Chapter 60: Borrow this joint for a confession

Yanzhou University’s freshman welcoming-cum-military instructors send-off party entered its final few acts. Two microphones had been set up on stage, the female emcee in a formal gown smiling beautifully as she raised a hand in a very well-trained manner, saying, “Next up, let us enjoy the next segment of tonight’s programme, crosstalk...”

As she was speaking, two people suddenly jumped up on stage. They carried guitars, garbed in great swarthy clothes that covered their entire bodies. Masks like Zorro but a little bigger covered the greater part of their faces.

“Excuse us, I’ll be borrowing this joint for a confession,” One of them walked straight over and said simply into the microphone.

During Yanzhou University’s welcoming party, these guys had suddenly jumped onto the stage with guitars, saying straight out that they would borrowing their joint for a confession. An incident such as this...the hell, what was going on all of a sudden?

At least, this was what all these freshmen here who were currently still filled with enthusiasm as well as a sense of novelty towards things were feeling at the moment.

It was silent for a few seconds. Then, the emcee recovered, trying to regain control of the situation and get rid of the interruption to today’s programme. However, her voice was quickly drowned out by the cheers and applause coming from the entire crowd.

Ever since Yanzhou University’s new semester had begun, quite a few confessions had already taken place at the training grounds or beneath the female dormitories. They had always proceeded along the lines of lighting up candles, getting down on their knees, presenting flowers and whatnot...

However, not one of them had been more tyrannical than this bro up on stage now, and not one had been more romantic as well.

“This song, , is dedicated to you,” Fu Cheng continued in a tone that appeared calm on the surface.

Fang Yunyao began shifting about a little uneasily in her seat. She recognised Fu Cheng’s voice.

Xu Tingsheng came before the microphone as well. Perhaps because the ‘borrowing this joint for a confession’ by the other person earlier had really set the bar too high, the whole place fell silent. They all waited in anticipation for what this next person might say.

In the end, Xu Tingsheng said, “Look at him-it’s him who wants to confess. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

Fu Cheng sent a kick in Xu Tingsheng’s direction. Earlier, the two had discussed, disguised themselves and practised together for close to an hour in the dorms, keeping each other’s spirits up amidst this. In the end, however, while Fu Cheng had gone all out, Xu Tingsheng...had betrayed him as soon as he had gone on stage.

Great laughter resounded, the school leadership and the spectators below the stage beginning to feel like this might perhaps be the crosstalk performance as had just been announced by the emcee. Having pulled such a stunt in getting on stage, it was really pretty interesting.

Still, they soon laughed no more.

The strumming of the wooden guitars began. Fu Cheng’s voice was smooth and tender, Xu Tingsheng’s husky and bearing the vicissitudes of life.

“It’s like it’s been forever

I no longer hear your voice

Telling me the tales of your past

......”

This was a Fairy Tale whose lyrics Xu Tingsheng had changed. Due to the lack of preparation time, this was a Fairy Tale which sounded a little different, its flavour having changed. It was like someone pleading agonisingly: Please believe. Please believe that fairy tales do exist. Believe in me, believe that an ending for us does exist.

In this life, the story of Fu Cheng and Fang Yunyao had begun earlier due to Xu Tingsheng’s interference. Many troubles lay ahead of them due to their contrasting identities as teacher and student as well as their age difference.

Still, Xu Tingsheng believed that this was something that could be overcome.

If it was said that Fu Cheng’s confession to Fang Yunyao during the graduation dinner had merely been one of life’s interesting episodes to her, all that had happened afterwards had been like Fu Cheng continually hammering away at her heart time and time again.

At the very least, these emotions were already showing through as increasingly real and sincere. Fang Yunyao must be able to feel that this was not the blind admiration and adoration of a reckless youth, instead being a real, proper love.

That incident with Zhang Junming had been the first blow. The scene of Fu Cheng lunging towards Zhang Junming as well as that of him fast asleep outside the door of her dorm room afterwards would always remain within Fang Yunyao’s heart. At that moment in which he had walked into her room, perhaps he had begun walking into her heart as well.

They had chatted for a long time that day. Fang Yunyao had told Fu Cheng about her past, her growth and her memories.

Also, what moved Fang Yunyao and left her feeling reassured was that Fu Cheng had not been in her room when she awoke the next day. After she had fallen asleep, Fu Cheng had left the room, continuing to stand guard outside the door till she awoke the next day.

With this, Fang Yunyao had been able to believe that his love stemmed not from the desire and greed of youth.

Next had been the night on which both of them had gotten drunk at Xu Tingsheng’s home. Fang Yunyao had finally said ‘A pity you’re much too young’, to which Fu Cheng had answered ‘I’ll grow up if you just wait a bit. Wait for me, okay?’.

Fang Yunyao had at least given a positive response, having already began to consider this matter at the time.

Finally, there was the day of the football match back in Libei Senior High. As that crazed howl had resounded from before the stands, followed by that wild, passionate confession...what of the one seated, to whom it had been directed? How had she been feeling?

“Perhaps you won’t know

But if you say that you love me

In my sky, the stars all ignite

......”

It was already no longer possible to know whether Fu Cheng’s painstaking devotion in Xu Tingsheng’s previous life had been able to change Fang Yunyao’s mind in the end.

