The rain fell intermittently over the 2 days of the weekend.
Lin Mo spent his time at home completing practice problems, reading, and frequently thinking of Su Ran.
Whenever he missed her, he would open the USB drive and listen to that etude one more time. Having heard it so many times, he began to notice even more details. There was a melody in the piece that appeared repeatedly, as if it were calling out for something.
Using this as an excuse, he sent a text message to Su Ran.
“The repeated melody in the second bar of the third section seems to be saying, ‘Wait for me.'”
Su Ran’s reply arrived almost the very next second: “You heard it?”
Lin Mo raised an eyebrow slightly. He switched to holding his phone with both hands and typed quickly, “What are you waiting for?”
This time, the wait was long. It was so long that he went from holding the phone with one hand, to putting the phone down to continue reading, to flipping the phone over so it was out of sight, to tossing the phone far away onto the bed. Finally, he threw himself onto the bed and buried his face in his pillow, writhing back and forth like a 40-year-old maggot.
It wasn’t until 10:00 PM that Su Ran finally replied, “Waiting for an answer.”
By the time he received the message, Lin Mo’s face had grown haggard. He was staring at the ceiling with hollow eyes like a dried corpse, but the moment he picked up his phone and glanced at the screen, his heart skipped a beat, and he came back to life.
He snapped into a sitting position and typed rapidly: “What answer?”
The reply came quickly this time, but it was only an emoticon.
: )
Then followed a sentence: “See you Monday.”
The conversation ended there. Lin Mo stared at the screen for a long time.
Feeling a sense of emptiness, he replied, “See you Monday.”
It was true that she wouldn’t lie, but at the same time… she wouldn’t speak either. How could something hidden in her heart for 10 years be revealed right at the start?
Lin Mo lay back down and stared at the ceiling again, but this time, he was no longer bewildered. Instead, he felt increasingly determined.
While organizing his backpack on Sunday night, he took out the white towel. It had been washed and folded neatly. He had specifically let it dry in the sun all afternoon, so it was filled with the scent of sunshine.
Then there was the umbrella.
Lin Mo had fiddled with it for 2 days and discovered very small characters engraved at the bottom of the handle:
【S.R.2015.3】
It was the initials of Su Ran’s name and a year. March 2015 — it must have been when she first started her freshman year of high school. This umbrella had accompanied her for over 2 years, and now, it would accompany him for a lifetime.
After putting the towel in his backpack and hanging the umbrella on the wall, Lin Mo turned on his computer and searched for the Youth Piano Competition. Sure enough, he found the relevant information.
The National Youth Piano Competition’s divisional rounds would begin in late October, with the finals in December. The one Su Ran was participating in should be the divisional round.
He looked at the profiles of previous winners; the skill level was very high. Although Su Ran was talented, the competition was fierce. Lin Mo wanted to help her, but he didn’t understand the piano.
He pondered for a long time, eventually recalling an interview he had seen in his past life. After Su Ran became famous, a reporter asked her what her greatest regret was.
She had said, “I was too nervous during the preliminaries and played a wrong note. Although the judges might not have heard it, it became a demon in my heart. I would think of that wrong note during every competition.”
The preliminaries… were they this time?
Lin Mo immediately checked the schedule for this year’s preliminary round. October 28, Saturday at 2:00 PM.
There were still 3 weeks left.
Lin Mo noted the date and began to think of a solution. How could he keep her from being nervous? How could he make her forget that note that might go wrong?
As he thought, he fell asleep at his desk. In his dreams, he returned to that deadly, rainy night. But this time was different — he saw Su Ran holding that black umbrella, waiting for him in the rain.
As he walked over, he heard her say, “This time, we’ll go together.”
Then the rain stopped, the sky cleared, and he woke up.
It wasn’t yet dawn outside. Lin Mo watched the window for a while, and a sudden idea struck him.
—
Monday morning, the rain finally stopped.
The sky after the rain was a clean blue, and the sunlight was brilliant.
When he arrived at the classroom, Su Ran was already in her seat. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail today, revealing her smooth forehead. She looked to be in high spirits. When Lin Mo entered the classroom, she looked up for a moment before lowering her head again.
During the first break between classes, Lin Mo walked to her desk and handed her a plastic bag containing the towel.
“Here.”
Su Ran took it and opened it, freezing for a moment when she saw the towel inside. She took it out, felt the fabric, and then gave it a sniff. It smelled like sunshine. It was a wonderful scent, but she still furrowed her brows slightly. “You washed it?”
‘It would have smelled sour if I didn’t wash it,’ Lin Mo thought. Out loud, he said, “Um… it accidentally got dirty, so I washed it.”
“Dirty?”
Su Ran’s brows furrowed even tighter. It was as if she were saying, ‘How could it be dirty if you were the one using it!’
Lin Mo felt like he had stepped on a landmine and quickly tried to fix it. “The wind was very strong that day. I didn’t have a good grip and it was blown away. I chased it for a long way.”
“…… Thank you.”
Su Ran put the towel into her backpack. Her movements were very gentle, as if she were handling something precious.
Lin Mo breathed a sigh of relief. “I should be the one thanking you. Both the umbrella and the towel were a huge help.”
Su Ran looked up at him, her eyes flickering. She wanted to say something, but the bell for class rang at an inopportune moment.
Lin Mo returned to his seat. Before long, he saw a familiar note being passed over.
‘Can we still walk together after school today?’
He quickly wrote on the back of the note: ‘Yes. It’s not raining today, so we can walk a bit slower.’
He passed the note back.
