The Idol Group and the Crown - Chapter 6

Huoren felt that there were many people here who were talented but remained hidden.

In contrast, the title of being No. 1 on the high school entrance exam wasn’t even worth mentioning.

He stared at the grand piano for a while and said honestly “I want to learn from you.”

“I have one condition.” The boy said, “I don’t teach idiots.”

Huoren laughed. “I’m not stupid.”

“That will depend on me.” The young man frowned. “If you show any sign of stupidity, I won’t teach you anymore.”

“Good teacher.”  [1]

“It’s Teacher Bao.” The man corrected him. “My name is Bo Jue.”

He pulled off a navy blue headband, tied up his long hair, and said seriously, “Let’s try a lesson today.”

Bo Jue came in with the application form and turned it over, drawing a staff on the white background. He didn’t care at all about his teacher’s way of teaching.

Seeing his casual attitude towards the application form, Huoren deduced that he was probably part of the “internal picks” amongst all the people.

He was probably a senior the company asked to come.

The senior, who knew how to play the piano, after drawing the staff, began to talk about basic music theory. From teaching note duration to the solfège and explaining the importance of the different symbols, and without giving time to pause and digest it, he began to talk about the positions of the piano keys, speaking quickly as if he was announcing a menu

After he finished speaking, he raised his eyebrows at Huoren in a serious manner. “What didn’t you understand?”

“II do.” Huoren said,” I do understand.”

Bo Jue had an “ah, really” expression. Turning the pen, he drew a pentagram on the back of the registration form and added a few musical notes. “Read it.”

Huoren’s mind already had a corresponding image and finished reading note by note. “DO, SOL, FA, SI.”

Bo Jue did not quite believe it and pointed to the key with the cap of the pen. “D major.”

Huoren mimicked his position and pressed it, alternating fingers like a marionette.

Bo Jue looked at him and had mixed feelings. “You’re smart, but your hands are stupid.”

“So you still plan to teach me?”

Bo Jue thought for a moment, turned around and went to the nearby piano room for the book 《Little Thomson Volume 1》 full of cartoon dwarfs and opened the book on the piano stand and said seriously, “Look at my hand, don’t look at the sheet music and remember the movements of my wrist and my fingers.”

And so, this talented performer really started playing the introductory materials for kids for him with a rigorous attitude as if he was performing.

The scores on the first few pages only had one or two notes per measure, but little by little they increase more towards the end, and the music gradually took on a melody. All the children’s songs were like the typical cartoon songs from kiddie rides at the entrance of a supermarket.

Bo Jue didn’t care much about other people’s reactions when he performed on the piano. After playing, he turned page after page from 《My Grandfather’s Clock》 to the last page of 《Princess Waltz》. In the middle of it, some students passing by stopped and looked at them curiously, but neither of them noticed.

The boy looked at him. “Is it too difficult for you?”

Huoren paused for a moment, went through all the images in his head and confirmed it. “It doesn’t seem like you need both hands to play?”

“That’s because it’s the first book.” Bo Jue handed him the book. “I’ll see you here tomorrow at 8 o’clock, and in the meantime, practice by yourself.”

 “Alright.”

When the two of them were about to leave, Huoren remembered about the form. “What are you going to choose?”

Bo Jue was still looking at the score on the back of the registration form. “Whatever.”

Although the company said that it was ‘fair competition for all the trainees’ during the meeting, a lot of people had been learning vocal music and dance for several years. Their starting line was different from the beginning.

He kept his sense of existence to a minimum, and at the same time began to build a data file in his mind to identify all opponents in the same group by their appearance and names and started pre-classifying them as much as possible. .

He must find his place and watch all the threats and differences clearly.

When the other three men in the dorm room saw the boy’s silence, they didn’t talk much to him either, spending the night discussing about the dance they had learned before practicing in the mirror, wagging their asses while they chatted about the recent gossip from the entertainment industry.

The first class the next day was dance with no break for two hours.

When Huoren arrived at the classroom, he felt that the atmosphere was not right.

Not only was there a group of students gathered around a person asking for an autograph, even the two assistants he saw earlier also looked shy and nervous, holding a notebook next to them and laughing.

He bypassed them to find his place, and when he looked up, he could clearly see the face of the man in the middle.

Pei Ruye.

He was the man who found him in the parking lot that day.

As soon as the class bell rang, Pei Ruye clapped, and the assistant teacher yelled, “Class is going to start, put away all the unnecessary things and come back here!”

“Today, it is the head coach, Mr. Pei, who is going to teach you.” The assistant teacher raised his voice. “He has a direct veto, so you better give your 100% listening to the lecture!”

Pei Ruye nodded, not planning to give a lecture at all. He looked at the assistant teacher and said, “Give them the skipping rope.”

As soon as the word skipping rope came out, some people turned pale, obviously remembering the extremely long and painful morning of the test.

The assistants took the students to carry boxes and gave them the rope once again.

“This will be the title for the final dance assessment.” Pei Ruye said bluntly, “Make 4,000 jumps within class hours. Jump as you like.”

He waved his hand, leaned back on the couch in the corner of the practice room, and started playing on his cell phone. His long, straight legs overlapped each other, and he didn’t say another word.

Everyone looked at him with a “are you kidding?” look, while some people started jumping.

