Fast Wear’s Face Punching Frenzy 14.11

The organizing committee arranged for all the contestants to draw lots, and after learning about the piece that Zhou Yunsheng was about to play, no one wanted to line up behind him, his performance would set them off as more and more mediocre, it was clear that we were all the same age, but the gap was so obvious. He was already so good that it was intimidating, and it took a lot of courage to be on the same stage with him.

Everyone was praying desperately as they reached their hands into the hidden box, even the self-proclaimed genius Hannah was no exception. She had originally regarded this term’s champion and the Curtis Conservatory’s entry roll as her favorite, but she hadn’t expected that a Xue Jingyi would be killed halfway through the process. Because of Xue Zixuan, she had paid attention to the other party before, and at that time, she was clearly a very ordinary person.

Chinese people were ashamed of pride and honored by modesty, perhaps she had hidden her strength before. If you have strength, you should show it to your heart’s content, instead of popping up out of nowhere to strike people, damn it, she must have done it on purpose! Hannah angrily pulled her hand -out of the dark box, taking a look at the number, her face suddenly turned white. 12, a little bit in front of the center, which was originally a very good number, turned into a death row because Zhou Yunsheng drew 11. After him, who would have the patience to listen to her play?

“No, how could it be such a coincidence! Someone must have cheated, I demand a new draw!” Hannah came from an upper-class Austrian family, appearing generous on the surface but actually having a very domineering personality. She insisted that the fact that she and Xue Jingyi’s numbers had been next to each other since the preliminaries was deliberately arranged by someone to make a fool of her.

“If one possesses great strength, nothing in the world can make you feel fear.” Zhou Yunsheng spoke in a cloudy manner. The staff translated this sentence into German and English, and Hannah, who had been making a lot of noise, immediately quieted down, realizing that her unreasonable behavior had revealed her inner fear.

Yet in front of such a powerful opponent, who wouldn’t feel fear? Ask the remaining twenty-five players, none of them would be willing to draw the number after the teenager.

The live draw was broadcast out through the cameras, and the strong confidence implicit in the teenager’s words conquered all viewers, and the ratings climbed before the competition even started. Because of the song “To Palochev”, many people who never listened to classical music became avid fans of Zhou Yunsheng.

The recital hall was packed today, and the cameraman pointed his camera at the audience in the first few rows, most of whom were heavy hitters in the music industry, among them Xue Zixuan, the eight judges, several world-class piano virtuosos, the twenty-six contestants who had been promoted to the semi-finals in the adult~man category, Bill, the godfather of international pop music, the renowned director Parson, and even Becketto, the director of the Curtis Institute of Music.

At the time of the preliminaries, they were all over the world and had a lot of work to do, but after hearing the magical sound of the boy’s piano, they all came to the venue and wanted to experience the unique charm of the boy for themselves.

“It’s a lifelong regret of mine to have missed the opportunity to hear ‘To Palochev’ live, and such a regret cannot happen a second time, so here I am.” Kent, the principal pianist of the Dresden Symphony Orchestra, said as the host walked off stage to interview the masters in order to enliven the atmosphere.

“I came here for Joy, her piano doused a source of inspiration that was drying up a few times. I wish I had the chance to work with her, she’s fantastic, she has magic in her hands!” Bill gave a NO.1 gesture at the camera and spoke with the utmost reverence.

“The Curtis Institute of Music needs exactly the kind of talented and passionate student that Joy is. Will she be accepted? Oh, that’s too redundant a question; the doors of Curtis were already open for her long after she played ‘To Palochev’.” The director of the Curtis School of Music finished his sentence and implicitly glanced at the director of the Juilliard School, who was sitting not far away; they were equally interested in getting this talent in their pockets, and the competition would be fierce in the future.

When the interview came to Xue Zixuan, he inclined his head to look at the camera and spoke in a single sentence, ”The achievements he will make in the future will of course surpass me. Jealous? No, he is my pride.”

