Answer

Lin Xingmian was awakened by the fragrance of fried eggs.

He tossed over inside the blanket, his arm extending toward the side subconsciously—empty.

An indentation remained upon the pillow, but the person was already no longer around.

He opened his eyes and stared at that indentation for several seconds, recalling he fell asleep yesterday holding Gu Hanzhou’s hand; his fingers curled gently beneath the blanket, his palm feeling empty.

From the kitchen transmitted the light crackling sound of hot oil and the movement of a spatula bumping the rim of a pot.

Lin Xingmian walked over treading in his slippers, leaning against the kitchen doorframe.

Gu Hanzhou stood before the stove with his back turned to him, wearing a gray short-sleeved shirt, the apron strap tied into a simple knot behind his waist.

The edges of two eggs inside the skillet were fried scorched-yellow, and toasted toast was already arranged properly on the plate beside it.

“Why not sleep a brief while longer?” Gu Hanzhou failed to even turn his head, scooping the fried eggs into the plate.

“Awakened by the fragrance.” Lin Xingmian walked over rubbing his eyes, standing beside Gu Hanzhou to watch him slice the toast diagonally, pressing down a knife clean and neat. “You aren’t going to the company today?”

“Saturday.”

Lin Xingmian forgot today was Saturday.

Too many matters occurred this week, and his sense of time was torn apart patchily, as if having lived in Emerald Lake Bay for a long time, yet also as if just dragged out from the Lin family by Gu Hanzhou yesterday.

He leaned by the cooking counter watching Gu Hanzhou cook, extending his hand suddenly to pinch a tiny piece of toast corner to stuff into his mouth.

“Washed your hands?”

“Washed.”

Gu Hanzhou turned his head to take a glance at him, speaking nothing, but pushed the plate containing the toast a fraction toward his side.

When sitting before the dining table to eat breakfast, the sunshine leaked inside from the gap of the unclosed curtain, drawing several golden lines on the wooden floor.

Lin Xingmian took a bite of toast, halting suddenly while chewing.

“I spoke so many words before the faces of so many people yesterday,” he placed his chopsticks horizontally across his bowl, staring at the unfinished half of a fried egg inside the bowl, “recalling it now feels a bit—”

“Regretful?”

“Not regretful. Just feeling like removing a piece of clothing in public.”

Gu Hanzhou set down his cup, the bottom of the cup knocking against the glass table surface to emit a very light, crisp sound. “That piece of clothing you wore for nineteen years. It should have been removed long ago.”

His tone was flat, as if discussing the weather, but Lin Xingmian heard that he suppressed something—it wasn’t displeasure, but a restrained satisfaction.

Lin Xingmian lowered his head to continue eating his fried egg. His ears felt a bit burning.

After eating breakfast, Gu Hanzhou washed dishes in the kitchen, the faucet splashing loudly.

Lin Xingmian sat on the living room sofa, picking up his phone.

The messages were much fewer than yesterday—it wasn’t that no one cared, but that everyone was giving him space. Only several necessary ones existed.

Lu Shiyan sent a summary of Lin Xingmian’s recent body data, with a concise postscript: [If chest tightness emerges after stopping medication, contact me immediately.]

It wasn’t a doctor toward a patient, but person toward person.

Following behind was a link to a pharmacy, speaking that it was a new spray, possessing smaller side effects than the past one.

Ji Beichen sent three photographs.

The first photograph was his breakfast this morning, the plating exquisite but the portion small enough to look pitiful, with the accompanying text: [Listening to you, currently eating.]

The second photograph was a selfie in the gym mirror, his silver-gray hair bound up with a hairband, exposing his entire forehead, with the accompanying text: [Listening to you, currently exercising.]

The third photograph was the control console of a recording studio, with the accompanying text: [Listening to you, currently working.]

Beneath the three photographs was still a sentence: [Look at how obedient I am. You must be obedient too, and eat meals well.]

Lin Xingmian saved the images one by one, replying with a thumbs-up.

Shen Moting sent only one message: [Wangjiang Pavilion possesses spots next week. You set the time.]

Lacking superfluous characters, lacking clauses, and lacking additional conditions.

