Chapter 125: It Truly Does Not Matter

"Hiss... hiss... one more! One more!" Hong Tao did not receive much applause. At first, there were only piercing whistles, followed by waves of cheers from every corner of the auditorium. Most of these came from the older students; the younger ones sat in their chairs, unsure whether they should clap or not. They didn't really understand what they had heard; they only felt that this boy on stage was so unconventional, both in his singing style and his demeanor.

"Thanks, see you in a bit!" Only then did Hong Tao bow to the audience and head backstage.

"Hong Tao! You sang well! Don't worry, the lack of applause doesn't mean you didn't sing well. Listen, they are still shouting!" The music teacher trotted backstage, looking very excited. She comforted Hong Tao, fearing he might be discouraged, while secretly peeking at the auditorium. The older students were growing rowdier, with some even singing along with Hong Tao, repeating the same line over and over: "I want to fly higher!"

"Nonsense! This is pure nonsense! It's you again! I knew it, you were never a good kid from the start! Are you teachers joining in this farce too? You will be held responsible for this! The leaders of the Children's Palace are very dissatisfied. How could you sing this kind of song in front of district leaders? Is this what a Young Pioneer should sing? Where is your sense of principle?" Suddenly, a low roar came from backstage. Hong Tao found the voice familiar. He turned around and—ha! It is a small world after all. It was Deputy Director Li, who had been transferred from his school. It turned out he had been reassigned to the Children's Palace. It seemed his connections in the education system were not entirely non-existent.

"Director... Director Li... I..." The music teacher was so startled by the verbal assault that she couldn't string a coherent sentence together.

"You're no longer a Director; you're not in our school anymore. Uncle Li, are you back to starting another political movement here at the Children's Palace? Fine, I'll tell my dad when I get home that you're still lingering in the education system. It seems the toxic remnants of the Cultural Revolution haven't been completely wiped out after all! Who do you think you are? With so many leaders present, even if it were their turn to lecture a formal school teacher, it wouldn't be yours! Shall we go out on stage and discuss this? I can help you ask which leader was unhappy with the song." Hong Tao wasn't afraid of such people at all. With no real talent and already a discarded dog, he still dared to come out and act like a porcupine.

"You... I'm not talking to you. Principal Bai! Director Wang from the Children's Palace has strong reservations about this song, and the district leaders don't look pleased either. Listen! Just listen! The audience is as chaotic as a wet market! Your school will be held responsible! And let me tell you, Hong Tao, if you're thinking about going to the city-wide competition, you can give up that dream! Hmph!" Deputy Director Li sensed he might have overstepped by criticizing the music teacher, so he threw a few more bureaucratic remarks at Principal Bai before turning around and storming off in a huff.

"Hong Tao, do you think it's appropriate to take this song to the city competition?" Principal Bai ignored Deputy Director Li—he wasn't qualified to threaten a deputy principal, and the Children's Palace director had no jurisdiction over school affairs—but it was clear that Principal Bai wasn't exactly thrilled with the song either.

"Of course it's not appropriate; they aren't worthy of hearing my music. But I can't give up halfway, can I? How about this: I'll sing worse for the next one, and then I naturally won't be selected. What do you think?" Hong Tao had never intended to go to the city competition in the first place. He had only wanted to fulfill the music teacher's wish, but now, after the comments from Deputy Director Li and Principal Bai, he felt a bit riled up.

"There's no need to fake it. Just sing at your usual level. If you are truly selected, the school will naturally support you." Principal Bai was not as base as Deputy Director Li; she at least refused to openly encourage a child to be deceitful.

A while later, it was Hong Tao's turn to go on stage again. The moment he appeared, the older students started clamoring, with whistling and now actual applause.

Hong Tao gave the sound engineer a thumbs-up. This time, there was no music teacher to accompany him because he had changed his song at the last minute, opting out of "My Future Is Not a Dream."

"It doesn't matter who falls in love with whom,
It doesn't matter who makes whom haggard.
The happiness we had was a fleeting beauty,
And suffering follows after the happiness returns.
Right or wrong, I no longer speak in absolute terms,
Right or wrong, I no longer say I have no regrets.
If it shatters, let it shatter; what use is perfection?
Only by letting myself go can I fly higher.
It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter,
Forgive all the wrongs in this world.
It doesn't matter, I don't care,
Why trap myself in a painful cycle?
I don't care..."

He had actually sung "It Doesn't Matter," added an extra chorus, and during the second refrain, he shouted, "Everyone together!" leading almost all the older students in the auditorium to howl "It doesn't matter" for over half a minute. Then, he cupped his hands in a salute, didn't even bow, and walked straight backstage.

