48. Two Types of Elusive Mysteries

“First place, Teacher Tian Yu, 21.6 points.”

“Second place, Teacher Li An, 20.8 points.”

“Third place, Teacher Xu Nana, 20.6 points.”

“Fourth place, Teacher Lin Pengfei, 18.35 points.”

“Fifth place, Teacher Jia Lu, 17.74 points.”

“Sixth place, Teacher Chen Xuan, 17.2 points.”

“Seventh place, Teacher Zhang Youwei, 16.7 points.”

“Eighth place, Teacher Ni Hongjie, 16.4 points.”

Those who had been keeping an eye on the assessment already had a rough idea of how the rankings would turn out.

Tian Yu’s unchallenged first place was only natural; neither his qualifications nor his teaching experience could be matched by most of the younger teachers on the list.

Looking at the top four, aside from Xu Nana from the wind instruments group, the rest all came from the piano group.

The three group leaders each reacted differently.

Huang Juan, beneath her calm expression, couldn’t hide a hint of pride.

He Yiming looked rather displeased, especially seeing Li An ranked above Xu Nana, as if mirroring how he himself was ranked below Huang Juan—this only made him feel more frustrated.

Deng Yingnan, as always, wore a smiling, detached look; he didn’t care much about the outcome of this assessment. From the start, he knew it wasn’t his string group’s turn this time, so when it came to scoring, he made sure to offend no one.

Truth be told, he had also given Xu Nana a score of 4.7 out of respect for He Yiming. But if teaching ability was truly considered, Li An was indeed more comprehensive and content-rich than Xu Nana.

He felt the rankings were fair.

The observant had already noticed that this list differed little from the one Qin Yong had first announced: the top three remained unchanged, Lin Pengfei climbed to fourth ahead of Jia Lu, and Chen Xuan rose to sixth.

However, after Old Dong added the business and attendance scores up to this point for all eight teachers, Jia Lu, thanks to two extra points for new student enrollments the previous day, regained her spot ahead of Lin Pengfei and became fourth.

Ni Hongjie gained a point for a course renewal, moving up to seventh, pushing Zhang Youwei to the bottom again.

The top three remained unchanged.

Apart from the first week when Xu Nana and Ni Hongjie had 0.1 and 0.2 points deducted respectively, no other teacher had attendance issues.

Looking at the new adjusted scores, the gap among the top four, including Tian Yu, was still minuscule. Any one of the teachers ranked second, third, or fourth only needed to recruit one new student to catch up with or even surpass Tian Yu.

Those in the lower half only needed two new student enrollments to become competitive again.

Therefore, even with this round of assessment concluded, the prospects for advancement remained uncertain.

“Keep up the good work, everyone,” Qin Yong announced before the meeting ended. He declared that the formal assessment of teachers’ professional skills would begin in five days.

“The three group leaders, please stay. The rest are dismissed.”

...

...

Three days passed in a blur, and Yudong was exceptionally lively during this time.

Everyone, from top to bottom, was preparing for the professional skills assessment scheduled for the 27th and 28th.

The administrators busied themselves with phoning every parent to confirm details about the upcoming public evaluation. Most parents, upon hearing of it, expressed a strong interest.

It was indeed novel—most had never seen their children’s teachers perform on stage before.

With such a free opportunity to enter a formal concert hall, they could bring their children to observe and learn from the teachers’ performances, making it a worthwhile family outing during the sweltering summer.

Each day, many parents came to Yudong to inquire about how to sign up, including some whose children had previously withdrawn from classes.

The administrative staff were run off their feet, and the teachers were hardly idle.

Those participating in the assessment were busy both preparing for the exam and promoting themselves.

Those not involved took the opportunity to try to win back students who had previously suspended their lessons. Coupled with the summer course renewal promotions, many teachers saw an uptick in enrollment.

In just three days, Yudong’s finances recorded an additional sixty thousand yuan in transactions.

Although this was not yet profit, the first step in Qin Yong’s three-part plan was already showing results.

In contrast to Yudong’s feverish activity, Li An’s past few days were particularly calm.

He followed his daily routine—going to work, leaving work, teaching when there was class, practicing piano when there wasn’t. When hungry, he’d eat some bread in the practice room, seldom returning to the office.

Aside from spending a bit of time with Wang Xiaohu on his way to tutor Ji Yang on Tuesday evening, he barely looked at his phone the rest of the time.

His thoughts were wholly occupied with the upcoming professional skills assessment.

To be honest, his piano practice had not gone smoothly these past two days.

He increasingly felt a conflict between the playing habits left by the body’s original owner and his own style.

After some analysis, he believed the crux of the issue lay in their differing habits of using the thumb.

The thumb is indeed a pivot point when playing scales and arpeggios.

But relying on it too much can lead to unintended accents when playing other passages.

The original owner’s habit was to let the hand drop freely each time the thumb struck a key, without maintaining a consistent hand height; sometimes the thumb would even fall below the level of the keys.

Li An, on the other hand, preferred to keep his thumb naturally curved, forming an “O” shape with his second finger once his hand was positioned.

These two types of muscle memory, coexisting in one body, became a source of trouble for Li An.

When playing fast passages with alternating black and white keys that involved the thumb, he had to consciously allocate part of his attention to managing its movement, which made the music fall short of the fluidity he desired.

He’d identified the problem—but how to solve it?

This wasn’t the sort of issue that could be fixed by watching a few masterclass videos online.

Just like how he used to unconsciously stick to the keys in every phrase, he needed a teacher to descend like a deus ex machina.

If someone could just give him a gentle pointer, he’d gladly pay three thousand yuan.

But who could he turn to?

Teacher Wei might be able to help, but at the moment, he didn’t know how to ask.

Ah.

He’d just have to keep practicing and see.

After finishing Wednesday’s practice, Li An returned to the office to hand over the day’s three class progress reports to Wang Panpan before leaving. Just as he was about to go, Xu Hongxin called out to him:

“An, don’t be so tense, relax a little. Tonight’s my treat—let’s go to the Southwest Night Market for some street food. It’s really popular right now.”

Li An replied, “I’ve got work. You all go and have fun.”

Ma Tao said, “No way, we agreed to wait for you to finish so we could all go together.”

Li An hesitated, glancing at Wang Panpan and Chen Xuan. The former looked indifferent, while the latter seemed a little expectant, so he nodded and agreed.

...

That evening, after finishing work at Blue Whale, Li An took a taxi to the Southwest Night Market.

One by one, everyone arrived, and for the first time, all five colleagues from the office gathered together.

After a few rounds of drinks, Wang Panpan, being the youngest and the newest member of the West Office, began to toast everyone, starting with Chen Xuan.

Finally, she raised her glass to Li An. “Senior Li.”

Over time, Wang Panpan’s opinion of Li An had slowly changed.

He was nothing like the playboy she’d imagined, always drifting between women.

Instead, he came across as mature, steady, and hard-working—that was the new impression he left her.

But whenever she recalled how her roommate had once locked herself away in the dorm, crying day after day,

She couldn’t help but think that someone like him didn’t deserve forgiveness.