Fu Xici’s message resembled him most, sent at three o’clock in the morning: [Someone asked about you during tonight’s stream. I spoke that you were sleeping.]

Beneath followed a screenshot of the stream room bullet comments, with the bullet comments uniformly spamming “Where is Xingxing.”

He supplemented another sentence: [That sentence I spoke yesterday was angry words. If you fail to come to the water friend match, no one dares kill my teammate. The schedule for next week will be given to you. If you fail to come, I will go fetch you.]

Lin Xingmian looked at that “I will go fetch you,” recalling the appearance of Fu Xici shaking milk tea while leaning against the GTR car door beneath Emerald Lake Bay, unable to resist curving the corner of his mouth.

Rong Du’s message possessed only two photographs.

One photograph was a half-body shot of his mother, Rong Jing, during her youth; it was a re-photograph, the pixels not high, but much clearer than the one on the tombstone.

The woman in the photograph combed shoulder-length short hair, wearing a high-collared sweater, looking outside the window with her face turned sideways, the sunshine falling on the curvature of her nose bridge and lips, peaceful and quiet.

The second photograph captured the airport departure hall, the flight number on the electronic screen covered by half a side by a finger.

Attached beneath was a line of characters: [There is a case on the New York side that requires me to return to appear in court. Leaving next week. Eat a meal together before leaving. Bringing no other people, just you and me.]

Lin Xingmian enlarged that photograph of his mother, watching for a long time.

Then he stored it into the favorites folder of his phone photo album.

He replied to Rong Du with two words: [Good.]

After finishing replying to the messages, Lin Xingmian set down his phone.

Gu Hanzhou had already finished washing dishes and came out from the kitchen, sitting onto the sofa, picking up the remote control to press open the television, switching casually to a news channel.

The volume was opened very small, the light of the flickering screen jumping gently on the faces of the two people.

Lin Xingmian leaned over, resting his head upon Gu Hanzhou’s shoulder.

The movement appeared very natural, as if this place originally should belong to him.

Gu Hanzhou did not move, and failed to speak either, merely adjusting his shoulder by an angle to let him lean more comfortably.

After a while, he extended his hand to push the messy hair drooping before Lin Xingmian’s forehead behind his ear, his fingertips sliding across the auricle, then retracted them, resting anew upon his own knee.

They sat on the sofa watching television like this for the entire morning.

No important matter at all occurred.

Lin Xingmian failed to remember a single sentence of what the news broadcasted, but he remembered the temperature when Gu Hanzhou’s fingers brushed his hair—a bit cooler than usual, probably having just washed dishes, his fingertips still carrying water vapor.

At noon, Gu Hanzhou went to the study to accept an overseas phone call, seeming to confirm the final wrap-up details of the M&A case with the New York side; the door was left ajar, allowing his very low voice to be heard transmitting over intermittently.

Lin Xingmian sat in the living room alone, looking outside the window.

The early autumn sunshine sliced the clouds into piece after piece, the shadows moving slowly on the floor.

He took out that piece of paper written full for an entire page yesterday from the coffee table drawer, spreading it flat, looking over it once.

Some places were written with too much force, the back of the paper even dented down.

Then he folded the paper properly, placing it into the innermost part of the drawer.

At two o’clock in the afternoon, Gu Hanzhou came out after finishing the phone call, seeing Lin Xingmian stood at the entrance having switched into clothes for going out.

“Want to go out?”

“I want to go buy a piano.” Lin Xingmian lowered his head to tie his shoelaces, tying one properly and switching to the other. “Spoke before last time, accompany me when there is time.”

Gu Hanzhou went to fetch the car keys.

The music store was in the southern old street district, the storefront not large, sandwiched between an old bookstore and a repair shop.

The signboard was an old-fashioned wood carving, the paint surface mottled from being washed by rainwater.

Pushing open the door, a dry scent unique to wood and piano strings rushed over his face.

The space inside the shop was narrow and long, upright pianos lining up wall-to-wall against the wall, faded velvet cushions spread upon the piano benches, and several of the fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling were already unlit, the remaining ones illuminating the room unevenly with light and dark.

The boss was an old man in his sixties wearing a pair of reading glasses, currently tuning an old piano.

