Chapter 29 See you in the mountains, Teacher Chu.
The door of the conference room closed gently behind them, and Chu Yi and Cheng Yingzhi walked towards the elevator along the thickly carpeted corridor.
Cheng Yingzhi finally couldn't hold it in anymore and nudged Chu Yi with his elbow.
"Did you see that? Zhou Ai's eyes are practically glued to you. He even asked if you wanted a coat and potato chips?" Cheng Yingzhi exaggeratedly imitated Zhou Ai's tone, "I bought a lot of Golden potato chips, I can share them with you—what kind of elementary school flirting trick is this?"
Chu Yi calmly pressed the elevator button: "If you had his peach blossom eyes, you would also look at everyone with deep affection."
"Come on, I've known Zhou Ai for so many years, and I've never seen him be so proactive with anyone." Cheng Yingzhi shook his head. "But then again, he actually managed to get to the meeting room early. It's really out of this world."
The elevator door opened and Chu Yi stepped in without saying a word.
At the same time, Zhou Ai was left alone in the conference room by the program producer.
"Teacher Zhou, thank you very much for coming early. We are really flattered."
The producer rubbed his hands together, a smile plastered on his face. "But I just received a call from your team saying that your concert next week conflicts with the filming of 'Heart to the Mountains'?"
Zhou Ai nodded nonchalantly, her fingers swiping across the screen of her phone: "Well, the concert has been postponed for a day, so the original rehearsal time has to be adjusted."
A trace of nervousness flashed across the producer's face: "Then the program schedule..."
"Don't worry, I'll be two days late." Zhou Ai finally raised her head. There was no apology in her peach blossom eyes, but she also didn't have her usual laziness. "I'll fly over as soon as the concert is over. It won't take too long."
The producer was obviously relieved, but pretended to be considerate: "Oh, this is too hard for you! Do you want us to adjust it a little bit..."
"No need." Zhou Ai interrupted him and put away his phone. "I mean what I say."
At eleven o'clock in the evening, the rehearsal room on the seventeenth floor of the Xingyao Entertainment Building was still brightly lit.
Zhou Ai was soaked in sweat. After completing a series of difficult dance moves to the rhythm of the music, she finally raised her hand to signal the music to pause.
He bent over and supported his knees, breathing rapidly, and beads of sweat dripped from the ends of his silver-gray hair onto the smooth floor.
"Do it again," he gasped to the choreographer, "the final spin isn't smooth enough."
The choreographer checked his watch and said, "Mr. Zhou, we've been practicing for six hours. You need to rest. And the vocal teacher is waiting."
Zhou Ai stood up straight, picked up a towel and wiped her face: "Then let her come over. Dancing and singing is the real combat."
This is the third consecutive day that Zhou Ai has rehearsed all night.
In order to be able to participate in the recording of "Heart to the Distant Mountains" on time, he had to compress the original one-week rehearsal plan into four days.
The vocal teacher hurried into the rehearsal room, a look of worry on her face: "Mr. Zhou, your voice needs a rest. Can we practice again tomorrow?"
Zhou Ai unscrewed a bottle of water and took a sip, then shook her head: "No time. I have to shoot music videos and commercials in the next three days, so I can only practice now."
The music started again, and Zhou Ai performed a high-intensity dance while singing steadily, each note precisely. In the rehearsal mirror, his eyes were focused, completely devoid of his usual lazy and casual demeanor.
At two o'clock in the morning, the other staff members were already exhausted, but Zhou Ai was still adjusting the stage positions.
"The lights here can be dimmed a bit, and the follow spot can keep up with my movements." He pointed to the stage design and said to the lighting engineer, "For the interlude after the second chorus, I need five seconds to walk to the end of the extension stage and apply a fixed spot light there."
Xu Yang came over with a schedule, his brow furrowed. "Zhou Ai, you need to rest. You have to shoot a concert warm-up video at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning, a magazine cover in the afternoon, and go to the music video shooting site tonight."
Zhou Ai glanced at the time on her phone before turning to Xu Yang and saying, "We'll be done in half an hour. Let's compress the magazine shoot tomorrow afternoon and squeeze in an hour. I need to go to the studio to record the harmony part."
"But…"
"No buts." Zhou Ai's tone brooked no refusal. "I'll be in the mountains for the next twenty days. Now I have to finish all the work."
Xu Yang sighed, "Why are you working so hard? The production team can definitely coordinate..."
Zhou Ai suddenly interrupted her: "It's different over there." Then she turned around and continued discussing the movements with the dance teacher.
Xu Yang was stunned. He had followed Zhou Ai for so many years, but he had never seen him so concerned about a variety show.
The next afternoon, Zhou Ai, true to his word, took an hour off from his busy magazine shoot to go to the recording studio. He sat at the mixing console, monitoring headphones on, carefully listening to the harmony part he had recorded the day before.
