Chapter 134 Rock Spirit Honesty
Dai Yize and Shao Yanjun left not long ago, and maybe we can catch up with them if we chase them now.
Fortunately, Zhang Jiacheng had good grades and could study on his own. She apologized to him, "We were supposed to discuss this with the four of us, but I have to go find those two first."
He shook his head to indicate that it was okay, and told her to be careful on the road, to do her best, and if she couldn't find it, then forget it, it wasn't her problem.
Zhu Yingning set off with great vigor and determination.
It was already the last class of the morning, and the atmosphere of leaving early was strong. In addition to their class, several students from other classes who didn't like studying had already packed their bags and were heading out.
It was the first time the guard was on duty on a Saturday, and he was probably not sure whether he should stop them or not. He stopped them randomly out of hesitation. He would stop those who were timid and shifty, and those who walked in with a swagger and self-righteous attitude and lied to him that it was time to go home after school. The guard would be fooled by them and fall into confusion.
In this chaos, Zhu Yingning took advantage of the situation and successfully slipped away among the crowd.
She decided to look around the school gate. If she could find them, she would bring Shao Yanjun, Dai Yize and the others back to study. If she really couldn't find them, then forget it. She couldn't leave school for too long.
Their school covers a huge area and is surrounded by high red and white walls. It is said that the walls were built so high to prevent students from climbing over them. Ten years ago, before the renovation, the school had a low wall. Not only did late students climb over the wall to avoid punishment, but students who skipped classes also climbed over the wall to leave. Over time, some students on the campus forum even figured out which direction of the wall was easiest to climb over and which direction of the wall was most strictly patrolled. Some people even gave these strongholds nicknames, such as "There is a female demon patrolling in the East Eighth District" and "Be careful of Hong Qigong in the West Sixth District."
The dean of studies, known as the Mother Yasha, and the vice-principal, known as Hong Qigong, were very angry. In their anger, they built a high wall around the school.
Zhu Yingning patrolled around the red and white wall, not really holding much hope that she would run into Shao Yanjun and the others.
However, hard work pays off. When she walked around to the southwest of the school, she saw Dai Yize.
Dai Yize was leaning against the wall, with several male friends who looked about the same age as him standing in front of him.
Zhu Yingning was about to rush over to pull him out and tell him that it was wrong to play with friends during class time, when she saw one of the so-called "male friends" clench his fist and punch Dai Yize in the stomach.
The fist sank into his soft abdomen, and Dai Yize vomited with a wow.
???
Only then did she realize that those boys were not Dai Yize's friends at all, and he was clearly being bullied. Looking closely, she saw that the uniforms they wore were not from their school, but from the school next door.
"stop!"
Zhu Yingning couldn't bear to see such despicable behavior in broad daylight. She was about to run forward to chase those people away, but before she had taken a few steps, she saw Shao Yanjun coming towards her from the opposite direction, carrying a steel pipe. He chewed gum as he walked and complained incoherently, "I was wondering why you didn't follow me for so long. You'll cause trouble if I don't keep an eye on you."
After saying that, he walked behind the group of boys, and under their astonished gaze, he swung the steel pipe without hesitation and swept it straight above their necks.
Her movements were fluid, without a single pause, her intent on knocking heads off. The boys were terrified, ducking out of instinct. Seeing she missed, she gripped the pole and pretended to continue. The men started running away, yelling, but after a few steps, they turned back, unwilling to give up, and made the classic, defeated declaration: "Just wait, I'll find someone to kill you sooner or later!"
Until Shao Yanjun threw the steel pipe away, Zhu Yingning was still standing not far away, petrified.
Her impression of Shao Yanjun has always been that of a beautiful little girl. Although she has a strong personality and is rebellious, often arguing with teachers about things like makeup, she should never have dragged a steel pipe down from the sky on the street to save a weak male classmate.
Fortunately, the steel pipe didn't hit anyone, otherwise it would have hit her head. If something happened, she really wouldn't know what to do.
Dai Yize clutched his stomach, his features still scrunched up. Shao Yanjun approached to pull him back, but he lowered his head and vomited again, mostly acid.
