Chapter 66: Campus Singer
There is a large open space in front of the former residence, but it is not as spacious as the playground. Xie Kang looked down at the audience from backstage and saw that it was packed with people.
In addition to No. 1 Middle School's own students and teachers, many people came from outside the school specifically to see Lily Heart. Last night, after Adian and his friends arrived in Pingnan, they temporarily posted the performance information using Lily Heart's social account.
Because the band had been on hiatus for almost half a year, there had been rumors that Lily Heart was facing disbanding, so more people came to see this sudden, informal performance than Zhuang Yongyuan had expected.
The band's performance was scheduled for the finale, and now the second-to-last performance was on stage, the drama club's performance. Lily Heart's people, Xie Kang, and Shen Xifu had already gathered backstage to debug the equipment one last time.
The performance lasted half an hour. Lily Heart and the other three performed a few representative works first, and then Shen Xifu came on stage to perform "Ten Thousand Typhoons" with them. The ending song was "What Kind of Person" joined by Xie Kang.
When the drama club held hands to take their curtain call, Xie Kang also walked over to Zhuang Yongyuan and asked him, "Will you act with me later?"
Seeing Zhuang Yongyuan remained silent, he asked again, "If you come along, I'll practice just playing the lead vocals before going on stage."
Generally speaking, if there are two guitarists on the stage, they can divide the work, with the lead singer playing the rhythm and the other playing the lead vocals. This is different from the instrument arrangement when there is only one guitarist. It sounds reasonable for Xie Kang to ask this question.
It was not until Zhongyou urged Zhuang Yongyuan to prepare to go on stage that Zhuang Yongyuan said vaguely, "Then you should practice."
Before Xie Kang could say anything, Ah Dian pulled him back to the others. Before going on stage, everyone had a small pep rally, forming a circle, folding their hands, and pressing them down as they spread out.
Adian's voice was the loudest: "Come on, everyone!"
Zhuang Yongyuan smiled and said, "The performance went well."
Xie Kang followed up with, "All right, all right!"
After the ceremony, they took turns walking onto the stage, while Ana Shen and Xie Kang stayed backstage and would come on stage later.
The overwhelming cheers lasted for three or four minutes. If Zhuang Yongyuan hadn't kept making gestures to silence them, the cheers would have continued.
The stage was simple and there were no broadcast cameras. It was a rare performance without having to cooperate with the camera. Zhuang Yongyuan felt like he was performing on the school stage in high school, back to the time when everyone was just a campus singer.
Xu Zhen came with his family, and Du Jiahao was also there, wearing their hotel's promotional T-shirt. I don't know if he came in a hurry and didn't have time to change it, or if he just came to advertise.
Du Jiahao wasn't alone; he placed his hands on the shoulders of a little boy in front of him. Zhuang Yongyuan recalled his previous comments about having a wife and children, and it didn't seem like they were just angry words.
They all stood in the front row. Xie Kang had specially asked the student leaders in charge of the performance to reserve seats there. Zhuang Yongyuan winked at them.
In the dotted cell phone camera footage, Zhuang Yongyuan gripped the microphone, feeling a little awkward after a long absence. He gave the audience a shy smile and said, "Long time no see."
After the cheers died down, he continued, "I mentioned this on Weibo yesterday, but I'm having a problem with my vocal cords and can't sing right now. So today our bassist Zhong You will be temporarily taking over the lead vocal duties."
Zhuang Yongyuan extended his hand to Zhongyou and gave him the center stage seat. The light that was originally focused on him also shone on Zhongyou. He stood to the side, bowed, and said sorry.
Many voices of "It's okay" and "Drink more water" came from the audience. As the beat in the earphones counted down, Zhuang Yongyuan turned half of his head and looked towards the backstage.
The lights on the stage were too bright and the backstage was pitch black. Zhuang Yongyuan didn't have time to see anything clearly and had to concentrate on playing the piano.
Muscle memory was more deeply ingrained than he had thought. Even though he had only walked through it a few times last night, Zhuang Yongyuan felt that he had completed his part to a high degree.
This gave Zhuang Yongyuan the illusion that this performance was no different from any other time he'd stood on stage. He stared at the microphone in front of him, strumming the strings, a multitude of thoughts racing through his mind. Finally, he leaned closer to the mic and began to offer a harmonizing vocal for Zhongyou.
Still no sound came out.
Zhuang Yongyuan took a few deep breaths, took a few steps back, and stood half a meter away from the microphone.
This incident once again reminded him that reality was deeply rooted and would not go his way. There was nothing he could do about the voice he couldn't express on stage and the past he couldn't return to.
Zhuang Yongyuan calmly finished playing the piece before "Ten Thousand Typhoons". The lights focused on him again. He touched his piano and said to the audience, "For the final part, I want to hand it over to my junior, Shen Xifu, and my..."
He paused, and this time he turned around and saw Xie Kang clearly. He and Shen Xifu were looking nervously towards the stage.
