Chapter 110: Side Story 10

The sound of rushing water swirled the mist throughout the bathroom. Vaguely, Xie Lan’s voice drifted in from outside.

“I’ve been busy lately and haven’t played the violin for a few days…”

That voice gradually overlapped with a scene deep in his memory—

…

The second year of high school.

“I play very ordinarily, and I haven’t played in a long time.”

When the music of Red Lotus Like Death began to play, Dou Sheng, who was on the phone, froze for a moment. The violin music drifted down from upstairs, separated by a half-ajar bedroom door and a flight of stairs. The sound was a bit muffled, yet strangely vivid.

It was hard to describe… it felt like listening to a live performance.

He stared blankly for a few seconds before muttering in a low voice, “So he’s an S-fan too… even changed my speaker parameters… hmm… changed them quite well, actually.”

“What’d you say?” The pet transport supplier shouted over the phone. “Picking up the cat tomorrow morning. You’ll be home the whole time, right?”

Dou Sheng pulled his attention back. “Yeah. Text me the flight number; I didn’t memorize it.”

He hung up and turned to head upstairs, his soft-soled slippers making no sound on the steps. All the lights in the house were off. The light from two oversized screens in the bedroom peeked through the door crack, illuminating a small patch at the top of the stairs—the only light in the house.

Dou Sheng didn’t like a dark house, but he had turned off all the lights today. Because Xie Lan had a fever, he felt the house would be quieter and Xie Lan would sleep more soundly with the lights off.

With only a few steps left to the top, the violin music built toward its climax, increasing in tempo. Dou Sheng slowed his pace, the corners of his mouth curving up slightly as he waited for the transition that was already etched into his bones.

However, a thin, high-pitched overtone slid out, like a clear, mournful cry echoing in an empty valley.

The variation did not come as expected.

One foot, suspended in the air, halted above the step. Dou Sheng’s eyes snapped up, staring at the top of the stairs. There, that patch of dim, gentle light, accompanied by the violin music from the bedroom, existed so incredibly yet so serenely.

He froze for a long time, until his ankle grew stiff before he remembered to put his foot down.

This was a version of Red Lotus Like Death he had never heard. As he walked up the stairs, the sense of “liveness” grew stronger. In a flash of insight, an image suddenly surfaced in his mind: that violin case that had never been opened, standing by Xie Lan’s desk.

His heart seemed to skip a beat, and his mind went blank. By the time he regained his senses, he was standing by the door.

Xie Lan was still wearing those soft pajamas, his hair a bit messy from rolling around in bed. A person with a cold carries a natural, head-heavy body language—dazed and soft.

But his violin playing was not dazed.

An elegant brown violin was tucked under his chin, its lines fluid and nimble. The bright white light from the screen cast the silhouette of the player onto the wall behind him.

Dou Sheng looked behind him. The dim wall reflected the dark silhouettes of the person and the violin. The music was passionate, carrying a powerful aura that seized the heart—as arrogant and free as a hawk—yet the shadow looked so gentle, even… a bit fragile.

The climax of Red Lotus Like Death had been rearranged by the former SilentWaves into a conversational performance style, enough to make one’s blood boil. Back then, the person in the projected video was full of vigor; now, seeing the real person, he realized the live movements were far more captivating than any projection. The fingers vibrating against the strings were a blur of speed, and the bowing was both grand and exquisite.

Yet the expression of the player remained calm.

Just as Dou Sheng’s heart felt like it was about to jump out of his chest, the bow gave one long, final stroke, ending the performance with a lingering, inseparable sob.

Xie Lan lightly licked his lips, which were cracked from the fever, and lowered the violin, resting it vertically by his feet. The screen was filled with a massive wave of bright red bullet comments. Dizzied by the fever, he stared blankly at the chat.

And Dou Sheng stared blankly at his profile.

Light and shadow interlaced, flickering across the boy’s face with the movement of the comments. Along with it, Dou Sheng’s heartbeat and breathing spun out of control.

Of course he recognized him.

Even if he had never seen his face before, the moment he picked up the violin, it was only natural that he recognized him.

SilentWaves.

It truly should be, and could only be, someone like Xie Lan.

Three years ago.

“I’m back, Mom.”

Dou Sheng entered the house, tossed his empty backpack onto the sofa, kicked off his shoes, and headed upstairs. He didn’t put on slippers; his cotton socks stepped recklessly on the cold marble tiles. The shoes he’d flung aside were so dirty they were barely recognizable, their expensive brand only discernible through the logo. The snow-white surfaces were covered in black footprints and dried mud.

