I am a Big Player
Chapter 336 - 334. Su Ruqin gives way! (First update)_1

Chapter 336: 334. Su Ruqin gives way! (First update)_1

Perhaps, right now, many people find it preposterous that the Juilliard School of Music exceptionally employed a 16-year-old boy as a professor of piano. In everyone’s mind, 16 is simply too young—a youth seemingly without sufficient time to evolve into an acknowledged master or a mentor.

If all of this had been expected, there would not have been such a media frenzy covering the story.

However, Ren He’s journey across the ocean was anything but easy, and Juilliard did not entirely trust him. It was he who proved, through his own abilities, that he deserved such a position.

When he first arrived in the classroom, the six students and their parents, despite being mentally prepared, were still a bit flummoxed when Ren He actually stood before them. Was this boy, of their age or even younger, really going to be their teacher?

It’s important to note that Ren He’s students were not just preparatory ones, but also included upperclassmen. This was part of Juilliard’s teaching model, similar to the traditional Chinese master-apprentice system—all piano department students were there, including those who were 19 years old...

But for some reason, once Ren He stood there, everyone just felt he looked the part of a teacher. Judging from his presence and charisma, he did not at all seem like a 16-year-old boy!

It was at this moment that Yang Xi’s family arrived at the classroom door, a moment Ren He had been eagerly awaiting for over a month to give Yang Xi, Su Ruqin, and Yang En each a big surprise.

Yang Xi’s astonishment lay in the fact that he really managed to come to Juilliard, inexplicably becoming her teacher! She could understand the difficulty in that—it must be harder than getting into No.4 Middle School, at the very least overcoming the barrier of age in teaching.

She was delighted. She had known that even Liu Jiamin, a talented student from the Tao Essence Class at No.4 Middle School, admired and revered Ren He’s piano performance level, which indeed felt uniquely different. However, she hadn’t wanted to waste Ren He’s precious time before, so she always had different teachers come to instruct her.

Yet, those other teachers’ performances, when compared to Ren He’s, always seemed to lack something, as if missing a soul.

Finally, the two of them could be together—in this foreign land where few knew them, without parents or media reporters, their relationship finally became clear: they were a couple.

Of course, they both still needed to be mindful of public opinion, since, starting with Harvard’s new regulations in 1984, the United States had prohibited student-teacher romances...

This regulation can be traced back to 1984 when Harvard University first issued a rule forbidding professors from having romantic relationships with students they directly taught or advised. It was the first rule of its kind concerning student-teacher relationships in American universities. For a long time afterwards, relationships between teachers and students without direct educational or advisory ties were allowed, until in 2001, when a professor at the College of William & Mary published an account of his affair with a married student in a men’s magazine. The story caused a huge media impact and concerns about allegations of sexual harassment by teachers led to the school deciding to ban student-teacher romances. This rule was quickly adopted by many universities, especially private ones, in the United States.

Therefore, Yang Xi and Ren He couldn’t break such an American traditional taboo, as it would have a very negative impact on Yang Xi.

But the problem was that neither of them cared about this; being together was more important than anything else. Ren He’s reason for coming here was to get Yang Xi’s parents to accept them, not for American society...

Of course, Ren He was still contemplating other ways to resolve this issue...

For Su Ruqin and Yang En, this kind of surprise was somewhat akin to shock...

Su Ruqin had carefully studied Juilliard’s policies, such as the audition method for preparatory students, which required a live performance.

Such matters were only manageable for someone with international connections like Yang En, so she was certain that Ren He could not come to study here.

But what she had never imagined was that Ren He didn’t come here to study—he became a teacher!

What kind of feeling was this?! How come this underage romance just couldn’t be stopped?!

When hearing the news before, she was just marveling at the many geniuses in America—a 16-year-old music professor, that’s incredible; the educational environment in America seems great, with an excellent level of tolerance. We should learn from them in our country. But now, she realized, this wasn’t some American music prodigy; this was a Chinese music prodigy!

Tolerance? Su Ruqin was the first person who couldn’t tolerate it!

Yet she just didn’t get it. She had truly underestimated this young man before. She thought he was only capable of drafting a few pop songs to deceive her daughter, but now it seemed that he was the real deal!

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to become a professor at the Juilliard School of Music, nor would he have received such affirmation from Chairman Joseph.

Yang En had also become friends with Joseph quite by chance, so the reason Yang Xi was able to obtain a student visa to come to the interview was that Joseph personally wrote to the visa office on her behalf.

For Yang En, his feelings were quite straightforward. He had always felt that Ren He was no ordinary youth, but what was extraordinary about him was that he had encountered and escaped unscathed from several confrontations with international organizations. Ordinary untrained people couldn’t do that, let alone Wang, who had been shot and took a whole three months to recover.

Later, when he visited Wang, Wang shared his view: "I saw with my own eyes how he kicked the assassin, and like a kite with its string cut, the international hitman slammed into the wall with no ability to resist..."

That international hitman no longer had any value for interrogation. He was now just an ordinary person—a vegetable...

Yang En felt that Ren He was like a Pandora’s box; you’d never know what else was inside it.

Standing there, Su Ruqin suddenly felt lost and unsure of how to deal with the situation at hand.

Previously, Yang Xi thought Ren He would hide this from Su Ruqin and the others, but now it seemed he wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret. If her parents simply decided not to let her study here, wouldn’t Ren He have gone through all this trouble for nothing?

She was already feeling guilty. But when it came to coming to America, nobody could truly defy their family. Ren He didn’t want to see her break from tradition and fall out with her family over this. But if she continued to let Su Ruqin arrange for her transfer, she really didn’t want to see Ren He again, because she’d be too ashamed to face him.

Yang Xi turned around, looked into Su Ruqin’s eyes, and said earnestly, "I must study here. Please accept us. I’m not going anywhere else."

Her parents of course knew what kind of person their daughter was, and once these words were truly spoken, they also realized that the situation was beyond redemption.

As for Su Ruqin, her original intention was for her daughter to avoid the pain of love at such an early age and to have a peaceful time studying in America, instead of getting tainted by the messy entertainment industry back in China.

Now, from an emotional perspective, if she were to forcibly separate them, she would be the one hurting her daughter.

Academically speaking, if she continued to insist on Yang Xi transferring, this entire disruptive process would be holding Yang Xi back.

No matter how you look at it, Ren He had unexpectedly placed her in such a difficult position. Would she back down?

She would—she had to make concessions for her daughter’s sake.

And this young man had proven through his actions that what he’d said before did not stem from an arrogant personality but from genuine ability. Even Su Ruqin, with all her commercial success, couldn’t match what Ren He had done for Yang Xi.

She even momentarily wondered why Yang En couldn’t have done the same for her back then.

Sighing, Su Ruqin said in Chinese, "We are going back to our country soon. Let’s have dinner together tonight."

Ren He smiled. After a year and a half, he had finally managed to get Su Ruqin to grudgingly accept him. That was no easy feat.