Chapter 24 Fire and Light

Just as Jin Zhao and Meng Yanxi were subtly bickering, Zhao Yu, the literature and art committee member, actually fell down next door.

Zhao Yu was the only student in Class A who was preparing for both academic and artistic studies. She had been studying dance for years, and her debut performance was a professional dance drama called "The Goddess of the Luo River." This dance has many difficult moves, and Zhao Yu slipped and fractured her ankle while performing a quick somersault.

Although their choreography was a group dance, the other six girls had not received formal dance training, and all the difficult moves were concentrated on Zhao Yu alone. Now that the lead dancer is injured, the performance has to be canceled.

The girls who participated were all a little disappointed, after all, they had all practiced together for many days, and even squeezed out time from doing homework to practice. Jin Zhao was also a little disappointed. Putting aside the gossip-filled poll on the forum, what she was most looking forward to was Zhao Yu's "Luoshen," she really liked that dance.

The next day was Saturday. There was no broadcast gymnastics during the long break. Chen Shu suddenly called Jin Zhao to his office and asked her if she would like to take over Zhao Yu's dance "The Goddess of the Luo River".

Jin Zhao was shocked to hear such a terrible idea and quickly refused: "No, teacher, that's too professional. Although I learned it when I was a child, I haven't had systematic dance training for many years. I can't dance it!"

Chen Shu was also somewhat surprised. Looking at Jin Zhao, he said thoughtfully, "Is it not possible? But Meng Yanxi strongly recommended you. He said you could do it."

Jin Zhao: "..."

Back in the classroom, Jin Zhao was nearly driven mad.

Meng Yanxi was sitting in a chair twirling a pen. Lu Jingyue, leaning casually against the table opposite him in the aisle, was whispering something to him. Meng Yanxi's expression was nonchalant; he didn't say a word.

He noticed her return immediately, and his previously indifferent eyes warmed instantly. Seeing the displeasure on her face, he very considerately stood up from a distance to make way for her.

When Jin Zhao passed by him, he really wanted to kick him.

Meng Yanxi looked down at her, a smirk playing on her lips, a roguish and wicked smile, like a scoundrel.

Lu Jingyue glanced at the two of them, and before he could finish speaking, he tactfully walked away without saying a word to end the conversation. He figured no one would listen to his conclusion anyway.

"Why did you tell the teacher that I could dance 'The Goddess of the Luo River'?" Jin Zhao asked him in a low voice as soon as he sat down.

"Can't you?" the culprit asked innocently.

"No." Even a rabbit will bite when cornered, and Jin Zhao was just like that rabbit, glaring at him angrily, her eyes red like a rabbit's. "I never said I was going to dance 'The Goddess of the Luo River'!"

Meng Yanxi turned her gaze to her, paused for a moment, and asked, "Why?"

Jin Zhao: "What?"

Meng Yanxi: "Why don't you want to dance 'The Goddess of the Luo River'?"

Jin Zhao was shocked and asked, "No... I don't want to go to Tsinghua or Peking University, is it that I don't want to?"

Meng Yanxi: "..."

Jin Zhao's emotions were truly stable. Even at this point, he hadn't directly hit him. He was still trying to reason with him: "Do you know how professional 'The Goddess of the Luo River' is? I did start learning dance at a relatively young age, so I have some basic skills, but I haven't had systematic training for many years. Now I can only dance popular songs. I can't dance professional songs like this! No, if you hadn't tricked me into signing up, I wouldn't even know how to dance popular songs."

She grew increasingly angry with him as she spoke: "I don't know why you have such terrifying confidence in me. I don't even have that kind of confidence myself. Do you know what my situation is right now? Right now, I'm somewhere where the good students aren't as good at dancing as I am, and the good dancers aren't as good at studying as I am. I'm a bit of both, but I'm not particularly good at either."

Meng Yanxi listened quietly to her finish speaking, then asked thoughtfully, "Isn't it impressive?"

Jin Zhao told him definitively, "It's not that bad."

Jin Zhao was furious and directly exposed his sinister intentions: "I saw it a long time ago. You don't actually like dancing at all, you don't want to dance, and you even resist all performances. You even insist on closing the front and back doors during our rehearsals, and you don't even want passersby to look at you! You just wanted to trick me into signing up, and now you want me to dance 'The Goddess of the Luo River,' so our program can be canceled—killing two birds with one stone. Meng Yanxi, you really, really..."

Jin Zhao was so angry that tears were about to come out, but even so, she couldn't bring herself to say anything harsh to him.

She just stared at him, angrily, and finally said nothing, turning her head away from him. She tilted her head slightly, looking out the window.

Even so, she would inevitably see him. The quiet figure of the boy beside her was reflected in the windowpane.

