94: Chapter 94 The First Lesson: Shen Yun Arrives

Yan Yu changed into clean flat dance shoes and tiptoed into the classroom.

A-Li set up the phone stand on the cabinet in the upper right corner of the classroom.

The camera frame encompassed the entire full-length mirror.

The gazes of six million online viewers were all locked onto this room of less than forty square meters.

Outside the door, Huang Zitao wore sunglasses and leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest.

Lin Hao nervously clung to the glass, not daring to take a deep breath.

Su Chen walked to the center of the venue.

A pure black tight vest clung to his skin, and the outline of every single muscle was clearly visible.

He turned to face the mirror, his gaze falling on Yan Yu.

"When you learned chest force exertion in the past, how did the teacher teach you?"

Su Chen spoke, his voice calm.

Yan Yu stood straight and subconsciously replied, "The teacher said to sink your breath to the dantian, bring your breath up, and feel the sensation of that breath colliding against the sternum..."

"Nonsense."

Su Chen interrupted.

Yan Yu was taken aback.

"Breath cannot be seen, and feeling cannot be touched. Dance is a physical movement of the body and does not need metaphysics."

Su Chen tapped below his own collarbone with one hand, "Look here."

Immediately following that, Yan Yu widened her eyes.

She clearly saw the pectoralis major muscle on Su Chen's right side twitch independently.

Then the left side.

This was not ordinary chest shaking, but rather the muscle groups of the chest cavity performing a segmented movement along the direction of the ribs.

"The point of force exertion is not in the front."

Su Chen turned around, backing Yan Yu, and tapped his seventh cervical vertebra with his finger, "The latissimus dorsi contracts, squeezing the middle section of the spine toward the center, forcing the sternum to pop forward. Look closely."

Su Chen demonstrated.

The movement was crisp and neat, without any unnecessary drag or hesitation.

His shoulders did not shrug at all, and his waist remained completely stationary.

"This is called skeletal displacement and muscular compensation."

Su Chen turned back, "You try once. Do not think about breath, use your back to pinch your spine."

Yan Yu swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and following Su Chen's instructions, she pulled her back tight with force.

"The chest cavity popped out by half an inch, but the shoulders compensated for the power."

Su Chen stepped forward, his cold fingers tapping on Yan Yu's right shoulder, "Relax the deltoids. Again."

Yan Yu took a deep breath, concentrated all her attention to control her back, and exerted force once more.

With a bang.

Her sternum popped out, the power was concentrated, and it even drove the vibration of the hem of her clothes.

She succeeded!

The bottleneck in force exertion that had troubled her for a full two years was directly cleared under Su Chen's two sentences and two instances of guidance.

Yan Yu's face was filled with disbelief.

The theories learned at the Dance Academy over the past decade seemed completely meaningless at this moment.

This was true teaching, breaking down all movements to the joints and to single muscles!

The bullet comments of the live stream room scrolled frantically across the screen.

[This muscle control left me dumbfounded!]

[Oh my god, is this still the structure of the human body? How can every piece of flesh move independently!]

[This force exertion sequence is too clear! The physics engine has become a spirit!]

[In the past, teachers only knew how to say find the feeling, but he directly shows you the muscle trajectory!]

[I moved along with it, and now my neck has a cramp.]

[Is this absolute demonstration? Directly using the body as a living textbook for you!]

[Teaching this for a hundred-twenty class fee? I wouldn't be able to buy this ticket even for one hundred thousand!]

[Dance teachers across the entire internet, come out and take a beating! Look at how other people teach classes!]

[This is a max-level boss's basic class, a despairing gap!]

[I look at the muscles on his back, they are even more standard than the anatomy charts of a medical school!]

[With this teaching efficiency, Yan Yu made a direct breakthrough!]

[...]

"Keep your shoulders steady, next follow up with the Wave."

Su Chen retreated back to his original position, raising his right arm.

His fingertips curved, his wrists pressed down, his elbows raised, and his shoulders shrugged.

The four movements were connected in series within half a second.

The power penetrated from the fingertips to the chest cavity, and then wandered from the chest cavity to the left arm.

"It is not the hands moving, it is the joints locking and releasing."

Su Chen explained, "Move one joint, dead-lock all other joints. This is called isolation."

Yan Yu watched in utter astonishment.

She tried to raise her arm to imitate, but the movement appeared soft and powerless.

Su Chen stepped forward and directly grasped Yan Yu's wrists and elbows with both hands.

"Exert force."

Su Chen said.

Yan Yu exerted force from her wrists.

Su Chen's fingers steadily locked her elbows, preventing her from borrowing strength.

Relying purely on the twisting of the wrist joints, Yan Yu felt that pull of pure force.

[...]

Right at this moment, a burst of hurried high-heel stomping sounds came from outside the corridor.

The sound came from far to near and stopped outside the studio door.

