CH 19

Solo: Shu Jingzhi

[Time: Early Summer Rainy Season]

[Location: Concert Hall]

[Solo: Love's Joy]

[Performer & Narrator: Shu Jingzhi]

Two years later, I reunited with Ruoyun on a clear summer day.

He looked a little more mature, having shed his former youthfulness in the end.

But the impulsive recklessness and the obsession with music remained unchanged.

I never envisioned our reunion, and never intended to forgive him.

However, love has no bottom line.

Ying Ruoyun was always the exception for me.

Almost as soon as I saw him, I forgave him.

I spent my days thinking about how to make him like me again, how to get his attention, how to get him into my bed.

Just gazing into his eyes, everything else is thrown out of my mind.

One day, when we were together, the subject of the end of the world came up.

Ying Ruoyun asked me, "If the world were to end tomorrow, what would you do?

I said, I would play Chopin's piano pieces.

Ying Ruoyun said, then I will make love with you while you are playing the piano.

I tried my best to stay calm, and asked him why with a smile.

Ying Ruoyun said, in the last moments of life, you must do the craziest things with the person you love the most.

When love is separated by mountains and seas, the mountains and seas can be flattened.

He is such a person.

Even if his head is shattered, he has no regrets.

This is the kind of person he is.

When the orchestra was seeking a principal second, I thought he would leave me again.

I was so scared out of my mind that day that I decided to love him again, regardless of whether or not he would fail me again.

When he was younger, I had repeatedly rejected his confessions.

So, two years later, it was only fair that I should be the one to pursue him.

At that time, I did not anticipate that it would be a blessing in itself for people who love each other to be with each other.

We moved back to our villa in the coastal district.

One night, when the moon was shining brightly, Ruoyun could not see at all.

I asked him then, two years ago, weren't you still able to climb into my yard under the moonlight?

Ruoyun said, don't people always grow old slowly? It's like how myopia slowly worsens. Senior, you're not thinking of abandoning me, are you?

I kissed him on the corner of his forehead, and I said, yes, I'll put you in a sack later.

Where are you going to put me?

On the bed.

These tiny details, pieced together, suddenly seemed like clues I didn't see at the time.

When we were invited to visit New York, we met his former schoolmate, Zhang Manman, at the Eastman School of Music.

Despite how indifferent I appeared, the flames of jealousy almost burned through my sanity.

Despite his objections, I almost forced him to have sex with me in the conservatory's concert hall.

That sex was not really about pleasure, it was simply about my strong selfish desire for revenge and possession.

After the performance, I made an appointment with Zhang Manman as a senior.

I did have a hint of curiosity about the person who could make Ruoyun leave me.

Zhang Manman was hesitant to speak to me but insisted that Ruoyun did not like her and that they had never been together.

At the time, she hinted at it very vaguely, saying that the most important thing was to cherish the days he was by your side, isn't it?

That night I had my doubts, and on the rainy street, I asked Ruoyun if he was hiding something from me.

Ruoyun began to tell me some rambling lies.

I often thought it was cute when he tried so hard, but at the same time it made me feel heartbroken.

I said, why do you always tell lies? When we first met you approached me as a lie, you liked me as a lie, and you left me as a lie. Did you ever have a single moment of sincerity for me?

I knew that in the night of New York, he could hardly tell where he was going. In a moment of anger, I left him alone on the street.

But after five minutes or so, I hurried back.

Guilt overwhelmed me as I saw him standing helpless and bewildered in the street.

I hugged him tightly and I said, I am like the Phantom, loving you is a destiny I cannot break free from.

After returning to China, on the third anniversary of the day we met.

I asked him to marry me.

He rejected me.

I put the ring on his ring finger, and I said, I once rejected you three times and you didn't give up. Now, I won't give up on you either.

In the final scene in The Phantom of the Opera, Christine decides to leave the Phantom, but then puts on the Phantom's ring and wraps her arms around him in a deep kiss.

Ruoyun refused my proposal, but then put my ring on and we kissed under the moonlit night.

I always thought that one day we would be able to clear up all our misunderstandings and love each other with all our hearts.

But I had forgotten that love is all about wholehearted devotion, and that misunderstandings don't matter.

The day Ruoyun was selected as a finalist in the Queen Elisabeth Competition was a particularly good day. We spent time together in the piano room discussing the choice of pieces for the final, creative inspiration, playing techniques and the schedule for our trip to England.

His growth rate is extremely impressive, which I suspected back in his university days.

His talent is definitely not inferior to mine, and he will surpass me sooner or later, I sincerely look forward to it.

On the night of the final, his performance was unparalleled.

When I picked him up and took him back to the hotel, he was still glowing.

Unexpectedly, just after entering the room, he hugged me tightly and said to me:

Senior, I'm so scared.

I whispered soothingly in his ear, you did very well tonight.

No, that's not what I was worried about. His voice began to tremble, and he said, Senior, not only is my night blindness worsening, I have intermittent blindness and my hearing is starting to fail.

I immediately became alarmed and had to take him to the hospital for a check-up.

He said to me, I'm sorry, Senior, I'm sorry.

The strong smell of blood instantly filled the air and the crimson liquid stained his white shirt.

I held him, having never been so panicked, and I said, don't be afraid, I'm here, I'm always here for you.

That night, I realised the full truth of everything.

All his lies were just a cover for that irreversible, cruel disease.

For two long years in New York, he had spent several six-month cycles of life alone.

Even when his illness tormented him to the point of collapse, his love for music never waned.

He lied about being cured, it was his pride and stubbornness that made him do it.

He insisted on his love, it was the lifelong romance of the performer.

And the price was...

And the price was an increasingly serious threat to his life.

I almost begged him to give up music.

He said to me, then I would rather die.

I know him.

He is Ying Ruoyun, he definitely would have made that decision.

He took the first prize for violin in the Queen Elisabeth Competition and was again an international finalist in the Premio Paganini.

His dream was to take the first prize before his 24th birthday, to win the highest honour of this international violin competition and to leave his mark alongside me at the top of the same competition.

During that time, he ignored his hearing loss, his blindness, his deafness and the increasingly frequent episodes of vomiting blood.

He often apologised to me, and his most frequent words were:

I'm sorry, Senior, I've dragged you down again.

I shouldn't have returned to China, I shouldn't have come to see you again.

But I can't help it.

I really love you, I'm too selfish.

I can't let go of my love for music and I can't let go of my love for you. Without music, I live like a walking corpse.

I asked him in return, have you ever thought that without you, I would also be living like a walking corpse?

Ying Ruoyun is an extremely selfish person.

Self-righteous, overreaching, reckless, hopeless, never turning back even after hitting the wall.

Ying Ruoyun is an extremely selfish person.

He gave me the hottest love in the world, but also the most ruthless coldness in the world.

He got his wish and won first place in the Premio Paganini, and that night he said to me:

Senior, meeting you was the luckiest thing in my life, I have no regrets.

He fell asleep on an equally stormy summer night, and I picked a bright red rose for him.