A Promising Youth novel Chapter 37

“Artist.”

He shuddered at my yell, and his eyes obviously wimped outt... would someone with real ability wimp out?

“Who... who the hell are you?

If you're a peer, let's not smash each other's jobs, or else I'll make you lost job in coaching industry in R City!”

He gritted his teeth and had the audacity to threaten me.

I pursed my lips and nodded heavily, saying,

“I am just an ordinary worker in the garment factory. When our children choose tutors, we are parents and want to hear the teacher play the piano, don’t we have this qualification?”

Once he heard that I was just a worker, he pursed his lips, stifled his laughter and said.

“Ok! Of course I can play it, but let's say if I just play it, we need double tuition fee!

I shook my head and sneered, looked at the idiot and said.

“It's not about ‘can play it’, but ‘play well’, showing that you have the quality to teach my kids before I'll pay double!

“Deal!”

As he said that, he lifted the lid and was about to play. I immediately stopped him and said.

“What's your name? Do you have a business card?”

He hurriedly pulled out a business card from the bag next to him, where he was collecting money, and handed it to me.

The next moment, he popped up.

While listening to him play, I took the information on the business card and sent it to Sienna by text message, “Find out for me what this guy is.”

For a moment, she replied.

“Matteo, can you not be so boring? I had so much work.”

I immediately lied to her and said.

“Master could be related to him, hurry up and check, I need information.”

Sienna helped me to find Clara in two days, now with this man's business card, Sienna would get it done in minutes!

After texting, I looked at this “artist” playing. Maybe the piano was a bit old, plus his level was not good. It had no emotion and always he played the wrong note. A music major could not be this bad!

After the song ended, the principal led the applause, Clara and the children followed with a dumbfounded face.

The artist stood up triumphantly and said smugly.

“Well? Am I qualified to teach these children?!!! If the piano wasn't a bit old, you would be touched with tears!”

“Baster, do you really think I don't know anything about music? I'll let you see what music is!”

With that, I pushed him out of the way and sat down directly at the piano.

Clara ran over excitedly, looking at me with a curious face and asked.

“Matteo, you... you can play the piano?”

I pursed my lips, patted the bench next to me, asked her to sit down and said,

“I took some lessons from a teacher in college. I can’t play well, but at least better than him.”

When I finished, I put my fingertips to the keys, closed my eyes for ten seconds, brewed my emotions, and began to play.

When the first note came to mind, the memory all at once took me to the prison, the prison library, where there was an extremely old grand pedal piano, and where my music teacher started my musical initiation!

And at the time, the first piece he played to me was Beethoven's Symphony of Destiny.

“Do you know what thoughts this song expresses?”

He asked me.

I shook my head dumbly, but was struck by the impassioned melody.

My music teacher played a thick note and said.

“Life is fragile, and we always try to fight fate, but we have to fall at its feet. In spite of this, there are still many who go on and never give up, because the history of human civilization is a history of struggle! So, to live the tension of life, never bow down to fate!”

That was the first time I felt strength and hope from music, and the first time I had a fervent desire to learn music!

In the four years of prison, whenever I was tired of studying, the broken pedal piano became my best companion to relieve my depression, and the music teacher who taught me was once the leader of a provincial cultural and industrial troupe.

Fingers fluttered stirringly over the keys, with each note striking my heart. Life was never as good as it seemed, as my whole life had been in pain and suffering.

So it was only by fighting that we could see the hope of the future.

Master said we should dare to question.

When the final coda coming from the piano, I tilted my head, took a deep breath, and the whole rehearsal room, as the music ended, was silent!

Clara froze, the principal froze, “The artist” froze!

A text message broke the silence. It was a message from Sienna to me, which contained all the details of this “artist”.

Standing up, I looked coldly at “the Artist” and asked.

“Now, do you think you're still qualified to teach these children? For your level, do you deserve to charge ten thousand for tuition?!”

He then suddenly shouted at me.

“You don't play very well either! What the fuck?!”

Anticipating that the principal did not know anything about music, he yelled at the old principal.

“Principal, he's just playing nonsense, playing blindly, coming from a wild background!

How can a garment factory worker play piano. I'm a proper university graduate, I have showed you my diploma before.”

I shook my head and picked up my phone with extra contempt. I looked at the screen and read.

“Joshua Robertson, born in 1982, was a art student in high school but failed in the college entrance exam twice in a row because of his poor performance. Then he got a job and ran training courses and dealt with fake certificates!”

The bearded man was dumbfounded when he heard me expose him!

He was holding his face, but he didn't dare to retort a word.

I added, “Three years ago, he was detained for issuing a false certificate, and after his release, he opened a training course again, holding a false certificate from the Central Conservatory of Music and cheating people.”

Having said that, I stared at him coldly and asked through gritted teeth.

“Joshua Robertson, has your conscience been eaten by dogs?

Why do you have the nerve to cheat a poor elementary school out of money. Aren't you afraid that when lightning strikes, it will strike your family's ancestral grave?”

His was shock with his eyes widen and he couldn't get a word out from mouth, so I grabbed the sheet music and smashed it right into his face and said,

“Get the hell out of here right now!

If I ever see you again, I will not spare you!”

“Ok, ok! Get out now!”

He carried his bag and was about to leave.

“Wait! Leave the money!”

“Yes, yes, money, money, here you are ......”

After he gave back the money, the “artist” ran out of the school.

Then I saw Clara sitting at the piano, with hands on her chin. He stared at me unblinkingly, with a smile at the corner of her mouth.

But the old principal was embarrassed. He crouched on the ground and said with a sobbing voice, clutching his grey hair.

“I know you are him and I got cheated, but who's going to teach the kids?

The competition is in less than a week!”

I went over to the old principal and gently tapped my hand on his shoulder and said.

“I'll teach and I don’t need to get paid. Performance costumes and your school's uniforms are all at our company's expense!”