Seeing someone enter, he failed to even raise his head: “Test casually. Just don’t touch that red one, tuned halfway.”

Lin Xingmian walked before a Yamaha upright piano to sit down, lifting open the piano cover, placing his fingers gently onto the white piano keys.

He did not play—it wasn’t that he could not, but he had failed to touch one for too long.

During those nineteen years in the Lin family, the grand piano in the living room was never allowed to be touched.

Gu Hanzhou leaned by the shop entrance with his arms crossed, watching Lin Xingmian’s silhouette through the light column floating with fine dust inside the music store.

The youth sat on the piano bench with his fingers suspending above the piano keys, failing to fall for a long time.

His spine was held very straight, but his shoulders shrugged slightly, like a child who had failed to touch a beloved object for a long time, fearing it would shatter upon a single touch.

“Try it,” Gu Hanzhou said. It wasn’t a prompt, but giving a step.

Lin Xingmian took a deep breath, pressing down the first note. Middle C.

The piano sound diffused out within the narrow space, not resounding, but very clean.

Then the second note, the third note.

His fingers appeared very unpracticed at first, the intensity of his fingertips touching keys uneven, and several notes shook a bit when overlapping together.

But after playing for a dozen-odd seconds, the rhythm was found—it wasn’t the rhythm upon the music score, but his own rhythm.

What he played was The Doll and the Bear Dancing. The simplest introductory piece.

The first piece in that piano book his mom bought.

When the third musical phrase began, the fingering smoothed out, his wrists relaxed, and the notes no longer popped out individually, but connected into a line.

The piano sound echoed inside the old music store, passing through the light column of floating dust, landing before Gu Hanzhou.

Gu Hanzhou did not walk over.

He stood on the spot, watching his beloved youth sit on the piano bench wearing a white shirt, his fingers moving back and forth on the black and white piano keys, the sunshine spilling down from the high window to dye his hair a light golden color.

He recalled that time in the coffee shop when Lin Xingmian blocked between him and Ji Beichen, that time beneath Wangjiang Pavilion when actively holding his hand, and that time on the sofa when falling asleep leaning against his shoulder.

Every single time let him feel this person belonged to him.

But the Lin Xingmian playing the piano today let him feel—this person wasn’t limited to belonging to him alone.

He belonged to himself, belonged to Rong Jing, was the person who should be sitting before this old piano, and was a child who finally searched and brought back his past.

The final note fell.

Lin Xingmian retracted his hands from the piano keys, placing them on his knees.

He watched the black and white piano keys, unsure of what he was thinking.

“This one,” he said. “I want this one.”

Gu Hanzhou went to pay the money.

The boss walked unhurriedly behind the counter, flipping out a yellowed notebook to register, and reported the price unhurriedly once more.

Gu Hanzhou failed to bargain, drawing his card directly from his wallet.

When signing the bill, Lin Xingmian walked beside him, pulling away his hand holding the card, extracting a bank card from his own pocket to place on the counter.

“Use mine.”

“Where did you get the money from?”

“My own. Rong Du helped me check the trust fund, and I signed.” He saw Gu Hanzhou’s expression—no displeasure existed, merely raising half an inch of his brow crest. He supplemented a sentence, “It isn’t the Rong family’s money. It is my New Year’s money stored in the Lin family these years; Rong Du helped me extract it.”

Gu Hanzhou watched him for a while, retracting his own card into his wallet.

He failed to persist, and failed to speak “I buy it for you.”

That day when establishing rules for Lin Xingmian he said “he won’t live here in the future, and the rules will be established by the next one”; today Lin Xingmian used his own money to buy the piano, and he failed to block him.

He merely wrote the address and access control code of Emerald Lake Bay down when the boss filled out the delivery slip, then drew a circle in the remarks column, writing three characters: Place in master bedroom.

On the return car journey, Lin Xingmian sat in the passenger seat, his left hand unconsciously strumming upon his right arm.

Fingers hopped gently on the skin, as if the melody just now was still stuck at his fingertips and could not come out.

The sunshine leaped across the back of his hand through the car window, his joints turning bright and dark.

“Tell me,” he opened his mouth suddenly, “if she saw me playing the piano today, what would she say?”