Seeing this, Zhu Yingning had no time to think about anything else. She ran up to him and said, "You can't do this. I'll help you go to the school hospital."
Hearing her voice, the two men seemed to realize her existence. Shao Yanjun screamed "Fuck" and was so frightened that he jumped away like a grasshopper. Dai Yize looked up at her while vomiting. Stimulated, he vomited even more without knowing what time it was.
“…”
Zhu Yingning opened his mouth and then closed it again.
"Why are you here?!" Shao Yanjun walked back from a distance and asked with lingering fear.
"I want you to go back to class and study," she said. "But let's put this matter aside for now. I think we need to take him to the hospital." She pointed at Dai Yize.
Shao Yanjun shook his head: "That's not necessary."
"Are you sure? At least drink a glass of saline solution, otherwise..."
Zhu Yingning wanted to persuade him again, but Shao Yanjun dragged Dai Yize away.
Her movements were like dragging a dead dog, and Dai Yize was walking behind her, swinging his legs and covering his mouth to vomit. Zhu Yingning's mouth twitched, but she finally followed, and kept brainwashing Shao Yanjun in her ear, "Let's go to the hospital to check it out." "Are you really not going to take him to the hospital to check it out?"
Shao Yanjun was annoyed by her noise, so he took out a pair of headphones from his schoolbag and put them on.
Zhu Yingning followed them all the way onto the bus, then rode with them for more than a dozen stops before getting off in a sparsely populated residential area.
It is very quiet here. The trees on the roadside are lush and leafy, casting tiny spots of light on the asphalt road. There is a special education school nearby. It is not big and seems lonely and deserted even at noon when school is out.
Seeing that Shao Yanjun didn't chase her away, Zhu Yingning shamelessly followed behind.
Dai Yize was already feeling better and could walk on his own. He walked beside Shao Yanjun in small steps, carrying his schoolbag. He even had time to complain: "Hey, that little country girl has been following us. Aren't we going to chase her away?"
Perhaps because he was wearing headphones and didn't hear anything, Shao Yanjun walked very fast.
Most of the shops on the first floor are rented out to outsiders to open art studios, creating a strong artistic atmosphere. As you walk along, you will see not only a wide variety of wall paintings, but also many music shops, calligraphy studios, art studios and jewelry stores, with melodious music lingering in the air.
They walked past the shops, entered a residential area, and then walked up and down the open-air stairs until they arrived at the door of a basement.
There is a small courtyard of several square meters in front of the basement door, shaped like a patio. From here you can look up and see the square sky above.
There were a lot of graffiti and English words sprayed on the wall of the yard, including Linkin Prak, Green Day, Guns N' Roses, The Rolling Stones... Some band names were crossed out with red spray paint, then filled in with black spray paint, and then crossed out again, and so on. Some band names were emphasized by spraying circles of paint on the outside.
There were skulls on the wall, smiling faces, and crying faces in the blue Huacheng style. Someone had also drawn a fat orange cat with a dialogue box above its head. Inside the dialogue box was a swear word.
f**k.
Even the basement door is painted a bright Klein blue.
Shao Yanjun opened the door with her key, and immediately the sounds of jazz drums and electric guitar came from inside. After she walked in, Dai Yize followed closely behind her. Zhu Yingning thought for a few seconds and nimbly squeezed in before Dai Yize closed the door.
“…”
Dai Yize rolled his eyes at her and let her in reluctantly.
Upon entering, I discovered a hidden gem. The 30-40 square meter space was furnished with a sofa and numerous musical instruments, and all four walls were lined with soundproofing pads. Four people were rehearsing: a keyboardist, a guitarist, a bassist, and a drummer. Their hairstyles and colors varied, like a box of colorful candies. They didn't stop when they saw Shao Yanjun and Dai Yize approach, and they didn't even express much surprise or inquiry at their uninvited guests.
Shao Yanjun casually threw her schoolbag onto the sofa and found an iced cola from the refrigerator in the corner. Without even turning back, she tossed Dai Yize a bottle of electrolyte water. After a few sips of cola, she sat on the high stool in front of the band, adjusted the microphone, and lowered her head to play with her phone.
