23. A Pause in the Current Situation! Old Dong and Xiao Bei

The next morning, as soon as Li An woke up, he cast his vote for hotpot in the four-person squad group chat. With that, all four members unanimously approved the plan for hotpot on Saturday night.

Debts, no matter how many, cannot weigh him down. (×)
Necessary expenses should not be spared. (√)

After tidying himself up, Teacher Li An stepped out of his small rented room, ready to begin a new day.

As he rode the bus, Li An pondered who would attend his class that day.

There were three people left who hadn't given him a score: Huang Juan, Old Dong, and Deng Yingnan, the head of the string instrument teaching group.

Li An wasn't worried about Huang Juan. After all, she was an employee he had personally chosen to keep. To be fair, over the past two months, whether in teaching or daily work, Li An had fulfilled all his responsibilities to her, both in and out of the classroom.

Moreover, since He Yiming had dared to give Xu Nana a score of 4.4, Huang Juan, though conservative in her work, would surely give him at least a 4. He didn't expect Huang Juan to drag Xu Nana’s score down, as long as she didn't cause any explosions on his end.

He wasn't concerned about Old Dong either. By now, Old Dong had become an assistant to Qin Yong at Yudong. Qin Yong had already given Li An a high score, so Old Dong would probably follow suit and give him a similar mark.

However, there was an issue: since Old Dong followed Qin Yong’s lead, the scores he gave the eight people wouldn’t deviate much from Qin Yong’s. Therefore, the score gap between himself and Xu Nana would remain largely unchanged in Old Dong’s evaluation.

Given the current situation, as long as Huang Juan and Old Dong scored Xu Nana fairly, he might barely keep ahead of her.

The real variable lay with Deng Yingnan. From Li An’s observations over the past three months, Deng Yingnan was a wily old fox, never getting too close or too distant from anyone.

After Qin Yong announced the first round of scores the day before yesterday, Huang Juan, He Yiming, and Old Dong all acted yesterday; only Deng Yingnan remained motionless.

He’s decided to pause, then. So be it—let everyone wait together.

Li An arrived at Classroom 3 twenty minutes early, gave it another thorough cleaning, and then returned to the piano to mentally review Xiao Bei's lesson for the morning.

All he could do now was teach each class to the best of his ability.

With a strong sense of conviction, Li An fished a green mint from his pocket and popped it into his mouth.

He then turned the exam textbook to Kuhlau’s Little Sonatina.

At exactly eight o’clock, Yu Xiaobei walked into the classroom right on time, followed by Director Dong.

With one adult and one child entering in succession, Li An greeted Xiaobei and had him sit at the student piano, then nodded to Director Dong.

"Director."

Old Dong smiled, took a seat in the corner, and, imitating Qin Yong, pulled out a notebook.

For the first five minutes of this lesson, Yu Xiaobei warmed up with Level 3 scales.

According to the classroom system’s backend monitor, from Sunday to last night, Xiaobei had practiced piano at home for an average of three hours each day. As of last night, his experience points had reached 9 out of 20.

Nine hours—how much had Xiaobei accomplished of the right- and left-hand melodies on page one of Kuhlau?

Li An was hopeful. "Come on, Xiaobei, let’s hear your homework."

Xiaobei raised his arms, and with a gentle touch produced a soft first note. He then began playing from the first measure.

His tempo was unhurried, about sixty beats per minute. As he played, he muttered under his breath, "Send it up," "Lift your hand," "Change fingers," as if still absorbed in the mode of the previous lesson.

Normally, as a teacher, Li An should have stopped this behavior and told the student these instructions should be internalized. However, he noticed that Xiaobei’s hands and mouth were well-coordinated; every verbal cue was executed by his hands.

He also observed that Xiaobei’s wrist technique in connecting long phrases had improved compared to the last lesson. In the eighth-note passages of measure seven, each note seemed to be led by the wrist.

Although the playing was still uneven, the awareness itself was an excellent start.

Li An listened attentively. At the fourth beat of measure twenty, when the rest appeared, Xiaobei lifted his hands.

"Your wrist has improved," Li An affirmed. "Your practice approach is correct—keep it up."

He then offered more feedback. "Overall, well done. Pay attention to the rests in this passage."

He circled the eighth-note rests in measures four, five, and six on Xiaobei’s sheet music and, while demonstrating, explained, "Each rest is half a beat. We need to count it in our minds. You can’t just lift your wrist by feel and assume there’s an empty space, or it will directly affect how you play the next note."

Li An then demonstrated an incorrect example, holding the rest for only a quarter of a beat instead of half. "See, doesn’t that make the rhythm feel rushed and chaotic?"

Xiaobei nodded.

Li An patiently concluded, "That’s the mistake you just made. We have to treat the rest as a special kind of note, never underestimating its presence. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Xiaobei replied, then asked, "Teacher, besides not producing a sound, is there any difference between a rest and a regular note?"

This child certainly liked to think from different angles, Li An noticed once again. But Xiaobei was absolutely correct.

"That’s right. Now, I’ll give you two minutes to correct this section."

Xiaobei began to make the corrections.

Listening to Xiaobei’s revised playing, even Old Dong felt the music flowed better.

After sitting through the lesson, he felt he’d learned quite a lot himself. He finally understood rests now—a special, silent note—he would remember that.

He also realized that the piano could play melodies with both hands. Previously, he’d thought the piano was only for the right hand to play the melody and the left for accompaniment.

He’d learned something new.

Compared to yesterday’s lesson, Old Dong felt Li An’s teaching was indeed clearer than some other teachers. Everything he said was understandable: what he wanted the students to do, and what the expected outcome was.

After years in art education and training, though he lacked professional music knowledge, Old Dong knew that to judge a teacher’s effectiveness, all you needed was to see if they could make themselves clear.

Thinking back, if it hadn’t been for Huang Juan insisting on keeping Li An, Yudong might have lost an excellent young teacher.

4.2.

Saved.

Originally, Old Dong had planned to give Li An a score of 4 if he was just adequate. But after the lesson, he genuinely felt impressed. Plus, recalling how he had nearly let Li An go, he decided to bump the score up to 4.2.

The more he thought about it, the more satisfied he was—it was a fair score, and not much different from the leader’s.

After submitting the score, Old Dong’s job was done. As he left, he saw Li An speaking with a student’s parent, patted him on the shoulder, and turned toward Zhang Youwei’s classroom.