Huoren thought that he had come to the company to jump for compensation of the recent months. After looking at the time, he began to control his breathing and physical consumption and started jumping slowly.

He couldn’t even jump for an hour, he was far from the qualifying line.

Huoren didn’t take the initiative with Pei Ruye. Pei Ruye was also playing with his cell phone in the corner the whole time. He glanced at him only until the resurrection countdown ended, and then continued to concentrate on playing the game.

These two hours were extremely long and most of the people couldn’t hold on.

They didn’t dare to chat in front of teacher Pei, so they bounced around a bit, or pretended to stretch out and relax for a bit.

Huoren’s forehead and back was covered in sweat and in thirty minutes he could barely feel his calf.

There was an assistant teacher who seemed to want to try something. She waited a while, took a rope, and stood in front.

She was jumping in the same place, her body was light and seemed to have no weight. She could jump and land at will, and she could swing the rope quickly without delay.

The eyes of a group of boys followed her and unconsciously made some exclamations.

Huoren was ranking the rest of the trainees in the room in terms of physical strength, ranking himself at roughly 12th.

After 30 minutes, the teacher stopped and showed them the counter.

Two thousand five hundred in half an hour.

“Oh my god…”

“Teacher, are you a God?! How long have you been practicing?”

“What is the purpose of practicing this?” One boy was already getting bored. “Aren’t we in a dance class?”

The assistant teacher took a towel, wiped away the sweat, and looked at the boy.

“If you don’t have physical strength and vital capacity, don’t think you can last two hours in a concert.”

When classes were over, Pei Ruye picked up his cell phone and left. The assistant teachers said goodbye and left one after another. Other students followed them out. Only a few stayed to continue jumping.

Huoren finished the two hours of jumping completely and his heart sank a bit.

Of the great effort he made in two hours, he had only achieved two thousand, which wasn’t enough.

The vocal music class was a theoretical course and the stage performance class would not be available until next week.

After closing his notes for the vocal music class, Huoren went to the training room. He first completed the 4000 jumps and then went to the piano room after washing.

He had limited time and needed to go over all the notes again.

Quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note. It wasn’t difficult to play them separately.

The problem was that he had a very good memory, but it was limited to his brain, not his body.

The day after tomorrow, he needed to brush up on the coordination of all ten fingers, limbs and joints.

He closed his eyes and repeatedly recalled what Bo Jue had taught him yesterday and then began to practice the piano by following those images.

The piano room wasn’t an impressive place, being narrow and not airtight. Today the various confusing sounds of trainees practicing from the front and the rear could be heard, all of which were playing the latest trendy pop music accompaniment.

Huoren was surrounded by a group of elderly people and continued to learn the introductory children’s course according to Bo Jue’s content yesterday. He just had a little trouble playing. Patiently and seriously, he played more than a dozen children’s songs and his heart was a little pleased.

How beautiful was the piano.

Bo Jue knocked on the door behind him. “Get out and switch to the next one.”

Huoren turned his head to look at him, not realizing when he arrived. “Aren’t you going to check it out?”

“Just listen to the sound of the keys,” Bo Jue said thoughtfully. “Your hands are still stupid, you should practice more.”

He went in and asked Huoren to play the last song again. He was puzzled.

“Your wrist and shoulder control is correct. Most people get it wrong the first few times.”

Huoren didn’t catch it, but he smiled and thanked him.

Bo Jue turned around and walked into the piano music room and handed him another book with cartoons on it.

At first, Huoren thought that he would now learn 《Little Thompson Volume 2》, but after taking a look at the book, he found out that it was 《Czerny Op.599》.

“Remember the gesture for the wrist and the gesture for the keys. The book is for you.” Bo Jue said, “I’ll go back to class. Practice with this book and I’ll review it tomorrow at the same time.”

He turned away after finishing what he meant to say, as if implicitly saying that if he asked him something, he was a fool.

Seeing his long hair fly like a waterfall and his neck white like a swan, Huoren suddenly thought of something else.

Others had short hair, but he was the only one with long hair down to his waist. When it came to dancing, he would be the one to stand out the most.

Huoren had never learned to play the piano before, so he finally got a chance to learn from the teacher. When he picked up the book, he read it until midnight.

《Czerny Op.599》 was a good book. The cover page mentioning that the author was a student of Beethoven and Liszt’s teacher. He had seen both names in music books.

The book not only marked the gestures and techniques, but also made it clear with which finger to play certain notes.

It was strange to say that some notes could be played with the index finger, but he must move the ring finger, the most awkward and rigid one.

Huoren played until three or four in the morning and finally fell asleep holding the book.

His classmate woke him up a little impatiently, and when he knocked on the door, he jumped happily. “We’re having a temporary change of classes today! To perform! “

“Today?” Huoren woke up in the dark and saw vaguely that it was 6:30 in the morning. “We will perform?”

“No, Teacher Zhou is taking us to the Kiwi Festival. Quick, get up!”

[1] He’s not calling him good teacher, it’s more like “Good” is the name, so basically it would be “Teacher Good” but that doesn’t sound very good, so I changed it.  He calls him that way because Huoren doesn’t know how he’s called.

Sorry for the late chapter! Although I wanted to do 1ch/week I’m never doing that *sweats* Don’t kill me.