150. "Natural-Born Ruler of the Stage"

Chen Xuan both enjoyed the delightful experience of recording videos with Li An and loved this feeling of documenting their lives.

Posting the videos they recorded together online allowed everything within them to be frozen at a specific moment in time.

It felt as if, within that thread of time, they would always be happy and joyful.

When she opened her browser on some day in the future and clicked on a video titled *A Step Away: Piano and Flute*, there it would be.

October 14, 2021, at 21:27, with the music in the video preserving their exact state at that time.

Chen Xuan believed that recording life with music was a remarkably romantic thing.

She hoped that starting from *A Step Away*, she and Li An could continue documenting every little detail of their lives in this manner.

The two of them decided on the second piece they would record.

Spring has come.

As requested by the netizens who had tipped.

-

The next morning's brief meeting had little of substance.

Qin Yong briefly went over the classroom records from the club classes of the previous week.

"Let's keep up the good work in the new week."

After the meeting, Qin Yong asked Li An to come to his office.

Li An entered the office, accepted a cigarette from Qin Yong without lighting it, and sat down opposite the desk.

Qin Yong lit one for himself and asked with concern, "How is the teaching material coming along?"

"The chord section is finished, and I'm currently working on the modal section."

According to their one-month agreement, Li An was supposed to deliver the work this week.

Qin Yong said, "The timing is about right then. Spend a bit more time on it these next two days, and try to email it to me by Thursday night. I'll need to use it when I go to Guangyuan for a meeting on Friday."

"During the last meeting, I showed it to the leaders of several campuses, and they are quite interested in your children's music theory teaching material."

What did "interested" even mean? Wasn't it blatantly obvious that they intended to use it?

Li An pondered for a moment, said nothing, and simply nodded.

Back at his office, he unlocked his phone and searched online. He wanted to know whether the study materials he had created belonged to him personally or to Blue Sky.

Initially, he wrote this material in response to Qin Yong's invitation to join the Blue Sky Arts Junior High Entrance Exam Teaching Department. At first, he hadn't imagined that this work could reach its current level.

In Chen Xuan's words, with a bit more content and meticulous proofreading, it could entirely be published as a children's science and music popularization textbook.

Although that sounded somewhat overly exaggerated, in terms of content, Li An genuinely had not seen such a music theory publication on the market.

Frankly, from his perspective, he had no issue with Qin Yong using it or the other Blue Sky campuses using it.

What troubled him was: if this work were to leak and be plagiarized by someone else under a modified name for profit, what then?

Setting aside whether he would earn teaching points if someone else used his material to lecture, he at least wanted to clarify the copyright ownership of this work right now.

After some searching, Li An felt that he was still too naive.

"Sigh—"

With a long sigh, he slumped back against the chair.

"What's wrong, Brother An?"

Hearing the sound, Ma Tao turned his head and glanced over.

Li An shook his head, "Nothing."

Chen Xuan gave Li An a small, puzzled look.

Taking advantage of Wang Panpan's absence, Li An puckered his lips and planted an open kiss in the air.

Chen Xuan shot a coy, reproachful glare right back at him.

"I'm heading to the classroom, you guys carry on."

With that, he left the office.

And began today's piano practice.

-

According to various information available online, the material he wrote most likely fell under the category of a work made for hire.

-

Then how should the cost of the illustrations be calculated?

For the first batch of illustrations, Feng Donglai hadn't charged him, but the illustrations in the subsequent chapters were ones he had paid for out of his own pocket.

After lunch, Li An originally intended to find Qin Yong and talk over this matter once more, but ultimately decided against it.

Five hundred per club class—he had brought it up, and the man readily agreed without hesitation.

He had even proactively raised his base salary to four thousand five hundred.

Let it go, let it go.

Through this incident, Li An had grown wiser; he would have to be more mindful if anything like this happened in the future.

——

Two days later, at 9:00 PM.

Li An was sitting on the bus ride home. He had just finished a tutoring session with three art exam students, and was holding his phone to instruct one of the boys on the octave wrist technique in *Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6* (Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody) when Wei Sanwan dropped a link into the Wei Family Class group chat. He only saw the link when he stepped into the elevator just before reaching home.

Instantly, his heart surged with excitement.

*Regulations for the Registration of the 18th Xinghai Cup National Piano Competition*

It had finally arrived.

-

Hearing the door open, Chen Xuan looked up, holding her flute, and asked, "What's got you so happy? Did a student pay their tuition fees?"

Li An took off his shoes and asked with a puzzled expression, "Am I the kind of person who would bow for five bushels of grain?"

-

Chen Xuan curled her lips in disdain, "Who knows? You're the one who used to always freeload meals off me."

Li An chuckled, "I'm just a guy who can't bear to see people wasting food."

