Chapter 21: Chapter 21

Chapter 21: The Voice In The Garden

Since the ability-drawing session was over, Su Yang could do nothing but accept his fate.

He went to the bathroom to wash the blood off his face and got all sentimental about how poor his fate was.

‘I knew things wouldn’t be this smooth…’

In the past few days, everything had been going well for him. His point-adding had been great and even the kid that he was supposed to locate returned home by herself.

As expected, fate toyed with him big time at this very moment.

‘Fate must be jealous of how handsome I am.’

Su Yang looked at his bruised nose in the mirror. He tried to cry but failed to shed a single drop. He really lost a huge deal in this ability-drawing session.

After he adjusted his mood, Su Yang went out of the bathroom.

Even though he did not get any ability that could help him in his English semester test, he was still hopeful. He still had one and a half to two months before the test. By then, the [Lucky Disfiguring Brick]’s cooldown would be reset and he could gamble once more.

Should he fail at that timing, he might have to welcome the first failed subject in his university life.

He did consider smashing himself with the brick before the test but the effect would only last for 30 minutes. Considering the fact that students had to arrive at the exam venue before the test started plus the time needed for the lecturers to distribute the test papers, it would be great if he had 10 minutes left on the timer for him to answer the paper.

10 minutes of ‘Lucky Time’ was not enough for him to pass the subject.

He tested the effects of the brick earlier and found out that the extent of his luck was not about knowing the answers to blanks, but he must first answer the question. After thinking about it, he would get a hunch about which or what answer to write.

As for knowing the answer without looking at the question, it might be possible if Su Yang flattened his face with the brick.

Of course, he did have one more option other than smashing himself with the brick or drawing more ability from missions, which was to study English for real. He thought about it seriously, but he realized that if he really had the time to study, the results of his other subjects would have been near perfect.

Therefore, he gave up on the option. Everyone’s talent was different, and he did not want to forcefully change anything. After he mentally prepared himself for another ability-drawing session, Su Yang returned to his desk and checked his reward.

He had to admit that the [Lucky Disfiguring Brick] was useful. Otherwise, it would take him a long time to find out that randomly drawing the three same abilities would give him something extra related to the ability.

Su Yang tapped to get the ability, and right away, a series of guitar-related knowledge gushed into mind, including how to hold a guitar, how to read the music score, how to play a tune, and how to sing while playing, etc.

The knowledge and techniques merged with him like his second instinct as if he instantly became a professional guitarist who had been playing and singing for seven to eight years. He knew everything there was to know about a guitar.

If he were to describe his current guitar level, he would probably say that he was only a step shy from becoming a full-time guitarist and could make it as an occupation. His skills were far better than the average guitar hobbyist’s.

Unlike the first ability he got, [Close Combat], maybe because playing the guitar needed him to have a certain level of musical knowledge, Su Yang’s mind was also filled with a lot of musical knowledge.

It allowed him to grasp the rest of the musical instruments based on his level of guitar knowledge. He was able to more or less play other musical instruments and could even write one or two songs himself, but it might not turn out melodious enough.

After all, all musical instruments shared the same musical theory.

It was an expected surprise that cured his grievance by a lot. This ability might not be as useless as he thought.

When he tried to sing, he realized that his voice was indeed more charming and melodious, but he did not know whether it was a psychological effect or not.

Nevertheless, he did not have plans to become an actor or a singer. He just wanted to keep a low-profile and earn money!

How could this lousy ability earn him money?

Besides, he would still have to buy a guitar which meant that he must spend the money first before the ability could be of any use!

…

On the second day, Su Yang visited a guitar shop and spent 300 yuan on an entry-level guitar.

He had been thinking about this for a whole night. A man’s fate might be as uncertain as the weather. He might end up on the streets one day without any food on his plate. Until then, he could rely on the guitar to perform by the roadside or under the bridge to make a living.

He passed by the bank after he came out of the guitar shop, so he conveniently transferred 5,000 yuan to his parents. Since he got richer, he should change his parents’ way of life for the better.