After Su Ran finished reading it, she carefully tucked it into her book and began to listen to the lecture seriously. Lin Mo noticed that she smiled three times during this class. Although they were all very faint smiles, for her, it was already a lot.
During the lunch break, Lin Mo found Su Ran in the cafeteria. She was still sitting alone in her usual spot, with the same simple meal of two dishes and a soup on her tray.
Lin Mo naturally abandoned Chen Yu and walked over with his tray. “Do you mind if I join you?”
Su Ran’s entire body stiffened. Without even raising her head, she shook it rapidly. It was unclear if she meant “no, you can’t” or “no, I don’t mind,” but regardless, Lin Mo sat down opposite her.
As soon as he sat, students at the surrounding tables looked over and began to whisper. Lin Mo didn’t care, but Su Ran clearly did. She kept her head down, appearing focused on her food, but her ears remained red.
“Did you practice the piano over the weekend?” Lin Mo asked tentatively.
Su Ran had just taken a bite of rice. She chewed and swallowed slowly before nodding. “I did. 4 hours every day.”
“Is it tiring?”
“It’s not tiring. It’s just… a bit dull.”
“Is the competition repertoire set?”
“It’s set.”
Seeing that Lin Mo seemed very interested, Su Ran put down her chopsticks and sat up a bit straighter. “The first movement of Bach’s *Italian Concerto* and Chopin’s *Revolutionary Etude*.”
Although Lin Mo didn’t understand the piano, he had heard of Bach and Chopin. “Is it very challenging?”
Su Ran nodded. “But my mother wants me to play something even more difficult.”
Lin Mo frowned. “What about you? What do you want to play?”
Su Ran was silent for a moment before saying in a low voice, “I want to play… the one I wrote.”
“The etude?”
Su Ran gave a soft hum of affirmation. “But it’s not professional enough. It’s not suitable for a competition.”
Lin Mo looked at her lowered eyelashes and suddenly said, “Play it for me before the competition.”
Su Ran looked up in confusion.
Lin Mo met her gaze and smiled. “I want to be your first listener.”
Su Ran’s eyes immediately lit up. “Really?”
“Really. Though I don’t know anything about the piano, so I can only tell you if it sounds good or not.”
“That’s enough. I… don’t want to play for people who understand it.”
“Why?”
“Because they will make all sorts of judgments, and I… I only want to play for the people who want to listen.”
Lin Mo rested his chin on his hand. “Then I am that person who wants to listen.”
Su Ran’s face turned red instantly. She lowered her head to eat her rice, and soon, the corners of her mouth curved upward.
After finishing their meal, the two returned to the classroom together. In the hallway, the sunlight slanted in through the windows, casting bright spots of light on the floor.
“By the way.”
Lin Mo suddenly checked a detail. “The competition is on October 28, right?”
Su Ran was stunned. “How did you know?”
“I looked it up. Do I need a ticket to go see you compete?”
Su Ran’s footsteps froze. Her eyes went wide and round, like a startled fawn.
“You’re… coming to watch?” Her voice trembled, and she spoke with great difficulty.
Lin Mo didn’t know why she was reacting this way, so he could only nod and press on. “Yeah. I want to go cheer you on. Is that okay?”
Su Ran’s lips moved, but no sound came out. Her eyes gradually began to redden. Eventually, she said in a choked voice, “Thank you.”
Lin Mo breathed a sigh of relief, finding another reason for self-confidence. “You’re welcome, but you have to promise me one condition.”
It was a strange logic — if I want to go hear you play and cheer for you, you have to agree to my condition, so will you let me go?
Su Ran didn’t notice Lin Mo’s oddity and asked hurriedly, “What condition?”
Lin Mo thought for a moment, combining the method he had spent all last night thinking about with some carefully phrased wording. “On the day of the competition, don’t think about not making mistakes. Instead, think… ‘I’m going to play this piece for that person.'”
Su Ran stared at him blankly. After a long while, she lowered her head and raised her hand to wipe her eyes. She nodded vigorously. “Okay!”
Lin Mo pulled a tissue from his pocket and handed it to her. Su Ran took it and wiped away her tears, but new ones kept welling up.
“I’m sorry… I can’t control it…”
In truth, Lin Mo didn’t know why she was crying, but he felt a pang of heartache. “It’s okay. Cry if you want to.”
Su Ran turned her back to him, and it took a while before she stopped. When she turned back around, her eyes and the tip of her nose were red, but her gaze was very bright.
“Lin Mo,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“You’re the first person… who said they would come see me compete.”
Su Ran didn’t dare to look into Lin Mo’s eyes, turning her head to look at the darkness in a corner. “My mother only cares about the result. My teacher only cares about the grades. Only you… want to listen.”
Lin Mo’s heart felt as though it had been struck by something. He remembered his past life, where every performance after Su Ran became famous was packed, yet she had said with strange arrogance, “There are so many people in the audience, but not a single one is truly here to listen to me.”
Now he understood. That hadn’t been arrogance at all; those were her true feelings. Those people came to hear the pianist Su Ran, not Su Ran’s piano.
Lin Mo finally realized that the feeling he had picked up on while listening to that etude over and over for the past 2 days was nothing else but the emotion contained within the music. Those were… the sounds of her heart.
Lin Mo looked steadily at Su Ran and said in a deep voice, “I will listen seriously. I’ll listen to every single note.”
Su Ran smiled. Teardrops still clung to her eyelashes, sparkling and exceptionally beautiful. This was the first time Lin Mo had seen her smile like this. It was like sunlight piercing through dark clouds, like a flower blooming after the rain, a beauty that made it impossible to look away.
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