Chen Hao's fingers were still trembling.
He ignored it, gently placed the guitar back on its stand, and sat for a while without getting up. He hummed the same rhythm over and over again, as if afraid he would forget it if he stopped. Sweat slid down his temples and dripped onto the floor with a soft pattering sound.
Nana stood beside him, the camera slightly focused on his hand. The strip of cloth was soaked, its edges gray, and it was wrapped crookedly. A line of words appeared on her palm: Audio sample saved, available for playback at any time.
"Okay." Chen Hao nodded. "Write the score tomorrow."
He finished speaking, stood up, stretched, and his shoulders cracked twice. His left hand still had four fingers wrapped in cloth, and his right hand touched the soundboard of the instrument.
He didn't leave.
He stood for a few seconds, then sat down again.
“No,” he said. “It has to be done now.”
He rummaged through his toolbox and pulled out a scrap of paper, a piece of wood from which he had previously recorded the dimensions of timber, with several pencil lines drawn on the back. He then found a marker with a broken lead, blew on the tip, and tried drawing on it—it worked.
"Nana, play the same version as before."
Nana brought up the audio. Chen Hao closed his eyes and listened to it once, then began to draw on the paper.
I drew a horizontal line the first time, a dot the second time, and a curved line the third time. Even I couldn't understand it after I finished.
“This doesn’t look like sheet music,” he said. “It looks like a construction site blueprint.”
He tore it up and started over. This time, he played six notes, marking each one with a number: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
“This one is a bit longer.” He drew an extra line after the third number.
"The next one needs to be quick." He added a slash before the fourth one.
“The last one is holding on.” He drew a wavy line under the sixth one.
When I finished writing, the whole page was a mess, with numbers and symbols crammed together, like someone writing a diary while having a fever.
"Forget it." He crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it aside. "I have no idea what pitch or low is."
Text appeared in Nana's palm: Standard staff notation generation service is available; frequency and beat data are required.
"You have sheet music?" Chen Hao looked up. "You should have said so earlier."
Nana brought up the projector. Five parallel lines appeared in the air, with musical notes neatly arranged on them. Each note was aligned perfectly with a square, as neat and orderly as students lining up to take their numbers.
Chen Hao stared at it for three seconds, then shook his head.
“No,” he said. “This isn’t the one I played.”
"What's wrong?"
“It’s too synchronized,” he said. “I felt like I was panting. It’s like a robot chanting a mantra.”
Nana paused for a second and recalculated. She extracted the time intervals from the original recording and found that the six notes were not equidistant. It took 0.8 seconds to go from the first to the second, only 0.5 seconds from the second to the third, and there was a noticeable pause after the fifth note, lasting 1.2 seconds.
She imported the new data and generated a new version of the score. The positions of the notes changed, some were moved forward, some were moved back, and sustain symbols were added.
“Look at this,” she said.
Chen Hao leaned closer to look. He still couldn't understand it.
“I don’t recognize these tadpoles,” he said, “but I remember how I played them.”
He took back his guitar and played it slowly. As he played, he had Nana record his movements.
“There’s a pause here.” He raised his finger and gestured in the air, “like when you’re halfway through a sentence and suddenly remember something.”
"Push hard on the next note." He made a forward-pressing gesture. "Don't be soft."
"The last long note doesn't keep playing; it gradually fades out."
Nana received the information and readjusted. She canceled the standard musical notation and replaced it with simplified musical notation and text annotations. Numbers represented notes, with words like "staccato," "push," and "pull" marked below. Arrows and wavy lines were also added to the rhythmic positions to indicate tempo changes.
Chen Hao looked at the new score and smiled.
“This is more like something we’ve come up with,” he said.
He named the piece "The Song of the Base".
"Not high-class, is it?" he asked Nana, "but it's quite down-to-earth."
Nana did not object. A new entry was added to the system log: The work has been named, and the sense of ownership has been confirmed.
"Come on, give it a try." Chen Hao picked up the guitar.
The cloth strip was still on his fingers, making the neck of the violin slippery. He tried pressing the strings and winced in pain.
“No,” he said. “My index and middle fingers are too damaged; they need to be exposed.”
