Reincarnated As the Enemy's Wife: Married the Rival, Bound by Revenge-Chapter 280: A Shake of Her Head

They knew they couldn’t afford her services, but they didn’t want to make an enemy of such an influential figure.

However, Eva said patronizingly without another glance at them, "Pick up the bills."

"Okay, okay."

"Let’s pick up the money. Let’s pick up the money."

"What are you waiting for? Everyone get over here and pick up the bills!" The manager said, "Keep your eyes peeled! If any of you miss a penny, there will be consequences!"

After saying that, the manager joined the others in picking up the bills.

The old man didn’t know any musicians.

But at the sight of the sudden change in those people’s attitudes, he vaguely realized that he and his granddaughter were probably receiving help from a bigwig.

Moreover, he had also heard Eva say that she would teach his granddaughter how to play the piano for free!

Though having little musical knowledge, he could tell that Eva had played the piece with amazing proficiency.

It gave him a feeling that despite his tough life, hopes could be rekindled in the blink of an eye!

"Thank you, Miss. Thank you so much...

"But I can’t let you do that for free. Tell me the price. As long as my granddaughter likes it, however difficult it is, I’ll-"

"It’s okay, old gentleman," Eva smiled.

"I’ve noticed your granddaughter just now. She has long fingers and is very intelligent. I have no doubt she’ll master it. Also, I could use a good apprentice to take over my mantle."

The older generation valued the concept of "mantle" very much. After hearing Eva put it this way, the old man found it much more acceptable.

She did say that to comfort the old man, and she didn’t really need anyone to take over her mantle. She was doing this solely because she wanted to help the little girl.

Afterward, she took the little girl to her home to teach her on a frequent basis. As chance would have it, there was a piano given to her by Nicholas in the house she’d rented, so she could teach the little girl at home.

Eva was right about the little girl. The latter was indeed very intelligent and assiduous.

After only a few months of studying with her, the girl outshone most of her peers.

One day, the little girl went to the training institution to have her tuition refunded. The students, having heard that she had been learning from a famous teacher, insisted on having a competition with her. Eventually, she inflicted a crushing defeat on every student in the training school.

She steamrollered them all. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

On hearing the first note the little girl played, even the teachers working for the training institute lapsed into silence.

And so did those snobbish parents.

The little girl had always been very intelligent when studying in the training institute, and she’d been a faster learner than all others, so many of her classmates had ostracized her.

And now, having received some direction from a master pianist, she was now much better at piano than her classmates. There was no comparison.

They all regretted not having struck up a relationship with Eva sooner.

However, Eva heard from the little girl that there were indeed a lot of unscrupulous training institutions.

They not only charged students exorbitant prices but also provided them with inferior services.

When giving a class, the teachers seemed to have no intention to teach. They just played a piece in front of the students, then handed out the scores and told the students to practice. During a class, the teachers just listened to the students practice and occasionally told them where they did wrong, and then put an end to the class.

It was said that many remedial classes pitched at middle school or high school students were no better. The teachers just told the students to practice solving problems. They hardly taught the students anything useful.

The little girl also said that there are many young students who had experienced similar things.

They really loved music, but the training institutes discriminated against them for various reasons.

In fact, many parents didn’t know much about music either. They just wanted their children to have the best, and they spent money in an insensible way and ended up being swindled, their children disadvantaged.

Later on, Eva felt that it was time to do something to sort some things out in the industry.

The music world was supposed to be clean and pure. It shouldn’t be messed up by commerce.

Soon, she told Nicholas her plan.

"I want to invent a kind of smart piano. With advanced technology, it can teach

students as well as real teachers do, enabling more kids to learn to play piano in the correct way!"

Nicholas was greatly impressed by her idea.

...

She explained some of her conceptions.

She knew that there were some "electric pianos" with built-in tutorials on the market, which were also called digital pianos.

Some of the most famous electric pianos were from Javasu. They looked like regular pianos and were vivid to the touch, and they had excellent timbre, their mechanical springs premium. They were emulations of real pianos and thus different from electric pianos.

Eva said,

"Regular pianos are relatively expensive. Of course, there are also cheaper ones.

"But it’s very difficult for manufacturers of regular pianos to merge digital courses, or online courses, into the piano.

"If you use an electric piano, it could be regarded as a ’piano robot’. You can input some data into it, and then every time a player finishes a piece, the piano would make a detailed ’performance analysis report’.

"The report would not only be able to quantify some data with precision but also break some barriers for the learners, teaching the beginners about the exertion of strength, how to improve their timing and fluency, etc."

After hearing Eva’s words, Nicholas had a general idea of what she was planning.

He had always doted on her.

"If you’ve made up your mind, I’ll hook you up with some experts on data engineering."

But Eva shook her head. "This is just a preliminary idea. I still have to figure out the details.

