Please, come home and practice the piano

Chapter 188 185. Murphy's Law in the Arena

Nothing but cold.
-
As the flow of people walked out of the noisy subway station, a bit of evening breeze came head-on.

Li An stopped, let go of the suitcase, and untied the scarf.

Let the urban night pedestrians who come and go in a hurry pass by him.

Taking a deep breath, the dry and cold air he hadn't tasted for a long time was like his childhood friend.

Winter in the north is nothing more than cold.

But it was so cold that it gave birth to an indescribable comfort from the bottom of my heart.

[-]: Arrived
He casually took a picture of the signboard standing at the entrance of the station and handed it to Chen Xuan. Li An picked up the trolley case again and strode eastward.

It is as chic as a gust of wind, leaving only the stop sign behind to point the way for the next traveler.

【Changshun Street Station】

According to the route formulated by Chen Xuan, Li An can find Huaguoyuan in only 5 minutes after leaving the subway station.

5 minute later.

Li An returned to Changshun Street Station while looking at the phone map, looked up and looked around, and then walked west.

A moment later, a slightly speechless voice came.

Xiaomi: You can’t really tell the difference between south, east and north, right?

Bawanyi: That's the shortcoming

Ten minutes later, he stopped at the gate of Huaguo Conservatory of Music in a certain direction, and he couldn't tell the difference just by feeling.

In short, the sense of campus atmosphere inside the ancient gate still gave him a wonderful feeling.

This is one of the two best conservatories in Huaguo.

The faint movement of the choir is enough to explain.

It's just that if Qin Yong was here, he would definitely leave a disdainful glance.

After hesitating for a moment, Li An took a selfie and took a photo with the gate of Chen Xuan's alma mater.

At this time, four young girls and boys came from afar. They carried violins and cellos on their backs, passing by Ang Lee, leaving faint smiles.

"Excuse me, classmate, which gate of the school is this?"

"East Gate." A boy replied heartily.

"Thank you."

Li An pulled up the suitcase and returned to the street, walking to the left.

Chen Xuan asked him why he didn't take a taxi.

He said he wanted to look around for himself.
-
The street under the night is not much more prosperous than Yudong Street, this is Li Ang's feeling.

Finally came to a huge window.

The black grand piano in the window and the four big characters on the white door plaque have a feeling of echoing each other.

"Jig Hotel."

Whispering, he picked up the suitcase and stepped forward to open the glass door in three steps. He didn't notice that there was another door on the opposite side of the street behind him, called Jiger Piano Art Gallery.

As soon as you enter the door, you will hear Chopin's waltz OP.42 in the lobby. The warm tones can wash away the fatigue of travelers in an instant.

And of course, great playing skills.

The same feeling as when Lao Tang walked in for the first time, Li An was immediately attracted by the book wall on the east side.

People in twos and threes at the bar are looking at the big screen on the wall.

The picture on the screen is the source of the music in Li An's ear at this moment.

On the golden stage, an Asian girl with short hair is playing gracefully.

Anyone who follows the Chopin Competition knows that this is the second round of excerpts from the 2020 Chopin Competition, and the performer is Ai Kobayashi.

After looking around, Li An finally understood Chen Xuan's obsession with letting him stay in this hotel.

He ate this wave of Amway.

It is really a pleasure to think about living in such a living environment during the future period of competition.

Standing behind the bar and seeing Kobayashi Ai finish playing the waltz, Ang Lee turned around and took out his ID card and came to the front desk.

In the slightly different eyes of the front desk staff, he took the room card.

4005.

"Thank you."

Nodding, Li An took the luggage and went up the elevator.

"The county magistrate."

"Ok?"

"The buddy who was standing by the side just now seems to be here for the competition too?"

"what?"

Wu Fusheng looked back, there was no one else in the empty front desk.

Lao Tang quickly took out his mobile phone and found the web page of the second round promotion, and quickly flipped to his photo.

"It's him."

"Which one?"

Next to Lao Tang's photo on No. 067, Ang Lee's name is written on No. 066.

"The name is a bit of a play."

Wu Fusheng immediately thought of a great director.

"Master, he is handsome or I am handsome."

"He is handsome." Lao Tang focused on the other party's background, and there was no college recommendation. "He is also a graduate."

Wu Fusheng nodded, his eyes returned to the big screen, the music had come to an end.

When Ai Xiaolin finished the last note, Wu Fusheng sighed. When watching the live broadcast, he felt that the last note was a pity.

It's a pity that the perfect first three 55 seconds.

This is the game, until the last moment, no one knows what will happen in the last second.

"and many more."

"066, his number is very unique."

Lao Tang immediately realized something: "You are in love with the county magistrate."

Wu Fusheng sighed, the communication with Lin Youyou seems to be more difficult recently.