As soon as the words were spoken, the results of the lottery came out, the much-anticipated Joy came in eleventh place, Hannah followed him out, and a huge screen scrolled through the order of the contestants and the repertoire they were to play. When they saw the piece Joy was going to play, many listeners couldn’t help but cover their mouths in shock, even the judges and music masters in the front rows discussed with each other for a few moments, there were worries on their faces, but moreover, there were expectations and excitement.

How long has it been since Sears passed away that no one has played it in public? Even the king of the piano, Xue Zixuan, only practiced with it in private, but refused to perform it on stage because he was not sure he could play it without making a single mistake. In terms of emotional expressiveness, “Flaunt” is lackluster, but in terms of technique, it is undoubtedly the pinnacle of piano history, even if you press half a note wrongly, all the tunes that follow will turn into grotesque noises that will instantly make the player look ugly and collapse off the stage.

It was with this piece that Sears made it so difficult for all of his contemporaries to play the piano that he ruffled feathers and reduced the piece from the highbrow Sears Rhapsody to the rather ironic “Showoff”.

Most of the people who bought tickets to watch this game were die-hard classical music fans and knew a lot about a masterpiece like ‘Flare’, but Xue Laoshi clearly felt the pressure of being ‘less well read’ as he leaned over to his boss’s ear and whispered, “What are these people up to again?”

Xue Yan used his cell phone to look up the information, read it, and then forwarded it to Xue Laoshi.

“Crap~gully, Xiao Yi plays so big every time, the other players are all screwed by him.” Xue Lao Si shook his head and sighed.

The audience wasn’t interested in what the first ten players were playing, 8-90 percent of them were there for Joy, and when the host called the eleventh player to the stage, the applause was extraordinarily loud.

Zhou Yunsheng wore a pure black tuxedo, his long hair was meticulously combed to the back of his head and waxed with a thick layer of hair wax, from the front it looked as if he had a short haircut, appearing to be full of valor. He didn’t bow and salute like the other contestants, but rather nodded slightly with a haughty look. He didn’t come here to participate in the competition today, but to show off his skills, and he was going to make everyone tremble and submit with his superior zither skills.

The audience clearly loved his arrogant expression, and their blood was already boiling even before the performance began. Xue Zixuan pressed down hard on his wildly beating heart, and only then did he resist the desire to rush onto the stage and embrace the teenager.

Sears didn’t get emotionally invested when writing “Show Off”, but he was a perfectionist and gave the tune an absolutely beautiful and melodic sound while incorporating a variety of fingerings. It has no substance, purely for the sake of glamor, for the sake of showmanship, but it caters to the public’s taste in just the right way, making the tune so well known that it is often used in many film and television productions until now, but of course, that’s all computer synthesized.

Its melody is very lively and bright, in the rhythm is more varied, slow time like a snail crawling, the player often only need to use one hand, fast time but two hands are too busy, and even need to use the elbow, every play a bar to change a technique, if the change is not in time, immediately will be the melody hard thrown out, and can no longer continue.

Zhou Yunsheng sat in front of the piano and adjusted his state, then raised his hands to enter the first bar, where the tempo was very slow, requiring the player to have good control of the timing; if he was a second faster or slower, the following melody would collapse like a derailed train colliding with the knots. Everyone was sweating for him, but he finished the first bar with great precision and control, and entered the second bar, which critics called the storm circle. The style of this measure was the complete opposite of the first, the score was packed with more than 300 notes so densely that the player could not use both hands and needed to add two elbows to support them.

Playing this bar was like a smooth escape from the storm circle, a kind of aftermath.

The judges and listeners held their breath, waiting for the end of the first vignette. The teenager didn’t let them down, he entered the second bar unhurriedly, the cameraman focusing on his white hands. They pranced and jumped on the keys, so fast that only a shadow could be seen, and the melodious melody reverberated in the recital hall like a howling wind, knocking people’s souls out of their bodies, making them dizzy and relaxed.

