He returned to the villa with a bunch of things from the Feng sisters and just in time, he returned to his own body.
At this moment, he was playing the violin in the cafe.
The cafe was packed with people.
Since Xia Yu won first place in Zilang City, the cafe had become extremely bustling. Now that he had also taken second place in Jiangsu Province, getting a seat in the cafe required queuing.
Some of these were music enthusiasts, but more were petty bourgeoisie who considered themselves refined, and the rest came to see the commotion because they had heard that Xia Yu had tied the world record.
Placing the bow on the strings, Xia Yu began playing “Flight of the Bumblebee.”
After playing this piece every day for so long, Xia Yu had become extremely proficient. Even with his eyes closed, he could still play it.
Because he still had some of his dexterity ability left, his expression was relaxed, making the surrounding customers feel even more impressed.
After the brief piece ended, applause rang out for half the duration of another song.
This was because the cafe owner used a marketing strategy of deliberate scarcity; “Flight of the Bumblebee” was only played once a day, at unpredictable times, completely random.
Muttering about how heartless the cafe owner was, Xia Yu continued playing “White Wolf.”
Those who understood music found the performance equally brilliant, while those who didn’t, although they found it monotonous, felt an even greater sense of refinement precisely because of that monotony.
Those that weren’t boring were mass-produced goods; most of life’s time was boring, so boredom equated to life itself. Thus, the music Xia Yu played was life.
Even if Xia Yu just played randomly, people could calmly sit through it and offer enthusiastic applause and praise at the end.
Xia Yu understood this, so his attitude was somewhat perfunctory. However, this attitude didn’t affect his performance—he didn’t have any emotions to express anyway, merely playing the notes according to the score.
At 5:30, he finished work on time, first returning home to have dinner with Youxue, then heading to Kong Hanyue’s place.
The guzheng teacher Kong Hanyue mentioned was in the north and would take a few more days to arrive.
Coincidentally, Xia Yu’s music skill was only at level 3, so he wasn’t in a hurry.
At 10 o’clock, he took the subway back home on schedule.
This routine was broken on Friday.
Today was the debut day of Heimao (Black Cat), specifically at 7 PM in a small park in the city.
To enter Heimao’s body that evening, Xia Yu unusually attended classes himself the entire day.
In the afternoon, he made an excuse about having other matters and sent Youxue and Yan Wei to the small park ahead of him.
After the two left home, Xia Yu entered Heimao’s body.
Heimao was currently being held in Yan Wei’s arms.
Letting out a yawn, Xia Yu boredly looked around. Previously, when using Heimao’s body, he had always walked on his own with his paws. This was the first time being carried by someone.
“Xiaoxue, what does the ad look like?” Yan Wei had been suddenly conscripted by Xia Yu and still didn’t understand the situation.
During the day at school, seeing Xia Yu inviting her, she had been happy at first, not expecting to be doing this kind of task.
“I don’t know either. I heard it’s something like that previous ‘Cats and Dogs Charge Forward,’ where you skillfully navigate through obstacles,” Youxue replied.
“Will Heimao be able to do it?” Yan Wei looked at Xia Yu with a doubtful gaze.
“Meow!” Xia Yu waved his paw.
“He should be okay, I guess.” Youxue wasn’t sure either. Sometimes, the black cat listened to her very well, but at other times, he barely acknowledged her.
She cautiously extended her hand toward Heimao.
Seeing Heimao obediently give her a high-five, Youxue became excited: “No problem, it’s in obedient mode!”
Does your cat have different modes?!
Though puzzled, Yan Wei didn’t voice her question since they had already arrived at the park.
The cat food company had already applied with the Zilang government and had permission to use the small park tonight.
Inside the park, a large photo booth had been set up, with about thirty to forty people waiting for the two girls and the cat.
Among these people, only five were staff members from the cat food company; the rest were elderly spectators.
Among the five staff members, the leader was a young man who introduced himself to Youxue and then got straight to the point.
Yan Wei handed Xia Yu over to Youxue and stood aside watching. Her task was simply to keep an eye on Youxue and prevent any mishaps.
But really, nothing could possibly happen with so many elderly people watching.
Holding Xia Yu, Youxue listened as the young man explained the script arrangements.
“It’s like this: in our script, we place a fish and a bowl of our cat food in two different directions. The fish’s path is straightforward while the cat food’s path is difficult. Heimao needs to skillfully navigate the difficult path and then eat the cat food.”
Youxue looked at Xia Yu, and after seeing him nod, she nodded in agreement, indicating that she understood.
“Then let’s begin!” The young man turned around and started shooing people away. “Hey, everyone, please make some space.”
After the props were set up, Youxue placed Xia Yu on the track.
The track was about half a meter above the ground, divided into two paths. One path was pitch black with many stones and branches blocking the way, while the other was illuminated with lights and even had flower petals spread on it.
Some small cameras were placed along the track for multi-angle filming, showing their serious attitude.
But Xia Yu couldn’t take it seriously.
He knew the young man wanted to highlight the deliciousness of their cat food by showing that the cat was willing to go through a thorny path to eat the cat food instead of taking a wide road to eat the fish.
But this emotion was too flat, and the plot had no ups and downs at all.
Xia Yu was really dissatisfied with this rough script.
But the customer was king, and if the king wanted something like this, he would go along with it.
Sighing, Xia Yu tidied his fur and started walking.
Acting wasn’t just about following the script. There’s an old saying in Hollywood: “If a scene is only about what the scene is describing, then you’ve fallen into the shit pit.”
This means that when actors perform, they shouldn’t be like puppets on strings.
There should be a subtext beneath the text.
Xia Yu had already entered the role. He first looked at the path with the cat food, then at the fish’s path, hesitated for a while, lifted his right paw, moving it to the right for a moment, then to the left.
Finally, he made up his mind, placing his right paw in the direction of the cat food. He started walking slowly, then began running, skillfully crossing all the stones and branches, climbing the tall rock hill, arriving at the cat food, lowering his head, and taking a bite of the cat food.
It was actually quite tasty.
“Great!” The young man happily shouted, and the surrounding elderly people also began clapping.
The five staff members happily gathered together to watch the recorded video.
They had prepared to spend three or four hours here, but they hadn’t expected this black cat to be so amazing, passing on the first try.
Yan Wei walked forward, picked up Xia Yu, and looked at him in astonishment.
“Heimao, you’re so amazing!” She lifted Xia Yu high.
Xia Yu rolled his eyes. He knew he was amazing, but at this moment, his mind was full of thoughts about the script.
The script had some serious issues.
After acting it out once, he discovered another problem.
The difficulty on the cat food path was to show the hardship of obtaining the cat food, highlighting the cat’s attraction to the cat food. However, Xia Yu skillfully and showily avoided all obstacles, making it seem effortless. He reached the cat food completely relaxed and easily.
The first scene was based on such a terrible script, truly a pity for the cat.
If he were a human, he could discuss it with the young man, but he was just a cat.
Sighing again, Xia Yu was about to give up and become a cat filming bad scripts.
At this moment, the young man frowned: “It feels a bit off.”
After pacing around a couple of times, he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong.
Other staff members tried to persuade the young man, but he insisted on figuring it out.
This guy still had some standards after all.
Jumping down from Yan Wei’s arms, Xia Yu walked toward the wooden platform again.
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