Gu Hanzhou turned the steering wheel, driving into the entrance of the Emerald Lake Bay underground garage. “She wouldn’t say anything. She would sit beside to listen.”

Lin Xingmian lowered his head, watching his fingertips that were still hopping.

The corner of his mouth curved into a very small arc—it wasn’t a smile, but some sort of understood quiet.

This evening, he sat inside the master bedroom alone facing the newly delivered piano, playing The Doll and the Bear Dancing once.

Once more.

Once more.

Until his fingers no longer shook, and until every single note fell into the position it should fall.

The piano sound drifted inside the study passing through the hallway; Gu Hanzhou halted the document currently being flipped through, leaning against the backrest of his chair to listen for a long time, failing to open the door to disturb.

Lin Xingmian finished playing the final small measure, raising his hand to close the piano cover.

The black and white piano keys disappeared beneath the deep-colored wooden cover, a faint cool tactile sensation of the piano keys still remaining at his fingertips.

He stood up and walked to the window side.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling window were the lights of the full city, the light bands of the cross-river bridge reflecting into two parallel light chains on the water surface.

This city was exactly identical to when he had just arrived seven days ago, but the window looked out from was already no longer the Lin family’s window.

He turned his head back; the piano stood quietly in a corner of the bedroom, the ceiling top light reflecting on the piano cover, like a gift arriving nineteen years late.

He spoke a sentence toward that piano, his voice very light, light to the point that even he himself nearly failed to hear.

“Mom, I played the first piece today. Played it not too well. But it will turn good in the future.”

The living room surveillance camera flashed red light regularly.

The study door opened, and Gu Hanzhou walked out to brew tea, slowing his footsteps when passing by the master bedroom doorway.

He heard the intermittent piano sound transmitting indistinctly inside—it was still that simple introductory piece, but this time, the melody was sandwiched with the sound of Lin Xingmian humming along.

The tune wasn’t accurate, and the beat occasionally misplaced, but he failed to stop to correct himself.

Gu Hanzhou stood at the door for a brief while, failing to knock on the door, returning to the study holding his tea.

The next evening, Lin Xingmian was dragged up from the sofa by a message.

Sent by Rong Du, very simple: [Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, Wangjiang Pavilion.]

He stared at the screen for several seconds.

After rejecting Rong Du before the faces of everyone that time, the opposite party failed to pursue and ask, and failed to alter his attitude either.

That sentence “I will continue waiting” was spoken too lightly, light to the point of letting Lin Xingmian feel uncertain whether he truly could set it down, or stored all weight into a more secure restraint.

It required bidding farewell to Rong Du separately once; it wasn’t an expression of attitude before a crowd of people, but one-on-one.

He replied with one character: Good.

The evening sunshine dyed the high-rises of Emerald Lake Bay a golden-brown color.

Lin Xingmian set down his phone, walking onto the balcony.

The early autumn wind carried the scent of osmanthus and the scent of oil smoke from some family cooking in the distance; a child downstairs was learning to ride a bicycle, his father supporting the handlebar running behind.

He lay propped on the railing, watching that pair of father and son disappear at the turn.

Tomorrow Rong Du was about to leave.

Just like returning the medicine box to Lu Shiyan before, pinky swearing with Ji Beichen, rejecting Shen Moting’s shares, and pressing Fu Xici’s buckle to a halt—they wouldn’t disappear, but just switched positions to rearrange anew.

Some emotions untied, yet turned even more less easy to break instead.

He turned his head to look toward the living room.

Gu Hanzhou sat on the sofa, a magazine flipped halfway spread upon his knees, lowering his head to look very intently, the light of the desk lamp cutting a light-dark boundary on his profile.

Lin Xingmian walked inside from the balcony, sitting down beside him.

Failing to lean, failing to touch, merely sitting shoulder-to-shoulder together with him.

“For tomorrow’s breakfast I want to eat wontons,” he said. “That shop at the neighborhood entrance. Shrimp ones.”

“Can do.” Gu Hanzhou’s eyes failed to leave the magazine, but the corner of his mouth curved an extremely faint arc.

Lin Xingmian rested his head against the backrest of the sofa, closing his eyes.

Matters of tomorrow will be spoken of tomorrow.