Dou Sheng reached the top of the stairs before he heard the master bedroom door open below. Zhao Wenying stepped out. In the year since that man’s death, his mother had withered rapidly. She had no heart for the family business, staying in her room every day and secretly drinking at night. If Dou Sheng woke up at night and saw the living room lights on, he would sit and drink with her.

“Have you eaten?” Zhao Wenying looked up and asked.

Dou Sheng took off his headphones. He wasn’t actually hungry; he always felt a bit nauseous after playing ball like that. But after a pause, he said, “No, I’m waiting to eat.”

Zhao Wenying brushed her hair back. “The maid is off today. I’ll make something. What do you want?”

Dou Sheng thought for a bit. “Frozen dumplings, wontons, whatever. Just boil something.”

Zhao Wenying hummed. “I’ll stir-fry some beef for you, your favorite.”

Dou Sheng watched her enter the kitchen, hesitated for a moment, and put his headphones back on. He went downstairs to bring his dirty sneakers back to his room and tossed them, along with his sweat-soaked clothes, into the corner of the bathroom. He took a quick shower, and the moment he came out, he turned on his computer and speakers.

Refresh YouTube… Yes! SilentWaves had just posted a new video. A sliver of joy appeared in the youth’s calm, dark eyes. As if a weight had been lifted, he immediately clicked play.

Soon, the music rose from the speakers, filling the small space. The silhouette playing the violin was quiet and soft. A small plane tree leaf was draped in front of the lens; when the music grew passionate, the stem of the leaf would tremble slightly.

Dou Sheng let out a few soft clicks of his tongue and flopped onto the bed with a long sigh of relief.

His physical strength was exhausted; every muscle and bone clamored in pain. Restlessness paced wildly within his nerves, hitting walls and tearing at him. But that was his state before coming home.

As long as he opened S’s video, he received immediate comfort—let alone today, with a new piece. It was hard to describe the feeling; it was like being in a realm of darkness that your mind perceived as filthy, supernatural, and dangerous, but the moment the light shines in, you are surprised to find that everything is actually fine. The world is still exactly as it should be.

After a long time, as the song reached its end, the boy lying on his back turned over. Dou Sheng reached under his pillow and pulled out a tiny plane tree leaf. Looking at the trembling leaf on the screen and then rubbing the stem in his hand, his lips finally curled into a smile.

He hadn’t “known” SilentWaves for long, but it felt as if many things were changing silently. For example, today, when he was slammed onto the ground on the court, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

I won’t play anymore.

His first encounter with S had also been after a game. He had once been addicted to the pain and exhaustion of street ball; the former gave him adrenaline, the latter perhaps some dopamine. But ever since knowing S, the spiritual comfort brought by street ball had grown weaker. He realized that the thrill was far inferior to quietly listening to S’s music for a while.

If one song didn’t bring peace, he would listen to two, jogging by the river with headphones on or dazing out under a plane tree. The sound of the violin was like the low murmur of a youth. He had never heard S’s voice, but he could imagine it—likely low, soft, a bit detached, yet gentle.

The video ended. Dou Sheng got off the bed to like it, left a sincere comment in both Chinese and English, and then opened S’s Twitter DMs. After much deliberation, he sent: “Today’s signal received. Copy that. /smile.”

It was a magical feeling. In the dark, there seemed to be a path between him and S, through which only their tacit signals could pass. These violin sounds were S sending him a signal, whispering in his ear: I am accompanying you.

After a long while, Dou Sheng turned off the computer. His phone pinged.

– Basketball Match Guy: Next game the day after tomorrow at 8 PM, gym behind No. 4 High School, 900 yuan.

Dou Sheng instinctively glanced at the bathroom corner—a handful of crumpled pink bills had tumbled out of the pocket of his discarded pants; it was the commission from the game he’d just played. The coldness returned to his eyes. He hurriedly replied with five words and blocked the person.

“Not playing anymore, it’s boring.”

Dinner was rice and stir-fried beef. Zhao Wenying hadn’t cooked in a long time and was heavy-handed with the seasoning; it was spicy enough to bring tears to one’s eyes. But Dou Sheng still slowly ate two bowls of rice. After Zhao Wenying finished and went to her room, he even picked out and ate the remaining beef scraps soaked in chili oil at the bottom of the bowl.

The spiciness made his throat burn with a searing pain. His phone vibrated violently in his pocket; his homeroom teacher was “wanted” him for skipping class again. He ignored it, silenced the phone, and texted: “Sorry Teacher, I’ll definitely be there tomorrow.” Then he washed the dishes and returned to his room.

He set the video on a loop and scrolled through his phone while listening to the violin. Perhaps because he had searched for too much related content, a Q&A app suddenly pushed a notification to him.

[User Cheng Shangjun invites you to answer: What is the experience of losing someone close to you?]

