Wednesday morning was originally scheduled to be the time for recording the talk show, but Nie Xi told Sang Wuyan that it was not necessary as the show was already ready.
"Who are you interviewing?" Sang Wuyan asked.
Nie Xi smiled mysteriously, "Keep it secret for now. Won't you know when it's aired tonight?"
Sang Wuyan glanced at Nie Xi, who was beaming with joy. It was rare to see her so happy, which showed that she was not an ordinary person. Sang Wuyan didn't take this matter seriously and forgot about it as soon as he turned around.
In order to solve the problem of job interviews, the school has started a series of career guidance courses since the third year of college. This semester, the department invited a teacher from the School of Arts to teach "Communication and Eloquence", which happened to be two classes in the afternoon. Unexpectedly, when Sang Wuyan arrived at school, he saw a notice on the blackboard saying that the teacher had something urgent to do and the class would be rescheduled to the evening.
Although this teacher never takes attendance, his lectures are extremely interesting, so not many students skip classes.
For example, he said in one class: "From the perspective of psychology, people face three major fears when speaking in interpersonal communication: fear of strangers, fear of heights, and fear of groups. The degree of this fear varies from person to person and from experience to experience, but it is unavoidable. Your job interviews, postgraduate entrance exam interviews, and civil service interviews are all occasions that combine these three fears, which is why so many people feel that this is a huge obstacle."
A student asked: "Teacher, do you have group fear when facing us?"
The teacher smiled and said, "Yes. For example, if you suddenly stand up and ask a question now, I will not change my expression, but I will still be shocked in my heart, for fear that you will ask some questions that will embarrass me."
After class, Sang Wuyan returned home and suddenly remembered that Nie Xi's mysterious interview would be broadcast tonight. She just turned on the radio and heard Nie Xi say, "Today, I sincerely thank Mr. Yi Jin for taking the time out of his busy schedule to come to our show."
"You're welcome."
The voice that answered Nie Xi was a man's, slightly low and with a pleasant magnetic tone.
Is it today?!
Sang Wuyan stared at Cheng Yin with eyes wide open.
"It's Yi Jin?!" Sang Wuyan asked Cheng Yin.
"But it seems like the show is over." Cheng Yin poured cold water on her.
This was the first time Sang Wuyan heard direct information about Yi Jin. Although it was just two simple words, when spoken by that talented man, it carried a mysterious color.
He said, you're welcome.
Such a short sentence without context can't help but make people imagine. Such a man is tall or short, fat or thin, reserved or outspoken... It seems impossible to determine.
Sang Wuyan stared at the radio blankly, and only after a long time did he fall asleep with that sound in a strange mood.
The next afternoon, she had no classes, and it wasn't rush hour, so there were even fewer people on bus No. 101. Sang Wuyan got on the bus and sat down in the back seat by the window.
Route 101 is a sightseeing bus line in City A. It goes from the city to the scenic area, winding around the city's famous attractions. Locals don't often take it. Firstly, it's a detour, and secondly, it's more expensive than ordinary buses.
However, if she had nothing to do, Sang Wuyan would often spend three yuan to sit in a car and travel around the city for most of the day. Most of the time, there were few passengers, and she liked to listen to music and stare blankly outside thinking about her own things. This was the introverted Sang Wuyan. She was timid and introverted in front of strangers since she was a child. It was not until she went to college after she became an adult that her personality slowly began to become active.
On this train, Sang Wuyan heard the replay of the program where Nie Xi interviewed Yi Jin yesterday.
There is a drizzle outside the window at this moment. The early autumn rain is a bit lingering, and the air in the whole city becomes fresh after being cleansed by the rain.
There were not many people in the car, and she heard the man's voice again on the car radio.
This time, I heard it clearly.
A mature male voice, with an elegant and slow voice, and a hint of indifference in his tone. Every time Nie Xi asked a question, he would hesitate for a moment and answer simply, with very few words.
