from outside the door.

"I heard anger wanting to break through something,

That explosion after being suppressed to the extreme, although unpleasant, it was all catharsis, so it felt very satisfying.

The piano, when it was first created, wasn't for grading exams; it was for people to express themselves."

"If you can't even express anger, then what's the point of playing Rachmaninoff?"

When she said the words "Rachmaninoff," Yu Yan's tone specifically emphasized them a bit.

Ye Xi's heart suddenly constricted.

That was the piece she was going to perform this afternoon.

Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.

A piece widely recognized in the industry as highly difficult,

And also a famous 'depression recovery work'.

"Alright."

Yu Yan straightened up, adjusting her large Bohemian-style shawl.

"This kind of thing, it's okay to vent occasionally.

But if you're on stage, the audience buys tickets to see swans dance, not to see mad dogs bite.

Hiding emotions within technique, that's art; having only emotions without technique, that's throwing a tantrum."

With that, she turned and walked towards the door.

As her hand rested on the doorknob, Yu Yan paused.

She didn't turn back, her back to the two of them, her voice drifting lightly:

"Also, Student Lin Que, right?"

"Next time you cover for someone and lie, please make it more convincing.

In that chaotic playing just now, the accuracy of the left hand's octave leaps was one hundred percent,

And although the pedal changes were rushed, none of them were muddy."

"Don't treat me like an amateur who doesn't understand the piano."

Click.

The door closed.

Silence returned to the lounge, broken only by the faint airflow from the ventilation system.

Lin Que leaned against the wall, letting out a long breath,

Wiping away non-existent cold sweat from his forehead.

"That old lady has really sharp eyes."

Ye Xi was still sitting on the piano stool, as if frozen.

She stared blankly at the closed door, Yu Yan's words echoing in her mind.

"Lin Que..."

Ye Xi's voice trembled slightly.

"Did... did she figure it out a long time ago?"

"Of course."

Lin Que rolled his eyes, walked over, and plopped down on the floor beside her.

"She's a professor at the Jinling Academy of Arts, she's been in this business for most of her life.

Even though what you just played was chaotic, your fundamental skills can't be faked.

It's like asking a calligraphy master to doodle; the strength of the lines would still be different from a primary school student's."

"She clearly knew it was me... given her temper, shouldn't she have scolded me severely?"

"Scold you? Didn't she just scold you?

All noise, like a mad dog biting."

Lin Que pulled out a mint candy he had casually grabbed when leaving home,

Peeled it, popped it into his mouth, and crunched it.

"But she didn't make you stop. Because she really wanted you to understand something."

Lin Que chewed on the candy, speaking indistinctly:

"This Professor Yu, although she has a strange temper, she's different from those teachers who only look at grading certificates.

She truly understands art and truly cherishes talent."

"Those words, she said them for me to hear, but they were actually meant for you to be scolded by."

Lin Que pointed to the black Steinway.

"Didn't you say before that this piece was your golden fillet?

Because you've always treated it as a task, as an exam."

Ye Xi nodded.

"This piece is very difficult. When Rachmaninoff wrote it, he had just emerged from severe depression.

It was his struggle in the quagmire of despair, his roar against fate, his yearning to live."

Lin Que stood up, walked to Ye Xi, and placed his hands on either side of the piano keys.

"Perhaps, that 'cursing' energy you just had, that's the soul this piece should have."

Ye Xi stared blankly at Lin Que.

It was as if something had exploded in her mind.

All this time, when playing this piece, she had pursued extreme precision.

The granularity of every note, the breathing of every phrase,

She was like carving a jade, terrified of even the slightest flaw.

But she knew herself,

The reason she avoided that piece was because she always felt something was missing.

Until today, until that chaotic smashing just now, until Yu Yan's phrase "all catharsis."

She finally understood.

What she lacked was never technique, but precisely that 'dirty' element.

It was that imperfection, that anger, that impulse to smash the piano.

"I... I know."

The confusion in Ye Xi's eyes vanished,

Replaced by an unprecedented brightness.

"I know what was wrong!"

...