Chapter 43

“Does he really know how to play the Chinese zither?”

Before the question hung in their heads for long, Fang Qiu already started to play.

It was still the Oceans’ Roar!

“Impressive, bro!”

“It’s the fourth one!”

“Is there any musical instrument that you can’t play?”

“Li Qingshi’s face must have already been slapped swollen!”

As playing, Fang Qiu shot chilling looks at Li Qingshi.

In fact, he had better play the Chinese zither with fake nails. Even though real nails were more flexible and convenient, they were not thick enough. If one plucked the strings with your own nails, the sound you produced would be thin and dull, especially when you plucked at the low pitch area where the notes tended to be ethereal. Adding that due to the limited plucking angles, it would be hard to catch the best angle, which in turn would affect its sound and the techniques you could employ.

But so what?

If he ought to perform several songs in a row, he would have to wear fake nails.

However, now that he was only going to do half or one-fourth of a song, it would not hurt to play with his own nails!

Li Qingshi’s face darkened so much that it appeared to wring wet, while his eyes that landed on Fang Qiu was full of incredulity.

He just could not believe a man could really master so many musical instruments.

Especially when this man was Fang Qiu!

This was utterly beyond his cognitive competence. “How is it possible that a man can play musical instruments like that?”

“Even if his interests for musical instruments are varied, how come he is so talented and have so much time to learn all of them?”

“How old is Fang Qiu? Only seventeen!”

“For an ordinary guy, even if he has kept learning until he is twenty-seven, thirty-seven, or forty-seven, he will not be able to master four or five musical instruments!”

Nevertheless, Fang Qiu’s performance is not over. He left the Chinese zither but then scooped up a bamboo flute.

“The fifth musical instrument!”

As music flowed out, Li Qingshi’s confidence completely crumbled.

The talent he had been proud of seemed so insignificant in front of Fang Qiu, rendering him rather ashamed.

Helpless!

He felt deeply helpless!

As if all his strength was sucked away in an instant, Li Qingshi’s face looked pale, and his legs nearly gave way.

A bamboo flute solo.

It was the same Oceans’ Roar.

How sarcastic the familiar melody sounded now!

The song he practiced meticulously was easy to play for Fang Qiu. The skills he had been treasuring turned out to be quite lousy. Now he realized he had made a laughingstock of himself before the expert.

After playing a chapter, Fang Qiu laid down the bamboo flute and picked up a violin.

“Gosh!”

“There is more!”

This was mind-blowing for everyone.

“Do you still want others to live?”

“Even if you don’t leave a way out for Li Qingshi, you ought to give us a chance to survive, don’t you?”

“Since you’re so talented, in contrast, we’re all sh*t. The years we’ve lived is just a waste of time!”

“Enough, please call it a day now.”

“We can’t take more!”

“You’re amazing, all right? We admit you’re brilliant!”

However, Fang Qiu did not place the violin on his shoulder and start playing. Instead, he googled at Li Qingshi frigidly and demanded, “You want to see more?”

All the eyes instantly focused on Li Qingshi.

“Want more?”

Li Qingshi looked embarrassedly scarlet.

It was not proper to say yes, because he needed no more proof to know he already lost to Fang Qiu.

But it did not feel right to say no. It would sound like he was admitting his defeat, wouldn’t it?

Throwing in the sponge in front of all these people was something he would never do.

At this, Fang Qiu snorted, placed the violin back and said, “Such being the case, don’t do more sordid deals under the table. Show your abilities openly, whatever you have. I’ll outperform them one by one. If you’re not convinced, just bring it on!”

“Outperform your abilities one by one!”

“Not convinced? Just bring it on!”

Those words made the crowd stir again.

Today, they finally learned about this student named Fang Qiu.

“His talents are stunning!”

“His behavior is quite domineering!”

“He even dared go against the president of the student union in public, but he did it in a way open and aboveboard!”

“Just put everything on the table. I’ll defeat you with my own strength, and then, I shall see what demurs you can still hold.”

“That’s what a truly powerful person should be!”

“Sure enough, all the plots and schemes are useless in front of overwhelming strength.”

All the people there were clear that today Li Qingshi suffered a crushing defeat. The talent that made him a celebrity on campus was now completely outshone.

