Please, come home and practice the piano

Chapter 1240, Section 460: Above the end of the paragraph, a new journey begins.
June 5th, Sunday, the morning light outside the window was bright.

At exactly 7:30, the car's alarm clock rang on time.

When she opened her eyes, the first thing that came to her mind was that there were only ten days left before she and her teacher set off for Yanjing for a concert.

Oh no, there are only nine days left.

With a soft sigh, the girl sat up in bed, scratched the back of her head, and yawned widely.

Last night she dreamed again that she was practicing the piano when suddenly the black and white keyboard in front of her turned into a grinning zebra.

It has been a week since the Star Returns performance, but it all feels like it just happened last night.

It was a wonderful stage experience, at least for her.

After changing clothes, the stroller got out of bed and left the small house, leaving the living room empty.

The two kittens lay quietly on either side of the sofa, seemingly as down as she was.

Before we knew it, we had been living with Grandpa for almost three months, and Xiao Che seemed to have gotten used to having Grandpa around.

When she stepped out of the small house yesterday morning, steam was rising from the dining table, and her grandfather asked her with a smile if she was hungry.

Fortunately, she went with her grandfather to the airport yesterday afternoon, otherwise she would have been terribly upset.

Yesterday at the airport, before her grandfather boarded the plane, he patted her head and told her to eat well and write carefully.

She promised her grandfather she would keep her word.

She asked her grandfather when he would come back, and he smiled and said he would come back in winter.

She made a pinky promise with her grandfather.

On her way back from the airport, she noticed that her teacher was also in a low mood.

She wanted to make the teacher happy, but she couldn't even laugh herself.

She asked the teacher if she didn't want her grandfather to leave, and she wanted to hear the teacher say yes.

But the teacher said he wanted his grandfather to leave.

"Old Li is homesick."

She only realized what the teacher meant after hearing that.

My grandfather's home is not in Chengdu.

From the teacher's tone, she vaguely understood one thing: the child's home is not the parents' home.

But is the parents' home also the child's home?

She didn't know how to think about this problem, so she didn't ask the teacher.

Because the teacher was really in a bad mood yesterday.

Even though everything has been good and happy lately, the teacher is in a low mood. There's only one reason for that: Grandpa has come home.

Although Grandpa has returned home, it feels like he hasn't truly returned.

After washing up, Xiao Che opened the refrigerator and took out the beef buns that Grandpa had steamed the day before yesterday, then put them in the steamer to heat them up.

The refrigerator contained not only steamed buns, but also braised beef, mutton sauce, and fried ribbonfish. For the three days before he passed away, Grandpa was busy in the kitchen every day, as if he wanted to buy another refrigerator and fill it up before he could leave in peace.

Despite the teacher's several impatient attempts to dissuade the grandfather, he simply smiled and stopped, saying, "It's not much, take your time eating."

To Xiao Che, this was a grammatically incorrect sentence. "It's not much; we still need to eat slowly."

The little car knew that the teacher didn't want to see Grandpa working so hard, and the little car also knew that Grandpa didn't feel that he was working hard at all.

All she could do was finish all the food her grandfather left behind, without wasting a single bit.

"Grandpa, I'm starting to eat!"

Before breakfast, Xiao Che took a short video of Lao Li.

A short while later, Lao Li replied with a voice message, sounding cheerful, saying: "Don't just eat dry food, drink some thin liquid."

The car's voice reply: Grandpa, I'm drinking milk. What are you and Grandma having for breakfast?
Old Li: We went out for ramen this morning, it was delicious!

Car: Hahaha, I'm beautiful too!!

And so, Xiao Che finished his breakfast while sending voice messages to Lao Li.

Little Car: Grandpa, I'm going to practice the piano!
-
At 8:30, Xiao Che turned on the air conditioner in the study, sat down at the piano, and began practicing. Half an hour of warm-up was definitely not excessive; she hadn't properly warmed up in the past few days.

Today, her goal for practicing piano is at least eight hours, with the rest depending on her physical condition.

The goal of this content is to address the details of the first half of the program.

These are all questions that the teacher and she discussed over the past week.

This includes optimizing the left-hand fingering in the second variation of Nightingale to address the overall coherence of the sentences.

She needs to think about Mendelssohn's Rondo more carefully. Her teacher suggested that she could amplify the beautiful emotions in the music a bit more.

There are also Schumann's short plays; it's fair to say that her biggest headache right now is Schumann's three short plays.

It's no exaggeration to say that these three songs are what she's most dissatisfied with right now.

Although the teacher said she played all three pieces very well.

So, starting with eight hours, she hoped she could solve at least two of the problems today.

Time flew by and it was 10:40 when the cell phone on the piano lid suddenly rang.

"Hello, teacher."

She stopped, picked up her phone, and answered her teacher's call.

On the phone, Ang Lee asked Xiao Che how his practice was going, and Xiao Che said he felt pretty good.

"I'm practicing variations of Nightingale, and the fingering is almost done."

"Okay, just practice slowly. These are all minor issues. Don't get stuck on them or overthink things."

"Yes, teacher, I understand. Will you be back for dinner tonight?"

I'll get home around 6 p.m. I won't be going back for lunch, so you can eat whatever you like.

"Okay, bye-bye, teacher!"

Xiao Cheben wanted to ask the teacher how things were going.

The teacher left early this morning at 6:30 because she had arranged to discuss Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with Uncle Fang in the morning, so she rescheduled the class to start at 7:00.

These past few days, the teacher, like her, has been putting in all her effort for the performance at Yanjing.

She hadn't seen her teacher for a long time and had been practicing the piano for more than seven hours a day on average for a week.

The teacher didn't practice on Tuesday, because on Tuesday the teacher took Uncle Liangshan on a trip around Chengdu.

No one expected that Uncle Liangshan would come to Chengdu.

Uncle Liangshan not only listened to the Star Returns performance, but also gave a very formal interview to everyone at the Chengdu Concert Hall on Tuesday night.

That evening, all the main creators of the program, including the teacher, Wang Xiaohu, Qiao Zhizhi, and herself, were invited to the interview.

The two-hour interview passed quickly, filled with many laughs.

It was during this review process that Xiao Che realized how much effort the teacher had put into the program.

And these adorable little friends.

That night, after the interview ended, Xiao Che felt a genuine sense of reluctance to part with Wang Xiaohu, who would soon be heading to Vienna.

She so wished that these friends could always be together, happily growing and learning together.

But after seeing Uncle Liangshan's article on his WeChat official account on Thursday, she felt a sense of relief.

-

"Echoes Under the Stars" came to a perfect close under the dazzling starlight of the Chengdu Concert Hall, but this is by no means the end.

For those shining young people on stage, the spotlight illuminates their extraordinary talent, courage to break through, inner resilience, and the bonds they share with each other.

Whether it's the zebra-like young pianist about to embark on his journey to Beijing, the young conductor who persists in his own path, or every participant who learns to take responsibility through teamwork—

This echo under the "starry sky" will surely be deeply imprinted on their growth trajectory, becoming an inextinguishable starlight illuminating their continued journey.

The next exciting journey has begun, and we eagerly await its start.

Excerpt from "Where Applause Falls, Starlight Grows" by Liang Shan, Chief Editor of Lizhi Classical Music