Chapter 106

The studio fell silent, and the ringing in his ears gradually became noticeable, not a sharp ringing, but rather a heavy, lingering buzz like the prolonged resonance of a struck bell, enveloping him without warning.

Qin Qingzhuo clenched his fingers, staring at the crack in the wooden floor beneath his feet. He watched as the faint gap became blurred by the mistiness in his eyes, taking a while before it cleared up again.

He couldn’t quite explain how the conversation had reached this point; the process of how he had spoken recklessly was now intractable.

He felt an impulse to chase after Jiang Ji and stop him, but he quickly restrained himself.

He felt aggrieved too, not understanding why Jiang Ji insisted on rubbing salt into his wounds.

He even began to doubt Jiang Ji’s feelings for him. How could a qualified lover bear to watch the person they loved in pain? Or perhaps youthful feelings were just that shallow, incapable of discerning whether someone was hurting?

Was there still a need to continue such a love?

Forget it, let’s calm down. Qin Qingzhuo thought. This relationship had heated up too quickly after all.

Perhaps it was indeed time to consider whether they were truly suited for each other.

If they weren’t, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to cut their losses in time.

With that thought, he walked over to close the door, his fingers grasping the handle, but his gaze involuntarily drifted towards the doorway.

Facing the empty corridor, he was momentarily lost in thought, then gently closed the door.

Leaning against the door, he stared absentmindedly and weakly out the window.

He really left. He thought with a touch of disappointment.

He spent the afternoon in the studio, feeling restless, and not making any progress in arranging a song.

In the evening, just as the sky was turning dark, Qin Qingzhuo asked his driver to take him home early.

He felt exhausted, and the ringing in his ears kept coming and going, wanting to go back and rest for a while.

Getting out of the car, climbing the steps, he stood in front of the door, pressing his thumb against the fingerprint recognition area.

“Drip,” the sound of successful fingerprint recognition, and the lock opened.

But he didn’t move his finger away, still holding onto the doorknob, standing there.

Suddenly, his mind flashed back to that night, when Jiang Ji gently rubbed his ears with his palm at the doorway.

And there was the moment when he said he wanted Jiang Ji to register his fingerprint, and the stunned look that flashed across Jiang Ji’s face.

It was only two nights ago, when he just stepped inside, and Jiang Ji turned around and pressed him against the door, kissing him somewhat passionately. All of Jiang Ji’s kisses that night seemed a bit fierce, a bit out of control, leaving many marks on his body and even a few bite marks on his shoulder.

It was as if he really wanted to leave his permanent mark on Qin Qingzhuo.

Qin Qingzhuo knew why Jiang Ji lost control.

For him, registering the fingerprint was just a passing thought, something he did on a whim. But for Jiang Ji, it seemed to carry significant meaning.

He recalled Jiang Ji’s question, “So, do you regret letting me register your fingerprint that day?”

In the deliberately suppressed voice, there was an underlying surge of disbelief.

And there was that moment when Jiang Ji’s eyes, locked onto his own, how did he manage to say, “I regret it”…

After forcing himself to regain his composure, Qin Qingzhuo finally opened the door and walked inside.

The moment he opened the door, he hoped the lights would be on inside, and Jiang Ji would be sitting on the couch waiting for him.

He imagined himself walking over to Jiang Ji, hugging him, and telling him that he had lied during the day, that he never regretted letting Jiang Ji register his fingerprint.

But as his gaze fell upon the dimly lit living room, Qin Qingzhuo knew this was purely his own wishful thinking — Jiang Ji wasn’t there, and the living room seemed even more spacious and quiet than usual.

Qin Qingzhuo didn’t turn on the lights or change his shoes. He walked over and sat on the couch, leaned back against the backrest, and closed his eyes.

Why did he say those words? Why do people blurt out things during arguments?

It was as if in reality, when someone punched you, the first reaction after feeling the pain was to clench your fist and strike back. In the midst of an argument, words seemed to become a weapon, and the first instinct after being hurt by the other party’s words was to retaliate with words as well — hoping to render the other person unable to fight back with one’s own words or thinking that hurting the other person with words would somehow alleviate one’s own pain?

But it seemed that there was no sense of relief; instead, the pain inflicted by those words came back twice as strong.

Qin Qingzhuo picked up his phone, opened WeChat, and glanced at it. Jiang Ji hadn’t sent any messages.

Staring at the chat interface for a while, Qin Qingzhuo’s fingers typed out a message in the chat box: “I don’t regret letting you register my fingerprint.”

His finger hovered over the send button, but a few seconds later, he deleted the words.

“Are you coming back tonight?”

Typed out, then deleted.

“Are you in the rehearsal room?”

