The next day, Liang Zhen brought not only his accordion but also some sheet music. After finishing the dumplings, he helped Shao Mingyin wash the dishes. Then, he sat on a hand drum and studied the sheet music. After a long while, he gave up and pulled out his phone to search for “accordion basics.” He was truly starting from scratch.

Shao Mingyin was in the kitchen boiling water. For a healthy touch, he placed a fat sea (gordonia axillaris) in his cup. Hearing Liang Zhen practicing scales outside, he thought for a moment and then took out Liang Zhen’s cup, putting in one as well.

Since they needed the table for the sheet music, the folding table they used for dinner was left out. Shao Mingyin placed Liang Zhen’s cup in front of him. Liang Zhen, pleased, stopped playing and held the cup with both hands, watching the steam rise and the water gradually change color.

He suddenly thought of something and asked Shao Mingyin, “Do you know about ‘gua wanzi’?”

Shao Mingyin, sitting across from him, shook his head.

Liang Zhen tilted his chin down, looking at Shao Mingyin as if he were missing out on a delicacy.

He said, “Next time you go to Lanzhou, you must try ‘gua wanzi.’ Not having ‘gua wanzi’ by the Yellow River is like going to Lanzhou without eating beef noodles.”

Shao Mingyin asked, “Tea?”

Liang Zhen nodded. “It’s also called ‘san pao tai.’ ‘Gua wanzi’ is the Hui people’s term for it.”

Shao Mingyin, holding his cup of fat sea, took a sip and said, “Isn’t tea all the same? How can it be different?”

“It’s very different,” Liang Zhen said, a bit proudly. “Actually, you shouldn’t drink tea before a performance because it makes your vocal cords contract quickly. But you can have ‘gua wanzi.’ Besides green tea, it has dried fruit, goji berries, and red dates. Some places even add dried lily, all specialties of the Northwest.”

Liang Zhen got excited. “If you go to Lanzhou… no, I’ll take you to Lanzhou next time. We have to sit by the dock on the Yellow River. Don’t order the ten-yuan one; it’s just a glass cup, nothing special. Get the twenty-five yuan covered bowl tea, which comes with sunflower seeds and peanuts. You have to bury a big piece of rock sugar at the bottom, so each time you add hot water, the tea is sweet. The second brew is the sweetest. If you think it’s too hot, you don’t have to pick it up. Just use the lid to push aside the tea leaves, and sip from the edge of the bowl…”

“And next to you will be the Yellow River,” Liang Zhen smiled. “There will be ferries and speed boats passing by. If you’re lucky, you’ll see a sheep-skin raft.” He made a shape with his hands. “It’s literally what it sounds like—intact sheep skins inflated into balls, tied to a bamboo raft. Whenever I see someone on one of those, they’re wearing life jackets. There are no straps or handles. If you fall, you’re in the Yellow River, and the current is very fast…”

Shao Mingyin was listening intently. “So you’ve never been on one either?”

“I just never had the right opportunity. Friends always advised against it, saying it’s dangerous.” Liang Zhen wouldn’t show even a hint of fear. “When I go back to Lanzhou, I’ll ride a sheep-skin raft. No one can stop me. Next time…”

He didn’t finish. He remembered he was still in conflict with his family. If they remained estranged, he had no plans to go back even for the winter break. How could he know when he’d get the chance to ride a sheep-skin raft? His high spirits dampened, and he turned back to his accordion lesson.

Shao Mingyin asked, “Where did you get this accordion?”

“Huh?” Liang Zhen blinked. “Oh, like the guitar, it’s Song Zhou’s. He wasn’t using it, so I thought I might as well.”

“And the drum?”

Liang Zhen nodded confidently.

“I thought you bought it yourself,” Shao Mingyin laughed. “A 120-bass accordion doesn’t look like something someone whose family cut off their financial support would own.”

“I’m managing,” Liang Zhen admitted. “Before college, my grandpa gave me some money. If I budget well, I won’t starve. You…”

He leaned forward. “Do you really know how to play piano or accordion?”

Shao Mingyin was about to deny it when Liang Zhen continued, “You know what you look like right now? Imagine there’s a sheep-skin raft on the Yellow River. The person rowing it suddenly drops the oar into the river. Everyone on the raft is helpless, and you’re in a speedboat nearby, just watching with your arms crossed.”

Shao Mingyin was speechless.

Frustrated, Shao Mingyin said, “What kind of analogy is that?”

Without a word, Liang Zhen placed the accordion on the table and pushed it over, turning the sheet music 180 degrees to face Shao Mingyin.

“Officer Shao,” Liang Zhen said, “Save the sheep-skin raft.”

After Liang Zhen’s long-winded plea, there was a moment of silence between them. But as long as Shao Mingyin didn’t outright deny it, the light of hope in Liang Zhen’s eyes wouldn’t fade.

Seeing the light in Liang Zhen’s eyes, Shao Mingyin felt himself getting drawn in. His Adam’s apple bobbed as if he was preparing to speak, unsure of what he should say or how to say it.

After a long pause, he said, “My mom knows how.”

Liang Zhen didn’t respond, just listened. He listened to however much Shao Mingyin wanted to share. If Shao Mingyin didn’t want to talk, Liang Zhen wouldn’t pry, just like yesterday. He wasn’t uncurious; he was respectful. The old scars on his right palm weren’t for others to sympathize with and say, “It’s all in the past,” or “I understand you.” Shao Mingyin didn’t need that. He just needed respect. Only with respect and acceptance of their existence could they talk about moving forward.

“She was an elementary school music teacher. Piano, accordion, she could play them all…” Shao Mingyin blinked, his sniffle almost imperceptible. He said to Liang Zhen, “She taught me all of them.”

Liang Zhen propped his chin on his hand, looking very much like a child: “Auntie is really nice.”

