The splashing water stirred up mist in the bathroom.
Faintly, Xie Lan's voice could be heard from outside.
"I've been busy lately, and haven't played the violin for a few days..."
That voice gradually overlapped with the scene deep in my memory—
…
My sophomore year in high school.
"I pooped very normally, and I haven't pooped in a long time."
When the music of "Red Lotus is Like Death" sounded, Dou Sheng, who was on the phone, was stunned for a moment.
The sound of the violin came down from upstairs, through the half-open bedroom door and a staircase. It sounded a little muffled, but strangely real.
It's hard to describe... it's like listening to a live performance.
He was stunned for a few seconds and then muttered in a low voice: "Are you also an S fan... and you even changed the parameters of my speakers... Hmm... The changes are pretty good."
"What?" the pet transporter shouted at the top of his voice on the phone, "Come and pick up the cat tomorrow morning. You've been at home, right?"
Dou Sheng retracted his attention, "Well, text the flight number, I didn't remember it."
He hung up the phone and went upstairs, his soft-soled slippers making no sound as he stepped on the stairs.
All the lights in the house were off. Light from the two oversized screens in the bedroom shone through the crack in the door, illuminating a spot at the top of the stairs. That was the only light in the house.
Dou Sheng always liked the house to be dark, but today he turned off all the lights. Because Xie Lan had a fever, he thought the house would be quieter if the lights were turned off, and Xie Lan would sleep more peacefully.
There were still a few steps to the top of the building. The violin was pushed gradually faster and faster to the top. Dou Sheng slowed down his pace, raised the corners of his lips slightly, and waited for the sound of the violin that had been engraved in his bones to start.
However, a thin and high overtone slid out, like a clear and mournful cry in an empty valley.
The variation did not come as expected.
With one foot raised in the air stopping on the top of the step, Dou Sheng suddenly raised his eyes and stared blankly at the top of the stairs.
At the top, that dim, gentle light, accompanied by the sound of violin coming from the bedroom, was so incredible, yet so peacefully present.
He was stunned for a long time, until his ankles became stiff before he remembered to put it down.
This was a version of "Red Lotus is Like Death" that he had never heard before. As he walked up the stairs, the sense of presence became stronger and stronger. In a flash, the image that suddenly emerged in his mind was the unopened violin case standing beside Xie Lan's desk.
My heart suddenly seemed to skip a beat, my mind went blank, and when I came to my senses, he was already standing by the door.
Xie Lan was still wearing her soft pajamas, her hair was a little messy because she had rolled around in bed. People with a cold have the body language of being top-heavy, and she looked confused.
But his piano was still confused.
An elegant brown violin was placed under his neck, the lines of the strings were smooth and agile, and the bright white screen light cast the shadow of the violin player on the wall—
Dou Sheng looked over at him.
The dim wall reflected the dark figure of a person and the shadow of a zither. The zither was passionate, with a powerful aura that could capture people's hearts, and it was as calm and unrestrained as an owl, but the shadow was so gentle, even... a little fragile.
The climax of "Red Lotus is Like Death" was adapted into a conversational performance style by the former silentwaves, which makes people's blood boil. When the person on the projection was pulled to this point, every move was full of passion. Now that I see the real person, I find that the real person's behavior is far more captivating than the projection. The fingers tremble when rubbing the strings, so fast that afterimages appear. The movement of drawing the bow is grand and delicate, and the opening and closing are amazing.
The man playing the violin remained calm.
Just when Dou Sheng's heart was about to jump out, he stretched out the bow for a long time, and ended the performance with an indelible sob.
Xie Lan gently licked the corners of his lips, which were cracked due to fever, and put down the violin, standing it upright at his feet.
There were large patches of bright red comments on the screen. He was dizzy due to the fever and was staring at the comments in a daze.
As for Dou Sheng, he stared at his profile in a daze.
Light and darkness intertwined, flickering on the man's face as the comments fluctuated. Dou Sheng's heartbeat and breathing also went out of control.
Of course he recognized him.
Even though he had never seen his features, as long as he picked up the zither in front of him, he would recognize him as a matter of course.
silent waves.
Indeed, it should be, and it can only be someone like Xie Lan.
Three years.
"I'm back, Mom."
Dou Sheng walked in, threw his empty schoolbag onto the sofa, took off his shoes and walked upstairs.
He was not wearing slippers, and his cotton socks were untidy as he stepped on the cold marble tiles. The pair of shoes that were thrown away were so dirty that they were almost unrecognizable. One could only vaguely tell from the logo and style that they were cheap. The snow-white uppers were covered with black footprints and marks of solidified mud and water.
Dou Sheng went all the way up to the top of the stairs before he heard the bedroom door open and Zhao Wenying come out.
