He reached out and pulled Rivata to his side, saying in a deep voice, "Later, you will all perform on stage. Since you said your teacher is long-established, presumably he has some skills. After the competition, whoever scores lower will publicly apologize to the other."

At this point, his gaze turned to Andrew. "As for the two of us, I don't look down on you for not being well-known, but this situation did arise because of you. If either of our disciples loses, the mentor must also apologize. What do you think?"

His words seemed righteous, but they were laced with disdain for Andrew.

Being a renowned pianist, they all have their pride.

Under normal circumstances, Andrew wouldn't even qualify to compete with him.

But, to stand up for his disciple, he had to use this convincing method.

Of course, Rivata, his disciple, shared the same sentiment.

"Teacher! How can you demean yourself by competing with someone so unknown? Is he even worthy?"

Rivata's teacher raised his hand to interrupt her, "If it weren't for your initial lack of manners, why would I resort to this method?"

Linda sneered, "As expected, The apple doesn't fall far away from the tree! Like teacher, like disciple!"

Rivata instantly glared at her in anger, "Linda, who are you talking about?!"

Linda mockingly shrugged, "Whoever responds is who I'm talking about!"

"You!"

Rivata's teacher stopped her again, ignoring Linda's mockery, and looked intently at Andrew, "I don't mind competing with you. Do you dare to challenge me?"

Andrew was very calm, even his gaze was indifferent. In fact, no matter what others said about him, he didn't care, as they were all unrelated to him and couldn't hurt him.

Seeing him silent and looking towards Nancy, Rivata suddenly felt triumphant, "Haha, teacher, don’t bother asking. How could he dare? Isn't that just asking for humiliation?"

Andrew didn’t even acknowledge her, but seriously asked Nancy, "Nan, what do you think? Do you want to compete with them?"

Nancy smiled lightly, turning to Rivata's teacher, "So, the loser, along with their teacher, has to apologize to both the other party’s disciple and teacher?"

Rivata's teacher nodded, "Yes."

Nancy smiled even wider, "And what does a public apology entail?"

Rivata's teacher looked around. The room was filled not only with young pianists from the training camp but also many famous pianists. He recognized dozens of them – almost half of the international piano world was here.

If they were to gamble, it had to be big, enough to thoroughly embarrass Nancy and Andrew!

Turning back, he said very seriously, "A public apology means apologizing to the other party in front of everyone here, and loudly saying three times, 'I am inferior to you!'"

"Mmm~"

Nancy shook her finger, "It should be loudly saying three times, 'I am a pig! I am inferior in skill!'"

Rivata's teacher's face stiffened slightly. 'Inferior in skill' was acceptable, but 'I am a pig' was absurd!

However, he quickly came to terms with it, confident the loser wouldn't be him. If Nancy wanted to humiliate herself, why should he stop her?

He sneered and agreed, "Fine! Let’s do that! I’ll be waiting to see the final result!"