41 Chapter 41
◎Selection of Photographers◎
The school put a lot of effort into this high school arts festival. In addition to arranging for teachers within the school to choreograph the dances, they also invited a group of professional teachers from outside the school to provide guidance.
Zhan Xinyue was chosen to participate in the opening dance. The opening was a medley of dances, modern dance followed by folk dance. Because the teacher said she had a classical temperament, she was assigned to the folk dance group, just like in her previous life.
Because it was a medley, the dance was actually quite short and the movements weren't particularly complex, but she had never learned to dance before and was determined to do it well, so she still put in a lot of effort.
Perhaps because she had practiced each movement too many times in her previous life, more than ten years later, when she heard the familiar music again, she found that she had actually retained a little bit of muscle memory. After two days of training, she became the fastest learner in the group this time, and was praised by the teacher several times.
She never imagined in her life that she would one day receive praise for her dancing, and it felt quite magical.
After finishing her dance practice in the afternoon, Zhan Xinyue hurriedly went to the cafeteria for lunch and walked back to the classroom. Just as she turned out of the stairwell, she saw Vice Principal Gao Qiang and Shi Ziqian standing face to face at the entrance of Class 10, talking.
She only glanced at him, but she felt she could roughly guess why Gao Qiang had come to see her this time.
A few days ago, it was already circulating in the grade that Gao Qiang wanted to find a few students with excellent grades and good looks from each grade to take a set of promotional photos for use before the art festival. When Zhan Xinyue heard about this, she felt that his main intention was probably similar to last time. Now that she saw him come to find Shi Ziqian again, she was even more certain.
He had approached Shi Ziqian a long time ago, asking him to give a presentation to the school board as a student representative at the arts festival, but Shi Ziqian had refused. Unexpectedly, after so much time, he hadn't given up and had come up with another idea.
As she passed by, she happened to overhear Gao Qiang's consultative tone: "The candidates for the other two grades have been decided, but we're still short a few people for your second year of high school. Can you do me a favor?"
She guessed right; it really was that.
Shi Ziqian had her back to this side, and it was impossible to tell what expression she had. From this side, all she could see was Gao Qiang's face full of a kind smile, his eyes almost squinting together.
Although Zhan Xinyue was curious about how Shi Ziqian would respond, she was too embarrassed to eavesdrop on what the two were saying, so she entered the classroom through the back door.
She had been rehearsing in the art building for the past two days, not in the classroom. As soon as she came in, she saw Xie Wanzhi sitting in her seat naturally. The listlessness of the past few days was gone. She was chatting and laughing with Xin Wenhua. Before she even entered the room, the laughter had already reached her ears.
Zhan Xinyue walked back to her seat from the back row and tapped the table to signal her to move: "You're laughing so happily, it seems you're confident you can satisfy Old Zhou in the next monthly exam."
Xie Wanzhi stopped laughing, looked up and saw her, then slowly stood up: "You're back, Xinyue. Xin Wenhua and I were just talking about you when you came back. How's your dance practice going?"
Zhan Xinyue sat down casually: "It'll do. What are you two talking about me about?"
"So what if 'just okay' means 'not bad'? See? I told you you're way more suited to dancing than me. If it were me, I'd probably be having a breakdown right now," Xie Wanzhi said.
Zhan Xinyue looked at her and said, "I'm going crazy too. I just had one on the way back, but what can I do? I still have to go jump, since you don't want to go."
"Just kidding, how could someone as emotionally stable as you go crazy?" Xie Wanzhi chuckled and changed the subject. "I was just talking to Xin Wenhua. Since you left, you haven't been in any of the dance classes. I've become a left-behind elderly person and can only come to your spot to keep warm with him."
Xin Wenhua immediately said to Zhan Xinyue, "When are you going to stop practicing this dance? When you're not here, my older sister is so bored that she keeps bothering me to chat with her for the whole class, which means I didn't get to play soccer."
