Chapter 53: Buying a Violin

The sound of hurried footsteps broke the tranquility of the room.

Teacher Leting, seeing Ming Can return with a flushed face, asked in surprise, “What’s wrong? Did you forget something?”

Ming Can steadied herself, took a couple of deep breaths, and shook her head. “No, I didn’t forget anything.”

She twisted the hem of her clothes, and said with a soft voice, “I just wanted to ask you something.”

“What’s Ah Xiao’s full name?” Teacher Leting paused, thinking. “Let me recall.”

Over the years, she had always called him “Ah Xiao.” When they were neighbors, she must have known his full name, but after not seeing him for so long, and with her memory not being the best, she couldn’t remember right away.

The old woman paced around the room a couple of times, then walked to the window and glanced at the long-abandoned villa next door.

“I remember now,” Teacher Leting said, her eyes lighting up. “His surname is Chi, and his full name is Chi Xiao.”

Ming Can’s heart clenched involuntarily.

Teacher Leting continued, “Their family’s company is quite famous—Xingchi Group, one of the top tech giants in Beicheng.”

“Oh… I see,” Ming Can nodded, feeling a bit dazed after learning the truth. She asked again, “Do you remember what happened the day I met him?”

Back then, Ming Can had only been six or seven years old. Over a decade had passed, and she had long since forgotten what happened that day. It was only through Teacher Leting’s retelling during her visits that she vaguely remembered—when she was very young, she had met a boy slightly older than her here and made a laughable promise to him.

“I remember some of it,” Teacher Leting said with a smile. “It’s not that my memory is good, but you two were just too amusing. Your personalities were complete opposites—one extremely lively, the other extremely quiet.”

At this point, Teacher Leting unconsciously looked out the window at the villa where the Chi family used to live, her voice softening. “You don’t know this, but Ah Xiao was very unhappy as a child. His parents were in a business marriage. Not long after they got married, they had a falling out over interests. His father was domineering, and his mother was equally ruthless. When she didn’t get the rights she deserved in the marriage, she wanted to abort the child. In the end, she kept the baby, but the relationship between the couple never improved. Even though they had such a young child at home, they fought constantly…”

The house’s soundproofing was actually quite good.

But perhaps, while going upstairs, Chi Xiao had accidentally overheard his parents arguing in the second-floor study. Now, as he practiced the piano on the third floor, it felt like their selfish, heated voices were echoing in his ears, impossible to shake off.

He quietly left home with his sheet music and went to his neighbor, Teacher Leting’s place.

Teacher Leting was a renowned violin maker, and her villa was like a complex workshop, filled with apprentices working alongside her to craft violins.

She also had a piano at her house, and whenever Chi Xiao couldn’t stand being at home, he would come here to play.

Today was no different.

Chi Xiao didn’t particularly like the piano. After playing for a while, he grew bored and wandered into the violin-making workshop, squatting in a corner and mimicking the apprentices by sanding a piece of wood.

At that moment, Teacher Leting was entertaining two distinguished guests.

One was a stunningly beautiful young woman with an air of nobility, accompanied by a little girl in a pink princess dress.

Chi Xiao paid no attention to his surroundings, focusing solely on sanding the small piece of wood he had picked up from the floor—material meant for a violin bridge.

Suddenly, a pair of shiny white shoes appeared in front of him. Chi Xiao acted as if he hadn’t noticed, not even looking up.

“Are you Teacher Leting’s student?” Ming Can asked. “I’m Seraphina. What’s your name?”

“Chi Xiao.”

“Do you have an English name?”

“…”

“Everyone else is sitting over there working. Why are you squatting here?”

“…”

Ming Can suddenly squatted down, leaning in close.

Earlier, outside the workshop, she had noticed this boy sitting alone in the corner for a long time, looking pitiful.

At this age, Ming Can was already a bit of a “face enthusiast,” naturally drawn to good-looking people. The boy in front of her had light amber eyes, like a freshly polished fire opal, and his delicate, pretty features made Ming Can eager to befriend him.

“Are you being bullied?” Ming Can asked, thinking of the TV dramas she had watched, where kids who were ostracized would sit alone in a corner, playing with toys no one else wanted.

The tools and wood in his hands clearly weren’t anything special—they looked like scraps someone had discarded.

“Is it them bullying you?” Ming Can pointed at the violin-making apprentices nearby.

Chi Xiao had no idea what she was talking about.

Ming Can took his silence as confirmation. “They’re so mean! All those adults ganging up on one kid, not even giving you a chair!”

Chi Xiao: “…”

Ming Can: “Doesn’t Teacher Leting care about you?”

Chi Xiao: “…”

Ming Can thought that with so many students, Teacher Leting probably didn’t have the time to pay attention to a little kid who couldn’t even sand wood properly. After all, in any workplace, only the most capable people got ahead.