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His parents insisted on not taking his money. It was his hard-earned money after all and everything cost a lot in the big city. His parents blamed themselves for not being able to provide him with equal conditions to compete with other children, so they did not want to drag their son back.

In the end, after Su Yang persuaded them in every possible way, they accepted the money. However, they said they would keep it for him in case he got married in the future.

Su Yang did not care since old folks tended to behave as such.

He just wanted his parents to have the money. If they needed the money, they would be able to use it. Even if they did not, he would feel better with them having the money.

The older generation had lived through some tough days, but the virtue of saving and the spirit to endure hardship lived in the hearts of the people of Huaxia.

Carrying his newly bought guitar, he banked in 27,000 yuan into his own account and then headed to the campus while humming a melody.

After he found an empty garden in the faculty, he sat down and put his guitar strap around his neck. His fingers simply touched the strings, and at that moment, images flashed through his mind. The guitar felt like his best friend that he had grown up with. He felt very familiar with every aspect of it and did not feel as stiff as before.

Su Yang tried out all six of the guitar strings and with his ‘many years’ of experience in playing the guitar, his ears were able to tell that the tunes were off.

He tried to adjust the tune of the strings according to his gut feeling, and after being tormented for a full five minutes, he finally tuned the six strings according to the standard of his memories.

However, that was the best that he could do. The melody of this guitar was not as good as the one in his memory since it was just an entry-level instrument.

After he tuned the guitar, he embraced it closely. His eyes were gazing at the flowers and lush of the garden but at that moment, he did not know what to sing.

‘What should I play? I don’t think I know that many songs either…’

Su Yang stared blankly at the garden for a while and finally remembered a song that he used to listen to.

He tested out a few chords and started humming.

‘Countless chilly winds once caressed my chest.

‘The farthest dream once forced me to gaze into the stars

‘I was once sneered at and mocked countless times, telling me to give up my melodious dream.’

‘I was once drowned by loess, washing away my passion…

A voice of a boy singing the complaints of his life softly echoed in the garden.

…

As the class secretary of Chinese Literature in the Faculty of Arts of Shanghai University, Chu Xia was actually busy.

Apart from having to organize the tasks assigned by the lecturers before distributing them to the students, she also had to help the students to deal with…ahem…’explain’ all sorts of problems to the lecturers.

Even if she did not have any class that day, she had to make many trips to the office and the faculty. After all, other than the tasks from the lecturers, she still had to deal with the tasks from the student committee and mentors.

She had just finished a meeting at the Cultural Club with the student committee. Shanghai University was collaborating with two more other universities to organize a singing competition on campus. The Cultural Club had given her a task to find at least one participant from each class.

She headed to the dorm right after the meeting. When she walked past a little garden, she heard someone singing while playing the guitar.

She loved music ever since she was young and was rather familiar with all kinds of musical instruments. Therefore, for whatever reason, she quietly took a detour to the garden.

After she went into the garden, she saw the back of a boy being blocked by a significant portion of the parterre. The boy was carrying a guitar and tuning the strings.

‘Is he tuning by ear?!’ Chu Xia was slightly surprised.

Such a technique was not difficult to master, but one must have a certain talent and a set of good ears. Furthermore, one must be experienced. Only a musician who had been making music for years could tune by ear alone.

Besides, in modern society, no matter how keen the human ear was, they were no match for the accuracy of a tuner.

Therefore, it was rare for a guitarist to tune by ear.

As she listened to the change of tune on the strings, Chu Xia was certain that the person had not tuned the guitar beforehand with a tuner. It was not to show off. Instead, the person was really listening to the chords and tuning it one by one.

Soon, the strings were tuned. The boy somehow went blank for quite a while as if he was thinking about something.

Chu Xia waited for two minutes, but the boy had yet to sing.

Just when she wanted to leave because she thought the boy’s mind had wandered off and he did not plan to sing, a few simple chords burst out and a charming, magnetic and somewhat familiar voice entered her ears.