At 7:30 AM, Lu Zhixian stood in front of the kitchen stove.

The doorbell rang.

He flipped something over with a spatula, wiped his hands, and went to open the door.

Old Zhao was standing at the door with messy hair and a tablet tucked under his arm. It was obvious he had jumped straight out of bed and rushed over.

"Old Lu,"

Lu Zhixian grabbed a freshly made sandwich from the counter and stuffed it directly into Old Zhao's mouth.

"Eat first."

Old Zhao mumbled something through a mouthful of sandwich as Lu Zhixian pushed him toward the dining table.

"Look at this first."

Old Zhao pulled out the tablet and placed it on the table.

Lu Zhixian swiped a couple of times.

Video windows were displayed side by side.

"Lu Zhixian's Conservatory Open Class — You Can Play Intervals Just by Turning a Doorknob?"

"Harmony is Just Like Cooking? Lu Zhixian Explains in One Minute What I Couldn't Learn in Two Years."

Three videos were trending on the top search lists of three major platforms. The highest-ranking one was in third place.

They were all recorded on phones, so the footage wasn't very clear.

Lu Zhixian took a bite of bacon and scrolled down through the comment section.

"I used to think harmony was just memorizing formulas, but now you're telling me it's like cooking?? Does that make sense? But it actually seems very logical?"

"That segment with Zhou Tong made me cry. A hurdle he couldn't get over for two months was cleared in three minutes. I rewatched the look he gave Lu Zhixian eight times."

"Don't all the music teachers here feel their faces stinging? [Dog head emoji]"

Old Zhao swallowed the sandwich and pointed at the screen: "This was the data from 6:00 AM. It must have doubled by now."

Lu Zhixian set the plate down and leaned back.

"Next time, tell them to film me looking a bit more handsome."

The corner of Old Zhao's mouth twitched.

10:00 AM.

Lu Zhixian was curled up on the sofa scrolling through his phone, originally intending to see if there were any good restaurants to check out.

But the moment he opened Weibo, a hashtag was sitting at the number one spot on the trending list.

#If Lu Zhixian Had Taught Me Piano Ten Years Earlier#

He paused for a moment and clicked on it.

It was full of videos.

A middle-aged man in a plaid shirt sat in front of the camera, behind him an electronic keyboard covered in dust.

"When I was a kid, my mom forced me to practice. Two hours every day; I wasn't allowed to eat until I finished. One day I tore up all the sheet music and haven't touched it since."

He stopped for a few seconds mid-sentence and looked down at his hands.

"Yesterday I saw Lu Zhixian say that you've treated the piano as an enemy, but it's not. I sat there in a daze for a long time."

"I really did treat it as an enemy. Ever since I was seven."

A piano teacher in his early thirties.

He didn't speak to the camera, but simply posted a screenshot of a WeChat Moment.

A single line of text.

"After watching that video, I wonder if I've also made my students afraid."

There were no likes or comments below it, but the screenshot had already surpassed two million views.

Lu Zhixian scrolled down one by one.

People who gave up after playing for twelve years, those who became depressed from grade exams, and those who refused to go on stage because a teacher criticized their hand posture in front of the whole class.

Different faces, different accents, all telling the same story.

Loving something, and then being taught until they hated it.

He scrolled to a video with the highest view count and his finger stopped.

In the frame was a woman in her thirties, no makeup, hair in a ponytail, sitting in front of an old upright piano.

The lid was open. There was a thin layer of dust on the keys, but the dust on a few keys had been wiped away, as if someone had just pressed them.

She looked at the camera, her eyes red.

"I started learning piano at five. I studied for twelve years and got my Grade 10 certificate. My teacher said I had talent, and my mom said playing well would help with school admissions later."

"But no one ever asked me, 'Are you happy?'"

"Today I watched Lu Zhixian's class at the conservatory and heard him say not to struggle with it, but to play with it."

"I opened the lid and played 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'."

She looked down at the keys.

"I started crying as soon as I finished."

The video ended there.

Lu Zhixian glanced at the data below; it had 8.23 million likes. The top of the comment section was filled with the same words.

"Me too."

"Same."

"This made me cry."

He placed his phone on the coffee table and stared at the ceiling for a while while leaning against the sofa.

He didn't say anything.

Old Zhao brought a glass of water from the kitchen. Seeing that his expression was a bit off, he hesitated and didn't speak.

Half a minute later, Lu Zhixian sat up straight and picked up his phone to continue scrolling. His expression returned to normal, but something in his eyes was a bit deeper than usual.

12:00 PM.

The trending list still had that same hashtag.

But a new one had appeared at the seventh spot.

#Famous Professor Blasts Lu Zhixian's Teaching as Sensationalism#

Lu Zhixian clicked in.

An account verified as an "Associate Professor at a certain Music Conservatory" had posted a long article.