"But this is my first time wanting to dedicate myself to something. I want to finish this unaided."

She was implying that she didn’t want this man to pave the way for her. After hearing her words, Nicholas said, "Okay, since you insist, I’ll let you do it. "But if you need help, don’t forget that... "You have me at your back."

His extensive business experience told him that it wouldn’t be easy for Eva to finish a product like that.

Finding experts and getting investment were both difficult tasks.

And she barely had any acquaintance with any of the three fields.

However, he did not belittle her.

After all, he knew that this girl had always had some kind of tenacity inside her.

Having tenacity meant that she would never admit defeat or give up.

On that day, Nicholas was working overtime at the company.

Eva had prepared some home cooking in her apartment.

She thought that Nicholas was a picky eater, and that he actually had someone test his food to see if it was poisonous. She packed the pork braised in brown sauce, fried chicken wings and stir-fried eggs with tomato and delivered them to Nicholas’s workplace.

But when she reached the door of his office, she overheard his assistant talking with him.

...

"Mr. Brown, these are the questions they’ll be asking you during the financial magazine interview.

"The secretary department has drafted the answers, but there is this one particular question that... Here."

He took over the magazine from the assistant and saw that question.

It read "Are you seeing anybody?"

A sardonic smile twitched across Nicholas’s lips after he saw the question.

"When did this financial magazine change into a gossip magazine?"

The assistant was also resigned. "I was wondering the same thing. Maybe... Mr. Brown, how about you tell them that Miss Loraine..."

But Nicholas shook his head.

Having seen Nicholas shake his head, the assistant came to understand what he meant.

"I know what to do, Mr. Brown."

With that, the assistant walked out, document in hand.

Unexpectedly, he had just walked out when he spotted Eva turning around to storm off.

"Miss Loraine..."

But Eva put down the lunch box and hurried off.

...

When talking to the assistant, Nicholas had not noticed that there was a visitor at the door.

And now, Eva had overheard him reject his assistant’s suggestion about him answering the question of whether he had a girlfriend.

Nicholas frowned.

The assistant turned to look at him and asked, "Mr. Brown, do you want me to get Miss Loraine back here?"

But Nicholas said, "No."

The reason why he refused to make his relationship with her go public was because he was concerned about her safety.

When he traveled in and out of the country, sometimes the danger he faced was beyond ordinary people’s imagination.

He didn’t want to drag her into it.

He had to keep his relationship with Eva secret, so what good would it do him to get her back?

He couldn’t put her in danger.

Eva returned home. Looking that the remaining ingredients she had not put away yet after cooking a meal for Nicholas, she felt a pang of displeasure.

In most cases, when staying with Nicholas, she had felt relaxed and happy. This was her first time feeling so powerless and annoyed!

Restraining her grievance, she turned off her phone and burrowed her face into the quilt.

Eva spent the next few days searching online for domestic and overseas dissertations and commercial cases about electric pianos.

In fact, there were not many cases related to this field which she could refer to.

Eva soon thought of a person - Ralph.

Ralph was now a leading figure in the music industry.

Unlike Eva, Ralph had a wide network of contacts.

Ralph might have the answers to many of the questions in Eva’s mind.

Soon, Eva met Ralph.

Having heard that Eva wanted to consult him about something, Ralph directly canceled his busy schedule for the whole day.

His assistant, after hearing about it, was shocked. He confirmed it several times. After all, the events scheduled for this day were very important. The old Ralph would never allow himself to miss any work for personal reasons.

However, Ralph drove off without even explaining.

Eva and Ralph agreed to meet in a cafe.

After doing some research, Eva had finished a prospectus for the Smart Piano project.

Ralph read her prospectus carefully and was greatly impressed by her ideas.

"As far as I know, there’s no similar product in the domestic market.

"If you really invent a piano like this, you will not only make a fortune but also help a lot of students.

"There are many children who want to study music but can’t afford professional piano education.

"It’s just that you might be under a lot of pressure from the public..." Naturally, Eva had thought of what Ralph had thought of.

"I know, on the one hand, in order to make money, many training institutes will pay the press to have them defame electric pianos; on the other hand, people will make malicious speculations about me."

The reason was very simple. The Smart Pianos Eva invented would be better at teaching than her rivals and also cheaper. All the others would be jealous.

There would definitely be some unreasonable people who would say that she was trying to commercialize music, and that as a musician, she stooped to selling pianos. She had taken all that into consideration, but she was not afraid.

"In short, my goal is to enable more talented children with dreams to receive the best education at the best price. Although not all of them will become musicians, it’s a good thing to give everybody a chance to learn musical knowledge."

After hearing her words, Ralph couldn’t agree more.

"Well, since you have made up your mind, I’ll take care of the rest."