In the nearly one year since that man's death, my mother has rapidly become haggard.
She had no interest in the family business and stayed in her room all day. She would secretly drink at night. If Dou Sheng woke up at night and found the lights in the living room were on, he would drink with her.
"Have you eaten?" Zhao Wenying asked, looking up.
Dou Sheng took off his headphones. He was actually very hungry. He would always feel nauseous after playing this kind of ball.
But he paused for a moment and said, "No, I'm waiting to eat."
Zhao Wenying then stroked her hair and said, "The housekeeper has asked for leave today. I'll make some. What do you want to eat?"
Dou Sheng thought for a moment, "Quickly frozen dumplings, wontons, anything is fine. Just cook something."
Zhao Wenying nodded, "I'll fry some beef for you, your favorite."
Dou Sheng watched her walk into the kitchen, hesitated for a moment, and put on his headphones again.
He went downstairs, carried his dirty sneakers back to the room, and threw them into the corner of the bathroom along with the sweaty clothes he had taken off.
I took a quick shower, and when I came out I immediately turned on my computer and speakers.
Refresh youtube... yes! silentwaves just released a new video.
A hint of joy suddenly appeared in the boy's calm black eyes, and he immediately clicked play as if relieved.
Soon, music rose in this space through the speakers. The silhouette of the violinist on the screen was quiet and soft. The camera focused on a green sycamore leaf. When the music became passionate, the leaf stalk would tremble slightly.
Dou Sheng sighed a few times, then threw himself on the bed and let out a long sigh.
—He was physically exhausted, every muscle and bone was screaming in pain, and the mania was roaming and hitting the wall in his nerves, back and forth, tearing him apart.
But this is his state when he returns home.
As long as he opens S's video, he will be comforted immediately, not to mention that there is a new song today.
The feeling is hard to describe, it's like being in a dark place. In your mind, it's full of dirt, ghosts and dangers, but the moment the light comes in, you're surprised to find that everything is actually fine.
The world remains as it is.
After a long while, until the end of a song, the young man lying on his back on the bed turned over.
Dou Sheng reached under the pillow and pulled out a thin sycamore leaf. He looked at the leaf trembling gently on the screen, rubbed the leaf stalk on his hand, and finally raised the corner of his lips.
It hadn't been long since he "met" Silent Waves, but it seemed like many things were changing quietly. For example, when he was thrown to the ground hard on the court, he suddenly had an idea.
He was beaten with a sword.
The first time he met S was also during a game of basketball. He once loved the pain and fatigue brought by playing basketball, which could make him secrete more adrenaline or maybe give him some dopamine. But since he met S, the spiritual comfort brought by playing basketball has become weaker and weaker. He didn't know when he found that the refreshing feeling was far less than listening to S's music quietly for a while.
If listening to one song doesn't make you calm, listen to two songs, put on your headphones and jog along the riverside, or stand under a paulownia tree and daydream for a while.
The sound of the violin was like the low murmur of a young boy.
He had never heard the voice of S, but he could imagine that the voice was probably low and soft, a little distant, and a little gentle.
After the video ended, Dou Sheng got out of bed, clicked the "like" button, and carefully left a comment in both Chinese and English. Then he opened S's private message on Twitter.
He thought for a long time and sent out a message: "Today's signal has also been received. Copy that /□□ile."
That feeling is magical.
Somehow, there seemed to be a certain passage between him and S, through which only the signals between them that were tacitly understood could pass.
These violins are sending him signals, telling him in his ear, I am with you.
It took a long time before Dou Sheng put down the computer.
The cell phone rang.
- Make an appointment for a game and win the game with a guaranteed bet: The next game will be at 8pm, at the No. 4 Middle School Gymnasium, and the bet is 900.
Dou Sheng subconsciously glanced at the corner of the bathroom—a bunch of crumpled pink bills rolled out of the pocket of his newly changed pants. It was the commission from the previous game.
The coldness returned to his eyes. He quickly replied with six words, then blocked the person.
"I've fought you, it's boring."
Dinner was rice and fried beef. Zhao Wenying hadn't cooked for a long time, so the ingredients were a bit too heavy and the food was so spicy that it made people cry.
But Dou Sheng still ate two bowls of rice slowly. When Zhao Wenying finished eating and returned to the house, there was still some minced beef wrapped and soaked in the chili peppers at the bottom of the bowl. He picked it out and ate it all.
The spiciness made my throat feel burning.
His cell phone was vibrating wildly in his trouser pocket. He had skipped class today and his class teacher was looking for him again.
He didn't care at all. He hung up the text message and replied, "Sorry, teacher, I'll do it tomorrow." Then he washed the dishes and went back to his room.
Set the video to loop mode and listen to the piano while browsing the phone.