"Why aren't you leaving yet?" Dai Yize started to drive her away again.
"Are you okay?" she asked him in return.
Dai Yize looked a little embarrassed. He screwed the cap of the electrolyte water bottle he was drinking back on and said, "What could be wrong with me? I just have some irritable bowel."
"Oh, then I'll wait for a while before leaving." She decided to be shameless to the end.
As he was speaking, the phone in his pocket vibrated. Zhu Yingning took it out and saw that it was Xu Sirui.
Dai Yize was very happy: "Look, someone is urging you to go, hurry up."
She turned a deaf ear and walked to the corner to answer the phone.
"Where's she?" Xu Sirui's voice came from the other end of the phone, a bit unhappy. It was already after school, and he came to her classroom to look for her, only to find that only her schoolbag was left there.
She explained the situation, and Xu Sirui was silent for a few seconds before saying:
"address."
"I'll come pick you up."
"No, you go home first, I can go home by myself."
But he was determined to come and pick her up. Zhu Yingning was really at her wit's end. She silently wondered if his separation anxiety was getting worse. Although she was complaining in her heart, she could only tell him the address of the community truthfully and asked him to call her before he arrived.
Putting down the phone and returning to the sofa, Zhu Yingning huddled in one corner of the sofa, while Dai Yize sat in another corner.
Shao Yanjun, who she mistakenly thought was playing with his mobile phone, finally dug out the lyrics from the corner of the phone, fixed the phone on the music stand, opened his voice for a while, and then picked up the microphone.
She started singing.
As soon as she opened her mouth, Zhu Yingning seemed to be frozen in place.
It was strange that after all these years as desk mates, she had never heard Shao Yanjun sing. Music classes at school were held in a dedicated music room, where students could sit wherever they wanted. Shao Yanjun always sat far away from her, choosing a quiet corner, and his singing was quiet. At the end of each semester, in addition to singing, students could also choose an instrument to play. During these exams, Shao Yanjun always took the stage to perform his triangle.
Shao Yanjun's voice cannot be described as sweet, but rather has a hoarse and smoky quality. Normally, I wouldn't notice anything special when I heard her speak, but when her singing began, I realized that this voice is truly that of a rock darling, with a metallic texture and strong penetrating power.
Zhu Yingning had only a passing understanding of rock music. She couldn't understand what the frantic nodding and bobbing musicians before her were celebrating. She didn't understand chords or drum beats. But her scalp still tingled with the passionate music and clamorous drum beats. It felt like crackling electric currents shot up her tailbone to the top of her head, then transformed into a meteor shower, rushing through her veins.
The drumbeats made my heart beat fast, and the sound of the cymbals twisted the eardrums into steel wires.
At one moment she felt like a piece of metal carrying electricity, at another she felt like a socket that was smoking.
After they finished singing, she was still pressed to the sofa by the lingering music and couldn't get up for a long time.
The basement became quiet, making the lingering sound in my eardrums even more noisy.
Shao Yanjun's friends left the table to drink water or check their phones. Someone noticed her and asked, "What's this?"
"A follower." Shao Yanjun answered while playing with his phone.
Zhu Yingning: “…”
Dai Yize tirelessly urged her: "Just leave now. Do you understand what they are doing?"
She shook her head honestly and said tentatively, "Tell me and I'll understand."
"You wouldn't understand even if I told you." Dai Yize said disdainfully, "They have a performance tomorrow night, so they need to rehearse today. Don't come and join in the fun, or you'll get in the way."
"Performance? Do you write the lyrics and arrange the music yourself?"
Dai Yize replied impatiently, but the guitarist kindly replied, "Yes, I wrote the lyrics and music myself. We co-composed the music, and Xiaojun wrote the lyrics herself. This song is mainly to satisfy her hobby. Her idol is Cui Jian, and her favorite song is "Starting Over Again." She has always wanted to try reggae rock, but there are too few people playing reggae in China."