He stared at the question for a long time, read several long-winded replies in the thread, and then typed two sentences: “On the day my faith in my father collapsed, I lost him forever. There isn’t much of an ‘experience,’ I just feel the world is very empty.”

He tossed the phone aside and watched the sunset outside. The soreness deep in his muscles was still releasing. His T-shirt had rolled up, and the AC felt cold on his waist, so he rolled into the quilt and went to sleep.

When he woke up, the room was pitch black. The speakers were still looping S’s new song. The AC had turned the room into an ice cellar. Dou Sheng reached up to touch his forehead; it felt a bit hot. He hummed along with the music while checking his phone.

A small red ‘1’ glowed on Twitter. Thinking it was a system notification, he was about to clear it, but as soon as he opened the message list, Dou Sheng froze.

SilentWaves.

He replied?!

His heart rate surged. He took a deep breath and opened the chat.

SilentWaves: Received.

A nonchalant reply with zero substance. But the voice in his imagination echoed in his ear again. Such a distant, perfunctory response completely overlapped with that imagined voice.

– QZFXR: Today’s signal received.

– SilentWaves: Received.

Dou Sheng stared at the message until the screen went dark, reflecting his slightly curved lips. There was light in his eyes—faint, but a point of light he hadn’t seen in a long time.

He checked the Q&A app; many messages had popped up there as well. Unexpectedly, that brief answer had attracted a large amount of comfort and encouragement. Someone had even written a thousand-word essay to comfort him, leaving him a bit dazed.

After a while, Dou Sheng replied to his own post. This time he hesitated for a long time, weighing every word.

“Thank you all for the concern. It’s not so much heart-wrenching as it is truly empty. Right after someone is gone, it’s an unbearable emptiness, but now it’s an emptiness trending toward peace. Hmm… I don’t know how to say it, maybe because I found another kind of companionship.”

After finishing 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 and only posted the top paragraph. It seemed to be a very subtle psychology—he was resistant to sharing SilentWaves with others. Across national borders, across mountains and oceans, that secret “path” between him and S belonged exclusively to him.

Dou Sheng looked blankly at his phone for a while, “tsk-ed,” and took his water glass out. The living room light was on again. Zhao Wenying had just brought out a bottle of wine and a glass, wrapped in a bathrobe, her hair a mess.

She glanced up at her son and said calmly, “If you want to drink, get your own glass.”

A mother taking her kid along to drink heavily. The last time they’d been partners in crime late at night was only a week ago, but now Dou Sheng suddenly felt it was a bit absurd. Yet, alongside the absurdity, it was a bit funny.

He didn’t move, standing on the stairs to pull out his phone and add another reply to the Q&A thread.

“I still have to take care of my mom. she’s much more of a mess than I am.”

After posting, he walked down the stairs and picked up the bottle of wine.

“Go find a corkscrew, I forgot. Bring the decanter too,” Zhao Wenying said, huddled on the sofa.

Dou Sheng hummed, carrying the wine into the kitchen. Then he tucked the wine back into the rack, opened the fridge, and took out the milk. He poured the milk into a plump little ceramic pot and turned on the stove.

Tiny flames gently licked the bottom of the pot. Milk shouldn’t be drunk on an empty stomach, so he tore two slices of toast and plated them. He turned off the heat, picked an artist-series mug that Ms. Zhao used to like, poured in the hot milk with a layer of skin forming on top, and spread a spoonful of peanut butter on the toast.

Turning around, he saw Zhao Wenying standing at the kitchen door, watching him. It was a gaze Dou Sheng would never forget. Stunned, surprised, and shimmering with a faint, misty tear.

He had experienced the bolt from the blue with Ms. Zhao, watched her rage and weep, watched her fall into decadence, and watched her drink at night. But this was the first time he truly felt his mother’s vulnerability.

In the moment he clearly realized she needed him.

“Try to have a heart,” he whispered, brushing past her with the mug and plate to take the food to the living room. “No sense of seniority at all. Your husband is dead and gone, you should be earning money to raise your son, not dragging him to drink with you at night.”

The living room was quiet, so quiet he could almost hear the low sob from Zhao Wenying behind him. But Zhao Wenying soon stifled her tears and walked over as if nothing was wrong, pinching the soft toast and blowing on the trembling skin on the surface of the milk.

“Your teacher messaged today, saying you skipped class again,” she said, tearing a piece of bread and putting it in her mouth. “Do you have the nerve to talk about me?”

“Ms. Zhao, I’m only fourteen,” Dou Sheng glanced at her. “I’m still a child.”

After a long absence, Zhao Wenying burst out laughing. She laughed until tears came. “Not only are you a child, you’re a child who dropped from first in the grade to last, and a child who has the high school entrance exams next year.”

