Chapter 58 The woman from the old campus sat next to her, recounting the events in a straightforward manner...
The woman spoke to Pu Fengchun, but never faced her. Bai Zhanban kept his head down, looking at the photo frame of the dance teacher in his arms.
The photo has the feel of a funeral portrait, but it is not a black and white photo. Instead, it is colorful and green, with gold edges, like a portrait of a deity or Buddha. There is also an incense burner at the woman's feet, with three sticks of incense slowly rising.
Two lists were pasted on the white display board, ranking the instrumental performance competition and the dance competition. Among the row of names written in black ink, only the three characters "Pu Fengchun" and his ranking were written in red ink, which was strikingly conspicuous in the darkness.
The mother has no facial features, but you can see the posture of "smiling". She is bowing her head and arranging things with the "teacher" in the photo frame. Her words are full of warm humility and reserved boasting. She praises the teacher for teaching well and praises the good ranking she got in the competition.
Pu Fengchun stepped over the list of grades scattered on the ground when her mother grabbed her arm and pulled her in front of her. The force made the girl frown. The shadow of the white display board fell over her, completely obscuring her: "The teacher has something to say to you."
"Chun Chun, you're not suited to dance." The dance teacher in the photo frame gently opened the prop fan head, revealing a cruel eye, black and white clearly visible. "You have no talent. Dancing requires a lot of talent. Don't waste your time on this. You don't need to come to class anymore."
The resonance effect immediately stirred feelings of disbelief, sadness, and resentment in Pu Fengchun's heart. She wanted to argue her point, but her mother patted her shoulder twice and grabbed her tightly. She felt a pain and couldn't say anything. She then heard the woman laughing and agreeing, saying things like how her daughter was dull-witted.
"But... I think I danced pretty well, teacher... can you give me another chance?"
The eyes in the prop fan blinked, seemingly hesitant, and looked up at the woman's expression in the photo. This time, the woman's smile was one of "Oh dear, the child is just being silly, please excuse her." She smiled at all the photo frames in her hand before saying to her daughter, "Can the teacher be wrong? Don't embarrass me..."
Pu Fengchun broke free from her and eagerly raised his arms and legs, mimicking the "petal" dance move from the competition: "But I do this move the best..."
Overwhelmed by tension, she lost her balance and stumbled to the ground. The blinding heat and scorching light hit her back, causing her to look up in alarm, as if to confirm the worst possible outcome—the layers of railings transformed into rings of flashing lights, all focused on her alone, like a pair of scrutinizing eyes, looking at her with surprise, disappointment, or disdain.
She was drenched in cold sweat, her limbs felt like lead, and she tried to kick her toes again, but failed. Her divinely inspired dancing ability seemed to have been taken away.
The mother wore a beaming smile throughout, looking down at the foolishness with an air of superiority: "What did I tell you? Would your mother lie to you?"
Pu Fengchun stood there, letting her mother use the same excuse to suspend her classes with the other calligraphy and painting teachers. In the end, only her piano lessons were spared.
Once the teachers in the photo frame had all fallen silent, the woman, as if relieved of a burden, smashed the frame. She knelt before the incense burner, pulled out the incense sticks, and retrieved a wad of cash from the ashes. The envelope was signed "Refund Fee".
Immersed in the resonance, Pu Fengchun seemed oblivious to the strangeness before her. As the character's frustration and defeat swept over her, she looked up as if to comfort herself, wanting to gain her mother's approval, and timidly said, "The piano was alright... I got third place."
"What place?" The woman lowered her head to Pu Fengchun's face, holding up the white display board with the rankings. As the screeching sound of a pen erasing the whiteboard appeared, black words appeared. "Why don't I see your ranking?"
Pu Fengchun was taken aback, and hurriedly pointed to the name on the list on the display board: "Third..." In the blink of an eye, the words on the list disappeared line by line from bottom to top, until only "First Place" remained.
The lists were displayed simultaneously, with most of the surrounding text left blank, leaving only "Number One".
The woman cupped her face in her hands, forcibly turning it back, and said, stroke by stroke, on the whiteboard, "Number, which, place?"
The girl froze. Xue Chao, like a scavenger picking through trash, picked up the lists that were plastered everywhere as he walked, and answered for her with amusement: "Third place, are you hard of hearing?"
He flipped through the lists in his hand, interrupting her with a precognitive air: "Don't ask stupid questions like 'Why isn't she number one?' Sometimes it's all about genetics... Excuse me, who are you to her again?"
It was practically a direct insult, but the words that appeared on the white banner froze, like a frame skipping in a game, erasing the unformed fourth character and turning it into "Why are you playing this lousy piece?"
