Chapter 91: The Day of the School Celebration

  Having made up his mind to study abroad, Chen Chufan's life began to become more fulfilling as he had basically settled all the miscellaneous matters. He rarely attended classes for his major in history, and most of the time was spent reading various books in the library, covering topics from ancient to modern times, geography, strange events, customs, and human relationships. As long as Chen Chufan thought a book was useful, he would pick it up and flip through it. Anyway, it wouldn't take much time.

  After leaving the library, Chen Chufan would usually go to Professor Wang's place to report. After telling Professor Wang that he had decided to study abroad, Professor Wang was quite pleased. He became even more strict with his requirements for Chen Chufan. In the old professor's words, we cannot let our little Chen student lose face and go to M Country, letting the devils of M Country look down on the artistic standards of Z Country's Zhongbei University.

  Then everyone had free time, and the program began to take shape. Chen Chufan took the songs that the band members had arranged and made some final adjustments with Professor Wang. Given the song's strong classical flavor, Professor Wang decided to use a guzheng, piano, flute, and erhu to perform the piece, and he prepared the corresponding sheet music for Chen Chufan.

  The song selection is done, and it's easy to do some simple performances based on the lyrics. It's just following Yang Tao's idea, letting two people perform some simple performances according to the content of the lyrics. What's worth mentioning is that this performance lineup is extremely strong.

  Although it was just a history department program, six people were scheduled to perform, but only two from the history department actually performed on stage, Chen Chufan and Meng Wei. Chen Chufan doesn't need to be said, he played the guqin and sang. Meng Wei played the role of the general in the lyrics. The other four were Ye Siying's friendly guest piano performance, Han Xiaoxi recovered from her injury and learned about Chen Chufan's program design, so she cried and made a fuss about being a guest erhu player, then through two people in the music department found a child who was proficient in flute to help with the flute performance.

  Accompanying Meng Wei's performance was a freshman from the School of Journalism, who had recently been in a heated relationship with Meng Wei. She was also Chen Xi's roommate. Given this relationship, Chen Xi would occasionally come to watch their rehearsals, but she no longer clashed with Han Xiaohui. On the contrary, Chen Xi often chatted with Han Xiaohui about gossip, and their relationship gradually became more harmonious. Sometimes they even played and joked together. As Yang Tao put it, "These two are really like good sisters now, but Han Xiaohui is a bit too silly. Chen Xi clearly has ulterior motives."

  Every time he finishes speaking, Yang Tao will also use ambiguous eyes to glance at Chen Chufan with a scowl, then make a resentful face and complain for two sentences. The content is nothing more than that men like himself who have both appearance and connotation are not appreciated by anyone, and the eyes of girls nowadays are really nearsighted.

  After the program rehearsal was over, it was almost time to eat. Under his father's strict requirements, Han Xiaoxi struggled in vain and had to reluctantly bid farewell to his boarding school life, commuting between home and school every day. So sending Han Xiaoxi home became Chen Chufan's daily reserved program. The two sat on the bus, matching Han Xiaoxi's gossip about the events of the day, talking about the sweet nothings between young people, and the time on the road passed quickly.

  By the weekend, Chen Chufan would also take some time to go to that Huiyuan Temple and chat with the old monk, bragging a bit. In short, life was fulfilling and comfortable.

  Or the only thing that made Chen Chufan depressed was that Han Xiaoxi's arm had a shocking scar. Although the doctor said that this scar could be completely removed after a period of medication, at least for the entire summer, Han Xiaoxi couldn't even wear short sleeves. Every day, seeing Han Xiaoxi wearing long-sleeved clothes and wandering around in the hot weather, Chen Chufan's heart would feel quite uncomfortable, and the discomfort would eventually turn into anger.

  So every day, after sending off Han Xiaoxi to go home, Chen Chufan would take the bus back to school and then run to Xijie or Hongxin instead of going back to his dormitory. When he encountered a young thug with tattoos and a knife at his waist, trying to act tough, Chen Chufan would transform into a Buddha, advising him to be good. Of course, reason usually doesn't work, so in the end, the youth would transform into a hero, throwing punches. The youth's fists were not heavy but very accurate. His punches landed on the most painful yet safest spots on the body. This was thanks to Chen Chufan learning about human anatomy from his books. In short, the person who got beaten up wouldn't have any serious injuries, but they would definitely be in pain all over for four or five days.

  With a fist, he beat the group of people until they cried and vowed to change their ways and be good from then on. The fire in the young man's heart had gone out by more than half, and with a swagger, he turned his back and walked away with his hands behind him. The group of miserable thugs could only flee in disarray.

  There's a saying that goes, doing one good deed is not hard, what's hard is to do good deeds diligently for a lifetime. Chen Chu Fan clearly isn't satisfied with just doing it once, for three consecutive weeks, Chen Chu Fan was more diligent than the nearby police officers, patrolling this area every evening at fixed times, practically treating the Zhongbei Minzu University neighborhood as his own territory.

  Of course, there were also backlashes in the middle. A group of thugs gathered a dozen or so people after discussing and came to find trouble with Chen Chufan, even using sticks. The result was that they were severely taught a lesson, wailing to reform themselves, and then retreated in disarray. From then on, no one dared to take the initiative to touch the young man's head again.