“I know.” Dou Sheng’s tone turned serious. “It’s coming soon.”

Zhao Wenying took a sip of milk. “What’s coming soon?”

“It’s almost time to get better.” Dou Sheng said, putting away the empty wine glass. “You’re driving me to school tomorrow morning. Sleep early.”

Zhao Wenying held her glass of milk, looking at him in a bit of a daze. “You said… you want me to drive you to school?”

Dou Sheng took a deep breath. “Yeah. Dad is dead and gone. If I don’t fight for myself, who else can I fight for?” He paused and muttered, “But I might not be able to focus on studying for a while. Sorry, I might disappoint you. I just… want to try and act like I fit in. Maybe one day I’ll suddenly want to learn…”

He left those words and turned to head upstairs. At the top of the stairs, he came back, stuffed his headphones into Zhao Wenying’s ears, and tapped his phone.

“Briefly, I’ll share what I like with you, just this once.”

Zhao Wenying pressed her hand to the headphones. “What is this piece, a violin?”

Dou Sheng hummed, but shook his head.

“It’s a signal.”

“What signal?”

That night, Dou Sheng did not answer. He just let Zhao Wenying listen to the whole song, then returned to his room clutching his phone like a treasure. Later, he began going to school, and Zhao Wenying began driving him, cooking, and handling the neglected business.

A long time passed—long enough that he rarely thought of the dead man of his own accord, long enough that he had completely adapted to S’s companionship. He grew accustomed to receiving that tacit signal from every new video and sending S daily private messages about his mundane life, only occasionally receiving a few words in reply.

Then one day, the green plane tree leaf in the video suddenly withered. It felt like the end of an era. Suddenly struck by inspiration, he decided to return to where his life was meant to be.

That was also the day S disappeared from YouTube. For the next two years, there was no sound.

Until he came to his side.

Years had pulled and tangled the thread between them; time had passed, but it had never snapped.

…

The sound of the violin from outside suddenly interrupted Dou Sheng’s thoughts. He snapped back to reality. The water was rushing down his head, and the foam had long been washed away. He turned off the shower, changed, and stepped out.

Xie Lan had just started the livestream. The screen was rolling with an overwhelming tide of comments.

– Xie Lan is No. 1 in the world!!

– Xie Lan is No. 1 in the world!!

Xie Lan had just finished a warm-up melody. He curled his lip. “It hasn’t started yet, don’t be noisy in the chat.”

He had quite a temper with the audience. Despite not working for a long time and being hounded to stream as if his life depended on it, he showed no guilt; instead, he looked quite displeased. If it were any other UP, Dou Sheng would have scolded them for being ungrateful and trying too hard to maintain a persona.

But that person was Xie Lan. If it was Xie Lan, it was explosively cute.

“I’m going to play six songs today.” When Xie Lan really got to work, he was very serious. “Five are original compositions that are relatively complete. One is the ED for Director Pei Qing’s new anime; the studio has already announced it, so it’s fine for me to play it directly.”

• Hooray!
• Hooray! Hooray!

Xie Lan rested the bow on the strings. Before playing, he suddenly turned toward Dou Sheng.

“Done washing?” He raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to dry your hair? It’s still dripping.”

• Ooh ooh, Douzi is here!
• Internal VIP in position!
• Die-hard fan appears!!
• LOL, Douzi rushed over.

Dou Sheng smiled. “No, just came out to take a look. I’m going back in to dry my hair. I won’t use the hairdryer, so I don’t disturb you.”

Xie Lan hummed. “Should I wait for you?”

“No need, I can hear you from inside.”

Before Xie Lan began to play, Dou Sheng calmly returned to the bathroom and closed the door. He draped a towel over his head, rubbing it rhythmically. A moment later, the violin music rose outside, entering his ears clearly. The melody was light and passionate, with a novel sound—a new style Xie Lan was experimenting with.

Dou Sheng curled his lips in a pleasant smile, continuing to dry his hair while listening to the violin performance.

In the blink of an eye, so many years had passed. The old path that had once been separated by mountains and seas was long out of repair, but the person at the other end of that path had personally landed by his side, making a home in his world, taking his hand, and interlocking their fingers.

…

Whenever Xie Lan played the violin, he felt it was a signal named “love.”

Now, he was sending that signal again.

(End of Side Story)

---

Author’s Note:

Lan-Egg: Doo~~ doo-la-doo-la~~ diu-diu!!

Dou-Egg: Mm, I know.

Lan-Egg: Wuu~~ ga-zi-ga-zi~ pfft-shh-tu-tu!

Dou-Egg: Me too.

Customers (Confused): What are they saying?

Keyboard-Thumper (Spitting out sunflower seeds): No idea. Encrypted channel, probably.