It was over two thousand words long.

At the end, it added: "I hope young people will not be misled by this kind of quick-fix gimmickry. Piano education requires reverence, not traffic."

The comment section had turned into a chaotic mess.

Those in support:

"Well said, how can there be shortcuts in playing piano?"

Those in opposition:

"If you're so capable, you do it then. How many of the students you teach have bright eyes?"

And the fence-sitters:

"Actually, both sides have a point."

Old Zhao leaned over with his phone, his face full of conflict.

"Should we respond? This person doesn't have many followers, but the post was shared by several big names in the music circle. We can't suppress the heat."

Lu Zhixian scrolled through the long article from beginning to end and put down his phone.

He put a piece of bacon in his mouth and chewed.

"Let him be."

1:17 PM.

He Zhiyuan, the head of the Piano Department at Jingzhou Conservatory of Music, updated his personal social media account.

He didn't repost the long article or @ anyone. He just wrote a separate paragraph.

"I have taught piano for thirty years. Yesterday, I sat in my own school's lecture hall for two hours and took two pages of notes."

"A passage my student couldn't get through after practicing for two months in front of me—he squatted down, held the student's wrist, and solved it in three minutes."

"You can say those three minutes were backed by technical simplification or teaching tricks. But when that student looked up at him, his eyes were red."

"Some things took me thirty years to even vaguely grasp the edges of, yet he made four hundred students understand with a single metaphor."

"You can say he isn't academic enough."

"But when those four hundred students walked out of the lecture hall, their eyes were bright."

"When was the last time you saw a student's eyes bright after a lesson?"

He finished posting.

Not a single extra word.

Fifteen minutes after this post went out, the number of shares broke one hundred thousand.

The top of the comment section was uniform with just five words—'Teacher He, that was insightful.'

Forty minutes after He Zhiyuan's post, that associate professor who wrote the long article quietly set his Weibo to private.

When Old Zhao came across this news, he was squatting on Lu Zhixian's balcony smoking a cigarette.

He ran into the living room holding his phone: "Look at He Zhiyuan!"

Lu Zhixian was lying on the sofa with his eyes closed, resting.

"I saw it."

"You're not even excited? He Zhiyuan, the head of the Piano Department with thirty years of teaching experience, personally stood up for you! That associate professor deleted his post and ran away!"

"It wouldn't have mattered if he didn't delete it." Lu Zhixian opened one eye.

"He wasn't entirely wrong. Basic skills really do need to be practiced."

Old Zhao was choked up, and after a while, he squeezed out: "Can you not be so objective? Let me enjoy this for a bit, okay?"

Lu Zhixian laughed and sat up.

Because the doorbell rang again.

Old Zhao went to open the door. A middle-aged man was standing there holding a kraft paper envelope.

"Is Mr. Lu Zhixian in? I am a staff member from the Piano Association. I have been commissioned by the organizing committee to deliver the formal invitation for the Xiaohua International Piano Competition."

Old Zhao took the envelope.

He opened the envelope; inside was a piece of thick, folded cardstock.

The header was printed with the full name of the event—The 38th Xiaohua International Piano Competition.

Below that was Lu Zhixian's name in handwriting.

Old Zhao walked back to the living room with the invitation and placed it on the coffee table. He sat down opposite the sofa and took a deep breath.

"Let me tell you about the weight of this competition..."

Old Zhao looked at Lu Zhixian.

"Do you want to consider this carefully? If you don't perform well in this kind of competition..."

"When is it?"

Old Zhao was stunned. "When is what?"

"When is the competition?"

"Next... next month on the 15th. In Vienna."

Lu Zhixian picked up the invitation, flipped through it, and put it back on the coffee table.

He pulled out his phone, opened a social media platform, and snapped a photo.

The photo only captured one corner of the invitation, showing the gold-stamped event logo and the first part of his name.

The caption consisted of four words.

"Going to have fun."

Send.

Old Zhao's phone began to vibrate.

He pulled it out and looked; the notification bar was already exploding.

Comment section:

"Have fun??? You're telling me you're going to 'have fun' at the Xiaohua Competition???"

"Is there anything this man CAN'T just do for fun?"

"The highest temple of classical piano in the world, and Lu Zhixian is just like: 'Gonna go take a stroll.'"

Twenty minutes later, #Lu Zhixian Participating in the Xiaohua International Piano Competition# rushed to the number one spot on the trending list.

Old Zhao sat there, looking at the skyrocketing numbers on his phone screen, and remained silent for a long while.

"Are you really not nervous? Those are the top pianists in the entire world."

Lu Zhixian leaned back on the sofa with his hands behind his head.

"What's there to be nervous about?"

He glanced at Old Zhao with a faint light in his eyes.

"I don't play piano to beat anyone."

He paused.

"It's just for fun."

"You're incredible."