The glass door was pushed open.

Huang Zitao frowned and looked back.

Lin Hao also made way with his body.

A woman wearing a moon-white practice uniform strode into the classroom.

Her hair was coiled meticulously, and her brows and eyes exuded the majesty of someone leading troops in training year-round.

Because she walked in a hurry, her breathing was slightly disordered, and her flat shoes stepped on the wooden floor making a dull thud.

Yan Yu heard the commotion and turned back, her entire body instantly stiffening as she subconsciously cried out, "Teacher... Shen Yun!"

Shen Yun completely ignored her student.

Her gaze crossed over Yan Yu, staring straightly at Su Chen standing in the center of the venue.

Su Chen released Yan Yu's wrists, turned around, and sized up the newcomer.

"Dance Academy, Classical Dance Research Office, Shen Yun."

Shen Yun spoke, her voice crisp, carrying a bit of suppressed excitement.

"Su Chen."

Su Chen nodded.

Huang Zitao took off his sunglasses outside the door, his eyes flickering.

Of course he knew Shen Yun.

The former principal dancer of the National Team Classical Dance, and the dance general director for several major-production costume dramas in the Chinese Entertainment Industry.

A figure of this level had actually rushed overnight from Yanjing to this shabby studio.

"I have seen your trailer behind-the-scenes footage, and I also watched the live footage of Napa Lake."

Shen Yun walked in front of the mirror, casually threw her handbag onto the bench, took off the flat shoes on her feet, and stepped barefoot onto the floor, "Your control over your limbs has already hit the upper limit of the human body. Street Dance is outward-bound explosion, and I want to see how far you can go under another set of logic."

Su Chen looked at her bare feet, understanding that this was a dancer's most direct challenge and respect.

He stepped back two paces, yielding the position in the center of the venue: "Please."

Shen Yun did not waste words.

She walked to the open space, her legs slightly squatting down.

No music was needed.

She closed her eyes, and her breath suddenly sank downward.

Her spine started from the tailbone, pushing upward inch by inch.

Her arms spread to both sides, her wrists reversing.

"Cloud Hands."

Shen Yun said in a low voice.

Her movements were not fast at all.

But her entire body presented an absolute harmony and smoothness.

The trajectory swept across by her arms had no sharp edges or corners, and the power within her body was endless and ceaseless.

The rise and fall of the chest cavity matched with the breathing, which was called "Ti-Chen".

There was no strong pause point, no explosive visual impact.

All the power was wrapped inside the muscles, continuous and unbroken.

This was the most core "Body Rhyme" of Eastern Classical Dance, emphasizing vivid charm and spirit, with both spirit and form fully equipped.

Shen Yun retracted her stance, straightened her body, and looked at Su Chen.

Yan Yu stood aside, holding even her breath.

She was all too clear on the gold content of Shen Yun's set of movements.

That rhythm melted into the bone marrow could simply not be practiced without twenty years of childhood foundation.

Su Chen looked quietly for three seconds.

He took off the old canvas shoes on his feet, also stepping on the floor wearing only socks.

He walked to the position where Shen Yun had just stood.

"No music."

Su Chen spoke.

His legs were slightly apart, his body sinking.

He replicated Shen Yun's starting stance.

The bullet comments instantly quieted down.

Everyone was waiting.

Su Chen's right shoulder sank.

A force surged directly from the soles of his feet into his knees, pushing toward his waist and hips.

But he did not use the soft strength of Classical Dance.

What he used was the force exertion of Street Dance Popping.

The muscles locked and contracted instantly within a tenth of a second, producing a muffled pause point.

Then, the power climbed upward along the spine through the technique of the Wave.

His arms raised.

This was by no means orthodox "Cloud Hands".

His skeleton was completely rigid, and every rotation of the joints was accompanied by the freezing of muscles.

Yet unexpectedly, these rugged freezes were connected together by him using extremely smooth trajectories.

He slowed down the movements significantly.

Softness and hardness collided within his body.

The sense of power of Street Dance became the skeleton, and the continuity of Classical Dance became the flesh and blood.

He was painting an ink wash painting with his body.

Every vibration and freeze of the muscles was the pause stroke in calligraphy; every sliding extension of the joints was the blank space left on the scroll.

Rigidity and flexibility were combined, and the artistic charm was vivid.

When he pulled his hands back to his waist sides, his back muscles tightened for the last time and froze.

The entire classroom was so quiet that only Huang Zitao's heavy breathing remained.

Shen Yun stared fixedly at Su Chen.

She had taught Classical Dance for half her life and studied the fusion of countless dance styles.

But no one had ever been able to achieve this step.

Stripping away the superficial movement forms and directly extracting the spiritual core.

Shen Yun took a deep breath: "You are the first person I have ever seen who can interpret Eastern artistic conception using Street Dance."