At this time, the princess sitting in the middle spoke: "Since Miss Lu insists, Yaoqi, please say a few words."
Mrs. Xu also smiled and nodded at Ren Yaoqi.
Ren Yaoqi stopped refusing and said while thinking about the right words, "Miss Lu is playing the lost ancient music 'Jiuyi'?"
Miss Lu was stunned when she heard this, then nodded and said, "Yes, I found this from a fragment of music score. Unfortunately, the original music is incomplete, so I patched up the second half."
Madam Xu smiled and said, "What a coincidence! Yao Qi was also helping me sort out some precious fragments of ancient music scores. Among them was the piece 'Jiuyi'."
Miss Lu glanced at Ren Yaoqi and was a little surprised.
Each of the selected ladies had their own strengths, and she excelled at the zither. Looking across the entire capital, few were better at it than her. With her aptitude, she had struggled to revise the music sheet, and she didn't trust Yao Qi to be able to do it.
"Would you be so lucky as to have the pleasure of hearing Mr. Ren play a piece for me?"
Ren Yaoqi smiled and didn't respond to her question, but asked, "Ms. Lu, have you ever injured your left wrist?"
"How did Miss Ren know this?" Miss Lu's eyes widened. When she was young, she accidentally scratched her left wrist with a hairpin, nearly damaging a meridian.
Ren Yaoqi said, "When you play the zither, you don't dare to use too much force on your left hand fingers. Although you can use your skillful technique to cover it up, the sound of the zither inevitably has a sense of sluggishness."
Miss Lu couldn't help but frown and said, "That's impossible! I'm always very careful when I play the piano."
Ren Yaoqi didn't refute her, but nodded along with her words, saying with a smile: "Miss Lu is very attentive. They say that the sound of the piano reflects the heart of the person playing the piano, so I heard you saying in your heart that you were afraid of hurting your hands. If Miss Lu hadn't played the piano so well, I wouldn't have noticed this."
As soon as Ren Yaoqi finished speaking, everyone present burst into laughter, even Miss Lu curled her lips in embarrassment. She'd injured her wrist and been forced to practice the piano by her aunt, hoping to stand out among her sisters and earn her aunt's respect. Later, her hand injury healed, but her body remembered the pain she'd endured, so much so that even though her wrist had long since healed, she still felt the pain. Later, when she had achieved academic success, she began working hard to overcome this weakness, but she hadn't expected it to be pointed out again today.
Then Mrs. Xu and Mr. Li also gave Miss Lu some pointers. Miss Lu no longer had the arrogance she had before, and she listened carefully to other people's opinions. Then she sat back in her seat without saying a word.
When Ren Yaoqi sat down, Xiao Jinglin gave her a thumbs-up behind everyone's back. Although she still sat there with the noble and cold look of a princess, Ren Yaoqi found it very amusing.
Next up was the eldest daughter of the Meng family. She had originally planned to play the piano, but after hearing Miss Lu's performance, she felt she didn't have the confidence to rival her, so she temporarily switched to the flute. She played the flute fairly well, but seemed a little nervous, losing her breath and missing two notes. Fortunately, she managed to finish the piece.
None of the ladies in Yanbei dared to arrogantly ask "Mr. Ren" for guidance, so in the end several gentlemen made a few comments and encouraged her.
The third performer was Miss Zhou from Kyoto. Miss Zhou specializes in calligraphy. She had a piece of white silk hung in the center of the room, and then, simultaneously with both hands, she wrote the three characters "Fu, Lu, Shou" (happiness, wealth, and longevity) in various scripts. In just a cup of tea, both sides of the four-foot square of silk were covered with egg-sized inscriptions of "Fu, Lu, Shou" (happiness, wealth, and longevity). Each character was in a different script, drawing gasps of amazement from the crowd. Everyone's faces remarked, "This looks impressive!"
Miss Zhou didn't seem to like talking much. After putting down her pen, she pursed her lips and said with her head lowered, "I hope Mr. Ren will be willing to give me some advice."
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