"Why did you decide to embark on the path of songwriting? Did you have a dream of writing poetry when you were a child?" Nie Xi asked.
"It was an accidental planting that led to a forest of willows. I never thought of that before," he replied.
"Mr. Yi Jin, you have so many fans, why do you deliberately avoid the public?" Nie Xi asked.
“Keep your living space private.”
"Just because of this?"
"Then what else?" he asked.
"You are so successful in this circle, but I heard that you have other jobs, or is writing lyrics just a side job?"
"Yes."
He answered this question without hesitation. The simplicity of these two words gave people a feeling of arrogance, while Sang Wuyan, who was sitting in the last row, smiled softly. Perhaps he wanted to be modest. At that time, Nie Xi asked two questions in one breath, so he was too lazy to waste his breath and affirmed them all.
Then a commercial came on the radio.
or-
After a while, Sang Wuyan looked out the window and thought: Maybe he was such a proud person.
"Mr. Yijin, does your stage name have any meaning? Yizhao Yiyi, so it means Yijin? Or is it to commemorate something? Who?"
"No, it's just a simple one with few strokes," he said calmly.
Sang Wuyan was a little impressed by Nie Xi, who was able to host the show in an orderly manner even with such a unique partner. If it were him, he would have been in a state of boredom several times.
"A few months ago, a female fan pretended to be you on the Internet. Why didn't you come out to refute the rumor at that time?"
"I don't care what other people think."
"Many of the songs you wrote have touched many female fans, such as "The Blue Sky at Dawn" and "Libyan Shells". Do they contain your own stories?"
"without me… "
Perhaps, this was the longest sentence he said in the entire program, but it was drowned out by the announcement of the bus arriving at the station. Then many people got on and the radio was turned off by the driver.
His voice slowly disappeared from above her.
Sang Wuyan felt a sense of loss.
She and Yi Jin were actually in the same city, breathing the same air, and looking at the same sky when they raised their heads.
While Sang Wuyan was preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination, he was also busy with his graduation thesis.
At the midterm, everyone was assigned an internship task. Li Lulu's group was transferred to a high-security prison on the outskirts of City A for psychological correction.
"What is a high-security prison?" Sang Wuyan asked curiously.
"It's full of prisoners sentenced to more than fifteen years in prison." Li Lulu answered calmly.
Sang Wuyan immediately glared, "Are they all murderers?"
"Not necessarily," Li Lulu smiled, "There are also kidnappers, drug dealers, smugglers, and rapers."
Sang Wuyan's face suddenly changed. She thought of the movie "Green Corridor" she watched some time ago about how prisons execute the death penalty. A wet towel was placed on the prisoner's head and then he sat on the electric chair. That scene made her unable to eat for several days.
Li Lulu raised her eyebrows, "Fortunately, you delicate girls didn't go, otherwise you would have been frightened."
Indeed, Sang Wuyan's group had the easiest time, and was assigned to a school for the disabled in the community. The school was a little special, and they had to submit their application forms first, and they would officially go there next month.
On Monday, Sang Wuyan went to the education department of the special school to hand in his internship form.
When she finished her work and came out of the office on the top floor, it was just the second class time for the children. When Sang Wuyan passed by a small classroom on the second floor, she heard a familiar voice.
Then Sang Wuyan saw the man for the third time through the window.
He was standing beside the podium in a soft white shirt, looking very relaxed. The children were doing their homework, and he was sitting there quietly with his head down, not saying a word.
"Teacher Su!" a girl with pigtails shouted from another place.
It turned out that his last name was Su. Sang Wuyan smiled softly and stood there watching them motionlessly.
His cane was not in the classroom, and he passed over several desks and slowly walked to the girl's side. It seemed that he was familiar with everything here.
The man bent down and said a few words, then he put his hands on the desk and continued to communicate with the girl patiently. His voice was completely different from the one he heard in the elevator, soft and light, and even made people feel like he was smiling.
