56. An Appetizer Before the Assessment-Please, Go Home and Practice Your Instrument(Mozart Bay)

At 4:30 in the afternoon, a message came through the group chat: all teachers participating in the evening assessment were to go to the stage for a sound check. A lively group set out in grand fashion toward Huayang Theater.

The concert hall wasn’t large, with about 300 seats by rough estimate. The stage looked relatively new, and just big enough to accommodate a double woodwind orchestra.

Li An glanced around and quickly settled himself in a front-row seat near the center. He planned to wait until the other teachers had finished before taking his turn.

It wasn’t that he intended to steal the spotlight by going last; firstly, he was the newest among all the teachers, and secondly, he wanted to hear how the hall sounded before he played.

Just because Li An had no wish to stand out didn’t mean others felt the same. Lin Pengfei was the first to leap onto the stage.

He sat before the grand piano and showed off snippets: a bit of “Winter Wind Etude,” a bit of “La Campanella,” and finally a touch of the Blue Danube’s ending as arranged by Zilaf. It sounded impressive at first, but each piece was only a fragment.

Li An could guess blindfolded that the man couldn’t play any of those pieces in full.

From Lin Pengfei’s sound check, he noticed the hall was a little damp in its acoustics. When he went on stage, he might need to shift the piano’s position slightly.

Different concert halls have different acoustics by design. Someone used to practicing in a studio might feel unsettled performing on stage for the first time—sometimes unable to hear themselves properly. And the music heard on stage is different from how it sounds in the audience.

Experienced performers adjust themselves to the venue. Take Chen Xuan, for instance.

Chen Xuan went on stage, tried playing from several different spots, and finally marked her chosen position with tape on the floor. That would be her spot for tonight’s performance.

By contrast, Zhang Youwei, who followed her, simply grabbed his saxophone and played wildly, even interacting with Lin Pengfei as he played.

“Mr. Zhang, show us some overblowing!”

Zhang Youwei responded by playing a tune Li An couldn’t name. He didn’t really understand the technique, but it sounded mediocre to him. Zhang’s stage presence was more like a bar saxophonist—not at all classical.

The next to go up, Xu Nana, was much smarter. She went straight to the spot Chen Xuan had marked, played half an etude, and left the stage.

Then, Ni Hongjie and Jia Lu took their turns.

Only after Tian Yu finished moving the piano and stepped down did Li An finally get up and head to the stage.

By then, nearly forty minutes had passed. Both backstage and front-of-house were busy but almost ready, and everyone was watching Li An, the last to go up, with interest.

“Brother An, play something awesome!” Xu Hongxin called out from the audience.

Li An wasn’t sure what counted as “awesome,” but Tian Yu’s Mozart from earlier was impressive. Besides, he’d already moved the piano towards the edge of the stage, sparing Li An the effort. On this, Li An trusted Tian Yu’s experience.

He approached the piano and glanced at it—

Kawa—sk5.

He thought to himself that if he could own an SK5 one day, he’d be content for life. Putting his phone aside, he sat down.

Despite the noisy crowd and the lack of focused lighting, the moment he sat, an old, familiar feeling returned to him.

There was always something magical about sitting on stage. Li An took a deep breath—there it was, the faint scent of wood slightly dampened by humidity.

“Mr. Li, play ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’!” someone called.

“Flight of the Bumblebee”—with a battle ahead in three hours? He wasn’t in the mood for something so intense.

He raised his hands, still pondering what to play, but the moment his fingers touched the keys, inspiration struck.

A lazy melody flowed from his hands, the SK-5’s touch impossibly smooth. His fingers glided among the black and white keys, spinning a tune as languid as a sunset beach—inviting one to lie down and rest.

But in the next instant, the music shifted. Li An smiled, slowing the tempo, letting the music hang in a moment of suspense. Then, with a provocative dotted rhythm in the right hand and syncopated chords in the left, it was like two sea breezes—one gentle, one strong—sweeping through in turn.

First, the window flung open; then, a girl’s fringe was brushed from her brow.

Watching Li An’s calm, smiling face at the piano, Chen Xuan felt she’d seen this scene in a dream.

He was playing the very piece now echoing in her ears—

Magic Waltz.

Li An often chose this piece for commercial performances. Song Sheng had said many patrons loved it, and it had unwittingly become his signature piece at Blue Whale.

As the swaying triplets, like waves, faded away, Li An’s phone rang beside the piano.

He glanced at the screen and stopped playing.

For a moment, only the ringtone filled the hall.

“Important call,” he quipped, picking up the phone and drawing a few laughs as he walked backstage.

The hall grew noisy again as everyone went back to their tasks. Many, seeing this typically quiet, classroom-bound colleague in a new light, found him surprisingly interesting.

A final little interlude before the skills assessment.

—

“Hello, Song?”

“Yes, yes.”

“No problem at all. I’ll send you the location. When you arrive, just take your child to the second floor—you’ll see the concert hall doors right away.”

“Right. Thank you, thank you.”

After hanging up with Song Sheng, Li An called Liu Fengrui’s father. Once he’d confirmed their arrival, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Xiaobei’s family, Liu Fengrui’s family, Ji Yang’s family, Song Sheng’s family—all would bring their children tonight. The only regret was that Wang Xiaohu couldn’t make it. Otherwise, everyone would be there.

Li An glanced at his list of potential students: even Lin Pengfei, at the bottom, was scheduled for seven o’clock.

He wondered how the list would change after tonight. Would Xiaobei break eighty?

He looked forward to finding out.

Suddenly, he had a thought—what if, while he was playing, the student index kept flashing updates before his eyes? Wouldn’t that affect his performance?

At the idea, Li An hurriedly searched through the panel—and, thankfully, found the option to disable notifications tucked in a corner.

He selected it.

After the sound check, Li An said goodbye to Xu Hongxin and a few others and left first.

All the pre-performance tasks were done; now, it was just a matter of waiting.

With two hours to go before he went on stage, he planned to head home for a nap.

—

As dusk fell, people began to file into the concert hall on Huayang Theater’s second floor.

In no time, the entire hall was packed, a sea of heads filling every seat.

Children’s excited laughter and shouts merged into a single, boisterous chorus, nearly lifting the concert hall’s roof.

Young teachers from both the West and East Wing offices, along with various support staff who weren’t participating in the assessment, served as volunteers to help maintain order.

“Good evening, our teachers will be performing for you shortly. Please keep an eye on your children and help maintain order in the hall.”

At 7:30 p.m., as the stage lights came on, a thunderous wave of applause erupted from the crowd.

“Wha———————————————”