He originally wanted to take advantage of this competition to see if he could meet the contestants from the Rongcheng Academy, so that everyone could make friends and get to know the senior sister by the way.

It turned out that this year Rongcheng Courtyard had a bald head.

Perhaps it was because he asked the other party why there were no players from the Rongcheng Academy to participate in the open group competition this time?

Immediately lost the interest to continue enjoying the replay of the game, Wu Fusheng asked Lao Tang if he could make it.

"Walk."

The two had made an appointment to get up early tomorrow, and on the second day of their stay, they found a treasured place for piano practice.

Just opposite the hotel.

Although the fees are not cheap, the environment is really nice.
-
Inside the door of room 4005.

Li An inserted the room card, and when the room was lit, he was stupid.

Is this a private cot room?

In an extremely compact room, there is a small bed, a table and chairs, a row of clothes hooks, a piano, and a small bathroom.

Gone.

Then nothing.

But it was better than 2501, at least he could finally see the white wall after waking up.

Consoling himself, Li An walked to the piano.

The piano is not bad, which can only be felt from the smooth texture of the paint surface of the piano board.

[Ten penalty for one loss]?
The friendly reminder on the piano cover, is it handwritten, such a humanized warning?

Um----

Li An felt that he should not damage the piano.

Just flip the lid.

Can't open it.

Try harder.

Still can't open it.

Bending down to take a look, the piano is locked.

Ang Lee: .
Forget it.

199 a night, what more bicycles are needed.

At least there is a piano to accompany me, and I will not be lonely even in the long night.

Chen Xuan called.

Li An lay down and picked up the phone, and the two chatted for a while.

Chen Xuan asked Li An how he felt, and Li An said it was really great.

"Was there a piano in the room when you lived there?"

"No, there is a piano in your room?"

"There is one, but it is not allowed to play. It is probably a gimmick made by the businessman. Isn't this a piano-themed hotel?"

Having said that, it is not shown in the picture exhibition introduction when booking the room.

Chen Xuan didn't think much about it on the phone, "Get some rest, Bawan and I are going to do exercise, and you have to do it later, see you in the bedtime video!"

"Do it, do it."

After hanging up the phone and clicking on Rubinstein's pathetic second movement, Ang Lee put the phone on the piano board.

Then he opened the suitcase, first took out the dress that Chen Xuan gave him and hung it on the wall, and then took out the commonly used daily necessities and neatly placed them on the table.

While he was busy, he felt like returning to the life before he lived with Chen Xuan.

At that time, he always did some housework alone.

Just like it is now, but there is one little thing missing around me.

Don't say it, I really miss [-].

As his first friend in this world, Bawan accompanied him through the worst days.

No.

It was him who was miserable, because there was still plenty of [-] yuan left at that time.

Finally, he took out Kuku Xiaomi's photo frame and put it on the piano. He stepped back and looked at it, and then pasted the photo frame next to [Damage One Penalty Ten].

Looking at the room again, I finally felt a little bit of life.

It took half an hour to exercise + take a shower, and Li An lay down on the bed with his mobile phone near eleven o'clock.

The first frame that jumped out of the video screen was the big face of [-], frowning. Li An understood that this was anxiety.

"Okay, okay, let it go."

"It just doesn't want to go."

When Chen Xuan's voice appeared, Bawan really didn't want to leave, so he jumped directly from Chen Xuan's chest onto his pillow, and lay down on his stomach.
The screen flashed a few times, and the big beauty of Xiaomi finally appeared.

There may be some truth to the saying that distance produces beauty, Li An thinks that Chen Xiaomi looks extremely good-looking at the moment.

The first small parting after confirming the relationship, it is inevitable to be hypocritical for a while.

Later, Chen Xuan told Li An an exciting little secret.

"It's all music-related books?"

"Yeah, there are a lot of music scores that are not commonly seen on the market, you can go and have a look tomorrow."

Before going to bed, Li An put Chen Xuan to sleep with the unfinished story last time.

"The mermaid tribe sent two teams to quickly follow the trail left by Chen Xiaomi and Bawan all the way."

"Good night."
-
12 month 14 day.

sunny.

After having breakfast early in the morning, Ang Lee left the hotel according to the report location provided by the competition regulations, and headed for the subway station.

He arrived at the reporting office half an hour later.

The process is very simple, just show your ID card to the staff, then fill out the registration application and submit it.

Just a note to check out the repertoire for the next three rounds.

Rapids, storms, farewell, k466, memories of Yunxiang.

no problem.

After returning the checked form to the staff, Li An got another piece of information before leaving.

"The results of the group assignment will be announced on the official account of the competition at 04:30 this afternoon, please pay attention in time."

According to the competition process, all the second rounds will end on December 12th to December 15th.

