“Leave me alone,” Song Zhou’s eyes were fixed on the stage, “I need to immerse myself in the music first.”

Liang Zhen: ??

Liang Zhen also looked towards the stage. It was his first day here, and he wasn’t familiar with the singers performing at different times. The person standing on the stage now was a female singer, but she was quite tall—Liang Zhen hadn’t adjusted the microphone height before leaving the stage, and the singer didn’t adjust it either, just moved the microphone down a bit. Liang Zhen estimated that the person’s height wouldn’t be much shorter than Song Zhou’s.

Since they were about the same height, the girl’s figure must be good. She had tucked a size larger shirt into her short skirt, accentuating her graceful waistline. Her exposed legs were long and straight, as if she had practiced ballet.

The singer began to sing, her voice unexpectedly leaning towards neutrality, but the song she sang was retro-style, so it didn’t feel out of place, instead adding to the mystery. Whether her voice captivated others, Liang Zhen didn’t know, but Song Zhou was clearly entranced. It wasn’t until the girl finished singing three songs and took a short break that Song Zhou found an opportunity to ask Liang Zhen why he was here.

“Didn’t you just see? I’m here to perform,” Liang Zhen explained.

Song Zhou narrowed his eyes, “What, after a while of not seeing you, are you back to experiencing life again?!”

Liang Zhen could tell. Song Zhou thought that during the time they hadn’t seen each other, he had already compromised with his family, and coming here to perform was another round of running away from home.

“I never went back home,” Liang Zhen explained.

“Then you haven’t been staying with me either,” Song Zhou was shocked, “You’re not staying with that Sasha, are you? Are you two really planning to live together?”

“I’m just here to earn some money to help with household expenses,” Liang Zhen thought for a moment, feeling that Song Zhou wasn’t a stranger, so he told him, “Do you remember the police officer you met last time you came to the police station? I’m staying at his house now.”

“Oh~” Song Zhou laughed a bit mischievously, “So, that’s your Sasha.”

“Your reaction…” Liang Zhen had planned to take it slowly, but Song Zhou seemed to accept it faster than he imagined, “So you figured it out early?”

“Not that early, I just often think back to the scene that night of your competition. You must have a picture of that police officer in your mind,” Song Zhou said.

“Why do you keep thinking about that night?” Liang Zhen asked.

“Why wouldn’t I? I do have things going on, I am sick,” Song Zhou covered his chest, looking at the girl on stage preparing to sing again, “I met him that night, and I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind since. I’m really sick, I know he’s a guy, but I still can’t stop thinking about him. I have lovesickness.”

This time it was Liang Zhen who was shocked. Looking back at the singer on stage, he noticed that although her shoulder-length hair obscured part of her neck, he could still see the Adam’s apple if he looked closely. It was indeed a man. That girl… no, that man still had a retro voice, coupled with a lack of expressive facial expressions and no smiles, giving off a very cool and aloof vibe from the beginning, not even sparing a glance at Song Zhou.

“Buddy, it’s the first time I’ve been so serious about pursuing someone. I’ve been trying to catch him all this time,” Song Zhou was once again entranced by that retro voice, “I’ll come here every day from now on, and I’ll support you too. By the way, he’s also half your hometown guy, from Baiyin, Gansu. If you meet him backstage, put in a good word for me.”

So coincidentally, Song Zhou became a regular at this bar, becoming a hardcore fan of these two time slots. The only difference was that when he requested Liang Zhen’s songs, Liang Zhen sang them, but when he threw money around, that cool and aloof beauty never paid any attention to him.

Song Zhou was bitter, he was persistent, but he also found joy in it. So much so that Liang Zhen’s urging for Shao Mingyin to come to the bar wasn’t just to hear him sing, but to see Song Zhou’s infatuated appearance.

And Shao Mingyin, although he didn’t say it, couldn’t help but worry as Liang Zhen came back every day until midnight. He wasn’t worried that Liang Zhen would feel stifled or anything, he was more worried about encountering difficult customers who requested songs Liang Zhen felt were beneath him. That would truly hurt his pride. Liang Zhen was a hot-tempered person; he feared that if Liang Zhen acted on impulse, he might end up swinging a beer bottle.

Shao Mingyin, like an elder sibling, worried endlessly about Liang Zhen’s first official part-time job. But Liang Zhen, although the novelty gradually wore off, still seemed to enjoy it. When there were only a few days left of his part-time job, Shao Mingyin finally had the time to come to the bar. Liang Zhen was delighted and asked him what he wanted to hear, singing solely for him for an hour.

Knowing that such an environment wouldn’t accommodate niche songs, Shao Mingyin only requested one or two classic old songs. The next night when he came to the bar, as expected, he saw Song Zhou sitting at the table near the stage. Upon seeing Shao Mingyin, Song Zhou warmly greeted him as if seeing a younger sibling, inviting him to sit together and offering to buy drinks. He was too enthusiastic. Shao Mingyin was astute in social matters, and he had a hunch that Song Zhou had something to say to him. After they had finished a bottle of beer, Song Zhou, facing Shao Mingyin, couldn’t hide his hesitation.

“Officer Shao, I remember you’re in charge of the Mushan Street police station area, right?”

Shao Mingyin nodded.