"Here, the third note is a bit off, re-record it." He pointed to the sheet music and said to the recording engineer, "The breathing sound in the second bridge is too heavy, fix it."
The sound engineer said cautiously: "Mr. Zhou, these can be handled in post-production, you don't have to come here specially..."
"If we make the corrections on the spot, we can save time in the later stage." Zhou Ai had already put on headphones and walked into the recording studio.
An hour later, he left the recording studio on time and rushed to his next work location.
———
Chu Yi was also very busy because he had been away from the hospital for nearly a month and needed to submit various documents and negotiate shift arrangements with his colleagues.
Fortunately, there happened to be a colleague in another department of the hospital who needed to be promoted to the title of attending physician and had to rotate to the emergency department for three months, which just happened to fill the month that Chu Yi was away.
There are still three days before departure, and Zhou Ai’s concert happens to be on the day when the filming of "Heart to the Distant Mountains" starts.
After Chu Yi had dealt with the hospital matters, he began to pack his luggage for the next twenty days.
Chu Yi had just stuffed the last of his jacket into his suitcase and zipped it up when his phone vibrated on the table. The screen displayed a push notification from an entertainment app.
Entertainment Express | Zhou Ai's "Yao·Bian" Tour Concert Second Show Is About to Set City A on Fire!
Top singer Zhou Ai will be holding the second stop of his 2055 "Yao·Bian" World Tour next Wednesday (August 27th) at the A City Cultural Center! Following the first Beijing stop, which sold out in just three minutes, tickets for this A City stop were snapped up within one minute and 28 seconds of going on sale, further proving the undeniable power of the "Zhou Ai Effect"!
According to insiders, the stage design for the A City concert will be even more impressive than the Beijing City concert, featuring a 360-degree surround LED screen, holographic projection technology, and a custom fireworks display. Zhou Ai also shared rehearsal photos on social media with the caption "See you in A City," sparking fan speculation about the possibility of a new song premiere.
It's worth mentioning that recently, some netizens photographed Zhou Ai making a low-key appearance at a hospital, suspecting a recurrence of an old injury caused by intense concert rehearsals. However, her manager, Xu Yang, quickly responded, "It was just a routine checkup. Zhou Ai is in excellent condition and will definitely not disappoint her fans!"
Currently, scalpers have driven up the price of tickets for this concert to five times the original price, but tickets are still hard to come by. Fans have taken to social media to create the hashtag #周札尧变A市#, anticipating this visual and auditory feast!
Our station will continue to follow up on the report, so please stay tuned for subsequent updates!
Chu Yi paused as he looked at the notification about Zhou Ai's concert on his phone. It suddenly occurred to him that the concert coincided with the variety show. He had also dutifully taken back the two concert tickets Zhou Ai had given him and locked them in his closet.
Ding Dong——
A WeChat message came in.
Chu Yi clicked it casually.
It’s Zhou Ai.
Z.AI: [It seems very regrettable, Mr. Chu, that you can't come to my concert.]
The text was followed by a dynamic emoticon package - [a puppy with drooping ears and a listless tail dragging on the ground].gif
Chu Yi's gaze lingered on the line of words and the pitiful emoticon for a few seconds.
Zhou Ai's messages always had a strange penetrating power that could easily break the sense of distance he deliberately maintained.
He could almost imagine Zhou Ai's half-true, half-false, slightly complaining and a bit coquettish expression when she sent this message.
Chu Yi's fingertips hovering over the phone screen moved slightly, and he was about to reply with an official and polite "I wish you a successful concert", but Zhou Ai's messages popped up one after another, as if he was talking to himself, or as if he was broadcasting live to him.
Z.AI: [Rehearsal just ended, my throat is a little dry.]
Next was a photo of mineral water bottles and lozenge wrappers scattered on the floor in front of the floor-length mirror in the rehearsal room. The mirror was densely marked with movement symbols in erasable handwriting.
Z.AI: [The choreography director said my last move wasn't explosive enough.]
It was another short video, the camera was shaking, it seemed to be a candid shot. In the video, Zhou Ai was repeatedly practicing a high-speed rotation and then suddenly freezing the ending action. His breathing was rapid, and sweat soaked his forehead.
Z.AI: [Tomorrow is the last rehearsal, and then the concert.]
This time it was a [puppy holding a ticket and looking forward to it].gif, with a big X drawn on the ticket.
Chu Yi looked at the messages one after another and was silent for a moment. Suddenly, he couldn't say the polite words he had prepared.
He looked down at his packed luggage, his finger hovering over the phone screen for a long time, sighed silently, and then typed a reply:
【I wish the concert a great success. 】
The message was sent successfully. He thought the conversation would end there.
However, almost in the next second, Zhou Ai's reply popped up:
Z.AI: [See you in the mountains, Teacher Chu.]
There is still an emoticon package following it - [A spirited puppy wearing a hiking hat and carrying a small flag].gif
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