Although Li Qingshi was quite brilliant, compared to the nature-defiant Fang Qiu, his brilliance was just like the light of a firefly, never able to compete with the bright moonlight Fang Qiu was radiating.

Seeing Li Qingshi did not speak a word, Fang Qiu sneered and said to his three roommates, “Let’s go.”

Zhu Benzheng, Sun Hao, and Zhou Xiaotian immediately held their chins up, stalked to catch up with Fang Qiu and took off with him.

“Fang Qiu won it, which means our Dormitory 501 won it!”

“Of course, we shall keep our chins up!”

“We’re just so arrogant!”

“You don’t agree?”

“If so, try to overtake Fang Qiu!”

“He’ll crash you!”

As they walked past a corner of the sports ground, Fang Qiu suddenly came to a halt. At the sight of that banner, he gave a sigh in his mind.

“Poor thing. At a blossom age but got caught in such a tragedy. How pathetic!”

Those on the sports ground had been staring at Fang Qiu all the way out. When they saw Fang Qiu stopped in front of the donation desk, they quickly came up with their speculations.

“Will Fang Qiu really make a donation?”

At the scene, Li Qingshi’s eyes gleamed. He trotted over to the donation desk and announced, “We should help our schoolmate who is in trouble. I’ll donate a thousand yuan!”

He said those words out loud, so people in the surroundings all heard him clearly.

And they were all taken aback at Li Qingshi’s generosity.

Although a thousand yuan was not much for most working men, it was still a lot of money for students.

After all, they were all relying on the funds that their parents earned painstakingly to pay their college tuition, and even their money for living expenses was not much.

Therefore, many only donated fifty yuan or a hundred yuan, five hundred tops. Jiang Miaoyu was one of those who pitched in five hundred yuan.

Despite the small amount of each donation, there were a large number of students, which was sufficient to combine into a huge donation.

As Li Qingshi made the one thousand yuan donation.

The staff taking charge of the donating affair took the lead to applaud, which developed into a round of applause.

Li Qingshi finally felt confident again. He threw a lofty look at Fang Qiu, studied his ordinary clothes and thought he did not look like a rich guy.

Having detected Li Qingshi’s looks and gestures, Fang Qiu shot him a cold and disdainful glance.

He seldom disdained others because he believed everyone was equal. Even though he had learned loads of stuff that others did not know, he thought they could have learned them as he did, which was just a matter of time. Thus, he had never thought himself superior to anyone.

That was also the reason why he stuck up for those students who got sprayed by the mud and water splashed from a luxury car the other day.

But this time, he did feel that he started to look down upon Li Qingshi.

A man like him not only had little ambition and talent but also have no brain.

Before the applause ebbed, Fang Qiu abruptly shouted, “Everybody, I have a few words for you.”

All the people instantly stopped clapping their hands and turned to look at Fang Qiu in interest.

They were all curious about what remarks Fang Qiu would make at this point.

Jiang Miaoyu had also walked from the Acupuncture Association to the donation stall and rested her eyes on Fang Qiu curiously.

“It’s natural that we donate for our schoolmate who is in trouble. But is this truly all that we can do?”

Asked Fang Qiu in a booming voice.

The crowd was aghast at those words.

“What else can we possibly do apart from donating money?”

“Go to visit the sick student?”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“It doesn’t sound plausible in light of the large number of us. With all of us bustling in and out, it won’t do good for her rest and health.”

“We are students of a Chinese Medicine university!”

Fang Qiu declared, “Now, we have a student who got cancer. She is not only our schoolmate, but she is also one of the thousands of patients in the world. Money can’t help them.”

“We are destined to become doctors, destined to lift pain from our patients.”

“Thus, when we see our schoolmate agonizing with his illness, we should not only see his suffering but also all the patients’ suffering in the world. I reckon what we can do is not simply donate money but set a greater goal! A noble ambition!”

Fang Qiu met everyone’s gaze and went on, “Make a vow to be the best doctors, to take responsibility for all the patients, to exert ourselves to help them break free from their tormenting illnesses—that is the noble ambition!”