"Who's the eldest sister?" Xie Wanzhi pinched his arm until Xin Wenhua grimaced and his face contorted in a grimace before she stopped. "Show some respect to your father, understand?"
Xin Wenhua escaped from her grasp and rubbed her arm for a long time: "With a violent temper like yours, you'll never be able to get married."
Xie Wanzhi glanced at him and said, "Then you don't need to worry about it. I'm much better at finding a partner than you are. You should worry about yourself instead."
"Tch, I'm not talking to you anymore. Now that Xinyue is back, I'm making my exit. You two go have fun, I'm going out." Xin Wenhua ran away.
After he left, Zhan Xinyue picked up her pen and twirled it around, saying casually, "By the way, Xie Wanzhi, I ran into Xu Shen when I went to dance rehearsal the other day."
"Xu Shen? It feels like I haven't heard that name in ages since your hand healed." Xie Wanzhi was a little surprised. "Is he rehearsing over there too?"
"More or less."
“That makes sense. He seems to be in the student union's arts and sports department, so he'll definitely be there for these kinds of events. It looks like you two will be running into each other quite often.” Xie Wanzhi nodded and asked, “You two bumped into each other, and then what?”
"Then he greeted me."
Xie Wanzhi sat down in Xin Wenhua's chair, seemingly waiting to listen attentively to what she had to say next, but after a while she didn't hear her say anything else, she asked in confusion, "That's it? That's it?"
"Otherwise what?"
Xie Wanzhi was speechless: "You suddenly told me this, I thought something had happened between you two, but it turns out it's just this little bit of a story."
Zhan Xinyue smiled and said, "I just mentioned it casually."
"Alright, but speaking of this, I've always felt that Xu Shen has a bit of a thing for you." Xie Wanzhi sighed with regret, "You two haven't seen each other for so long, and he only greeted you and didn't say anything more."
Finally, she sighed again, "What a pity, he was really quite handsome."
"Is he handsome?" Zhan Xinyue said, "I don't really feel that way. Maybe it's because I've been sitting with Shi Ziqian for so long that I don't find anyone else handsome anymore."
Xie Wanzhi smacked her lips: "Let's forget about Shi Ziqian. He's not exactly an ordinary person. We should be more realistic. Xu Shen is definitely one of the most handsome guys in our grade. He has a great personality, is approachable, and gets along with everyone. He's much better than Shi Ziqian in that respect..."
Zhan Xinyue didn't reply, her gaze lingering on her face, lost in thought.
Xie Wanzhi was about to say something more when she saw Shi Ziqian finally finish his conversation with Gao Qiang and return to the classroom, walking towards his seat, so she stopped talking.
Zhan Xinyue didn't hear much of what Gao Qiang said to Shi Ziqian at first, but with people coming and going in the corridor, everyone overheard a few words, and soon everyone knew.
Gao Qiang was smarter this time than last time, and his intentions were not as abrupt. He did not mention the school board's visit to the school at all, but only said that he needed to promote the school and needed to find a few students from each grade to take promotional photos. Shi Ziqian was just one of the candidates.
That's what they say, but everyone naturally knows that Gao Qiang made the dumplings because of the vinegar, and they can't help but secretly complain about him during breaks.
"Gao Qiang is quite cunning. No wonder he could climb all the way to vice principal even though he doesn't do any real work. He's always coming up with an idea. Look at how well he flatters people. One word: brilliant."
"But isn't this too obvious? When the school hangs a bunch of Shi Ziqian's photos, won't the school board members realize this is just pure flattery?"
"So it's not like they only took promotional photos of Shi Ziqian, so it's not that abrupt. And if you put yourself in their shoes, if you were a school board member, and you walked into the school and passed by the bulletin board, and unexpectedly saw your son's image in the middle of the promotional poster, wouldn't you be pleasantly surprised? The emotional value would be immediately maximized."