Finally, the get out of class was over. When he came out, Sang Wuyan, who had been hiding outside the window and peeping, hesitated for a few seconds, then imitated the other children and called out, "Teacher Su."
He turned around sensitively, his pupils unfocused, his eyes seemed to be fixed far away. He asked, "What's the matter?"
"fine."
"We know each other?"
“I don’t think I know him either.”
Hearing this, he actually looked somewhat relieved, then he leaned on his cane with one hand and held the handrail with the other and prepared to go down the stairs.
Seeing this, Sang Wuyan asked again: "Where are you going? Do you need help?"
He turned around for the second time, then hesitated for a moment and said slowly: "I think I've seen you before, at the radio station."
"In the elevator." Sang Wuyan added.
At that time, she also kindly said the same five words, "Do you need help?"
Fortunately, he has a good memory, Sang Wuyan thought thankfully.
"I'm a new intern, my name is Sang Wuyan, where is Teacher Su?"
"Su Nianqin."
"Thinking of love?" Sang Wuyan was quite surprised, so he repeated it.
"No, it's quilt." Su Nianqin corrected her pronunciation.
She is from the south, and her front and back nasal sounds were a bit unclear before, and because of this, her programs were often rejected by the station director. Now, she can speak correctly, but she still can't hear it correctly.
Su Nianqin seemed to sense her confusion, so she added, "Jinyi, quilt."
Today's clothes and quilt
Sang Wuyan smiled awkwardly. Her Chinese had always been poor and she didn't know what the term "Jin Yi Qi" was. However, she was too embarrassed to ask again in order to avoid appearing uneducated, so she had to pretend to understand.
At night, when Sang Wuyan was memorizing words at home, she suddenly thought of his name. She hadn't looked through a Chinese dictionary for a long time, and it took her some effort to find it among a list of homophones.
Today's clothes and quilts.
She saw the annotation and found out it meant quilt.
"Nian Qin? That must be because your family was very poor when you were a child and you didn't have a quilt." Cheng Yin analyzed boringly.
"What if the name was chosen at birth?" Sang Wuyan retorted.
"That's because his parents were very poor before they got married. Chinese parents like to put their hopes in their children's names." Cheng Yin continued her boring speech.
Sang Wuyan finally surrendered and stopped discussing such issues with this woman who was pouring cold water on him.
Su Nianqin.
Sang Wuyan was lying on the sofa, holding the dictionary and silently reciting these three words. Recalling the scene of him talking to her during the day, she couldn't help but smile slightly.
The man spoke standard Mandarin, but he had a slight accent on certain words, such as the word "衾", where he raised the ending tone slightly. He must be a local, because people in City A would blur the first tone in Mandarin into the second and third tones.
"Nothing." Cheng Yin interrupted her thoughts.
"Um?"
"Hurry up and wipe your mouth. You're drooling from joy." Cheng Yin said as she handed her a tissue in a serious manner.
"… "
The next week, Sang Wuyan, as the leader of their group, went to the primary school again to submit other students' information. As soon as he arrived at the office of Director Wang of the Teaching Department, he happened to meet him going to class.
"Xiao Sang, wait a moment, I'll be there after class." The director ordered.
"Oh, it's okay, you do your thing, I'm not in a hurry."
As soon as Director Wang left, the bell for class rang. Sang Wuyan looked around the office, found a stack of newspapers, and then sat down on a rattan chair.
The teaching building is an old-fashioned four-story building. The corridors on each floor are sandwiched between the classrooms on both sides, so the corridors are particularly narrow and long, and are prone to echoes. Generally speaking, during class, most classrooms will keep their doors closed to avoid crosstalk.
Director Wang’s office is at the end of the corridor on the fourth floor, far from the classroom, so it seems a little quiet.
The thick stack of newspapers was nothing more than party newspapers and educational newspapers at all levels. There was no gossip, no gimmicks, and no hype, so Sang Wuyan read through it in just a few minutes. After finishing reading it, he felt that the rest of the time was boring.