"You... you are truly hopeless!" Principal Bai, backstage, was too angry to speak. She knew clearly that Hong Tao was sending another vocal protest to her, or rather, to all the teachers.

"Teacher, you can't say that. The song is actually quite catchy. We've recorded it, though it doesn't seem very suitable for children to sing, haha. No worries, no worries, I'll go find him to help us check the effects processor—why is it that our recordings sound so dry without any sound effects? Let's go!" The bald lighting and sound technician suddenly appeared, laughing it off as he pulled Hong Tao away, leaving Principal Bai to stare in frustration.

If it had just been "I Want to Fly Higher," followed by "My Future Is Not a Dream," there might have actually been a slim chance of going to the city competition. The district leaders present weren't all dissatisfied with the song; in fact, the cadre in charge of the Youth League work had a positive attitude toward it. However, in that setting, they couldn't be too hasty in expressing their views. After being stirred up by Deputy Director Li, Hong Tao simply threw in the towel. Once "It Doesn't Matter" was performed, no one dared to suggest him for the city competition again.

The music teacher told Hong Tao all of this upon returning. She didn't receive any criticism for Hong Tao's performance because Principal Bai and the entire faculty knew what kind of character Hong Tao had. Consequently, the blame fell squarely on Hong Tao's shoulders, and a formal warning was firmly placed on his record.

This time, Hong Tao's father didn't step in to seek leniency. Firstly, Principal Bai had visited their home that very day, presumably informing him of the punishment in advance. Secondly, Hong Tao's father had been busy lately; he was nowhere to be seen all day. Even when he was home, he would lock himself in the study, burying his head in writing. Not even Hong Tao's mother knew what he was doing, assuming he was just busy with lesson plans.

Regarding the punishment, his father only said one thing: "Serves you right! See if you learn your lesson!"

A lesson?! What a joke. Hong Tao didn't care about the punishment at all. Compared to it, the 2,000-word self-criticism he had to read at the school assembly took much more effort. He had written it in such a flowery way, belittling himself until he sounded like a traitor to the country. With the punishment came a surge in notoriety; Hong Tao, who had almost been forgotten by the teachers, became the main topic of conversation again. Most teachers would just shake their heads and sigh whenever his name was mentioned, at a loss for words.

However, the older students couldn't care less whether the teachers liked him or not. With "Little Uncle" as a troublemaker, the two sets of lyrics and scores Hong Tao had written for him to offer to his "stinky big sister" spread throughout the campus within days. Whether boys or girls, as soon as class ended, they would be belting out "I Want to Fly Higher" in the hallways. Whenever they were criticized or punished by a teacher, they would definitely hum a segment of "It Doesn't Matter." This only added another charge to Hong Tao's list, and now even the teachers of the older students began to dislike him.

"Come on! Come on! Smile! Say 'eggplant' with me!" As the protagonist of the singing competition incident, Hong Tao hadn't given it much thought. He was currently standing in front of the tailor shop and the hair salon, taking photos of all the employees. Today was the big day for the official move. The two-story building next door was finished, and the two rooms on the first floor to the south were fully renovated, waiting for them to move in so they could tear down the old shop and finally complete the construction of the entire two-story structure along the street.

"Alright! Start moving. Put everything in categories first, then tidy up slowly. Anything I've marked with a chalk 'X' is not to be moved into the new place! I'm talking to you! Han Yan, why are you holding that broken stool? I have new footstools; we don't need that one!" Hong Tao stood with his hands on his hips, a camera hanging around his neck, gesticulating wildly as he directed the girls. It wasn't that he was afraid they would forget something, but rather that they would bring every piece of junk into the new shop. Compared to him, with his spendthrift ways, they were the thrifty ones.

"Old Jin, my heart is finally at ease now. Looking at this half of the building, even if the mayor himself came, I could pat my chest and guarantee that we really aren't trying to pull a fast one on the state. Look at how this building is constructed, and then look at the one the Andingmen Street office built—is that even a building? That's more like an urn!" Director Zhou and Hong Tao's uncle-in-law stood on the sidewalk, smoking and admiring the building before them. Director Zhou loved it more the longer he looked at it, because the building was property of the street office, and at least for now, there wasn't a single one more beautiful to be found.

"This is all thanks to the strong support from you and the district. Without that steel and cement, even if you gave me another month, I wouldn't have been able to finish it, and even if I had, it wouldn't be this sturdy!" The uncle-in-law, of course, couldn't take the credit for himself; he had to put the leaders first, no matter what.