Another gorgeous, exaggerated eye-roll came flying over from Chen Xuan.

Li An didn't take up the challenge, changed into his slippers, and sat directly in front of the computer, opening Baidu to search for the 18th Xinghai Cup National Piano Competition.

He clicked to enter the official homepage.

"The regulations are out." Chen Xuan put down her flute, walked up behind Li An, and looked at the concert hall background image on the webpage with a hint of nostalgia as she said, "Wenhua Hall. I started participating in the symphony orchestra in the first semester of my sophomore year, and whenever there was a performance obligation, we rehearsed here every single night."

Li An reached out to touch the hand resting on his shoulder, his gaze scanning the competition regulations line by line on the page as he asked, "Missing school?"

Chen Xuan nodded dreamily, "I haven't been back to Yanjing since graduation. I really miss the teachers."

Li An tightened his grip around her hand, "I'll take you there this winter."

Chen Xuan smiled, "So confident, are you?"

Li An replied, "Of course—"

Before he could finish, he hurriedly leaned closer to the screen, narrowing his eyes and reading aloud a line of text:

"Professional Youth Open Group."

What was going on?

In the competition brochure of the previous edition, the highest-level event for the professional category should have been the Youth Professional Conservatory Group.

To ensure his memory hadn't gotten scrambled, Li An quickly opened a new webpage and searched for the competition regulations of the 17th edition.

He scrolled down to the competition categories, and after a moment, massaged his temples.

"What is it?" Chen Xuan didn't understand.

Li An said, "This year's Xinghai Cup National Competition has established a Professional Youth Open Group."

"Previously, the highest-level event in the professional category was the Youth Professional Conservatory Group."

Chen Xuan understood immediately. Conservatory versus Open—a difference of a single word, but the difficulty of the competition would be completely different.

In the Conservatory Group, the contestants were basically all piano majors from major domestic music academies, whereas in the Open Group, the range of your opponents might not be limited to just those eleven music conservatories.

The regulations stated it very clearly.

Li An noted, "Just look at this single rule: winners of competitions recognized by the International Piano Competition Association can skip the preliminary audition stage and enter directly into the third round."

"Is the Xinghai Cup trying to follow the route of international competitions?" Chen Xuan asked curiously, "Can a single musical instrument manufacturer have that kind of clout?"

Li An disagreed with that assessment.

"But don't forget, Xinghai is our country's largest domestic musical instrument manufacturer. Even if its scale isn't enough, it has the state behind it. Didn't you see that the assisting units this time include not just your school and the National Centre for the Performing Arts, but even the Ministry of Culture has gotten involved?"

He released the mouse and expounded, "The Xinghai Cup has already held seventeen editions. Today, it is the highest-value piano competition within mainland China."

"Regardless of the brand or the competition, if it wants to develop further, it must align with the international standards. Much like Steinway and Yamaha, which hold international competitions every two years."

"You might not know this, but starting from the 16th edition, this competition established a special prize—becoming a contracted artist for Xinghai."

He paused, "Although the fame and reputation of Xinghai's contracted artists are still far from comparable to those of Steinway and Yamaha, I believe that as the country grows stronger day by day, Xinghai will definitely develop better and better."

"Sigh."

Li An sighed. There was simply too much he wanted to say in his heart regarding this.

"In any case, I hope that in the future, we can also truly host a world-class competition, and let foreigners come and play piano works written by us Chinese people."

Chen Xuan remarked, "I never knew our Teacher Li had such deep patriotic sentiments."

Li An retorted, "Obviously."

Chen Xuan countered, "What was it someone said last time about dreaming of owning a Steinway?"

Li An grinned, "You're thinking too small, Teacher Chen."

"What I call that is learning the superior techniques of foreigners in order to master them."

Chen Xuan pulled her hand back, refusing to let him touch it anymore, "Look at you and your slick tongue!"

Li An turned his head with a cheeky grin and gave a gentle push against the small of Chen Xuan's waist, "Be a good girl, go to the fridge and get me a bottle of beer."

Chen Xuan not only brought back the beer, but also brought the duck necks she had bought on her way home that afternoon.

"I'm going to take a shower first. The bedroom still hasn't been tidied up."

Listening to her words, it sounded like a hint directed right at him. Li An tilted his head and shouted toward the bathroom, "You just go take a shower, I'll tidy up the bedroom in a bit."

Yesterday was the 15th, and apartment 2502's lease had officially expired. The two of them had busted their backs out moving things all evening and hadn't finished organizing yet, leaving the bedroom in a mess right now.

If he hadn't been utterly exhausted last night, he truly wouldn't have left the chores for today.

They had been cohabitating with Chen Xuan for quite a while now, and honestly, when it came to doing chores, she really wasn't as brisk and efficient as he was.

-

Drinking his beer and gnawing on a duck neck, Li An's gaze fell once more upon the computer screen.