“Apart from this unlucky student, there are numerous patients waiting for our growth, for our rescue. Shall we truly get the peace of mind by donating a bit of money? Remember, we are students of the School of Chinese Medicine who are studying Chinese Medicine!”

Those remarks made all the people shift their eyes to the ground.

Their faces all scarlet in shame.

Their subconscious had been telling them that donating money would show their sympathy, and would prove they did care for others.

But in fact, they forgot they were students of a Chinese Medicine university. They did not intend to handle the illness of their schoolmate with their own abilities, so they chose to fix it with money.

Of course, they were not capable of handling the treatment now.

But that did not mean they would not be able to do it in the future.

“If I don’t believe I can do it now, nor will I believe so in the future!”

“Alas!”

“I’m not living up to my identity of being a student of the School of Chinese Medicine!”

At this point, a discordant voice sounded.

“Nicely said. But you didn’t donate much, did you?”

Asked Li Qingshi with a chilling smile.

But he regretted saying so the second his words were out, for it would damage the noble image he had tried to set in others’ mind, especially in Jiang Miaoyu’s mind.

Now that the words were already out, he could not take them back.

He had to hold on.

After casting a cold look at Li Qingshi, Fang Qiu took out his smartphone, scanned the QR code pasted to the donation desk, entered several numbers and then input his password.

After that, he wheeled around and took off.

The phone on the donation desk rang, displaying the information on the paid donation. A staff curiously reached out to check the phone. At the sight of the number, he went dumbstruck.

“How much? How much did he donate?”

Someone around him asked, intrigued.

“Twenty-nine thousand!”

Answered the staff in a still incredulous tone.

“How much?”

People around him thought they had heard it wrong.

“Twenty-nine thousand yuan!”

Yelled the staff immediately.

“Great God!”

The crowd stirred in amazement!

“Holy cow!”

“It’s twenty-nine thousand yuan!”

“Which is the total amount of our two-year living expenses!”

“How wealthy!”

“Never thought Fang Qiu is a wealthy guy!”

“But even a rich guy would not really donate so much money as he did!”

No matter what guessed they had, everyone was appalled by the amount of Fang Qiu’s donation.

They thought about Fang Qiu’s previus talent show, the speech he just did, and the amount of the donation he now made.

All of them started to have overwhelming admiration for him.

“No way can a man not admire him!”

“If you don’t feel this way, try to donate twenty-nine thousand yuan!”

As they heard the number, no one would think Fang Qiu was talking big and trying to be high-sounding anymore.

He was a man of action, ambition, and sympathy.

“Then, look at me.”

“I’m far way behind him!”

A lot of people immediately determined that they ought to work hard from now on. Even though they might not excel at all the fields that Fang Qiu had masters, they shall not be overshadowed by him in the field of medicine. They would certainly be more excellent in medical skills than Fang Qiu!

As the staff blurted out the number “twenty-nine thousand”, Li Qingshi’s face went incredibly sullen.

Fang Qiu’s generous donation also startled Jiang Miaoyu.

Recalling the slander Li Qingshi just made, she darted a disappointed look at him before she spun around.

On the other side.

As they were on the way back to their dormitory, Zhou Xiaotian asked curiously, “The youngest, how much did you donate just now?”

Fang Qiu gave a wry laugh and replied, “Now, there is only one thousand and two hundred left in my account. You can do the calculation yourself.”

His three roommates jumped at the number. They thought Fang Qiu had contributed several thousand yuan, which was almost all of his living expenses for this semester, so they quickly praised him for his nobility and exemplary conduct.

What they did not know was that Fang Qiu’s donation actually amounted to his two-year living expenses.

He nearly gave out all the thirty thousand treatment fee that he just obtained last Wednesday, only keeping one thousand yuan.

That money was the payment he earned for treating a patient. Now, it could help another person to get treated, as though all this was preordained.

He had no intention to pretend to be rich, nor was he forced into making this donation by Li Qingshi.

Actually, he could have just donated ten thousand or twenty thousand yuan.

However, he donated twenty-nine thousand yuan.

Because someone really needed this money, while he had no such pressing demand.

Above, this donation confirmed that what he said were not hollow words. Now, he believed a larger number of students would not continue wasting their college time.