He turned his head and stared at her. After a while, he leaned towards her, as if he wanted to say something.

Just then, the class bell rang, and the English teacher and the English class representative, Si Tian, ​​came in one after the other carrying the test papers from the last exam. Meng Yanxi paused for a moment, then went back inside.

During this class, the two ignored each other. To be precise, Jin Zhao unilaterally ignored Meng Yanxi, sitting far away from him, wishing he could turn himself into an exam paper and stick it on the window.

Even scoring 143 on her English test couldn't make her happy.

Meng Yanxi's test paper showed a score of 138, 5 points lower than hers. Perhaps afraid she wouldn't see it and wouldn't be able to add to her joy, he didn't flip the paper even though the English teacher was already at the end of the lesson. He just casually spread the side with the score on the table, and even moved it a little closer to her.

The bright red number 138, you have to admit, really does look like a flower drawn on his exam paper.

Unfortunately, these mere 5 points couldn't make Jin Zhao happy.

She glanced at it casually later and noticed that Meng Yanxi had a white earphone in the ear closest to her, and a video was playing on her phone under the table.

The teacher was explaining cloze tests, and he was watching videos below.

She couldn't help but glance at it quickly; it was a dance video of "The Goddess of the Luo River".

He still dared to watch!

Jin Zhao completely ignored him.

Meng Yanxi watched half of the class.

Dance is not a cloze test where there is only one answer to a sentence. The same piece of music can have countless choreography options, and each dancer has a different interpretation.

Meng Yanxi doesn't know anything about dance, but in this English class, he watched all the popular choreography videos for this piece.

Just before class ended, a piece of paper suddenly appeared in Jin Zhao's line of sight, and her slender fingers pushed the paper in front of her.

The black ink on white paper, with its powerful strokes and elegant lines, conceals a vibrant and unrestrained style.

—If I go on stage alone to dance "Preface to the Orchid Pavilion", can you dance "The Goddess of the Luo River"?

Jin Zhao looked up at him.

The boy had dark eyebrows and eyes that seemed to be seeking peace.

Seeing that she didn't react, Meng Yanxi leaned over and wrote below with a pen:

—I've invited Teacher Yu Yu to come and choreograph a dance for you.

—Only once.

*

Jin Zhao didn't know if Meng Yanxi's last sentence, "only once," meant that he would only trick her this once and never do it again, or that this was the only time in their three years of high school.

She has a mild temperament and certainly wouldn't volunteer for such an activity, especially since the college entrance exam is just around the corner next year. Her grades aren't outstanding, she has no competition awards, and she won't qualify for direct admission. Even if she begged and pleaded to participate, the school probably wouldn't let her. These three years of her youth are the best they can hope for; it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and as Chen Shu said, she wants to create a shining moment for herself.

Jin Zhao finally nodded.

Perhaps she was soft-hearted because of Meng Yanxi's plea for reconciliation, or perhaps, deep down, she also longed for it.

Who hasn't secretly fantasized about being the center of attention, shining brightly? Even the most ordinary girl.

Weekends are the busiest time for training schools. As far as Jin Zhao knows, Teacher Yu Yu has a large class every Sunday. She doesn't know how Meng Yanxi managed to persuade her, but Teacher Yu Yu appeared in the affiliated middle school's activity room the next day.

Unlike Jin Zhao, who had long since given up on the path of an art student, Zhao Yu's family had prepared her for both academic and artistic pursuits, and Zhao Yu had consistently persisted in practicing dance. Jin Zhao's judgment was correct; Zhao Yu's choreography was simply too difficult for her to perform, given her lack of practice in recent years, at least not in the remaining three days. Fortunately, Meng Yanxi invited Teacher Yu Yu, who had taught Jin Zhao dance for many years and knew her strengths and weaknesses best. Teacher Yu Yu made slight modifications to several of the lead dance movements, perfectly tailored to Jin Zhao's strengths and weaknesses, with minimal alterations, yet the effect was stunning.

The arts festival is on Wednesday, it'll be here in no time.

The park was open for exhibitions during the day, but classes still had to be held as usual. Jin Zhao took advantage of the lunch break to visit the calligraphy exhibition area, but unfortunately, he didn't see any of Meng Yanxi's works.

Back in the classroom, she casually asked Meng Yanxi why she hadn't signed up for calligraphy in the end.

Meng Yanxi was looking down at her WeChat message, saying it wasn't necessary.

Jin Zhao was taken aback: "What do you mean it's unnecessary?"

The six dresses ordered from the boutique have all been delivered to the Meng family. Meng Yanxi asked the housekeeper to retrieve a black and white box from the top shelf of his walk-in closet and give it to the driver so that the driver could deliver it to the school as well.

After sending the message, Meng Yanxi put her phone under the table and looked up at Jin Zhao.