She looked up at the wall clock and saw that only seven or eight minutes had passed, so she put her chin on the desk in frustration and felt drowsy. Faintly hearing the sound of children reading, she lay down on the desk and closed her eyes.
What is being read aloud
It seems to be from Liu Yuxi's "Wuyi Lane", "The swallows that used to fly in front of the halls of the Wang and Xie families now fly into the homes of ordinary people."
Suddenly, the sound of piano interrupted the sound of reading.
Although Sang Wuyan was tone-deaf, she knew that the song was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. After the simple single notes were played once, they became intermittent single notes the second time, and they kept playing back and forth. It would have been fine if it was just once, but she actually heard the person playing it three or four times, and the person playing the piano had no intention of stopping.
She stood up in a bad mood, scratched her hair, and then looked at the clock for the N+1th time. The get out of class was still so long away...
Sang Wuyan walked out of the office and found that the piano sound came from the piano room opposite, and the door was ajar, not tightly closed, so a small sound leaked out.
She was afraid that some children were taking classes inside, so she quietly peeked in from the crack of the door. But it was not what she imagined, there was only one person sitting inside.
And that person was none other than the figure that had been frequently lingering in Sang Wuyan’s mind recently—Su Nianqin.
He pressed the piano keys with his left hand and held a pen in his right hand to write something on a small board. Director Wang also had that kind of small board in his office, a Braille board. He frowned and wrote Braille while pressing the piano keys. From his appearance, he seemed to be preparing lessons or something, probably thinking hard about how to teach those children.
But, it seems that I am stumped again.
Su Nianqin pressed two notes, wrote something on his notebook, and then touched the keys again. He felt something was wrong and shook his head. Sang Wuyan saw him doing this several times, and then he understood how the annoying piano sound came about.
His good temper seemed to have been exhausted. His hand became more and more impatient as he wrote in Braille, and his strokes became heavier and heavier. In the end, every stroke almost poked hard into the text.
For the last time, Su Nianqin finally exploded and slammed the drill pen hard onto the Braille board, making a loud snap.
Sang Wuyan was shocked and realized that this man must have a very bad temper. He was willing to fight her so hard. She wanted to get away, lest he find out that she was spying on him and she be boiled like the fish at the city gate.
but…
She wants to stay here too.
At this moment, Su Nianqin stretched out his left index finger and slid it heavily across the piano keys, from right to left, and then from left to right. After tossing the piano back and forth two or three times with his eyes closed, his fingers had become softer from the stiffness when he was angry, and his expression also eased a little.
He sighed deeply, placed his hands flat on the piano keys, paused for a moment, and then skillfully played a piece of music. The music was unusually slow and had a hint of Chinese style, and now he played it skillfully on the piano with a different kind of mood.
It was a nice song. It might be even better if it had the right lyrics. Just as Sang Wuyan was thinking this, a gust of wind suddenly blew into the corridor, blowing the door of the piano room slightly.
The door hinges were old and creaked.
Sang Wuyan was afraid that he would notice the noise, so she hurriedly pulled the door to stop it from shaking. Unexpectedly, Su Nianqin had already heard the noise, so the sound of the zither paused and turned his head towards Sang Wuyan. He looked towards Sang Wuyan for a moment, then tilted his head.
Sang Wuyan suddenly felt annoyed. It was a common thing for the wind to blow the door, but she made it even more complicated. She quickly held her breath and stopped all movements.
During this time, I could only faintly hear the children at the other end of the corridor reciting "Wuyi Lane". Other than that, there was the sound of the wind - the rustling sound of the autumn wind blowing through the withered sycamore leaves downstairs, and the sound of the cold wind whistling into the corridor.
After a moment, Su Nianqin asked calmly: "Who's there?"
This question caught Sang Wuyan off guard, so he subconsciously replied, "It's me."