Okay?

[No pressure! Voluntary!]

[We’re not battling; we’re just curious!]

Xie Lan was a bit confused.

After a long time, he gently shook his head, trying to shake off the dizzy and turbid feeling inside.

“I haven’t played the violin for a long time; the last time must have been a month or two ago,” he said. “Besides, this kind of competition isn’t necessary, right? Douzi doesn’t really care either.”

[He only says he doesn’t care.]

[Only we feel heartache for him, really.]

[How could he really not care, sigh.]

[Look at how many gaming videos he spammed after the New Year.]

[The dialect one is finally a bit of an improvement.]

Xie Lan looked at the text in the bullet comments and sighed softly.

In the one earbud he was wearing, Gong Zi Ye Shen began fiddling with the electric guitar. The messy soundcheck was a bit noisy. Xie Lan was about to turn it off when he suddenly heard him say, “Playing games all the time is really boring. Isn’t there any creative sincerity left? I don’t want to be such a boring person; let me create some atmosphere for everyone.”

Xie Lan paused.

He wasn’t sure; was this… implying something?

Dou Sheng’s bullet comments had already exploded.

[Damn the guy next door is throwing shade at us.]

[Definitely talking about us.]

[Can’t walk independently without your Daddy Dou, right?]

[Don’t cause trouble, it annoys Douzi.]

[How many times has Douzi said not to cause trouble.]

[So we just let people scold us?]

Even their own family started arguing.

Xie Lan took a deep breath.

He put on the other earbud. In the earbud, Gong Zi Ye Shen strummed the strings a couple more times and said in a helpless tone: “Can you guys not always mention (cue)¹ others? I’m playing my music, broadening my path, why do you always mention others?”

“Have some magnanimity, you guys. Shouldn’t people look forward? Besides, my data is leading quite a bit, so I shouldn’t be the one under pressure, right? Career fans, worry less, yeah.”

Look forward?²

Xie Lan didn’t understand much, but he understood this sentence.

Who is in front? Who is behind?

He stood up instantly. “Wait for me a moment.”

Damn bitch.

“Bitch” shouldn’t be used to describe Dou Sheng. The fans were right; compared to the bitch outside, Dou Sheng could at most be considered a dog.³

There seemed to be a little trouble with the flight arrangement. Dou Sheng had gone to the first floor on the phone, discussing with someone in a low voice downstairs.

Xie Lan went straight back to his room, picked up his violin case, returned to Dou Sheng’s room, put it on the table, opened the case and took out the violin.

He was in a bad mood, and his expression in the camera was also a bit cold.

The bullet comments had reached the point where the author of the Xinhua Dictionary wouldn’t recognize a single complete word. Under the gaze of everyone, Xie Lan took a soft towel and wiped the strings and bridge, reapplied rosin, lifted the violin with his right hand to place it on his left shoulder, tilted it at an elegant forty-five degrees to his shoulder, and gently rested his chin on it.

The strings didn’t need much tuning. Even when not playing, he would take it out for maintenance every few days.

“My playing is very ordinary. And I haven’t played for a long time.” He muttered softly to the camera, “Usually I don’t play big pieces much, just songs from anime.”

[That’s enough.]

[Hand fetishists can die without regrets seeing this.]

[55555 Body and violin together are so elegant.]

[Mommy really fell in love, Mommy loves you!!]

[Mommy wants to create content for you!]

[Lan Zai, don’t force yourself if you’re sick, everyone is just joking.]

[It doesn’t matter if it’s not good, we’re not really PK-ing with them.]

[After all, they are professionals who hired someone to do the remix.]

Xie Lan saw this last golden bullet comment and paused.

Uh.

He had been a bit slack these past two years, indeed a bit “ordinary.” But… not “ordinary” enough to compete with the guy next door.

Just, weirdly insulting.

He asked, “Do you have any favorite anime OPs?”

[???]

[Listening to you, it doesn’t sound very ordinary.]

[Starting to flex.]

[Worthy of being Douzi’s person.]

[Pah, worthy of being Douzi’s cohabitant!]

[Also not right, worthy of being Douzi’s good friend person!]

[Violin student confused, this violin doesn’t look like something an ordinary player would buy…]

[Can you play “Red Lotus Like Death” (H.Blood)? Douzi loves that song immensely.]

[English H.Blood.]

Xie Lan turned his face sideways and hooked the corner of his mouth slightly.

He “debuted” by playing H.Blood. His adaptation allowed that melody to break free from the constraints of multi-instrument performance, becoming a rare anime OP suitable for violin solo. The only problem might be that the personal style was too strong; he had to temporarily change a few segments this time.