  The behavior was a bit too arrogant, but the effect was obvious. In less than two weeks, the security around the entertainment gathering points near Zhongbei University became unprecedentedly good. Many thugs simply stopped coming to this area. Even the local thugs who lived nearby had much better tempers than before. In the past, if they disagreed on two sentences, they would directly start fighting. Now, even when a dispute arose and they started arguing, they would first cautiously look around to see if there was a student-like young man wandering around in the area. After looking around, their anger had dissipated by more than half, and finally, they would simply play rock-paper-scissors to determine the winner, with the loser buying two bottles of wine to apologize.

  Even for a long time, this way of fighting became the only way for the hooligans near MinDa to resolve disputes.

  Not to mention those thugs who had been personally taught a lesson by Chen Chufan, they would immediately scurry away like rabbits as soon as they saw someone who looked like a teenager from afar.

  After all, who would want to be beaten up for no reason and then lie in bed for a few days.

  This also made Chen Chufan's reputation in the nearby area shake, basically with Min University as the center, all people within a radius of ten kilometers heard that Zhongbei Min University had produced a young man who was good at martial arts and loved to intervene in other people's affairs, and was said to be a descendant of Chen Zhen, who practiced chivalry every day and specialized in beating up bad guys.

  Years later, the small bosses who had been doing business near Zhongbei University would still tell the freshmen a thing or two about the legend of this young hero.

  Wang Mingtao, the captain of the Xiyuan Road police station, had once cried and laughed at Chen Chufan's actions. However, after Chen Chufan repeatedly assured him that he would not use excessive force, Wang also let it go. After all, what Chen Chufan did could be considered as preventing violent crimes. Although his methods were also violent and didn't quite conform to the regulations on paper. But since they only beat up those idle rascals who didn't do honest work, and nothing big came out of it, the police station naturally had enough reason to turn a blind eye.

  However, this situation lasted for three weeks before Chen Chufan couldn't hold on anymore. The reason was simple: for a whole week, no one dared to fight in the area where he often appeared.

  Such a regular and fulfilling life made Chen Chufan very happy and content every day. A happy life, however, often passes quickly. Before he knew it, the calendar had already flipped to July 12th, which was also the day of the centennial celebration of Zhongbei University.

  Because the performance for the centennial anniversary was quite formal, all programs had been internally reviewed by teachers and were not made public. So when students from the History Department learned that Chen Chufan also had a program selected to be performed at the evening's anniversary gala, they couldn't help but feel surprised. After the surprise came anticipation.

  For this freshman who was unknown at the beginning, and from sophomore year started to be in the news constantly since a lake-jumping incident, many classmates were curious about him. In just over two months, he transformed from an insignificant student with little presence to a legendary figure known throughout the school, which is absolutely legendary. Legends are always mysterious. So many people also feel that Chen Chufan is indeed a very mysterious person, because you can never guess what he's thinking, and even more so, you can't imagine how capable he really is.

  For example, he is normally low-key and tolerant, but can suddenly explode; for example, he has the ability to dunk, but is willing to be a substitute in a small school team; for example, he also has martial arts skills, and it's even said that he's proficient in piano and is valued by an old professor from the music department, and so on and so forth.

  Yang Tao has always sneered at these evaluations, and in his words, what's mysterious or not. That kid used to be just a young man who liked to play low-key to the point of madness, he thought he understood the truth, but it's clear that the truth is far from him, so his views can't influence other people's thinking.

  So for Chen Chufan's upcoming performance at the school anniversary gala, all history department students are filled with great anticipation. This sense of expectation is even greater than their expectations for the centennial school anniversary gala itself.

  The highly anticipated protagonist, however, did not seem to have the self-awareness to carry this expectation. Half an hour before the performance started, he was still being affectionate with his girlfriend by the South Lake.

  Next to the playground, there was a loud noise, where the evening party was held, and the lights were shining brightly. From time to time, music sounds came over, disturbing the insect sounds and startling the frog's dream. However, it did not disturb the two people who were having a secret meeting. Because Chen Chufan finally had the opportunity to stay out all night without going home, he took Han Xiaoxi to the lake to find the feeling of walking around the school every evening.

  "Are you nervous?" Han Xiaohei lazily leaned into the man's arms and asked softly.

  Chen Chufan just smiled slightly and didn't answer the girl's question.

  He only produced this show to fulfill the girl's wish, and for him, whether the show is successful or not doesn't matter at all, as long as the girl is happy. With such a mindset, how could he be nervous?

  "What's so funny!" The girl pouted, then let out a long sigh: "Oh, time flies so fast. Before we know it, the school anniversary will be over and then comes the final exam. Will you go back home for summer vacation?"

  "It's probably time to go back for a while, after all, I'll be going abroad in September and October, and I should go back and let my parents take a good look at me!" Chen Chufan buried his head in the girl's hair, greedily sniffing the fragrance.

  "Oh!" The girl responded with a low, somewhat resentful tone. It was understandable, after all, they had just started dating and were still in the honeymoon phase, only to be faced with the prospect of being apart from each other soon, which was indeed difficult to bear.

  A faint sorrow floated across the girl's delicate face. Chen Chufan felt a little guilty, but didn't know what to say. He just held the girl tightly in his arms and whispered softly into her ear: "We should go, releasing pigeons today will get us scolded to death! I heard that for this school anniversary, the school even spent money to invite two celebrities to perform!"