Because his hands were too busy, the organizing committee specially arranged for him to have a staff member who specializes in flipping music scores. Seeing a page of sheet music played, the man did not move, if it were another player, I am afraid that by now it would have been impossible to continue, but Zhou Yunsheng only glanced at the other side, the rhythm is not the slightest bit chaotic. His hands almost blossomed into two dazzling flowers on the keys, and his elbows cut across to hit a string of accents, like dripping boiling water into hot oil, triggering the final high tide, not only did the audience bob their heads and become mesmerized, but even the judges slapped their hands lightly on the desktop, oblivious to the situation.

Zhou Yunsheng switched four techniques one after another, his head held high throughout, his eyelids slightly lowered, staring at the keys with a scornful expression, as if they had long been subjugated to him, and could be driven by him as he wished. At this moment, he looked arrogant, and his delicate features revealed a charisma that made him impossible to look at.

At the end of the performance, he stood up and raised his jaw slightly to raise an eyebrow at the audience on stage, which would have been extremely rude, but made the audience truly appreciate how powerful and conceited he was. He was so good that he was able to face the world with the same arrogance and rudeness as Sears. They couldn’t hate him at all, quite the contrary, they loved his playing, his expressions, his unbeatable attitude. That’s how he should live with such recklessness!

Thunderous applause suddenly erupted, the judges sitting in the front row were the first to stand up and salute, and then the audience full of people who were afraid to hit the red palms of their hands have risen to their feet, and their mouths kept applauding.

Xue Yan was the only one who felt suffocated as he sat in the dark crowd. Xue Laoshi had long since gotten carried away and whistled with his fingers stuffed into his mouth. In normal times he would have been invited out by the security guards, but today no one paid any attention because there were simply too many people cheering.

“If Sears were still alive, he’d be jealous of Joy’s talent, too. He couldn’t compose ‘Showoff’ without Joy having a hard time at all.”

“My heart jumped out of my throat when she played the second bar, it was so fast, faster than a bullet train, but also good as hell!”

“I used to listen to ‘Flare’ all computer synthesized, and the only live performance was Sean’s practice piece from years ago, which was incomplete, but today I heard the full version live, and I’m so impressed with Joy. Everyone says she has a very ugly face when she plays “To Palochev”, today you should come and see her face when she plays “Flaunt” live, arrogant as a queen! I’m already crying from her beauty!”

“Joy is playing the piano with her life!”

The audience immediately shared their feelings on social networks, making those who couldn’t get tickets to the show jealous beyond words.Joy has rekindled the love of classical music.

Next to perform was Hannah, who stood behind the stage with a pale face and subconsciously backed up when she saw the teenager walking slowly towards her.

“No one helped me flip the sheet music, do you know about this?” Zhou Yunsheng opened his mouth with a smile.

Hannah and that staff member’s expressions stiffened for a moment. Zhou Yunsheng nodded his head and went off on his own, reflecting the matter to the organizing committee, he didn’t care about the results of the organizing committee’s handling of the matter, as he wasn’t afraid of any competitors. Hannah had messed up her mind because of this matter, and was crushed hard by Zhou Yunsheng’s wonderful performance, and just after playing two sections, she made a major mistake. She tried to remedy the situation but was unable to do anything, and her hands were suddenly scrambled, and her changed melody caused the judges to frown.

The few remaining players were also mediocre. Most of them had been learning the piano since they were five or six years old, and those who had performed on stage at the age of seven or eight abounded, never thinking that they would have stage fright. But today, after Zhou Yunsheng flaunted his extraordinary piano skills with arrogance, their self-confidence was dealt an unprecedented blow. Just as the piano masters of his contemporaries with Sears were eclipsed by him, the current Zhou Yunsheng had also demonstrated excessive talent early on. If nothing else, he would surely become the next Sears, and it took great courage to compete with him on the same stage.

The semi-finals come to an end, and Cho Yoon Sung enters the finals in first place, while Hannah leaves in disgrace and receives a letter of warning, and the staff member responsible for turning over the sheet music is sacked.

Zhou Yoon Sung’s playing of ‘Flaunt’ was a hot mess on the internet, especially the second bar, and everyone would rewind and watch it a few more times after watching it, marveling at his amazing hand speed. They quickly realized that the staff hadn’t turned over the sheet music, and when they connected it to the warning letter that Hannah had received, many guessed the truth, and while vigorously bashing Hannah, they also worshipped Zhou Yoon Sung’s skills on the piano. They couldn’t understand how on earth he had memorized such a long melody, knowing that the second bar alone had as many as three hundred notes, enough to set a world record.