“Don’t feel bad about yourself. You can’t let them crush you like this,” Ming Can stood up and said very seriously. “You have to believe in yourself. When you grow up, you’ll become the best violin maker, better than all of them!”

Chi Xiao wondered if this girl had some kind of delusional disorder, like a character straight out of a cheesy, inspirational cartoon.

He found her annoying and silently turned his back to her.

Ming Can circled around to face him again. “I told you, you have to believe in yourself. I believe in you!”

Chi Xiao finally spoke. “What do you believe in me for?”

Ming Can: “I believe you’ll make the most amazing violins.”

But I don’t even know how to make violins.

And I have no intention of becoming a violin maker.

I’m just here sanding wood for fun, that’s all.

Chi Xiao lowered his head again, ignoring her.

Ming Can kept encouraging him relentlessly. “When you make the most amazing violin, I’ll spend a lot of money to buy it. My family is really rich. Name your price.”

Chi Xiao: “…”

Ming Can: “How about eight million?”

Earlier, Ming Can had overheard Teacher Leting and her mother talking about how the average price of a violin in the studio was around 80,000 yuan. Ming Can had multiplied that by a hundred, imagining the most expensive violin she could think of.

A burst of laughter came from behind.

Su Zhi Ning, Ming Can’s mother, was laughing so hard she nearly doubled over. She walked over, took Ming Can’s hand, and said to Chi Xiao, “Sorry to bother you. Sera just really wants to be friends with you.”

“Mom,” Ming Can protested, “I’m being serious.”

Su Zhi Ning could tell the boy just wanted to be left alone and insisted on pulling Ming Can away.

Su Zhi Ning was helpless when it came to Ming Can’s tendency to meddle in everything, always stepping in with a sense of justice.

Ming Can was like a little king in her own fantasy world, utterly convinced of her own ideas. She had a big heart but was also incredibly domineering, wanting everyone to listen to her and follow her lead.

Su Zhi Ning, with her gentle personality, had indulged Ming Can in almost everything since she was little, which was why she had grown up so headstrong.

Not long after being pulled away by her mother, Ming Can sneaked back to find the boy while the adults weren’t looking, only to discover that the spot where he had been was now empty.

For some reason, Chi Xiao was a little afraid of the girl named Seraphina.

Normally, he had long since mastered the ability to tune out all the noise around him, but this girl seemed to have some kind of magic that forced his ears to listen to her words. Her nonsensical meddling left him feeling dizzy and overwhelmed.

Chi Xiao ran outside the villa, but he didn’t want to go home yet, so he squatted by the edge of the villa’s yard, playing with stones.

Near the fence, the grass was dotted with pebbles. Chi Xiao picked up a sharp stone and began scratching words into the pebbles. Suddenly, he heard someone running toward the fence—two boys who looked familiar, also living in the neighborhood.

They had run into Chi Xiao in the community before and tried to play with him, but he had ignored them. As a result, they had a bad impression of him, thinking he was a loner and unpleasant.

“Why are you at Teacher Leting’s again?” one of the boys shouted through the fence. “Did your mom and dad kick you out?”

Many neighbors knew about the discord between Chi Xiao’s parents. Adults gossiped behind closed doors, and kids inevitably overheard things—like how Chi Xiao’s mother regretted having him, how she had left him to the nanny and never cared for him herself, as if he didn’t have parents at all…

The boys, seeing that Chi Xiao remained indifferent and treated their words as background noise, clung to the fence, growing increasingly frustrated:

“You’re so annoying, no wonder your mom and dad don’t want you…”

Suddenly, there was a loud clang as a stone flew from behind and struck the fence.

The two boys froze for a moment, then immediately turned and ran away.

Chi Xiao turned around and saw the girl in the pink dress walking over, her dark eyes wide open. “Why didn’t you yell at them when they said those things to you?”

Chi Xiao lowered his gaze and remained silent, his hand gripping the pebble so tightly it hurt as he scratched deep lines into it.

The little girl then launched into a long monologue in his ear.

She questioned who those boys were, why he didn’t speak up, and why he wasn’t acting like a normal person… Anything that didn’t go according to her expectations, she would sternly criticize and then do everything in her power to steer things back onto what she considered the “right path.”

Chi Xiao let himself be dragged along by her.

She pulled him out of the yard, chased after the two boys, and forced them to apologize to Chi Xiao, making them promise never to do it again.

At first, the boys resisted.

Even though Ming Can was a girl, wearing a soft pink princess dress and shorter than them, she had an incredibly commanding presence. Not only did Chi Xiao feel a bit intimidated by her, but even the mischievous boys gradually lowered their heads under her relentless scolding and reluctantly apologized.

Su Zhi Ning and Teacher Leting only realized the two children were missing after some time. When they came out to look for them, they found the two playing in the sand at the community’s playground.

The adults stood nearby, smiling and watching, not wanting to interrupt.

Ming Can noticed that Chi Xiao was really good at building sandcastles. Without saying a word, he had created a beautiful palace.