Well, Zhu Yingning had to admit that even if the other party told her, she still couldn't understand.
Since she didn't understand, she could only smile and nod in agreement, then asked a question that had nothing to do with music: "Did Shao Yanjun write the lyrics herself? Then why did she take so long to find the lyrics just now?"
The guitarist laughed, and Dai Yize said coldly: "Because she is not smart enough to remember the lyrics she wrote."
"Who are you framing?" Shao Yanjun glared fiercely.
Dai Yize ignored her anger and said to Zhu Yingning, "Look, you can't even understand what others have explained to you. You and we are not from the same world at all."
Zhu Yingning nodded, seemingly thinking about something.
She went out, lost in thought, and Dai Yize breathed a sigh of relief. The other musicians asked him, "Is this your classmate? I see she's wearing the same school uniform as you." He was just about to start a bad-mouthing of her, telling everyone how rigid, strict, and unfashionable she was, when he saw Zhu Yingning coming back.
"?"
Stunned, he asked, "Why are you back again?"
"I didn't say I was leaving." She said confidently, waving the leaves in her hand, "I just went out to look for something."
"...What are you doing with a leaf?"
"Well..."
Zhu Yingning actually thought that blowing leaves in front of others right after their rock performance was rather silly and abrupt, and, as Xu Sirui often said, quite pretentious. But to refute Dai Yize's remarks, she decided to let it be silly and pretend.
She used the same trick again, blowing the song "Walking on the Country Road" with the leaves she picked up.
Dai Yize's eyes were so full that they could hardly contain their pupils. The musicians who had been sitting lazily around straightened up and watched her performance with curiosity.
After she finished the song, before she could even open her mouth, the musicians surrounded her one after another. "Oh my god, you're amazing! Did you really play that with leaves? Without any ventriloquism?"
"Really." She picked up the leaves and blew a series of notes in front of them to prove that it was indeed the leaves that made the sound. Then she waved the leaves in her hand. "Isn't it fun?"
"That's fun! Can you teach me? What kind of leaves do I need to blow this? Tell me and I'll go find some outside."
"I want to learn too. Can you help me find one?"
Even Shao Yanjun raised his head from the phone screen and looked curiously at the ordinary leaf in her hand.
Dai Yize blushed: "Did you all forget that you have to rehearse this afternoon?"
"oops……"
After he reminded them, everyone dispersed awkwardly and returned to their seats to continue rehearsing after a short break. However, the guitarist was still afraid that she would forget, so he repeated, "Remember to teach me! Let me think... How about you come to our performance tomorrow?"
The ping-pong music sounded again. Zhu Yingning returned to the sofa and waved a leaf towards Dai Yize. "Look, you can appreciate my music, and I can appreciate yours too. Even if we don't understand each other, we share some common aesthetics. I don't understand rock music, but there's no need to draw boundaries when it comes to appreciating beautiful music."
Dai Yize: “…”
He felt like he'd been inexplicably fed a pot of chicken soup. It felt a bit like writing a composition, starting with a small incident to draw out the truth, and finally elevating the theme. How could someone live like a composition? He was puzzled.
"You don't really want to see them perform tomorrow, do you?" he asked with a frown.
"I think so," she said. "Where exactly are you performing tomorrow night?"
Dai Yize looked at Shao Yanjun, who was completely absorbed in singing, and sighed. The boss reluctantly told him the address. As he finished speaking, Zhu Yingning's phone vibrated again. Xu Sirui called her desperately. She stood up, holding the phone and said, "Then I'll leave first."
**
Xu Sirui didn't come with the band for the next night's performance. Zhu Yingning had told him she was going out, where she was going and what time she would be back. When he heard it was a livehouse, he wasn't very interested, saying he didn't like going to noisy, crowded venues, and asked her to go home as soon as possible after the show.
"Call me if you need me to pick you up."
"I'm not that fragile..."
She left reluctantly, and the moment she closed the door, she felt as if she and Xu Sirui were playing a game of house. She played the role of a wife who was busy with work and went out early and came back late, and he played the role of a gloomy househusband who was insecure and full of curiosity.