The regulations for the Youth Open Group.

Still four rounds.

However, unlike the schedule for the Youth Youth Conservatory Group, there were no branch-division qualifying rounds anymore.

After passing the video audition screening, the second round would lead straight to Beijing.

The registration fees were also different: the former was 1,000, while the latter was 1,500.

The repertoire requirements for each round were also different.

Compared to the Conservatory Group, the first-round audition of the Open Group set clear and specific selection boundaries for the competition repertoire.

The two pieces were designated as a Chopin Étude and the fast movement of a Beethoven Sonata.

The Conservatory Group's Étude had no specific composer requirement.

Entering the second round, contestants still had to play a Chopin Étude and a complete Beethoven Sonata.

Except that the regulations specified the exact pieces; not just any Chopin Étude was available for selection, and the same applied to the sonatas.

By the third round, they still had to choose a sonata from the designated repertoire and perform all movements.

The changes in the finals were relatively large. In addition to the designated concerto that had to be performed, every performer also had to play a Chinese work composed by commission for the competition.

This part was good.

Li An gave a mental thumbs-up to the organizing committee. No matter what, since it was the domestic highest-standard competition, it ought to include homegrown works.

After thoroughly reading the introduction to the group rounds, Li An wiped his hands and scrolled his mouse down to the repertoire selection range for each group.

Not too bad.

After reading through it, he could only say it was not too bad.

Given his current repertoire capacity, assuming he were to participate in the Open Group competition, he wouldn't need to worry about the first three rounds.

It was just that when it came to the final stage, the finals specified two Mozart concertos, neither of which he had ever played.

Moreover, the additionally required homegrown pieces would only be announced when the results were published after the first round of auditions.

Li An scrolled back up to the top competition schedule once again.

The registration deadline was October 31st, which was the end of this month; the submission deadline for the first round of video auditions was November 15th, and the audition results would be announced on November 29th.

The second round through to the three final matches would take place on December 15th, December 20th, and December 26th respectively.

Which meant.

Mm.

Let's assume further.

Assuming he passed the first three rounds and entered the finals, he would have to perform one of those Mozart concertos in the finals.

This meant he would have to master another concerto starting from now until December 26th—a span of just over two months.

And these two months were only theoretical; once the second round of the competition officially kicked off in December, he basically wouldn't have any way to practice at full capacity.

Therefore, the actual time he could use to prepare this concerto repertoire was already less than two months.

Coupled with his busy work schedule.

Li An felt a bit troubled; the time was simply too tight.

Should he participate?

From the very moment he learned about the existence of the Open Group competition this year, an impulse had risen in his heart to step onto that stage.

It was hard to describe.

To this day, Li An didn't know if he had some sort of condition where he simply got excited the moment he stepped onto a stage.

He craved the stage.

Perhaps it was because he had never stood on such a massive stage before; whether it was curiosity or a yearning for the spotlights watched by thousands, he simply wanted to take the stage.

That was where his dream lay.

Even after choosing to become a piano teacher, he had never given up his distant glimpses of the stage.

Yet, the reality was right before his eyes.

He had to work; he had to make money.

Delaying his work because of preparing for a competition was not something he wanted to see.

However, if he were to enter the Open Group, then regardless of whether he could make it to the finals, he would have to give it his absolute all to practice the pieces for every single round to perfection.

Yet that required a massive amount of time.

If he entered, he had to bring out his very best self.

What should he do?

Li An lit a cigarette and flipped back to the final repertoire of the Conservatory Group.

It was a concerto he had already played.

Should he just enter the Conservatory Group instead? Li An was mulling this over when Chen Xuan walked over, draped in a bath towel and drying her hair.

"Why are you smoking?"

It wasn't that Chen Xuan couldn't accept Li An smoking indoors, but she was somewhat curious. To her recollection, this was only the second time Li An had smoked at home in front of her.

Li An turned his face and asked, "Teacher Chen, do you think I can enter the Open Group competition?"

Chen Xuan blinked. She seemed to sense something in Li An's slightly furrowed brow, "Why ever not?"

Before Li An could reply, she freed her left hand and lightly tapped Li An on the head with a smile.

"Little Li is lacking in confidence, aren't we?"

Their eyes met.

A moment passed.

Chen Xuan slid her hand down to Li An's ear, her smile fading as she spoke earnestly, word by word:

"You can do it."

"Li An."

"You were naturally born to belong to that stage."

"Trust me."

"Go make the choice you want to make."

"I will always support you."

Biting the tip of his tongue, Li An had no idea what kind of expression he was wearing right now.

A moment later.

"Mmh—"

He stubbed out the cigarette butt in his hand, pulled Chen Xuan's hand into his palm, and mimicked her tone:

"What more could a man ask for in this life."