Their teacher Jiang Die and Xu Wei focused on the last act of "The Dancing Girl", which includes the fourth, fifth, and sixth scenes, collectively known as Act Four. This is also the most important and eye-catching act of "The Dancing Girl".
The dancing girl Nikiya is poisoned by her rival's confidant. In Act Four, the warrior Solor suddenly awakens, realizing that opium has numbed his spirit. He dreams of meeting his lover Nikiya in the "underworld". In "Giselle", the male protagonist Albrecht also meets his lover at the end, but Solor's lover still refuses to forgive him and avoids him at all costs.
Xi Shui knows that dance not only needs to be seen with the eyes but also felt with the heart.
At the end of Act Four, Xi Shui, who plays Solor, has a solo section with high-difficulty variations, followed by supporting the female lead in a series of turns.
The girl playing the princess is called Li Weiwei.
The one playing the female lead, the dancing girl Nikiya, is called Hai Tinghua. According to her, her name comes from her father's surname being Hai, her mother's surname being Hua, and her father always listening to her mother, hence Hai Tinghua.
The afternoon class is for both boys and girls. Before class, the girls, either standing or sitting, stuff their feet into their shoes and rise onto their toes, tying the ribbons above their ankles.
Boys generally don't wear pointe shoes, but if they're playing a cross-dressing role, they have to wear them too.
Li Weiwei holds two bottles of water, handing one to Xi Shui and one to Lin Xiaojin, "Please take care of me."
"Oh, come on," Lin Xiaojin says, "I'm playing the king anyway, sitting most of the time like a damn Buddha statue."
Li Weiwei looks at Xi Shui.
Xi Shui smiles, "Sure."
Li Weiwei looks back at Lin Xiaojin.
The girls have their hair tied up, with big cat-like eyes. Lin Xiaojin quietly moves one seat away, and Li Weiwei boldly sits down next to Xi Shui.
"Let me show you some photos," Li Weiwei pulls up her album and hands it to Xi Shui like a treasure.
Xi Shui looks at the photos and realizes they're pictures of him running to CUSC a couple of days ago.
They're quite blurry.
"What's this about?"
Li Weiwei bumps his shoulder, "You're holding flowers, where were you going?"
Xi Shui stammers.
He keeps looking at Lin Xiaojin, but Lin Xiaojin is already rolling on the ground with Zhao Mengzi. He can't count on Lin Xiaojin, so he can only rely on himself.
Is this considered staking a claim?
"I'm asking you, why do you keep looking at Lin Xiaojin? Do you like gardenias? You should have said so earlier. My yard is full of them. I can ask my mom to cut a bunch for you. The gardenias outside the school aren't fresh," Li Weiwei chatters non-stop.
Xi Shui nods along. Li Weiwei is a chatterbox, and he can't keep up with her pace of talking.
"I saved these from the forum. Let's look at the next one..." Li Weiwei swipes left, revealing an even blurrier picture than the last, "Oh, next one, next one..."
The photos continue until Xi Shui runs into CUSC's Qiusuo Road.
"What were you doing at CUSC? With flowers? Are you dating someone?" Li Weiwei asks curiously.
Xi Shui wipes non-existent sweat from the corner of his eye, a fake move. He's burned by the heat of his own cheeks and awkwardly puts his hand back on his knee, "Mm."
?
Li Weiwei slowly opens her mouth wide, stunned by Xi Shui's thoughtless "Mm."
"What?"
"Who are you dating?"
Xi Shui licks his lips, just about to say Zhou Zeqi's name when someone shouts from outside: "Xi Shui, someone's looking for you!"
"I'll be right back," Xi Shui says as he stands up and leaves.
It's almost the end of class time.
As soon as Xi Shui walks out of the classroom, he sees Zhou Zeqi leaning against the wall and Wu Fengyi squatting next to him.
