Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

  Ever since Zhonghua Road Primary School was founded, the anniversary celebration had never been as joyful. Kittens and puppies were jumping out of Santa’s bag and running towards the audience. The school leaders, teachers, and student parents attending the celebration were shocked and amazed.

  The students near the stage didn’t care about the rules. They yelled and reached out their hands to the lovely kittens and puppies. Even the students who weren’t that fond of pets were affected by the performance, and waved to the cats and dogs running past them. Had it not been for the authority of the head teachers, the students would have stood up to hold the animals. Despite their strong impulses to do so, they didn’t leave their seats. The celebration was cheerful but not chaotic.

  The school leaders were enjoying themselves, and had good things to say about their performance.

  The kittens were instructed by Fina to only run in the aisles between the seats and not actually into them. If someone wanted to hold them, they were smart enough to not do so.

  Wang Qian and Li Kun entered through the front door of the hall, and waited at the end of the aisles to put the kittens back into the carriers.

  The puppies took a bit more work. Some ran towards the actors on the stage, while some ran into the audience and were picked up by the students and teachers. Lu Yiyun was secretly filming everything from behind the curtains with her cell phone, so that she could ask for the puppies back after the celebration.

  Famous and Zhan Tian circled the stage a few times with the sled. The bag was empty, and all the kittens and puppies were released. Santa Claus, played by Little Celery, jumped off the sled and joined the curtain call with the other young actors. Famous and Zhan Tian returned behind the stage with the sled. Everything was going as planned.

  Now, Little Celery and her friends could finally breathe and relax. They stood in a row and held each others hands. They could feel the warm heat in each other’s palms. Their foreheads were shiny with sweat, but everybody still had on big smiles.

  “We would like to thank all of the teachers and students for watching our class performance!”


  They held hands, and bowed simultaneously towards the audience.

  Almost the entire audience, including the school leaders, stood up to applaud them. The hall was filled with cheers, one wave after another. Little Celery and her friends had to do curtain call several times.

  Parents usually filmed their own children’s performance. Many people had filmed their ending scene, and some regretted not recording it. But it didn’t matter. The video would soon spread around and be shared in different parents’ Wechat groups.

  Wang Yaning and a few of the teachers were amazed from behind the stage. They were the only ones who saw the grey parrot sing. It sang clearly and accurately with an amazing voice, much better than most professional human singers.

  Now it was cold. Richard hid back into the hoodie immediately after singing.

  “This parrot…can sing?” Wang Yaning could hardly believe it. She stared at Zhang Zian’s jacket, with a gaze so fierce, it almost burned a hole through the hood.

  “Yes, of course. I taught him how to. It took a long time.” Zhang Zian calmly boasted.

  Everybody knew that parrots could talk. Some of them could sing, but most of their singing was terribly off-key. Nobody had ever seen a parrot that could sing so beautifully. Wang Yaning and the teachers looked jealous. With such an intelligent parrot around, the owner surely never felt lonely.

  As the host returned to the stage, the applause gradually eased, and Little Celery’s crew finally went behind the curtains after a few rounds of curtain call. They surrounded Zhang Zian cheerfully, and asked about the kittens, puppies, and singing parrot. He couldn’t answer so many questions by himself. Luckily, Little Celery helped him explain.

  In front of the stage, the teachers and school leaders were voting for the best performance of the school anniversary celebration. Even if the best performance was rigged and chosen early, all of the adults there clearly knew that the Fairy Tale Pet Shop performance by Little Celery’s class made all the other programs seem dull. If they gave the award publicly to another class, everybody would have been furious.

  Soon enough, the host announced the results of the competition. The dean, assistant principal, and principal awarded the winning classes in the order of third place, second place, and first place.

  The third and second place winners stepped off the stage. The first place winner was about to be revealed. They held their breath and stared at the host, waiting for him to speak. The host finally announced their class number and invited the principal to give them their award. They were all thrilled and hugged each other in tears. The arguments while writing the script, the prop preparation chores, the sweat from rehearsals, along with the fights and disagreements within the cast, all disappeared in that moment, as they tearfully embraced each other.

  Little Celery never imagined they would be first place, among all the other competing classes. It put a bright smile on their head teacher’s face, as the other teachers congratulated him. Xiao Yile sticked out his tongue secretly, glad that they didn’t accept his initial proposal to cosplay as the Arena of Valor.

  They returned to the stage in a line, accepted the trophy and certificate from the principal, and took a group picture to remember this beautiful and memorable moment.

  As the stage light shone upon them and the numerous crowd members looked at them, with flashes sparkling from the audience’s cameras, they felt a sense of group happiness and honor that they had never felt before. They knew now more than ever that they were a team, and couldn’t have accomplished this without all of them.

  At the same time, they felt bad that the true hero behind the scenes wasn’t invited onto the stage, or in the group picture. Without Zhang Zian and his pets, their performance would have received an ordinary ranking. It was his idea and animals that magically turned something ordinary into something special.

  After the group picture, the host asked them to say a few words. They hadn’t prepared for this, so their speech was messy and unorganized. It made the audience laugh, as this was a true reflection of their childlike innocence.

  Their time had run out. When the host finally signaled them to leave the stage, they wildly ran back behind the curtains to say thank you to Zhang Zian. However, Zhang Zian was no longer there. Only Wang Yaning was waiting backstage.

  Having seen them searching, Wang Yaning could guess what they wanted to do. She pointed outside. “He left with the pets, and asked me to tell you not to wait up for him. You deserve this. Enjoy the moment.”