“You’re amazing,” Ming Can praised. “I told you, your hands are so skilled. You’ll definitely become the best violin maker in the future.”

For the first time, Chi Xiao responded, “Yeah.”

They played until the sun set.

As it grew late, Su Zhi Ning had no choice but to take Ming Can home.

The housekeeper had also come to take Chi Xiao home for dinner, but instead of leaving with her, he followed Ming Can and her mother back to Teacher Leting’s house.

When it was time to say goodbye, Chi Xiao spoke to Ming Can for the first time on his own initiative: “Will you come back again?”

“I don’t know,” Ming Can said. “But when you make the best violin, we’ll definitely meet again.”

“Will you come to buy it then?”

“Yeah,” Ming Can extended her pinky finger and hooked it with his. “Eight million. I mean it.”

…

“You really had a big mouth back then. Your mom couldn’t even stop you. You just went ahead and made that eight-million promise with him, hahaha.” Teacher Leting couldn’t stop laughing. “After that, Ah Xiao started coming to my place often, learning to make violins with my students. Unfortunately, his parents divorced a few years later, and after they moved, he gradually stopped coming.”

Ming Can fell silent for a long time.

She still had some memory of how generous and bold she had been as a child, but the specifics of those events had completely faded from her mind.

For a moment, she felt like a huge jerk, carelessly making promises everywhere and then forgetting about them.

But.

Such a distant and childish promise.

Chi Xiao must have forgotten about it too, right?

“Did he ever come back to see you after that?” Ming Can asked. “Do you remember when the last time was?”

“Let me think,” Teacher Leting said, touching her forehead.

Ming Can quickly added, “It’s okay if you don’t remember. I was just asking casually.”

Teacher Leting walked out into the hallway outside the workshop. The walls on either side were lined with violins.

She gently touched the smooth surface of one of the violins and suddenly had an idea. “I remember now. He came once after starting high school. That must have been the last time. He was wearing his school uniform and had shot up in height. I was really surprised when I saw him.”

Ming Can smiled. “Your memory isn’t so bad after all.”

Teacher Leting sighed. “Ah, the reason I remember is because he brought a violin that day to show me. He said he had made it himself and only needed to apply the finish. He wanted my advice on how to improve it before he did. That violin was really beautiful. I still remember it—his craftsmanship was even better than mine when I was young.”

Ming Can was stunned.

Teacher Leting turned to look at her and said, “By the way, didn’t you like bright, lively violin tones? The materials he chose, the thickness of the top plate, and the height of the bridge and soundpost were all tailored to the kind of sound you prefer.”

…

–

At noon.

As soon as the timer went off, Chi Xiao immediately fished the noodles out of the boiling water, not a second too early or too late. He then plunged them into cold water to firm them up. This time, the texture of the noodles would definitely be much better than last time.

In another pot, bone broth had been simmering since morning. Chi Xiao ladled out a large bowl and a small bowl, placing the cooled noodles into the broth and carrying them out.

When he reached the dining room, he looked up and noticed an unexpected guest in the living room.

“Why are you here?”

Ming Can had just taken off her coat and walked in, her cheeks still flushed from the cold outside.

She glanced at Miaomiao, not looking up as she said, “This is my house. Can’t I come?”

Chi Xiao stared at her for a moment, feeling that something about her seemed off.

“Have you had lunch yet?”

“No,” Ming Can walked over to the dining table and glanced at what Chi Xiao had brought out. “You’re feeding Miaomiao this? Noodles in soup?”

“There’s toppings too!” Miaomiao hurried over with a large insulated container. “The toppings are from outside.”

Ming Can took the container from Miaomiao and placed it on the table, muttering, “At least you have some self-awareness. You know to buy the important stuff instead of trying to make it yourself.”

Chi Xiao ignored her jab and headed back to the kitchen, asking, “How much noodles do you want?”

“100 grams,” Ming Can said, following him into the kitchen to get utensils.

Remembering she hadn’t washed her hands yet, she walked over to the sink and turned on the faucet.

“Ah—!” Ming Can hissed. “It’s so hot!”

Her hands were still stiff from the cold outside, icy to the touch. The sudden rush of 40-degree water naturally stung.

Chi Xiao walked over, adjusted the water temperature, and took Ming Can’s hands under the stream.

“Why are your hands so cold?” he frowned.

“I was outside for a while earlier,” Ming Can said. “Forgot to wear gloves.”

She kept her eyes down, watching the sink as Chi Xiao’s long fingers briefly gripped the back of her hand before letting go.

“It’s so cold outside. What were you doing out there?”

“Nothing much,” Ming Can shrugged, still staring at the sink. Since she had walked into the house, she hadn’t looked up once. “Just bored.”

A moment of silence passed.

“What’s wrong with you today?” Chi Xiao’s hand, which had just let go, suddenly reached out again, catching her wrist under the running water. “You’ve been keeping your head down, not looking at me?”