Typed out and deleted repeatedly. Qin Qingzhuo sighed and finally deleted all the content in the chat box.

Forget it, what would sending it achieve? Would it make things better?

Even if they made up, it wouldn’t change anything. As long as he didn’t agree to sing backup, this issue would remain a knot between them.

And he was never going to agree to sing backup.

Qin Qingzhuo turned off the screen, threw his phone onto the couch, and went to take a shower.

Leaning against the cold tiles in the bathroom, Qin Qingzhuo felt extremely uncomfortable. It was the first time he had felt so uncomfortable after an argument with someone.

When he was with Ji Chi, they hardly ever argued. Ji Chi didn’t dare to mention anything about his ears in front of him; he knew that mentioning it would ruin Qin Qingzhuo’s mood.

That day in the car, Ji Chi said a lot of grandiose and responsibility-shirking nonsense, but there was one thing he didn’t say wrong — Qin Qingzhuo remembered the words he said, “I’m very careful with what I say when you’re in a bad mood.” Ji Chi even sounded aggrieved and resentful when he said it…

Qin Qingzhuo drifted off into thought. Perhaps Jiang Ji would soon realize that it wasn’t “Ji Chi being blind and not very bright,” but rather that it was too exhausting to be with someone like him, and no one could endure it for long.

Then another thought emerged — why couldn’t Jiang Ji be more patient with him, resist the urge to bring up singing backup and his ears, and not let his mood worsen — or was Jiang Ji’s feelings for him not even comparable to Ji Chi, who eventually chose to cheat?

If that’s the case, how long can this relationship last? Four months? Or longer? Even if it lasts longer, it won’t be more than four years…

He had thought that taking a shower would alleviate some of the physical fatigue, but he didn’t expect to feel even more disheartened.

Stepping out of the bathroom, Qin Qingzhuo wrapped himself in a bathrobe and walked to the sofa, once again picking up his phone.

Jiang Ji still hadn’t sent any messages.

Qin Qingzhuo let out a sigh, walked into the bedroom to put on clothes, grabbed the keys from the shoe cabinet on his way out, and then wrapped himself in a black wool coat before pushing the door open and stepping outside.

In the dry and cold winter air, Qin Qingzhuo’s hands were tucked in the coat pockets as he walked with his head slightly lowered towards the community gate.

He didn’t call for a driver, instead, he hailed a taxi on the roadside and got in, then told the driver the address of the music room.

Whenever he felt upset before, he would go to the music room. This time was no different.

Perhaps he could stay a bit longer this time. Qin Qingzhuo looked through the window at the traffic lights at the nearby intersection, lost in thought.

After the finals were over, he wouldn’t have to deal with these things anymore.

As for what would happen between him and Jiang Ji after the finals, he would just let it happen naturally.

The gray-white low-rise building was hidden in the dim night. Qin Qingzhuo got out of the car, took out the keys and opened the rolling shutter door.

Walking in, he didn’t turn on the lights, but went straight through the empty and simple ground floor, heading towards the stairs leading to the basement.

The sensor lights came on as he descended the stairs, and he pushed open the door to the instrument storage room.

As he walked along, his fingers plucked at the strings of the instruments and tapped on various drum surfaces.

When he reached the angklung, his fingers brushed against the bamboo tubes, and the clear, melodious sound of the angklung filled the air. Suddenly, Qin Qingzhuo’s mind flashed back to the moment when he kissed Jiang Ji, not knowing who touched the angklung.

It seemed like it was in this place that they continued kissing, gradually stepping back until they reached the wall, and then Jiang Ji lifted him up.

He didn’t know how a nineteen-year-old boy could have such strength. Although he didn’t look particularly strong, even a bit thin when he put on his clothes, he could easily lift him up.

When they did it that time, Qin Qingzhuo asked Jiang Ji why he always liked to lift him up. Jiang Ji said it was because he felt that when he lifted Qin Qingzhuo up, Qin Qingzhuo held him tighter and exerted more force.

“Because I’m afraid of falling off…” Qin Qingzhuo remembered saying with a laugh at the time.

Jiang Ji didn’t tell him not to be afraid, he just said, “Then hold on tighter.”

Originally, Qin Qingzhuo came to this instrument storage room without a signal, hoping to calm down and stop thinking about Jiang Ji, but he found it impossible to do so.

Everywhere was filled with traces of their unrestrained and joyful moments. Every time he touched an instrument, he could recall the passionate and happy times they spent here, as if they became particularly addicted to “sex” from here on…

Before that, he just thought that sex was a necessary step in love.

But that day in this music room, he suddenly felt the wonderful collision between body and soul.

Withdrawing his fingers from the bamboo tube of the angklung, Qin Qingzhuo closed his eyes and forced himself not to continue thinking about Jiang Ji.

