Liu Xin from the same group did not come, and Youyou did not come either. There were too many things that needed to be discussed, and for the time being there was no progress at all. After discussing it, everyone decided to watch the videos first and familiarize themselves with the lyrics and basic moves of the big group's performance.
What happened this morning also affected her mood. Qin Wei bid her teammates farewell and went to the piano room alone, standing silently in front of the window for a long time.
The irritation in her heart did not diminish one bit. Qin Wei sat down on the piano bench, lifted the keyboard cover, and randomly started playing a song.
Music can always dissolve the distress in one's heart, and this time was no exception. As the music rose and fell, those worries no longer seemed to linger in her mind...
The piano sounds stopped abruptly.
Qin Wei raised her head and inadvertently saw someone standing in the piano room.
"Hayden?"
She was so absorbed that she did not even notice when Gu Minghua had entered.
...
Gu Minghua was also gazing at her in a daze. He had just gone to Class B's practice room to teach, and learned that the number of people had not been assembled yet. He also chose to respect their opinion and postponed the teaching for the time being.
With no arrangement for the time being, Gu Minghua was going to go to the piano room for some peace and quiet.
After all, that was one of the few places without surveillance cameras. In the piano room, he could meditate, space out, or play the music he wanted to play.
Pushing open the door, he heard a nice melody coming to his ears.
Someone had actually borrowed the piano room before him...
He was going to withdraw, but after that catchy tune entered his ears, Gu Minghua felt that his legs could not move back half a step. He simply went in to appreciate it, planning to sincerely apologize if he caused any offense.
He would never do something like this normally, but today he just could not resist the urge.
The morning sun was shining brightly. The floor-to-ceiling windows were half open, the white gossamer curtains fluttering in the gentle breeze. Slanting sunshine spilled onto the grand piano.
Even the person playing the piano was bathed in a thin layer of light.
Qin Wei?
Looking at her, Gu Minghua felt somewhat bewildered. Though they had collaborated before, he was somehow failing to recognize her for the moment. He could not help laughing softly at his own belated realization.
It was this chuckle that disturbed the other party.
The music stopped.
"Hayden?"
"Miss Qin."
Gu Minghua bowed slightly and apologized to her,
"It was my rashness to disturb your performance, I'm very sorry about that."
Qin Wei smiled and got up, casually closing the piano cover:
"It wasn't much of a performance, I was just messing around."
Gu Minghua looked at her, the corner of his mouth curving into a nice arc:
"What was Miss Qin playing?"
"Accompanying You."
Qin Wei said,
"Maybe people are more familiar with its misattributed name."
"Castle in the Sky."
Gu Minghua said, having recognized it from the start,
"I like this piece, it brings me inner peace... Miss Qin also likes it, and even remembers its original name."
Speaking, Gu Minghua went to sit by the piano and opened the keyboard cover. He played out the melodious tune with both hands.
Light and cheerful, smooth and fluid.
Qin Wei could tell it was Haydn's Piano Sonata in D Major.
A remark Haydn had once said popped into her mind, and she could not help voicing it:
"When I sit by this wretched old piano, I would not swap places with the greatest king."
Gu Minghua glanced up at her, his eyes brimming with unconcealed mirth.
"My English name is Hayden because my mother was a great admirer of the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn. As she expected, I have a passion for music and aspire to become an outstanding musician like him."
Qin Wei asked him,
"Then what about your Chinese name? The reason you were named that was..."
She stopped halfway, regretting it already. Why was she prying like this? On one hand she resented people exposing her privacy, on the other she could not resist peeking into others' secrets.
What a gossipy mind... It really was encoded in her DNA...
"Gu is my surname. Ming means bright and candid. Hua is China. My father's expectation for me when I was born was that as a person, I had to remain candid, and as a descendant of China, I should never forget my motherland in my heart."
Gu Minghua did not seem to mind Qin Wei's curiosity at all. Instead he told her openly like this,
"My father's generation moved overseas, but they loved our country deeply. However they tended to be reserved and unwilling to voice their patriotism. My name is the embodiment in his heart of his longing for our homeland."
Qin Wei could not help applauding him.
She could relate fully to Gu Minghua's words.
She had also wandered overseas before and seen unfriendly foreigners harboring enmity and serious prejudice toward Chinese people. If it were a few decades ago the situation would probably have been even worse...
Fortunately nowadays China was powerful and young Chinese people's national confidence had risen markedly. No matter where they were, they could now express their ardent love for their motherland.
Qin Wei was one of them.
Although some people still taunted and jeered at her online from time to time, saying she was pretending, she never wavered on this point.
Gu Minghua made an inviting gesture for Qin Wei to sit beside him:
"May I invite Miss Qin to play a piano duet with me? Don't worry, there are no surveillance cameras in the piano room, and neither of us is wired."
"Certainly."
Qin Wei agreed readily without playing hard to get, and sat down,
"What shall we play then?"
"Canon in D."
Qin Wei raised her thumbs:
"Perfect!"
(Please enjoy this to the tune of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major here; Qin Wei was playing it in C alone earlier in the villa)
...
After lunch, Liu Xin came, but Youyou still did not show up.
That meant the number of people still had not assembled, so they would have to keep waiting.
The main issue was not knowing when she would come. If they continued waiting like this, they would have wasted the entire day...
After a brief rest, Liu Xin said to everyone:
"No need to keep waiting. Hayden, let's just change the big group performance headcount directly to nine people. Also the small group pieces, four in one group and five in the other."
Everyone started whispering for some reason.
Maybe work held her up? Is it really okay to just exclude Youyou like this...
After all, except for Qin Wei, everyone else more or less had some other commitments in their schedules and could not really stay with the program team round the clock.
If Youyou was treated this way, then Youyou's today would become someone else's tomorrow.
Before explaining, Liu Xin said first:
"Director, please don't include this segment in the final cut. Our agency is also an investor, so some matters aren't suitable for broadcast."
Naturally, considering their own interests, the director agreed.
"Everyone here is a peer, currently teammates as well. What I'm about to say next is to eliminate any doubts you may have, because unity is important. I don't want this matter to make everyone overthink things.
But I also hope this will end here and not spread out later, otherwise we'll just end up embarrassing each other badly.
The day before last, Youyou went back to the company and directly told the boss she wanted to terminate her contract. They have been going back and forth over this for several rounds already. Xin Ya and I were even called back to persuade her, but she insists on terminating the contract...
I haven't rested well these two days because of this headache-inducing business... Anyway, realistically, it's unlikely Youyou will come back now..."