“Joy didn’t look at the sheet music every time he played, and he’s so much more than we could have ever imagined.”

“I’ve heard that Curtis, Julia, and Rochester are all vying for her, but I think she’s actually at the level of graduating from the conservatory. I guess the instructors at the Academy don’t have much left to teach her, she’s got all the tricks down pat.”

“Don’t you guys realize that Joy looks especially handsome in men’s clothes? What a haughty queen, I think she looks more like a king!”

“Because of her, I am now in love with classical music. I’m curious to see what pieces she will perform at the finals.”

“I guess it would be My Empire.”

“I guess so!”

“Definitely ‘My Empire’! After playing a masterpiece like ‘Flare’, the only thing that could make her feel difficult is probably ‘My Empire’.”

“Make sure you play My Empire!”

“+1.”

“+2.”

“+10086.”

Netizens from all over the world have been lining up under this topic post, strongly urging Joy to make sure she performs the tune.

———–

“What piece are you going to perform at the finals?” Inside the hotel room, Xue Zixuan was organizing the teenager’s costume, and he could tell that he rarely did this kind of thing, folding a piece of clothing several times before he could get a decent shape.

“I’m going to perform ‘My Empire’.” Zhou Yunsheng took small sips of hot milk.

Xue Li Dani, who had walked into the room, happened to hear these words and gave him a look with an extremely complicated gaze before sitting at the bar and pouring a drink, her brows filled with anxiety. She had just called her daughter again, trying to persuade her to give up the idea of letting Huang Yi compete in her place. Following “To Palochev”, he had surprisingly performed “Flaunt” perfectly, and she had been sitting on the stage at the time, already impressed by his extraordinary piano skills. She thought to herself: even if Huang Yi traveled back in time to the last century, she wouldn’t be overshadowed by Sears in front of him. She could see that when he was playing, he was so easy and calm, the so-called storm circle general melody could not be difficult for him at all, he was more confident and arrogant than Sears.

As soon as he sat down at the piano, he quickly retired his veneer of timidity and cowardice and became dazzling. His playing had developed a strong personal style that no one could imitate, so what if he had helped his daughter get a Curtis entry? As soon as his daughter touches the piano, all the lies will fall away.

That was why she was that disturbed and advised her daughter to give up again and again. But I don’t know what kind of demon her daughter was possessed with, firmly believing that she would definitely surpass Huang Yi. It was impossible! If she had talent, she should have shown it long ago!

Although she denied it in her heart, Xue Li Dani didn’t say it out loud, and didn’t dare to take the liberty of letting Huang Yi withdraw from the competition. One was afraid that her son would get angry, and the other was worried that suddenly bringing him back would cause her daughter to have a fit, after all, being able to enter Curtis Academy had always been her greatest wish.

Xue Li Dani poured a glass of wine and spoke in a cold voice, “You actually chose ‘My Empire’, that’s really courageous. This song is the faith of a generation.”

Zhou Yunsheng glanced at her without saying anything and used 008 to connect to the internet, anonymously posting the news that he was going to play My Empire, which immediately caused a sensation on the internet.

On the day of the finals, a reporter who came to cover the event noticed that most of the audience members who had bought tickets were gray-haired old men, and a few of them were wearing straight military uniforms with medals on their chests. They were all veterans of World War II who had traveled from various countries to enjoy the teenagers’ performance.

When asked by a reporter what they thought, one of them said, “I haven’t heard pure My Empire in a long time, and when I heard that the player on this occasion was only sixteen years old, I originally scoffed at her for picking this piece, but my grandson recommended that I listen to the other two pieces she played, and I was impressed. I thought she might be able to do it.”

“My Empire is the faith of my generation, I hope she doesn’t ruin it or I’ll be angry!” An old man in military uniform waved his walking stick and admonished fiercely.

