You're dumping me, huh? Fine, then I'll just pick up the school beauty and make her my wif

Because most students at Kyoto University live in dormitories and don't have a place to store their performance costumes.

Therefore, the school provides a dressing room backstage for the contestants to store their clothes.

Each contestant's performance costume had a tag with their name and number on it.

Ye Qingru's fingers traced from left to right, finally stopping in front of a dark blue dress.

The label read Su Qinghe's name, piano group, number 07.

The fabric of this dress is of excellent quality, with fine sequins adorning the deep blue satin surface, shimmering like a galaxy under the lights.

Ye Qingru took the dress down from the hanger and examined it for a while.

The cut of this haute couture gown is extremely form-fitting, perfectly outlining the curves of the wearer's body.

However, there is only one fatal flaw in this type of form-fitting dress.

That's a zipper.

Ye Qing decisively turned the dress over and easily found the invisible zipper that ran from the waist to the back of the neck with a touch of her finger.

He then took out a small pair of nail clippers from his pocket, aimed at the area between his lower back and shoulder blades, and gently cut off two of the buckles.

The cut was made at a point she had carefully designed and tested.

Even if you tamper with it in this position, the zipper can still be zipped up normally when Su Qinghe is getting dressed because the upper and lower teeth are still engaged.

However, as long as Su Qinghe wears it and makes slightly larger movements, such as stretching her arms forward or leaning her body forward when playing the piano, the teeth at the broken point will break due to uneven force.

At that time, Su Qinghe will inevitably be exposed on stage in front of hundreds of audience members.

Just imagining that scene made Ye Qingru feel incredibly happy.

After doing the trick, Ye Qingru hung the dress back up as it was.

It's impossible to tell with the naked eye that the zipper has been tampered with unless you take the dress to a well-lit place and check each zipper individually.

But who in their right mind would bother to observe these trivial details?

"Brother Lei, let's go over to the stage," Ye Qingru said to Zhou Lei behind her.

"Why go to the stage?"

"Let's do some minor surgery on the piano."

Upon hearing this, a hint of unease flashed across Zhou Lei's face.

But he gritted his teeth and chose to follow Ye Qingru.

The two walked through the backstage corridor to the side stage area, and then climbed the steps onto the stage.

A Steinway grand piano was placed in the center of the stage. The festival organizing committee had specially borrowed this piano from another school for this competition.

Both the piano's appearance and its sound quality are absolutely top-notch.

Ye Qingru walked to the piano, squatted down, and her gaze fell on the sustain pedal at the bottom of the piano.

The sustain pedal is arguably the most frequently used pedal in most piano performances.

Its function is to allow the strings to continue vibrating after the hammer leaves, thereby prolonging the duration of the note.

The performance of many pieces cannot be separated from the use of the sustain pedal.

Ye Qingru reached out and touched the connecting rod under the pedal, then forcefully pulled it to the side.

The next second, a faint "click" was heard from the metal connecting rod.

But to be on the safe side, Ye Qingru stood up, opened the piano lid, and randomly pressed a few keys.

At the same time, step on the sustain pedal below.

Because the connecting rod cannot be fully pressed down onto the bottom damper, the sustain effect is significantly reduced, and sometimes it even fails completely.

You should know that tomorrow is the final of the Beijing University Arts Festival, where top talents from various universities will gather.

For performers of their caliber, even the slightest abnormality in the sustain pedal can directly affect the overall presentation of the piece.

Standing behind Ye Qingru, Zhou Lei was both shocked and puzzled after witnessing the entire process of Ye Qingru's crime.

He was shocked because he never expected Su Qinghe to dare to tamper with the piano in such a situation.

What's puzzling is that Ye Qingru is also one of the piano contestants. If she breaks the piano tonight, what will happen to her competition tomorrow?

What about the other contestants in the piano group?

Could it be that Ye Qingru intends to kill a thousand enemies while losing eight hundred of his own?

But just as Zhou Lei was filled with doubt, he saw Ye Qingru suddenly squat down again and reset the sustain pedal.

"Alright, Brother Lei, it's getting late. Let's hurry up and leave before anyone notices."

Ye Qingru stood up, clapped her hands, then called to Zhou Lei, who was still standing there in a daze, and turned to walk towards the back door.

After regaining his senses, Zhou Lei quickly jogged to catch up with Ye Qingru.

After hesitating for a moment, he cautiously began, "Qingru, this... isn't this a bit inappropriate? If it gets found out, I'm afraid we'll be—"

"Don't worry, Brother Lei, they won't be able to find out."

Before Zhou Lei could finish speaking, Ye Qingru interrupted him without turning her head.

"I've already had someone take care of the surveillance issue. As long as neither of us makes a fuss about it tonight, no one will know we were here."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Lei opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something more, but after glancing at Ye Qingru's cold profile, he swallowed his words back.

The two left the auditorium through the back door and quickly disappeared into the night.

……

The following morning.

The final day of the Beijing University Arts Festival.

Su Qinghe arrived at the dressing room backstage of the auditorium two hours early.

Today she wore a simple white cardigan with beige wide-leg pants, and her hair was loosely tied back with a hairband, making her look fresh and clean.

Since it was still a long time before her match, the makeup artist Jiang Che had arranged for her hadn't arrived yet.

So Su Qinghe went to the dressing room alone, found the dark blue dress with her name tag on it, and carefully took it off the hanger.

She unfolded the dress and laid it out in front of her, holding it up to her eyes, and examined herself in the mirror for a few seconds.

The fabric has a beautiful sheen; the blue satin, studded with sequins, looks like scattered stars under the fluorescent lights.

Su Qinghe was very satisfied with the dress.

This was specially ordered from a designer by A-Che.

Both the style and the size were carefully crafted according to her preferences and body shape.

Although Su Qinghe felt that the arts festival was just an ordinary competition, she could wear the champagne-colored dress from the previous welcome party and there was no need to have a new one made.

But Jiang Che disagreed, saying that since we have plenty of money, why not be a little more extravagant?

Su Qinghe was speechless for a moment and had no choice but to agree to order a new one.

Thinking of this, Su Qinghe couldn't help but smile.

Then, humming a little tune, she took her dress and went into the dressing room to change.

After taking off her outer clothes, Su Qinghe pulled the dress over her head, then put her hands behind her back to zip it up.