He walked a little further into the music room, this time not stopping at any instrument.

Sitting on the chair in front of the workbench, he put on his headphones, randomly selected some instrumental music from the computer, and played it.

The slow melody of the cello unfolded in his ears, and Qin Qingzhuo closed his eyes, leaning back in the chair, and fumbled for the button on the armrest to lower the back of the chair slightly, trying to focus on the melody of the music.

At first, those beautiful, dark eyes always stubbornly intruded into his mind, and it took several attempts to drive them away.

When his mind finally cleared, Qin Qingzhuo heard a muffled thunder in his ears.

Rumbling and continuous, followed by the pouring rain.

He felt something was off. How could thunder and rain be mixed into the cello music?

However, a few seconds later, he realized that the thunder and rain were not mixed into the cello music, but it was actually raining outside.

Strange, Qin Qingzhuo thought, how could there be such heavy thunder and such heavy rain in the weather of December?

Footsteps sounded behind him, and he turned his head in response to the sound, momentarily blinded by the bright floodlights.

The crowded and enclosed underground music room had somehow turned into an empty stage.

The cello music was gone, replaced by the noisy voices of the audience below the stage.

Qin Qingzhuo realized that he was standing in the center of the stage, holding a microphone, facing thousands of spectators below.

A sharp ringing sound erupted, like the continuous and piercing buzz of a malfunctioning electrical device.

He could clearly see the expressions on the faces of the audience below: some expectant, some mocking, some indifferent, and some disgusted.

Although the stage was far from the audience seats, Qin Qingzhuo could hear everyone’s complaints clearly. They merged with the ringing in his ears, piercing through his ear canals and penetrating his eardrums—

“Are you going to sing or not? We’ve been waiting for you for so long!”

“You embarrassed yourself last time by not singing. And now you have the nerve to come on stage again…”

“Sing, Qin Qingzhuo! We’ve been waiting for you for four years!”

“Why did you come on stage if you’re not going to sing? Are you treating us like dogs on a walk?!”

“Do you even respect the fans who still have expectations for you?”

…

After a long period of complaints, some people started to angrily leave.

Soon, more and more audience members began to leave their seats.

Watching those fading figures, Qin Qingzhuo felt numb inside, with no waves of emotion stirring in his heart.

It’s not the first time. He’s already used to it.

Tides come and go, people come and go, there’s nothing in life that can’t be lost.

Then, suddenly, amidst the crowd, he saw a pair of familiar eyes and brows.

Dark and heavy, with a gaze that seemed to carry weight.

For a moment, the departing audience around him all became blurred shadows, leaving only the clear figure of the young man who was looking at him intently.

That was Jiang Ji. He was the only one still waiting for him to start singing.

There was a moment when Qin Qingzhuo tightened his grip on the microphone, his lips parted slightly, but amidst the persistent ringing in his ears and the complaints, he ultimately pursed his lips and set down the microphone.

He then saw in those dark eyes, expectation turning into heavy disappointment.

The young man cast a disappointed glance at him, then lowered his head slightly, turned around, and disappeared into the departing crowd.

Qin Qingzhuo didn’t know why he suddenly felt a bit panicked.

—”Jiang Ji.”

He called out into the microphone, trying to stop the departing young man.

However, that figure seemed to ignore him completely, walking faster and faster.

At first, Qin Qingzhuo could still clearly see the tall and slender figure among the crowd. However, a few seconds later, that figure completely merged into the crowd, becoming more and more distant and blurry.

Qin Qingzhuo had a strong premonition that once that figure disappeared from his sight, Jiang Ji would disappear from his life forever.

He started to chase after him, weaving through the crowd towards the exit where people were leaving, the ringing in his ears disappearing, leaving only his heavy and hurried breathing.

He reached the exit quickly, watching the sea of people in front of him, but couldn’t find Jiang Ji’s figure.

He felt bewildered, not knowing which direction to go. Behind him was the empty stage, with all the audience already gone, and in front of him was the crowded crowd, groups of people walking together, pairs of people walking hand in hand, and he was walking forward alone…

A dull pain suddenly emanated from his chest, and Qin Qingzhuo abruptly opened his eyes, looking around at the room filled with musical instruments.

It was a dream…

The bewildered feeling in the dream was still vivid, but even more vivid were the feelings of loss and loneliness.

How could he have such a dream… Qin Qingzhuo sat up straight, rubbing his temples with his hand.

As soon as he closed his eyes, he could see the disappointed gaze Jiang Ji had cast at him.

It felt more real than reality itself, so real that it made Qin Qingzhuo feel uncomfortable.

He raised a hand to cover his eyes, and after a while, he let out a long sigh.