Perhaps because he had searched too much related content, a message suddenly popped up for him.
To Makoto invites you to answer: What is it like to lose a loved one
He was stunned for a long time by the question, and then read through several long replies in the thread. Then he typed two sentences casually: "The same day my faith in my father collapsed, I also lost him forever. I don't have any experience, I just feel that the world is very empty."
He put down his phone and looked at the sunset outside the window. The soreness deep in his muscles was still slowly releasing. The edge of his T-shirt was rolled up, and the air conditioner felt a little cold on his waist, so he rolled up the quilt and turned over to sleep.
When I woke up, the room was pitch black and my new song was still playing on the stereo.
The air conditioner made the whole room as cold as an ice cellar. Dou Sheng raised his hand and touched his forehead, which was a little hot.
He opened his phone while humming along with the music.
A red 1 appeared on Twitter. Dou Sheng thought it was a system push notification and was about to click it quickly, but as soon as he opened the message list, he was stunned.
silent waves.
He replied to him?!
His heartbeat suddenly accelerated, he took a deep breath, and opened the chat box.
silentwaves：Received.
A careless reply without any content.
But the imagined voice sounded in my ears again. This perfunctory sentence with a sense of distance completely overlapped with the imagined voice.
-qzfxr: Today’s signal has also been received.
-silentwaves: Got it.
Dou Sheng stared at the message until the screen went black, revealing the corners of his lips slightly raised.
There was a light in his eyes, very faint, but a light that had not been seen for a long time.
He opened his phone again, and a lot of messages popped up on the app. He didn't expect that the brief answer would attract so much comfort and encouragement, and someone even wrote a thousand-word essay to comfort him, which made him a little dumbfounded.
After a while, Dou Sheng replied to himself.
This time he hesitated for a long time, and carefully considered each word before typing it.
"Thank you all for your kindness. It's not that heart-wrenching, but I do feel very empty. It's hard to bear the emptiness when you first lose your love, but now it's a calming emptiness. Hmm... I don't know how to put it, maybe it's because I found another kind of company."
After he finished typing this paragraph, he started a new line: "I recommend a violin blogger on YouTube, he is very..."
—At this point, he suddenly deleted the second half of the sentence and only sent out the above paragraph.
It seems to be a very subtle psychology - he is very reluctant to share silentwaves with others. Separated by boundaries, mountains, rivers and oceans, the secret "channel" between him and S belongs exclusively to him.
Dou Sheng stared at the phone in a daze for a long time, sighed, picked up the water cup, and pushed the door open to go out.
The lights in the living room came on again. Zhao Wenying just came out with a bottle of wine and a goblet, wrapped in a nightgown, with messy hair.
She glanced up at her son and said calmly, "Get yourself a cup if you want a drink."
Some mothers are drinking with their children again.
The last time his accomplices committed a crime late at night was just over a week ago, but at this moment Dou Sheng suddenly found it a little absurd, and besides being absurd, it was also a little funny.
He didn't move, but stood on the stairs, took out his cell phone, and answered another question on Huhu.
"I also have to take care of my mom, she's much more useless than me."
After sending this message, he walked down the stairs and picked up the bottle of red wine.
"Go find a bottle opener. I forgot it." Zhao Wenying said, curled up on the sofa. "Get the decanter too."
Dou Sheng nodded and carried a glass of red wine into the kitchen.
He put the red wine back into the wine rack, opened the refrigerator, and took out the milk. He poured the milk into a fat ceramic milk pot and heated it up.
The thin flames gently licked the bottom of the pot. Milk can be drunk on an empty stomach, so he tore off two slices of toast and put them on the plate. Then he turned down the fire and picked an artist mug that Ms. Zhao once liked very much. He poured the hot milk with a layer of cream on it into the mug and spread a spoonful of peanut butter on the toast.
When he turned around, Zhao Wenying was standing at the kitchen door, looking at him.
That was a look that Dou Sheng would never forget.
Stunned and surprised, with tears in his eyes.
He and Ms. Zhao had experienced sudden changes in their lives together. He had seen her cry in anger, she was depressed and frustrated, she drank heavily at night, but this was the first time that he really felt his mother's weakness.
When he clearly realized that she needed him.
"Be more careful." So he said in a low voice, holding the cup and plate and brushing past Zhao Wenying, and took the food to the living room. "You are so shameless. Your husband is dead, and you are working hard to make money to support your son, but you drag your son to drink in the middle of the night."
The living room was very quiet, so quiet that he could almost hear Zhao Wenying's soft sobs.
But Zhao Wenying quickly stopped crying, walked over as if nothing had happened, pinched the soft toast, and blew on the trembling milk skin on the surface of the cup.