The reporter withdrew his microphone and laughed dryly, secretly breaking into a cold sweat for Joy.

Zhou Yunsheng sat in the corner of the lounge, surrounded by a few bodyguards as usual, but they were now on Xue Yan’s payroll and were only responsible for protection, not surveillance, and when necessary, along with Xue Zixuan, they were also blocked out. There were a total of ten contestants who had made it to the finals, and the other nine were gathered together chatting, and exclamations such as ‘how bold’ and ‘God’ could be vaguely heard. They clearly disagreed with Zhou Yunsheng’s choice.

Zhou Yunsheng silently flipped through the sheet music, immersed in his own thoughts. He was the second to go on stage, and as soon as his number was announced, apart from the contestant who drew number one who rejoiced, the others all let out a sigh of lamentation that they would have to be reduced to being his sidekick again, unless he smashed ‘My Empire’.

The number one contestant performed very well because he was in a relaxed mood, and as he walked past Zhou Yunsheng, he waved his fist in a cheering gesture. Zhou Yunsheng smiled and nodded his head, stroking his unruly sideburns. He was wearing the male contestant’s tuxedo as usual today, and as long as he showed enough talent, the organizing committee would be accommodating enough. He walked onto the stage and bent over to bow, his expression serious and earnest, with none of the arrogance he had shown during the semi-finals. He sat down in front of the piano, as usual, and took a moment of silence to find his feeling.

My Empire is a composition by Ivanov, a famous musician from the Levin Empire during World War II, which was on the verge of extinction at the time of its composition. He composed the piece with strong patriotic fervor to inspire the desperate nation to stand up and fight back, and formed an orchestra to play for the army free of charge. The melody of this piece is full of surging, inspiring power, so that people can not stop listening to the blood boiling tears, and its emotional shock far beyond the “to Palochev”.

If “To Palochev” is the main theme of death, then “My Empire” is the sonata of life, one narrow and selfish, the other vast and boundless. It was so inspiring that it soon spread from the Levantine Empire to the whole world, giving many a dying nation the strength to fight again.

It has been said that this piano piece is an epic masterpiece, like a gigantic beast that pulls the history of an entire era despite its heavy and slow footsteps. It has witnessed the fall of fascism and the rise of many nations, and playing it requires a will of steel and the most thorough understanding of life. Its emotional needs far outweigh the technical skills, and it is difficult for those who did not personally experience that era to empathize with it.

However, Zhou Yunsheng had experienced the war era, and understood the sadness of witnessing his country’s demise. He exhaled a mouthful of turbid air and pressed the notes with force. Playing this song does not require magnificent skills, just remember one sentence – steel for arms, gold for the heart, emotion for the feet, soul into the wings, with the most sincere sound of the zither to evoke the most raging anger, telling them that not to resist is death, the only way to take up arms is to have a bright future.

His weapon is music, and the invisible can have the power to destroy.

His originally soft face was cold and hard like a statue at this moment, his furrowed brow engraved with anger and indignation, his head swinging hard with the pressure of his fingertips, messing up his hair, but revealing more of a surging vitality.

Stirring and progressive melody resounded throughout the hall, many old people have long been in tears, trembling, they seem to go back to the era of war, all around the shells of the bombardment and the shouts of comrades, they hissed and roared: Forward, in order to defend my empire!

Zhou Yunsheng’s fingertips were also moving forward, pressing down string after string of trills before coming to an abrupt end. A musician had once said that playing My Empire was mentally equivalent to digging ten tons of coal, and that it could wear a person out alive, and that was not an exaggeration at all. Zhou Yunsheng was now too exhausted to catch his breath, he gulped, only to realize that his mouth was so dry that even smoke could come out of his throat, his fingertips continued to tremble, unable to press even one more key.

He closed his eyes, feeling his mind spinning. As he sat frozen, one by one, the old men stood up and applauded him with tears in their eyes, and some even took off the medals they had on their chests and held them high toward the teenager to show his supreme musical achievement.

This match is no longer good enough to be described as exciting, it is a magnificent echo of an era.