"My old teammate, Xie Kang, will be with us to complete the performance."
After all, Zhuang Yongyuan had been hanging around in the school for most of the semester, so the students of No. 1 Middle School were not particularly surprised by his performance. Instead, they were even more shocked by the fact that the usually serious teacher Xie suddenly stood on the stage. Xie Kang took a quick glance and saw that many of his former students were whispering to each other, and then they slowly applauded and cheered.
Zhuang Yongyuan did not leave the stage. They would perform together. Xie Kang stood on the stage just like he did at the New Year's Eve party twelve years ago. He felt relieved to have Zhuang Yongyuan by his side.
Zhuang Yongyuan gave him a questioning look, and Xie Kang gave him an OK. He had been collaborating with Zhuang Yongyuan on lead vocals for six years, so Zhuang Yongyuan had nothing to worry about.
The performance progressed naturally. The sound engineer brought by Zhuang Yongyuan was a professional. He also made Shen Xifu's immature singing voice tasteful. There was a kind of recklessness in it, but it was not too wild and rough, and it was stuck at a delicate critical point.
Xie Kang had never dared to watch the recordings of their early performances. He wondered if they were as lively and energetic as Shen Xifu at that time.
Gradually, Xie Kang felt that he was being lifted up by everything that was once familiar on the stage: the piano in his hand, the messy wires on the floor, the in-ear monitors, the changing lights, along with Zhuang Yongyuan beside him, and even more shamelessly, everyone in the band. He felt that they were now one, and every breath they took was in resonance.
As soon as "Ten Thousand Typhoons" ended, Xie Kang took advantage of Shen Xifu's curtain call to replace the piano in his hand with an acoustic guitar. Zhuang Yongyuan raised his chin towards him, and he walked to the center of the stage and lowered his head to pluck the strings a few times to test the sound.
Xie Kang was the last person to notice the sudden power outage on the stage. At first, he just felt a strange silence. After a while, he realized that this was because there was no sound in the earphones.
He took off his earphones, and the noise from the audience filtered through. He looked up again, and the overhead lights were off. The moon was hidden in thick clouds, and the heavy night sky pressed down directly.
Zhuang Yongyuan was saying something to him, but Xie Kang's head was buzzing and he couldn't hear clearly, so he asked him to say it again.
"The line is broken, we can't perform anymore, forget it." Zhuang Yongyuan spread his hands.
Xie Kang clutched his guitar tightly, as if someone was trying to snatch it away. Zhuang Yongyuan looked at him strangely and reiterated, "The circuit won't be fixed soon, and it's getting late. Prepare to bow out."
Xie Kang shook his head instinctively. Zhuang Yongyuan asked him, "Then what do you want to do? You can't let so many people wait together."
"I..." Xie Kang hesitated for a moment, said "Wait a minute, I have a way", and without even putting down his guitar, he turned around and ran off the stage quickly.
Zhuang Yongyuan watched his back disappear into the distance, stunned for a moment. Only when Zhong You came to ask him what to do did he regain his composure and shout to the audience, "Sorry, the power on the stage has suddenly gone out. Everyone, wait a moment."
Without a microphone and speakers, even though Xu Zhen and Du Jiahao were helping to pass on the message, only the people in the front few rows could hear Zhuang Yongyuan's words. Most people were discussing the current situation.
Standing on the stage, unable to perform, the seconds felt like ages. The venue was unprofessional, the audience was a mixed bag, and even though Zhuang Yongyuan was no longer a new musician who needed to mentally prepare before going on stage and had plenty of experience handling emergencies, a cold sweat of anxiety still trickled down his neck.
Unconsciously, Zhuang Yongyuan placed his only hope on Xie Kang. But when Xie Kang came back, Zhuang Yongyuan saw what he brought and felt both amused and helpless.
What Xie Kang held carefully in his hand was just a loudspeaker used by teachers in class, commonly known as a "little bee". It was the oldest model with a clumsy strap, the same one their teachers used when they were in high school. Nowadays, younger teachers are too disdainful to use this kind of loudspeaker.
What good could such a thing do? Zhuang Yongyuan felt cold from head to toe. He had the urge to rip off the electric guitar he probably didn't even deserve to carry, kick over the microphone, and run from the stage. But he felt frozen in place, unable to move.
He shouldn't have pinned his hopes on Xie Kang. He took out the loudspeaker as if he was joking.
I still can't do anything right, Zhuang Yongyuan thought. His fame, talent, and wealth were stripped away from him bit by bit.
He was essentially still the teenager who wandered helplessly around the schoolyard with his head bowed. Even though he was wearing the skin of an adult, he was still essentially a failure, lost, abandoned, and excluded.
Seeing Zhuang Yongyuan's miserable expression, Xie Kang's rare excitement gradually faded. He said to Zhuang Yongyuan in a sullen tone, "Give it a try."
The rest of the band gathered around at some point, all saying, "Give it a try."
"You can perform without plugging in the electricity." Qi Ji said.