“So, how do you feel about that area?” Song Zhou asked.

That was a big question Song Zhou asked, one that Shao Mingyin had never really thought about. Mushan Street, in terms of administrative division, was actually considered a town, with seven villages under it. How could the rural environment in Wenzhou be bad? The small buildings were built on flat land, roads were well-constructed with no dead corners, and even the farmlands had cement pathways running through them, lined with evergreen camphor trees.

But such an environment, it was hard to say, indeed revealed many problems. For example, in the densely populated Mushan Street in the shoemaking industry, urbanization and industrialization had long removed the pastoral appearance from most of the villages and communities along the street.

This kind of change didn’t happen overnight. Over a decade ago, apart from the well-known big brands today, there were mostly labor-intensive small factories in Mushan Street. The bosses were not just locals—many people from all over the place came to Wenzhou in search of employment opportunities. Some of them turned landlords themselves, renting houses and running their own businesses. Over the years, making Wenzhou shoes no longer remained exclusive to locals. Ten years ago, some locals only needed to rent out part of their self-built houses to outsiders as workshops. The rental income from those workshops was enough for a family to live leisurely. Tempted by money and demand, every household built illegal factories or small partitions for rent on agricultural land. Those were fertile fields meant for growing lush green crops, but the income from five years of good harvest might not match a year’s rent after building factories.

“You’re from Wenzhou, you should know better than me. The transformation and rectification of the shoemaking industry in Wenzhou have eliminated most of the disorderly small workshops,” Shao Mingyin paused. “The illegal buildings in various villages have been demolished. Even now, some farmland is still wasteland.”

The fertile land with cement piles was no longer fertile; it had become wasteland. Who would want to clean up the broken bricks and steel bars on the wasteland? If the financial turmoil in 2008 was more of a crisis for large factories, then the demolition of illegal buildings was both a severe blow and a transformation for small-scale shoe factories in Wenzhou. Either the small workshops gritted their teeth and upgraded to enter formal industrial parks, or they packed up and left, returning to their hometowns or seeking development in nearby cities. After years of governance and sacrifice, Wenzhou shoes gradually shook off the negative labels of “counterfeit” and “poor quality.”

“Officer, I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been pursuing someone recently, and you might know him. It’s that tall person I left with early during the Liang Zhen competition. He’s also from out of town and lives in Mushan Street area,” Song Zhou looked at Liang Zhen on the stage, “He works in a shoe factory in an industrial area during the day and comes here to sing at night. He’ll take over after Zhen finishes singing.”

Song Zhou mentioned a place name that Shao Mingyin was quite familiar with because he drove past it every time he went home.

“But there aren’t many staff apartments for shoe factories there,” Shao Mingyin pondered. “It’s quite remote, mostly old people from the village turning their houses into partitions to rent out because it’s cheap, and there are also many outsiders.”

“Oh,” Song Zhou looked a bit disappointed. Seeing that he still didn’t know exactly where the person he was interested in lived, Shao Mingyin’s words left him even more clueless.

“Officer, how about you help me analyze it?” Song Zhou was desperate, “I’ve been alive for over twenty years, played around for over twenty years, and this is the first time I’ve encountered someone so elusive,” Song Zhou started counting, “He doesn’t care about money or flowers, and he always leaves after the last bus, riding his bike back by himself. I offer to drive him, but he refuses. It’s torturous to ride a bike in this weather. I follow him in my car just to make sure he doesn’t encounter any danger. Every time we drive into the village alley, he disappears after a few turns.”

“Matters of the heart…” Shao Mingyin opened another bottle of beer. “If someone doesn’t have feelings for you, you can’t force it.” He chuckled, suddenly remembering a joke. “I’ve heard that people from Wenzhou are famous for not letting outsiders share their good fortunes. They marry their own from Wenzhou if they want to marry. Since he’s from out of town, maybe he’s insightful and already knows you’re just fooling around, so he’s ignoring you.”

“This time is different,” although Song Zhou said so, he still felt a bit uncertain, and his tone was somewhat awkward. “This time… I’m serious.” At this moment, Liang Zhen just finished singing. Song Zhou smoothly waved some banknotes and shouted, “Play ‘Love is Just a Word’ for Miss Gao Yunge!”

Liang Zhen made an “OK” gesture and then turned to look backstage, unsurprisingly seeing Gao Yunge standing there. Gao Yunge made a gesture to Liang Zhen, indicating that he should sing, anyway, Song Zhou was foolishly wealthy, and Liang Zhen wouldn’t lose anything by singing. With permission granted, Liang Zhen began to sing. Although the song was dedicated to Gao Yunge, it was clear that Liang Zhen was singing for Shao Mingyin, especially when he sang “I cross mountains and valleys for you, but have no heart to see the scenery.” The silent understanding between the two during their eye contact was more meaningful than the stars in the night sky. Song Zhou’s reflex arc was long, and it wasn’t until Liang Zhen finished singing that he realized he had just spent money creating an opportunity for someone else.

As the song finished, Liang Zhen’s shift was almost over. He was about to put the microphone back and run off the stage to find Shao Mingyin when he suddenly heard someone calling him from the other side of the stage.

“Hey,” the person smiled mischievously, “Isn’t this Liang Zhen?”