She said, "Aren't you going to play more difficult pieces that require more skill?"
The part belonging to "Pu Fengchun" was startled and hurriedly reflected on her words, but Pu Fengchun seemed to have been provoked, momentarily breaking free from the role and unable to help but retort: "That's a very good poem..."
Her head was hit by the rolled-up list. Xue Chao grabbed her forearm, stopping her from standing up for Qu Zi, and teased her in a knowing tone: "You can just say what you want to say. You're a kid, your brain isn't fully developed yet, and all you have are immature and stupid ideas. You've been waiting for this moment to give me some pointers, otherwise, what's the point of being an adult?"
The woman, who had been ignoring him, was probably really fed up. She suddenly erased the words on the blank space of the display board, and the sound of a pen scratching against the whiteboard could be heard again. The woman picked up two lists and a simple red eye drawing looked him up and down: "What's your background? Which prestigious school did you attend? Where were you in the top ranks? What awards have you won?"
"I'm not very talented. I just 'graduated' from kindergarten. My current achievements include caring for two children. I aspire to enter the nanny industry and have won gold awards for 'being scammed by a terrible company' and 'being scammed by a terrible guest'..."
The woman screamed angrily, "I told you long ago not to associate with these scumbags! But you wouldn't listen! You've completely ignored me!!!"
Suddenly, the white display board was covered with wildly black lines, red pen words were overlaid on it, and two-thirds of it was filled with exclamation marks. The thumping sound of the pen hitting the board was incessant. Shaking off the frenzied red dots, Pu Fengchun almost had his arm twisted off. He fell to the ground in pain and sobbed softly.
The woman went berserk, avoiding Xue Chao like the plague. She grabbed Pu Fengchun's backpack strap and dragged her daughter up the escalator, cursing incessantly.
As she turned around, her skirt clung tightly to her back, clearly outlining her angular bones. From behind, she looked like a skeleton encased in a respectable dress, supported only by its surface.
She turned her head angrily, and a bunch of work documents and schedules suddenly popped up on the white banner, like a computer virus pop-up: "Do you even know what you're doing here? I've been saving every penny to send you here to play?!"
Xue Chao followed closely behind and stepped onto the escalator, only to hear a sound like stepping on piano keys.
The escalator rolled on and on, its black and white keys covering the top. Each step made a sound. When he reached the top floor, the mother and daughter who were just in front of him a second ago disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving only the long, dark corridors on both sides of the corridor.
He immediately grabbed the railing of the corridor and looked down, stretching hundreds of stories below. With this step, he had "ascended to the heavens"!
Why did he get to this floor? Is it related to the melody of the escalator he stepped on?
Does each layer correspond to a "musical code"?
Inside the camera, a woman dragged a girl along a dark and silent corridor. Along the way, all the handicrafts, models, and ornaments were transformed into various trophies, and all the calligraphy, essays, handicraft newspapers, and photos were turned into achievement lists. The method was similar to the corridor advertisements on the outer wall of a kindergarten.
Each door transforms into a giant picture frame of the teacher, with a golden incense burner placed in front of it. The woman puts money into the incense burner, lights the incense, and devoutly clasps her hands together in prayer. Then the doors of the concert hall open.
This time, the piano was on the stage. The woman pulled Pu Fengchun to the piano bench. Pu Fengchun looked up and was startled—the entire wall of pipe organs had turned into a piano grade 10 certificate of the same size.
The woman sat down next to her and stated bluntly, "It's time to practice the piano."
Xue Chao took the escalator again, and every floor he randomly entered was exactly the same as the floor where Pu Fengchun was. The music played by Pu Fengchun played in the camera. Some of the passages were familiar, but he couldn't name them. The same piano music came from every floor of the concert hall, but it was played a little slower than Pu Fengchun's, as if there was a delay. It was also clearer, and could even be described as "loud", like an amplified sound quality.
The door to the concert hall on his floor was locked, so he took out the pocket money he had taken from Pu Fengchun's schoolbag, burned an old, tattered banknote, and pushed open the door. There was no one there, but the stage and the audience were filled with pianos, all playing the same piece that Pu Fengchun was playing out of thin air.
The same music poured into the entire building from all directions.
Xue Chao was worried about something else: the radio station and the concert hall were not on the same floor. If every floor became the concert hall floor, where would the radio station be?
Based on the experience from the first unit, the story will undergo a strange change at a certain point, and the entire campus will collapse, like a fig leaf being lifted to reveal its true nature. The task after that is to quickly return to the starting point (the radio station) and refresh the next unit.