"Don't you think this is cool?" Adian poked him.
Zhuang Yongyuan took off his guitar, stepped aside, and stopped talking. After all, this was Xie Kang's own song, so it was okay to give him the control of the stage.
Things can't get any worse than they are now.
Xie Kang looked at Zhuang Yongyuan in the shadows for a while. He understood that time on the stage was precious and the audience's patience was limited, so he gritted his teeth, put on the ridiculous loudspeaker, and sat at the edge of the stage.
Zhongyou shouted to the audience, "For our last song, 'What Kind of Person,' the circuit can't be fixed for now, so we're going to perform it unplugged!"
Adian turned on the flashlight on his phone and pointed it at Xie Kang. The light shone on him. Xie Kang smiled at the audience and plucked the strings of the piano.
In order to hear his voice clearly, the people in the audience spontaneously quieted down, and many of them turned on the flashlights on their mobile phones and held them up, and white spots of light flashed in front of Xie Kang's eyes.
"I am still an ignorant shadow. After the daybreak, what kind of person will I be?" Xie Kang sang. His voice was low and steady. He played the guitar with his fingers, not a pick, and the accompaniment was gentle.
Shen Xifu jumped onto the stage and handed the speakers she'd finally found to everyone. They each held them in one direction, helping to amplify Xie Kang's voice. Ah Dian sat down next to Xie Kang, clapping the speakers to the beat, creating a simple drum beat. The song had a simple melody, and Zhong You and Qi Ji listened to a snippet and offered to help with the harmony.
Zhuang Yongyuan stood at the back, looking at them, then looking at the eyes of the audience in the front row, and a strange thought popped up in his mind.
Is Li Xiuyu here?
Xu Zhen and Du Jiahao were both listening intently to the performance, their faces filled with happiness and satisfaction. They were the ones who had left the stage; Li Xiuyu was the one who had died, he was the one who had persevered until now, and Xie Kang was the one who had left and returned.
Zhuang Yongyuan glanced up at the sky. The clouds obscuring the moon had thinned a bit. This song took him back to a time long past, when they were just schoolboys, writing simple songs like "What Kind of Person," without elaborate arrangements. Even then, a hidden, vast shadow lurked behind them, but it was only dormant. A fleeting sense of foreboding passed, and they sang loudly, inexplicably convinced that as long as they ran fast enough, nothing could catch up.
And now, they are all survivors.
Xie Kang was still singing What Kind of Person Do I Want to Become? As he sang, he suddenly realized that he had never actually thought this question through.
What kind of person is he going to become? Can there be a standard answer, just like countless things in the past?
Tutoring schedule, competition exercise books, scoring standards for skills competitions, started primary school at the age of six, took the college entrance examination at the age of eighteen, got married before the age of twenty-eight, had a child the following year, transferred to an administrative position at the age of thirty-five, made a tutoring schedule for the child, and when he learned to speak, began to teach him to recite the Three Character Classic and the Disciple Rules, "If a son is not well educated, it is the fault of his father."
Xie Kang couldn't find the answer, but fortunately, at least he could sing and play the piano, and he couldn't think of a song to sing to a huge crowd of people in the audience.
He hadn't noticed when Zhuang Yongyuan sat down next to him. They sat so close, their shoulders touching. Zhuang Yongyuan tapped his fingers on the ground, humming the last line of the song along with Xie Kang.
"There is no future, dreams are our boat."
Don’t be afraid if you can’t find the way to the future, dreams are our ship.
The rhetoric is so simple that it is a bit clumsy, and the expectations are so naive that only a teenager can write such things.
Zhuang Yongyuan stood up and took Xie Kang's hand to take his bow.
The after party was of course held at Du Jiahao's store. Zhuang Yongyuan and his friends' flight was at 10 o'clock the next morning, so they planned to drink all night in the store and then go straight to catch the plane.
Of course, Shen Xifu, who came to play, couldn’t be like the others and play until so late, at around one in the morning, Xie Kang drove her home.
"Going back to your grandma's house or your own home?" Xie Kang started the car and asked Shen Xifu in the back seat.
Shen Xifu answered irrelevantly: “My ex-girlfriend sent me a message.”
"Where are you going?" Xie Kang asked again.
Ana Shen blinked and said, “Let’s go to my grandma’s house. I don’t want my parents to know that I came home so late.”
She was in a very good mood and said to Xie Kang with great joy, "Thank you, Teacher Xie."
Xie Kang didn't say anything and drove in silence until he was stopped at a red light. Then he suddenly said, "Don't call me Teacher Xie anymore."
"Why? What should I call you? I can't just call you by your name, right?" Shen Xifu put down the phone and asked doubtfully.
The red light turned green and the car continued to move forward. Xie Kang said, "It's up to you. Call me senior or just my name."
"I'm quitting next semester and won't be your teacher anymore."
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I finally got to the important chapter I had in mind before I started writing! It’s always calmer than I thought it would be at this time.
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