Zhou Zeqi is wearing a black basketball uniform inside, and due to the rain and cooler temperature, he's thrown on a short black windbreaker over it. The outline gives him a sharp look. Before Xi Shui appeared, he had been keeping his eyelids lowered, until Xi Shui walked out.
Zhou Zeqi raises his eyes, his gaze falling on Xi Shui's face, making Xi Shui's heart flutter.
Wu Fengyi raises his hand, showing a mouthful of white teeth, "Good afternoon."
Xi Shui smiles back at him.
"Why are you here?" Xi Shui looks left and right, then behind him.
Zhou Zeqi stands up straight, "The basketball team has intensive training these two days, staying at the gym."
Xi Shui: "That's... that's pretty good."
"Don't you have anything you want to say?"
"I... I do."
"Say it."
Seeing Zhou Zeqi's persistence, Xi Shui hesitates for a long time before blurting out: "Is the food at the gym good? Don't go hungry."
"......"
Wu Fengyi looks at Zhou Zeqi's gradually crumbling expression and throws his head back, laughing like a pig.
Zhou Zeqi has rarely been at a loss for words. Wu Fengyi has been hanging out with him for so many years; Zhou Zeqi has been a troublemaker since he was little. After entering university, he gradually started to put on a facade of a cultured person, but with his nature, not even a year into university, he changed majors, confronted the dean, and had a cold war with his family, living as if each day might be his last.
Wu Fengyi looks at Xi Shui again and finds that the latter is slightly frowning with his beautiful and delicate eyebrows. The little swan is genuinely worried about the food at the gym, hahaha.
"Don't worry, it's very good," Zhou Zeqi forces a smile, not looking very natural.
"I came back to school to get some things, and happened to pass by the comprehensive building..." Zhou Zeqi walks closer to Xi Shui, taking out two chocolate bars from his jacket pocket, "Dark chocolate. You take them. When you're tired from dancing, break off a piece to eat. It won't make you gain weight."
Xi Shui looks at the foreign text on the chocolate packaging, reaches out to take them, and says in a voice as quiet as a mosquito, "I didn't prepare anything for you."
Although he was the one who actively said he wanted to date Zhou Zeqi, apart from that 30-yuan bunch of gardenias, he hadn't given Zhou Zeqi anything. Xi Shui feels a bit guilty; not only were his intentions impure, but he was also taking advantage of Zhou Zeqi.
"No need," Zhou Zeqi says concisely.
"When you feel like preparing something, then prepare it," Zhou Zeqi's tone is suggestive, but Xi Shui doesn't catch on and just nods.
Xi Shui: "You're so understanding."
Wu Fengyi: "......"
-
Before leaving, Zhou Zeqi bends down and kisses Xi Shui's cheek. Xi Shui's fingers twitch, and the chocolate bars fall to the ground with a "plop".
Zhou Zeqi bends over to pick up the chocolate, pries open Xi Shui's fingers one by one, and places the chocolate back in his hand.
There.
Now Xi Shui doesn't need to run to the gym to stake his claim.
Everyone knows now.
There's no hiding it anymore.
Someone was quick to take a photo and upload it to the forum, like a thunderbolt thrown into an already unsettled lake, startling a species of bird called "CP fans" to fly around and chirp wildly.
[???]
[Who photoshopped this image?]
[Now you've mutated, no, evolved. Evolved to the point of photoshopping kissing pictures? This isn't good. These kinds of pictures should just be shared privately with us.]
[It's real. Class had just ended, and the corridor of the comprehensive building was full of people. When I was going downstairs, I saw King Zhou looking all pleased, coming from the direction of the ballet department's practice room with Wing Wu.]
[It's true, I saw it.]
[Oh my! I ship CPs for fun, but Xi Shui and King Zhou actually being together makes me feel a bit uneasy!]
[So sudden.]
[I don't know whether to envy Xi Shui or Zhou Zeqi now. They both look like the extremely loyal type.]