"His plan was quite clever, but unfortunately, Shi Ziqian still didn't agree, so all his efforts were in vain."
Upon hearing this, Zhan Xinyue recalled Gao Qiang's beaming smile and his words to Shi Ziqian, and felt that his actions were somewhat of a form of moral blackmail. However, it seemed that Shi Ziqian remained unmoved by either soft or hard tactics and still refused to agree.
Zhan Xinyue didn't have a very good impression of Gao Qiang, and she was now looking forward to seeing what would happen: Now that the vinegar was gone, should Gao Qiang make dumplings or not?
As it turns out, the dumplings still had to be made. After all, other grades had already selected several students, and canceling it outright would be too conspicuous, so the plan to take promotional photos was still finalized.
However, since Shi Ziqian refused to go, Gao Qiang didn't care much about the matter. He directly handed over the selection of the second-year students to Lao Fang. Lao Fang didn't want to go through any more trouble and said directly, "Since we want to promote the school, we should choose students with good grades. Let each of the experimental classes in arts and sciences send one person. The class can decide on the selection criteria themselves."
So, just like last time, Old Zhou was once again in charge of deciding who would be chosen in the class.
But unlike last time, this time when Lao Zhou asked in class if anyone wanted to sign up, many hands immediately went up in the classroom. The enthusiastic atmosphere surprised Lao Zhou: "Why are you all so enthusiastic this time? So, do we have to have an election?"
The school's promotional photos are nothing more than pictures of everyone in school uniforms sitting on the playground reading, or a few people gathered in a classroom discussing problems. These will be printed into posters and put up on the bulletin board, and maybe even in next year's admissions brochure. Zhan Xinyue wasn't interested and sat in the back row of the classroom watching the excitement.
However, she could understand everyone's enthusiasm. The previous dance was a group dance, and whether anyone could recognize her in a crowd was another matter. In addition, she had to rehearse every day, which took up a lot of time and was a thankless task. But this time was different. Taking promotional photos would only take an afternoon at most, and she could keep her photos for the school's publicity, which sounded pretty prestigious.
Although it's unclear why Shi Ziqian was unwilling to go, many classmates were eager to try when asked now.
Old Zhou obviously figured it out quickly, and snorted on the stage, "When we asked people to dance before and called on everyone to contribute to the arts festival, no one was willing to go, but now they're all very enthusiastic."
His gaze swept around the classroom several times before finally settling on Zhan Xinyue, who was sitting in the back row and hadn't raised her hand. He was usually a man of his word in class, and once he made a decision, there was generally no room for discussion. However, he had made an exception that time when he was selecting someone to dance, changing the person at the last minute. Fortunately, the girl didn't complain and silently went to practice as arranged.
Thinking of this, a rare sense of guilt welled up in his heart. After a brief moment of thought, he spoke up: "If you ask me, since Zhan Xinyue did the hard labor last time, why don't we have her do it again this time?"
Zhan Xinyue was originally just watching the excitement without getting involved, but she was caught off guard when he mentioned her name and was completely stunned.
The hands that were raised in the classroom immediately withdrew after hearing Lao Zhou's words, and everyone's eyes turned to her.
She had no recollection of ever having a promotional photoshoot in her past life, and if she did, she couldn't remember who from her class went in the end, but she was certain that it wasn't her.
On the podium, Lao Zhou's tone suggested that he had made amends and rewarded her greatly. After speaking, he seemed extremely satisfied with his suggestion, clapped his hands, and said, "Okay, it's settled then. No one else should have any objections. You still need to look good for the promotional photos. I'm not saying that the others don't look good, but Zhan Xinyue does look pretty good."
Zhan Xinyue silently lowered her head at the back of the classroom. Old Zhou's way of speaking was sure to attract criticism. She originally wanted to say that she didn't want to go, but in this situation, to avoid seeming like she had gotten a good deal and was now acting innocent, she decided to remain quiet.
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