But Shao Mingyin said, “She passed away.”

Shao Mingyin continued, “And then I haven’t touched them for five or six years.”

“I know it’s wrong, but…” Shao Mingyin’s eyes darkened. His gaze was subtle, as if he had gathered a bit of courage and was willing to face it, but he still said, “It really has been five or six years.”

His hand lay on the table, palm inward. Liang Zhen, still with one hand supporting his chin, placed the index and ring fingers of his other hand on the table, mimicking walking legs that brazenly “walked” to Shao Mingyin’s side. He tapped Shao Mingyin’s hand and in a deliberately childish voice asked, “Can you try for little Liang Zhen?”

“Can you try, just try,” Liang Zhen, despite his size, shrugged his shoulders coyly. He sat back on the floor, securing the drum between his legs, tapping out a precise rhythm, waiting for another instrument to join in.

Shao Mingyin still didn’t move. He told Liang Zhen, “I really can’t.”

“You haven’t even tried yet,” Liang Zhen continued drumming, his eyes fixed on Shao Mingyin. Usually, he called him “Officer,” but now he called Shao Mingyin by his full name.

“Shao Mingyin.” Liang Zhen looked at him, his eyes only for him.

“Shao Mingyin, how do you know if you don’t try?”

Those eyes made Shao Mingyin think of that day in the kitchen when Liang Zhen guided him step by step to sing a lyric, or of the moments in the past month or two when Liang Zhen, holding a guitar, sang songs whose lyrics and melodies he also remembered. Liang Zhen’s gaze was always like this, clean and pure, focused only on him.

Shao Mingyin picked up the accordion, placing his hands on the keys. As the slow music began, he kept his eyes on the sheet music, and Liang Zhen matched his pace, letting Shao Mingyin get through the melody once. After they finished, Liang Zhen kept drumming, wanting to play more energetically. Shao Mingyin, familiar with the sheet music, increased his speed. With the drumbeat, the piece started to sound cohesive. Without waiting for Liang Zhen to prompt him, Shao Mingyin continued to play from the beginning, more proficiently. Liang Zhen smiled, the drum’s rhythm growing more pronounced.

At that moment, the singing style of “Hua’er” was added, without lyrics. Liang Zhen hummed, filling the room with a rooted atmosphere. The yellow earth was not moist; its scent lacked the fragrance of grass. The dry yellow soil, thrown into the air, would settle like tobacco smoke, making one want to inhale deeply, unable to resist.

No one remembered when the melody began to change. Maybe Liang Zhen altered his singing, or he changed the drum rhythm. More likely, Shao Mingyin stopped following the sheet music on the accordion. He should have given a heads-up, but he didn’t. From the first note of the accordion, emotions began to pour out subtly. These feelings were too personal, and he focused on the music without touching the essence. He didn’t expect Liang Zhen to quickly adapt his drumbeat to those changes. If Shao Mingyin’s triggered memories were like dry wood, then Liang Zhen had always been a blazing fire. When the two instruments collided, the resulting light and heat were uncontrollable.

Liang Zhen had always been the one adapting, so when the beat completely changed, he realized the piece was no longer just about key changes but had an entirely different melody.

This was no longer Wild Child’s “Dance of Death,” nor the original “Saltarello.” From this moment, the performance had no sheet music. The direction of the next note was up to the two of them.

But Liang Zhen’s hands never stopped. He had never heard a similar song or piece, but he intuitively embedded the drumbeat into the accordion’s melody. That unfamiliar tune repeated twice, naturally transitioning to another, also unknown to him. He grew more excited, feeling a collision between Shijiazhuang and Lanzhou, heating him from his heart to every hair.

He opened his mouth but made no sound. The shape of his mouth was “Wow.” The drum was no longer enough to release his pent-up energy. Grabbing the guitar beside him, he turned on the voice memo on his phone. His fingers trembled as he pressed the record button, but he calmed instantly upon touching the strings.

He looked at Shao Mingyin again, finding him also sitting on the floor. Liang Zhen hooked the table leg with his foot, pushing the folding table aside, so nothing stood between them. No longer just adapting, melodies and chord combinations flowed from his inner source, including the spontaneous humming—no longer someone else’s “Hua’er,” but his own.

He also heard Shao Mingyin’s voice, harmonizing in a tacit understanding. Shao Mingyin was a tone lower and two beats slower, starting and ending exactly during Liang Zhen’s pauses. Neither looked at their instruments, everything was so effortless, their eyes only on each other. At that moment, Liang Zhen realized it was no longer the dance of death, but the dance of life. Not Shijiazhuang and Lanzhou colliding, but Shao Mingyin and him.

When his left hand cramped, messing up the chords, he reluctantly stopped the guitar. Stretching his shoulders, he felt his back soaked in sweat, as if baptized by a ritual, reborn.

“Wow,” Liang Zhen ran a hand through his sweaty hair, repeating “Wow” several times. He lay exhausted on the floor, reaching for his phone, seeing the voice memo still recording. He realized the session had lasted almost an hour.

“Wow!” he couldn’t say anything else. He didn’t want to press the stop button, his vision blurred as if with tears. He looked at the bright light on the ceiling, finding it unreal until he saw Shao Mingyin standing next to him, backlit, extending a hand.

At that moment, Liang Zhen thought Shao Mingyin wasn’t real. He blinked several times, clearing the tear-induced halos, but Shao Mingyin was still there.

Shao Mingyin extended his right hand.

Liang Zhen raised his hand. As he stood, their fingers intertwined, gripping each other’s hand tightly. As he stood, they drew closer, and Liang Zhen knew he had seized the moment.

^[1]Author’s note:

Note: “Hua’er” is a type of folk song popular in regions such as Gansu, Qinghai, and Ningxia.