He must find the radio station before the campus is completely alienated.
Pu Fengchun deliberately played the piano with great force, and when his mother wasn't paying attention, he pretended that the chair was unstable and slammed into the piano, knocking over the piano chair and making a huge noise, but Xue Chao didn't hear even a slight echo.
"【Pu Fengchun】hasn't arrived yet, looks like he'll be hard to find. I guess I'll have to crack the 'code' of the piano escalator first, there must be a corresponding one, right?"
"【Pu Fengchun】But with so many buildings, the passwords must be complicated, which is both mentally taxing and time-consuming. The campus would have collapsed long ago."
"【Pu Fengchun】If it were Pu Fengchun outside, it would be easier to handle. I seem to know absolutely nothing about music."
"【Pu Fengchun】Brother doesn't play by the rules. Maybe he won't take the escalator and will instead 'walk the tightrope' through the open center?"
"【Pu Fengchun】Upstairs, my brother bought 'sunflower rootstock' at the store."
The rhizomes were indeed needed, but Xue Chao chose to climb out of the window at the end of the corridor.
The central corridor of the building rises infinitely high, but the windows at the end of each corridor are only two floors above the ground. In other words, no matter how many floors there are inside the building, the training center is still four floors from the outside.
Just in case it was an illusion trap, he tied the stem and went down, successfully landing on the ground.
The art building looks perfectly normal from the outside, except for a red mailbox with peeling paint outside the door.
Xue Chao took out the remaining white rose earrings and turned out the thin scissors at the end, which turned out to be a sharp key. He guessed that Pu Fengchun did not know that the earrings had been targeted by the opponent long ago. She had not touched them since entering the campus, waiting to trick him, but instead missed the clues about the character.
Insert the latch and turn it; once opened, a gush of blood gushed out, revealing a dummy head lodged diagonally inside.
After the blood had drained away, Xue Chao pulled out the dummy's head, shook it, and it rustled. He then reached into the neck and pulled out a stack of papers.
Most of them were envelopes, all showing signs of having been opened and looked at. The handwriting was very familiar. The handwriting that appeared at the end of the first unit on the origami was a sunflower. Another handwriting was very neat and beautiful, and it was signed "Pu Fengchun".
The two were pen pals, and their letters were mostly about sharing their daily lives. "Sunflower" often worked part-time, and although she was young, she was very knowledgeable. She often shared all sorts of interesting stories and new things, and seemed to know a little about all walks of life. Pu Fengchun was more conventional, and his letters were usually about campus life and academic matters, and he would occasionally recommend a few books.
After reading the entire book, Xue Chao had a good idea of the two characters: a sunny boy who lost his parents at an early age and lived in poverty, but was optimistic, hardworking and diligent in his studies; and a well-behaved girl who was a top student with strict family education, studied from morning till night, and was always ranked first in her class.
The opportunity to meet was when "Pu Fengchun" was delivering fruit to a friend who was hospitalized because his mother had something to do. However, he didn't understand the procedure and got lost in the hospital. He happened to meet "Sunflower," who was taking care of her grandmother, and the boy kindly helped her.
Neither of them had a cell phone; Jiang Ming couldn't afford one, and Pu Fengchun's parents wouldn't allow it. So they suggested exchanging letters, partly because kids thought writing letters was sophisticated and a bit childish. They got to know each other quickly and could share their troubles.
They felt both sympathy and longing for each other's lives, and through a few letters, they glimpsed another kind of life that they could never have, and became good friends.
The grown-up versions of "Jiang Ming" and "Pu Fengchun".
The main characters in the different stories are indeed connected; judging from the timeline in the letter, they were already in middle school at that time.
Besides the letter, there was also a high school biology competition flyer and an elementary school report card. Strangely, the former was very old, while the latter was brand new, like a newly issued report card. The student scored above 95 in Chinese, Math, and English, ranking fifth. Next to it was the previous ranking, where the student was first.
The report card was full of wrinkles, as if it had been crumpled up.
No wonder the little girl suddenly "lost" so much talent; it turns out her grades had dropped.
Xue Chao placed the dignified dummy head on the mailbox and took one last look inside to make sure he didn't miss anything. He saw that the mailbox was covered with large photos of Pu Fengchun, his features distorted, as if a "blur" had been drawn on them with a photo editing software.
He held the mailbox and shook it, and sure enough, he heard a commotion. He reached out and tore off the innermost photo, and a letter fell out from the innermost compartment.
The letter that "Jiang Ming" sent to "Pu Fengchun" was different from the previous letters. It was unopened and the date was later than all the other letters.
Unfold it, and the words "Help" are written in red pen.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com