After a two-second silence, he asked, "You're not angry with me anymore?"

Jin Zhao: "..."

Of course, Jin Zhao stubbornly refused to admit to this embarrassing situation: "How could I be angry with you?"

"No?" The boy smiled faintly, picked up the pen beside him and started twirling it. "The way you looked that day, you clearly wanted to beat me up."

Jin Zhao: "...You've mistaken me for someone else."

Meng Yanxi seemed quite confident: "Probably not. I've seen too many, I'm unlikely to be wrong."

Jin Zhao: "What's too much?"

Meng Yanxi: "I often see the expression on other people's faces from that day."

Jin Zhao: "..."

People often want to beat him up. Is that something to be proud of?

Jin Zhao suddenly realized that Meng Yanxi was not only silly and a rascal, but also quite shameless.

So how could she have thought he was an unattainable beauty? She must have been blind.

To prepare for the evening's gala, the first and second year students scheduled their last afternoon class as a self-study period, and students with performances went to the auditorium to rehearse, put on makeup, and change clothes.

Because the homeroom teachers mobilized the class too late, many of the programs, apart from the initial voluntary entries, were just filler, mainly because the rehearsal time was too tight. For example, Class 3 signed up for the chorus, but according to Wang Jiajia, including the previous rehearsal, they only did two rehearsals in total. They didn't even have performance costumes, and went on stage in their school uniforms, emphasizing participation.

In comparison, Class A's performance was incredibly sincere. They had three programs in total: Meng Yanxi's sword dance "Preface to the Orchid Pavilion", Luo Heng and Si Tian's crosstalk "Life is Getting Better", and Jin Zhao and her seven-person group dance "Goddess of the Luo River".

Meng Yanxi, Luo Heng, and Si Tian all wore their own clothes, but the group dance required uniform attire. Chen Shu said that funds were allocated from the class fund, and the girls' sizes were registered in advance, but the clothes were not delivered to the auditorium backstage until after the afternoon dismissal bell rang.

They had already finished their simple makeup, but the girls couldn't find their dresses after searching around. They were worried that the dresses wouldn't arrive by the time they went on stage, or that the dresses that were delivered at the last minute wouldn't fit and would affect their performance. They were so anxious that they were pacing around in circles.

"Who's in charge of the costumes? Why haven't they been delivered yet?"

"I don't know. It was originally Zhao Yu's, but now Zhao Yu is hospitalized."

"Sister Shu, please."

"No, Sister Shu went to a meeting this afternoon and wasn't at school. She won't be back until tonight!"

"That's it, we're doomed..."

Just then, two staff members came in one after the other, each carrying three large cardboard boxes.

The black and white color scheme, tied with ribbons, and the overly exquisite packaging made the girls glance at it from afar before immediately looking away, continuing their search through a pile of clothes in transparent plastic bags in the corner, trying to find their performance costumes. They didn't even notice Meng Yanxi, who followed the staff in, also carrying a cardboard box.

It wasn't until Meng Yanxi and her staff walked up to them and distributed dresses according to their reported sizes that everyone realized that the boxes contained their performance costumes.

Has Taobao's packaging become this sophisticated now?

Looking at the expensive logo on the box, this is hardly a Taobao wholesaler. Brands that you can only see in fashion magazines or have counters in top-tier department stores are now being held in the arms of young women.

They were all just ordinary high school students. Even though some of the girls came from wealthy families, they weren't extravagant enough to wear such high-end brands at a regular school arts festival. Everyone was a little confused.

"Is there some mistake?"

"Who in our class was in charge of the costumes again?"

“That’s right, I’ll take responsibility.” Meng Yanxi said, placing the cardboard box in her hand into Jin Zhao’s hand.

“This one is yours.” He looked at Jin Zhao with his dark, peach-blossom eyes.

Jin Zhao's fingertips unexpectedly touched the delicate ridge pattern on the surface of the cardboard box, and she looked at him in surprise.

Meng Yanxi gestured to her: "Open it and take a look. If it doesn't fit, it will need to be altered."

The phrase "It still needs to be changed" sounded like a curse, immediately pulling the group of shocked girls back to their senses. Without asking any further questions, they quickly untied the ribbons binding the boxes.

The moment the lid was lifted, the fabric wrapped in silk lining came into view.

Exclamations of surprise rose and fell from all around.

"Wow!"

Holy crap!

"Oh my god! This is so beautiful!"

Jin Zhao also took a light breath.

Inside the box, the silk gown lay still like a solidified flame. It was an almost flowing crimson, the color of red jade tempered in fire, or as if it had been crushed by the sunset and soaked into the satin. One glance was enough to convince one that truly superior fabric could be recognized by the eye.

The girls couldn't wait to go to the dressing room to change into their dance dresses.