He unwrapped the bandages from those two fingers, leaving the other two wrapped. The fingertips revealed red, swollen skin, with some areas already broken and scabbed over.
He took a deep breath and began to play according to the score.
The first note came out steadily.
The second note came on smoothly, no problem.
The third note should have been paused, but he raised his hand too quickly, resulting in the pause being made too early.
“No,” he said. “Pause is not raising your hand, it’s pressing it down and not moving it.”
He started over.
This time, hold the third note down for a second, then continue. Push out the fourth note, follow with the fifth, and lengthen the sixth note to finish.
Completed in one go.
"It's alright," he said, "but my fingers just won't obey me."
He looked down at his hands. His ring and little fingers, wrapped in cloth, had limited movement, always lagging behind when pressing the strings. And his exposed index and middle fingers hurt whenever they touched the strings.
“Change to the right hand too,” he said. “Use your fingernails, not your fingertips.”
He adjusted his posture, gently scraping the strings with the side of his right index finger. The sound became clearer, and the volume was easier to control.
He tried again.
This time the pacing is closer to the original.
“The third and fifth were a bit off,” he said. “It was too fast.”
He closed his eyes, recalling the feeling of playing that melody for the first time. Back then, his hands weren't injured, his movements weren't practiced, but he had a kind of youthful, impetuous energy. The sheet music nowadays is too sophisticated; it's lost that flavor.
“Like this,” he said, “change ‘pause’ to ‘take a breath’ and ‘push’ to ‘hold back her anger’.”
Nana updated the comments.
Chen Hao plays again.
This time, he played and recited: "Start—walk—catch your breath—hold your fire—catch—stretch—stop."
The six notes flowed smoothly, the final note fading slowly. The room fell silent for a few seconds.
He opened his eyes.
"It's done," he said.
Text appeared in Nana's palm: This performance matches the original concept by 91%, and is recommended as a base version for archiving.
"Save this," Chen Hao said. "Anyone who wants to learn in the future can follow this."
He spread the sheet music on the table and weighed down the corners with a small stone. The handwriting on the paper was crooked, the numbers had been crossed out twice, and the annotations were all in colloquial language; it didn't look like a proper musical score at all.
But he looked at it very carefully.
"Do you think... this counts as creative work?" he asked.
Nana did not answer.
He doesn't need to answer.
He picked up a marker and wrote three large characters at the top of the score: "The Song of the Base".
A smaller line was added below: Author: Chen Haona.
He chuckled after he finished writing.
"We can be considered artists too."
He placed the guitar on his lap and played it again. This time, he didn't look at the sheet music; he played it entirely from memory. The six notes sounded in sequence, the rhythm was natural, and the ending notes were held just right.
After playing it, he hummed it once, then played it again.
On the third time, my fingers got hotter and hotter, the two fingers wrapped in cloth swelled up, and the two exposed fingers kept stinging.
But he didn't stop.
Fourth time, fifth time.
By the sixth time, he was able to look up at Nana while playing.
"What do you think?" he asked.
Nana's camera panned slightly, revealing text on her palm: "Performance stability improved, but pain feedback intensity did not decrease. We recommend evaluating whether to continue."
“Of course we’ll continue,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”
He put down his guitar, carefully folded the sheet music, and tucked it into his breast pocket. A corner of the paper peeked out, slightly damp with sweat.
He stood up and stretched his shoulders.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll try a different sound.”
He walked to the wall and hung the guitar back on its stand. He moved gently, as if afraid of damaging the decorative metal pieces. Those reflective little pieces glittered in the light, like stars twinkling.
He turned to leave, then stopped.
“No,” he said. “It’s not complete.”
He returned to the table, took out the sheet music, and unfolded it.
I picked up my pen and wrote a new note at the bottom:
"This piece is dedicated to all those who scavenge for scraps in the ruins."
After finishing writing, he closed the paper and put it back in his pocket.
“Now,” he said, “it’s finally over.”
He took two steps, then suddenly turned back.
"Nana".
"Um?"
"Do you think... if someone hears this piece in the future, they'll feel like it was written by a living person?"
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