[King Zhou doesn't seem like it. I always feel like he's about to cheat at any moment.]
[Nonsense!]
[Hope Little Stream can feed us sugar every day, sisters!!!]
[Oh, oh, oh, in this picture, Xi Shui looks so delicate. It feels like King Zhou could snap him with one hand. Can they really do the deed?]
[What deed?]
[You know what]
[You know what]
[......You're sick, you know what.]
Xi Shui shared one of the chocolate bars with Lin Xiaojin.
Lin Xiaojin bites off half the bar in one go, "Shall we go to the cafeteria for food?"
The CUDC cafeteria is ranked as one of the worst cafeterias at Capital U.
It's not because the food is actually bad.
It's because CUDC students generally need to maintain their figure, so the cafeteria mostly offers low-fat, low-carb, or other matching weight-loss meals. There are normal dishes too, but not many, and most students don't eat them anyway.
Xi Shui takes a box of salad, then looks at the spicy beef in the window.
Lin Xiaojin notices and grabs a box, "We'll split it."
"Great!"
In the afternoon, the cloud layers in the sky thinned out, with sunlight tracing a dazzling golden edge along the cloud margins, while the rest remained dull and gray.
Xi Shui was stuffing vegetables into his mouth in large bites, but he chewed slowly, taking a long time with each mouthful.
He put down his fork, chewing while looking around.
Lin Xiaojin: "......"
"I don't need to stake my claim now," Xi Shui said to Lin Xiaojin after swallowing his vegetables and taking a sip of water.
Lin Xiaojin: "Yeah, Zhou Zeqi already staked his claim in advance."
"Did he?"
"You didn't notice?"
Xi Shui hadn't noticed.
Xi Shui picked up his fork and resumed eating, "He came to give me chocolate."
"And to stake his claim in passing."
"Does staking a claim require kissing me?" Why not kiss on the lips, kissing the cheek... it seemed a bit unfair, although rationally Xi Shui knew it was unfair, emotionally, his heart had nearly exploded from shyness at the time.
"Of course, otherwise what, become sworn brothers?" Lin Xiaojin smacked his lips, "Are we short on staple food?"
Xi Shui nodded, "Forgot to bring it."
"I have some in my backpack, I bought bread last week that I haven't eaten yet." Lin Xiaojin pulled out a whole wheat bread from his backpack.
Xi Shui: "From last week? Is it still edible?"
Lin Xiaojin tugged at the packaging to find the expiration date, "It expires tomorrow, still edible."
The bread was split in two, Lin Xiaojin taking the larger half and Xi Shui the smaller. Xi Shui took the bread in his hand, his eyes lighting up with delight, "This whole wheat bread even has a layer of sugar frosting on top!"
-
Zhou Zeqi was indeed not at home, the light next door had never come on.
Xi Shui woke up in the middle of the night, hearing the gentle sound of wind outside. Before he could check the time, a spasm gripped his stomach. He clutched his stomach, hunched over the edge of the bed, tears welling up as an irrepressible urge to vomit rose from his throat.
Xi Shui hung over the bed's edge and threw up everything he had eaten that afternoon.
He knew it!
That!
Bread shouldn't have been eaten!
Xi Shui struggled several times but couldn't get up from the bed. Years of controlling his diet had left his stomach in poor condition, and when it hurt, it felt like he was dying.
His phone rang on the pillow.
Xi Shui, dizzy and nauseous, reached for the phone. He glanced at the time - it was only just past one in the morning.
"Hello?" Xi Shui said weakly, still feeling like he might vomit.
"Meng Kewen said Lin Xiaojin got food poisoning and was sent to the hospital. Are you okay?" Zhou Zeqi's slightly deep voice came through the receiver as Xi Shui's vision gradually blurred.
In the long night, there was always someone thinking of him.
"Not okay, I'm not okay..." Xi Shui lay on the phone, repeating, "Zhou Zeqi, where are you..."