All seven dresses are from the same brand and collection, but they are still different. The dresses worn by the six backup dancers are boutique styles, while Jin Zhao's are runway styles. The boutique styles are more suitable for everyday wear, retaining only the fabric of the runway styles. The cuts are relatively simple, and the skirts no longer have feathers. The most outstanding feature is the flowing luster as the dress drapes, creating a shimmering effect.

The dress that Zhao wore was the designer's masterpiece, with meticulous attention to detail incorporating the golden hues of the setting sun and the delicate feathers of the clouds into the long skirt.

Backstage at the auditorium, the door to the dressing room was pulled open from the inside. Meng Yanxi, who was leaning against the dressing table, was listening to Luo Heng speak. When he heard a very slight noise from the dressing room, he immediately turned his head to look.

The warm yellow stage lighting first enveloped a flowing flame, and then Jin Zhao walked out, lifting her skirt.

The sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl was like a gardenia bud, pure and white, untouched by any dust. She wore a long silk dress that looked like red jade being tempered by fire. Below her waist, fluffy white feathers and crimson-tipped feathers were arranged irregularly. As she moved, it was as if the wind was swirling the feathers and they landed on her dress, and snowy star waves floated in the flames.

That night, the stage lights were dazzling and bright, and the spotlights were as scorching as the sun, but Meng Yanxi could only see her.

All the light became her background; she herself was like a part of the fire and light.

Meng Yanxi's sword dance had already ended. He didn't go backstage but sat in the audience. After Si Tian and Luo Heng's crosstalk, it was her turn to perform "The Goddess of the Luo River".

As the curtain fell and then slowly rose again, the stage had transformed into a water stage with a pure white background, resembling the shores of Luoshui Lake in winter.

The girl, dressed in a red silk dress adorned with feathers, leaped lightly on her toes, resembling a true goddess.

Meng Yanxi heard people around her exclaim in surprise—

"So beautiful! She really looks like the Goddess of the Luo River!"

"Yes, graceful as a startled swan, elegant as a swimming dragon!"

"No, no, she dances quite well, but not the best. How should I put it? What's most beautiful about her is the clean and compassionate aura she exudes, like a god, which is very attractive."

"You know what, you really can't believe it... I'm a girl, and I'm almost falling in love with her!"

"Hey, what's her name?"

"I don't know, it's a performance by Class A, I'll ask them later..."

“Jin Zhao.” Meng Yanxi, who was sitting in the front row, suddenly spoke up.

The students in the back row were taken aback.

Meng Yanxi had such a powerful aura that everyone noticed him the moment he sat down, but knowing his aloof personality, no one dared to speak to him. His sudden interruption was something no one had expected.

Sensing the sudden silence in the back row, he even turned around slightly to look at them and repeated: "Jin Zhao. Jin as in this year, Zhao as in the sacred flame."

The students in the back row, who seemed a bit slow to react, were flattered and said, "Oh, okay, okay, thank you, Master Meng!"

Meng Yanxi turned back to continue watching Jin Zhao on the stage.

Lu Jingyue, who was standing next to him, glanced at the few people in the back row whom he had never seen before, wondering if they were juniors or seniors, and then looked at Meng Yanxi, smiling meaningfully.

Lu Jingyue leaned forward slightly, teasingly saying, "God Meng went to great lengths, spending money and effort, even risking his life to dance on stage, all for the sake of exchanging the final line—'Jin Zhao. Jin as in today, Zhao as in the sacred flame shining brightly.'"

Meng Yanxi looked at the girl in the center of the stage, as if she hadn't heard anything.

A breathtaking dance, like a dream spanning a thousand years. At the end, the audience erupted in applause, with boys and girls alike shouting in amazement.

Meng Yanxi sat quietly amidst the roar of the crowd, while the girl in the stands, like fire and light, smiled as she took her final bow.

He always remembered what Jin Zhao said to that thug that day—"I will not covet fleeting companionship, comfort, and affirmation, even if I am in dire straits and helpless. Because I know how wonderful and precious I am, even if no one else can see it, it doesn't matter, I know it myself."

Can't anyone see this?

How could I not see it?

Now you see it, right?

From then on, even in difficult circumstances, they would never be alone and helpless.

-----------------------

Author's Note: Meng Yanxi is truly a pure lover; he was already lifting up his wife while still in high school!

——

Sorry, everyone. The angle from which the story began in the second half of the last chapter was wrong, which caused the pacing to completely fall apart. I spent all night writing last night and it just didn't feel right, so I went back and revised the second half of the plot today. If you've forgotten about it, you don't need to go back and read it again; the story's direction hasn't changed, only the way it's presented has.

The next chapter will be the last one on campus, and the chapter after that will take us back to the city!