She shook her head to dismiss this outrageous association.
Zhu Yingning got in through connections, so she didn't need a ticket. Shao Yanjun gave her a staff badge that said "Logistics." Besides Shao Yanjun and her group, there were other rock bands at the event. She joined the crowd in the viewing area below, bouncing and dancing with them. When the band's performance got intense, even strangers would get so excited they'd hug her, screaming and jumping. Luckily, they weren't men, or she'd be terrified.
She was born with a dull personality. Although she was swept up in the dance, it was still difficult for her to scream at high decibels like the people around her, or shout out "XX I love you" and "XX I want to give birth to a baby for you". Only when Shao Yanjun and others came on stage, she became more energetic and danced more sincerely.
Shao Yanjun wore a pink leopard print outfit, a one-shoulder top and a miniskirt, tied in the middle with a brown leather belt that seemed to be inlaid with diamonds, which made her waist look slim and her legs look long, which was both trendy and retro.
Zhu Yingning had to admit that Dai Yize had a keen eye for beauty. Shao Yanjun's aura was even stronger than usual in this outfit. She had a rather heroic look, with thick eyebrows, large eyes, and a slightly square face, which could easily offset the leopard print. Furthermore, since she favored pink, her nail polish and hair were both pink-brown, a combination that didn't seem out of place.
They started performing.
The first song they sang was a new song they composed. No one in the audience had heard it before, so naturally no one sang along. But even so, everyone was still dancing happily and excitedly.
On stage, Shao Yanjun shone brightly, completely dispelling the lethargic image he'd displayed during the day, half asleep in the classroom. The bassist was also in high spirits. People nearby remarked that this was a rare opportunity for the bass to shine. The bassist, previously often overlooked by the audience, finally stood up, thanks to the emphasis placed on the bass in the reggae rock arrangement.
This was Zhu Yingning's first time at a livehouse, and also her first time to truly experience a rock performance. She did not become fanatically obsessed with rock music or decide to join a band on a whim because of one performance. She was still the same person, without any change, just like Shao Yanjun was still the same Shao Yanjun.
She still believes that studying is a student's top priority.
Shao Yanjun still has no interest in studying.
If there is any difference, it is that they have been sitting at the same table for so long. On this day in late summer and early autumn of the first semester of the second year of high school, Zhu Yingning was finally invited by Shao Yanjun to her field to witness the soil in which she grew so freely.
She stepped onto this land as an alien, purely with the intention of appreciating a performance, without any preaching or dissuasion.
She was one of hundreds of spectators, a drop of boiling water about to turn into steam.
**
After the performance, Zhu Yingning found Shao Yanjun and the others backstage. Shao Yanjun was sweating profusely and took three long gulps from a bottle of mineral water. The other band members asked Zhu Yingning what she thought and whether she was interested in learning rock music. She shook her head and said, "Not at all, but you performed very well. I enjoyed your performance."
She came backstage just to express this sincere compliment.
The bassist, who was having a great time, laughed out loud and said that her answer was very rock and roll.
“What is the spirit of rock and roll?”
"I'm not sure, maybe it's the spirit of telling the truth?" the bassist asked the guitarist with a smile, "Do you know what the spirit of rock 'n' roll is?"
The guitarist said, “I don’t know.”
"You see, this is the spirit of rock 'n' roll." The bassist pointed at the guitarist, "Honesty."
Before they started clamoring for her to teach them how to blow leaves, Zhu Yingning asked her confusion: "Why don't I see Dai Yize?"
"He must have gone home early," Shao Yanjun said as she put on some makeup. "It's up to him whether he comes or not."
Zhu Yingning was confused: "Isn't he a member of your band?" She thought he was a substitute or a logistics role.
"No." Everyone shook their heads and laughed, "Strictly speaking, he might just be Xiaojun's clothing consultant."
"Clothing consultant?"
"Yes, every piece of clothing Xiaojun wears is designed and sewn by him personally."
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The author has something to say: Today I have combined two chapters into one because the plots are closely related. If there is no update by 10:30, please don’t miss it.
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