Xie Lan roughly conceived the musical phrasing with his chaotic brain, nodded, and whispered, “I’ll try.”

The bow touched the strings, and with a gentle turn, clear and ethereal music flowed out.

The lyrics of Red Lotus Like Death tell a tragic story originating from death. The protagonist chews deep on sorrow amidst immense hatred, bearing heavy burdens while moving forward, fighting, bleeding, transforming, until reaching the peak.

The lights in the room were off. The white light emitted by the computer screen plated a layer of bright white edge around the violin-playing youth and that coffee-colored violin. Xie Lan’s arm opened and closed freely with the bow, his body swaying intensely or soothingly with the rhythm.

The violin is a string instrument capable of enslaving the human heart. The high notes are slender and long, like grabbing the heart and pulling it far away; the low notes are steady and come with their own reverberating roar. The strings vibrated under the bow, turning from sorrow to intensity, excitement, destruction, as if red blood dripped into a lotus, spinning and blooming.

As the story in the music advanced, Xie Lan played faster and faster. His left hand doing vibrato almost trembled into afterimages under the light. His black hair lifted slightly backward with the swaying of his body. One bow, a dialogue between two people. The rhythm kept accelerating and rising. Just when it was so intense that people’s hearts were about to jump out—the bow suddenly drew a long, lingering stroke. The rhythm instantly soothed, bringing out a trace of unresolvable sorrow.

Like a whimper in an empty valley, faint, lingering heartache coiled between the notes.

Once, the vibration of the strings was Xie Lan’s faith, but after that person left, he touched it less and less.

Because the violin is the loneliest instrument. He was afraid of that trace of loneliness that couldn’t be dispelled after every hearty performance.

The tail note dissipated, the bow paused. After a moment, Xie Lan lowered the violin.

Hasn’t touched it for too long, hands a bit rusty. Fortunately, the completion level was okay. Just hadn’t clamped the violin for a long time; in the camera, the area near the youth’s fair collarbone was red from the pressure.

Xie Lan let out a breath and poked his temple, which was still dizzy and painful.

Burned silly, and a bit inexplicably high, muddledly agreed to play a piece in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

He set the bow upright, and from the corner of his eye, he suddenly caught the livestream assistant panel and froze.

The number of viewers seemed to have just broken 500k just now, but at this moment there were 1.802 million, one more digit, and it was still rising.

In the “Boarding Ship” list, the list of Admirals and Captains had more than doubled in length. In the top right corner on the current livestream chart, Ren Jian Jue Shuai Dou soared to tenth in total monthly popularity, and currently, the real-time viewer count had topped the entire platform. While on Night God’s side, the viewer count seemed to have dropped by more than a hundred thousand compared to before the violin playing, now falling to 19th on the total popularity list.

In Ren Jian Jue Shuai Dou‘s livestream room, the bullet comments, uniformly switched to red, were even crazier than those data.

[Sorrow of life, splendor of death!]

[Courage, reignited!]

[Daddy!!]

[Cub!! No, Dad!!]

[With the softest eyes, playing the wildest violin!!]

[Explosive, really explosive.]

[Which Uploader’s livestream room is this?]

[Homepage notification!]

[Wuwuwu I cried listening.]

Among numerous red bullet comments, a golden one drifted past conspicuously.

[If you’re staying in China for a long time, might as well consider collaborating with Douzi.]

Xie Lan stared blankly for a while.

Then he suddenly heard a noise at the door. Turning back inadvertently, he saw Dou Sheng standing at the door.

The tall and slender figure stood in the interplay of light and shadow. Those deep black eyes were slightly lost in thought, carrying a trace of rare helplessness. The fluctuating light in his eyes held emotions Xie Lan couldn’t read.

He looked at him in a daze, and at that elegant coffee-colored violin standing by his feet.

—

1. In Chinese internet slang, to “cue” someone (borrowed from English stage direction) means to mention, call out, or bring up someone’s name specifically to create drama or traffic. ↩︎
2. “Look Forward” (Xiàng Qián) sounds exactly like “Look at Money” (Xiàng Qián). While the person means “move on from the past”, Xie Lan interprets “forward” literally as “Who is ahead in the rankings?” ↩︎
3. In this context, “bitch” refers to a “green tea” personality—someone who acts innocent, polite, and magnanimous while actually being manipulative and passive-aggressive. Calling a friend a “dog” is often affectionate or mild. It means they are mischievous, annoying, or playful, but not malicious. ↩︎