"Your classmate Ren Jin sent a message saying that you didn't go to class again." She tore off a piece of bread and put it in her mouth. "Do you have the nerve to say that to me?"
"Ms. Zhao, I'm only fourteen years old." Dou Sheng glanced at her, "I'm still a child."
It's been a long time since I last saw her. Zhao Wenying burst out laughing.
She laughed until tears came out. "You are just a child. You are a child who dropped from first place in the class to last place in the class. You are also a child who will take the high school entrance exam next year."
"I know." Dou Sheng's tone became serious, "It will be soon."
Zhao Wenying drank a sip of milk and asked, "What's coming soon?"
"I'm getting better soon." Dou Sheng said, and put away the empty goblet. "You have to see me off tomorrow morning. Go to bed early."
Zhao Wenying brought a glass of milk and looked at him blankly.
"You said you wanted me to take you to school?"
Dou Sheng took a deep breath, "Yes. My father is dead, who else can I rely on except myself?"
He paused and muttered, "But I may not be able to concentrate on my studies for the time being. Sorry, I may disappoint you. I just... want to try to pretend to be sociable. Maybe I will suddenly think of it somewhere later..."
He said this and turned to go upstairs, but came back after reaching the stairs, put the earphones into Zhao Wenying's ears and poked the phone.
"Just for once, I want to share with you what I like."
Zhao Wenying put her hands on the headphones and asked, "What song is this, violin?"
Dou Sheng hummed in agreement but shook his head.
“This is a signal.”
"What signal?"
That night, Dou Sheng did not answer. He just played a song for Zhao Wenying, then took the phone back to his room like a treasure.
Later he started to go to work, and Zhao Wenying began to pick him up, cook for him, and handle the put on hold business.
A long time passed, so long that he seldom thought of the dead man, so long that he was completely accustomed to S's company, and also accustomed to receiving the signals of mutual understanding from each new video, and sending private messages to S on a daily basis, and only occasionally receiving a few words of reply...
And at one point, the green-leafed sycamore tree in the video suddenly withered. It seemed like the end of an era. He suddenly had an epiphany and decided to return to where his life belonged.
That was also the day when s disappeared from YouTube, and there was no news for the past two years.
Until he came to his side.
Years have tied and entangled the thread between them, and time has passed, but it has never been broken.
…
The sound of piano outside the door suddenly interrupted Dou Sheng's thoughts.
He suddenly came to his senses and saw the rushing water flowing down his head, which had washed away all the foam.
So he turned off the shower, changed his clothes and came out.
Xie Lan just started the live broadcast.
The screen was scrolling with overwhelming comments.
-Xie Lan came first! !
-Xie Lan came first! !
-Xie Lan came first! !
Xie Lan had just finished playing a popular melody and curled his lips, "It hasn't started yet, the comments are going to be noisy."
He has a very bad temper towards the audience.
Even though he hadn't been active for a long time and was urged to do a live broadcast, he didn't feel guilty at all. Instead, he seemed very happy.
If it were any other up-person, Dou Sheng would scold him for being shameless and deliberately creating a persona.
But that person was Xie Lan.
If it’s Xie Lan, she’s so cute.
"I'm going to play six songs today." Xie Lanzhen was very serious about his work. "Five of them are original songs that I wrote myself, and one is an ED for Director Pei Qing's new show. The studio has already announced it, so it's fine for me to play it directly."
-Great
-Great
-Great
Xie Lan placed the bow on the strings, but before he started playing, he suddenly turned his head and looked at Dou Sheng.
"Have you finished washing?" He raised his eyebrows. "Why don't you wipe your hair? It's still dripping with water."
-Oh, here comes Bean.
-VIPs in place
-The die-hard fan appears!!
- I'm dying of laughter. Douzi comes rushing over.
Dou Sheng smiled and said, "No, I just came out to take a look. I'll go in and dry my hair and turn on the hair dryer so as not to disturb you."
Xie Lan nodded, "I'll wait for you?"
"Hey, I can hear it from inside too."
When Xie Lan started to play the violin, Dou Sheng calmly went back to the bathroom and went to the door.
Cover your head with a towel and rub it again and again.
After a while, the sound of a piano started playing outside, reaching the eardrums clearly. The melody was brisk and warm, and it sounded novel. It was a new style that Xie Lan was trying.
Dou Sheng raised the corner of his lips happily and continued to listen to the violin performance while wiping his hair.
So many years have passed in a flash.
The passage that was separated by mountains and seas in the past has fallen into disrepair for many years, but the person at the other end of the passage personally landed beside him, stayed in his world for a long time, and even took his hand and interlocked their fingers.
…
Every time Xie Lan played the piano, he felt that he was sending a signal called "love".
Now, he is sending signals again.