However, Fang Yunyao had not remarried after having rejected Fu Cheng, also not having truly viciously steeled her resolve and distanced herself from him for good. Xu Tingsheng did not believe that she hadn’t been moved, hadn’t wavered. Back then, what she had been most worried about was perhaps no longer her identity as a teacher but her identity as a divorced single parent as she did not wish to hold Fu Cheng back.

If not for that, perhaps she would have loved him.

Therefore, Xu Tingsheng believed that he was not blindly playing matchmaker.

Their relationship just needed a fairy tale, just needed Fang Yunyao to believe, believe that their story would be like a fairy tale, culminating in a happy, blissful ending.

“Please believe

Believe that we will be like in the fairy tales

Happy and blissful to the end of our days

......

Together let’s write our happy ending”

Just having sung a few lines in the middle, Xu Tingsheng had already long since closed his mouth, just quietly strumming his guitar by the side.

Fu Cheng sang alone, singing and singing till he was choking on his emotions, the words vaguely indistinct as he sang them out time and time again: Please believe. Believe that our story will be like in the fairy tales. Happy and blissful-that is how things will end for us.

Xu Tingsheng had changed the ‘your favourite stories’ in the lyrics to ‘the tales of your past’. There was a night on which Fang Yunyao had told Fu Cheng about her past, her experiences in senior high as well as university. This was in order to help Fang Yunyao remember that night.

However, the real most important part that Xu Tingsheng had changed was actually just a tiny little thing. He had changed the ‘You must believe’ from the original lyrics into ‘Please believe’...

In this manner, the tone of the song had changed from the original ‘persuading’ to ‘imploring’.

If this inequivalent romance were to blossom, so much sacrifice and so much courage would be required on Fang Yunyao’s part. There was no good reason that Fu Cheng could employ. All he could do was implore, shower her with entreaties.

Please believe.

Fu Cheng was rather a good-looking guy. Additionally, while he was wearing a Zorro-like mask, the audience beneath the stage could still see his eyes. Those were intense, passionate eyes in which glistening tears could currently be seen.

A handsome dude strumming his guitar and singing passionately as he made a confession to the one whom he loved, till even tears dripped down his face.

This was the first time everyone was hearing this song being sung, so some began to guess that this had been specifically written by him for that girl in a most romantic confession.

This that had topped all the charts and swept all the awards of the music industry in 2005 and 2006 hereby appeared with a mood of even greater hurt and sincerity before everyone for the first time as some girls in the audience even began sobbing.

“Say yes, say yes.”

Such cries resounded across the entire hall. Of course, no one knew who the female lead was.

Originally being rather young, Fang Yunyao did not appear any obtrusive sitting amongst the crowd of students at all. While she was secretly dabbing away at her tears, there were similarly many others who were doing that as well.

Other than Song Ni and Huang Yaming who were sitting quietly beside her, not daring to utter a sound, no one else knew that she was the true female lead of this song.

Fu Cheng could already sing no more. He went up, bowed.

Xu Tingsheng went up and bowed as well, next coming before the microphone and saying, “As someone who has always been trying to get the two of you together, I cannot ask for you to accept him, because I know how difficult this must be for you...but how about, you consider it seriously? Or, wait a little?”

The audience knew not what Xu Tingsheng’s words might mean, yet their cheers were all the more intense. They could tell that that which obstructed this relationship was immense, that extreme difficulty existed in its fulfillment. The tougher a romance, the more easily people would be moved by it, and the more willing they would be to wish those involved happiness.

Fang Yunyao did not stand up.

She did not flee as well.

As a teacher, Fang Yunyao’s life had actually just consisted of walking out of a school environment and entering yet another school environment. Not having truly experienced the baptism of society, with regard to her state of mind, at least, she was still very much like a girl in university.

She would act spoiled, she would throw those little huffs. She yearned for the romantic, she longed for love, she was easily moved.

If the person on the stage right now had not been her former student, she would definitely stand up like any other girl studying in university, blissfully going forth to embrace this relationship, embrace that person.

Yet, she knew not now what to do.

To leave-she could not walk away.

To accept-she could not stand up.

After the confession was over, Xu Tingsheng grabbed Fu Cheng, wanting to flee. The female emcee ascended the stage again, blocking the two of them.

“Students, please wait a moment,” She said, smiling.

“No,” Xu Tingsheng simply answered.

The audience was rendered speechless by this.

“I’m just going to ask you a few simple questions. Are the two of you studying in Yanzhou University?”

“Yes.”

“Freshmen?”

“Yes.”

“From the way you two are dressed, you seem to want to hide your identities. I won’t ask for your courses and names then. Are you a group act?”

“You can say that.”

“Then, we discussed that song backstage for a bit, and none of us have heard it before. Is it an original of yours?”

“You can say that.”

Their guesses having been confirmed, shocked cries resounded from the audience below. If it was said that their admiring sighs just now had been due to that ‘deep outpouring of emotion”, their shocked sighs now were at the ‘talent’ of the two.

“One last question. Can we know the name of your band?”

The name of their band? Xu Tingsheng had never intended to form any band in the first place, so how would he ever have considered this question? He thought, on himself and Xiang Ning, on Fu Cheng and Fang Yunyao. What had all once been regrets, were now starting anew all once more...

“Can’t you even tell us this?” The female emcee pressed.

“Rebirth.”

Xu Tingsheng answered that final question and fled in panic with Fu Cheng via the backstage.

Behind them, the female emcee said to the audience, “A round of applause for Rebirth’s marvellous performance...Next up, let us enjoy the next segment of our programme, crosstalk...”