The competition is divided into groups. The 104 shortlisted contestants will be divided into six groups to compete in three competition venues at the same time. The jury will assign three main judges and three deputy judges in each competition venue.

After the competition of the six groups of contestants is over, the judging panel will draw up a list of contestants to advance to the third round based on the on-site performance of each contestant and the collective discussion of the live video.

The final result will be announced on the afternoon of December 12.

Compared with the form of on-site scoring in the previous session, this year's Xinghai Cup is really trying to learn from the process of foreign piano competitions.

Although there is more room for black-box operations, for most players, it is fair that the judges have more time and energy to gather together for discussion and review.

It avoids the situation where fatigue scoring is finalized, and balances the score error caused by the uneven group strength caused by the system's random grouping.

The strength of the third in Group A basically crushed the first in Group C, but the score was lower than the opponent.

Although the probability of this happening is not high, it is still potential.

The humanized scoring of the competition system is actually more beneficial to most players, as for things like black boxes.

There must be shadows under the sun. Like most players who consider themselves ordinary, Li An is particularly concerned about the grouping.

There is only one grouping in this competition, which is the second round.

It was also the second round that Ang Lee regarded as a game of life and death.

104 into 12.

11% probability.

On average, only two people from each group can enter the next round.

Li An didn't care who his opponents were in the same group, he just prayed that he wouldn't be randomly assigned to the group that played in the morning.

No one expected that the second round of competition would be scheduled for morning and afternoon, usually from afternoon to evening.

According to the habits of most people, the best performance state of the day must not be in the morning.

"hope so."

On the subway back to the hotel, Li An put together the detailed explanation of the regulations in his hand, opened the system and glanced at Ji Yang's piano practice time.

Okay, I didn't drive late last night.

Then he took out the sheet music of the Riptide etude from his bag.

According to the current known situation, the worst result of the lottery grouping is - at 09:30 tomorrow morning, he will be the first to walk on the stage of a certain sub-field.

The first piece he would play at that time was Torrent.

Not long after Li An left the reporting office, another petite figure arrived.

Visually, the height is no more than 150.
-
After leaving the subway station, Li An contacted a nearby place where he could practice piano according to the phone number Chen Xuan left him. It was similar to a homestay, except that there was no bed in each small room, only a piano and music table.

According to Chen Xuan, she practiced the flute here every day during the preparation period before the art exam.

The boss is an enthusiastic Yanjing aunt.

"You are planning to take the postgraduate entrance examination, so you will come to me to practice piano in the future. You must be right. My pianos are all imported from Yamah, and they are very well maintained."

"No, sister, I don't take the exam, but I have to come here every day these days. What time do you open in the morning and close in the evening?"

This young man can talk, and the aunt is very happy when she hears:
"At ten o'clock in the evening, the door usually opens at eight o'clock in the daytime. If you have special circumstances, you can call me directly."

"Okay, you can practice." The aunt looked at her watch, "47:[-], I will give you a discount of ten points, you have to cherish this piano for me."

Ang Lee: "Don't worry."

The aunt left Ang Li and sat down and ran two sets of scales. Not to mention, this piano is really good, much better than his 2501.

After a while, various musical instruments sounded one after another around the next door, mixed with hanging voices.

Levels sound pretty good.

The countdown to this year's art test has come to an end, no need to guess, these are probably children from all over the country who are going to take the Hua Guoyuan test, just like little Chen Xuan back then.

Come on, kids.

Hands down, the torrent rises.

Li An temporarily adjusted the piano practice plan and decided to practice the competition works in the morning.

Just in case the worst happens, what if tomorrow or the day after tomorrow morning's group is really drawn.

Two 10 minutes later.

He stopped his hands and thought, maybe it was just the exaggeration of the pre-match atmosphere, which made him think that his fingers hadn't been opened during the four torrent performances just now.

There is always a feeling that the body has not yet woken up.

So he recorded it twice.

Then practice until lunch time.

After eating a bowl of noodles at the door at noon, Li An continued to return to the piano room.

After two o'clock he recorded two more times.

Comparing the morning recordings, the problem arises.

From a technical point of view, the difference is actually negligible, but from a musical point of view, the mood of the performance in the afternoon is indeed slightly fuller, and there is a sense of forward positivity in the rhythm.

However, it is this slight difference, which may appear a bit fatal in the game.

There is no player who does not want to present his best self on stage.

Sighing, Li An put away his thoughts and continued to practice.

The best he can do at this moment is to make the most of every next minute.

Even if he really gets the morning stage, he is not alone.

Wait for the wind to come.
-
At 04:30 p.m., at least half of the 104 contestants had their phones out.

【Group A】

【No. 066 Contestant Li An】
-
[Group A contestants are requested to arrive at the Taoyuan Concert Hall before 12:15 on December 08th to draw lots for the order of performance]

(End of this chapter)