Chapter 4: Watching the music video. The world is so big, yet so small. ...
Cheng Sijie clicked on Jiang Hui's new music video. This time, he released three versions for the first time ever: a story version, a band version, and a pure version. She casually clicked on the story version.
The film opens with a slightly shaky close-up shot of the lead singer quickly scanning the crowd on stage. Immediately afterwards, the camera swiftly pans across blurry, swaying figures, waving arms, and flashing glow sticks, creating a play of light.
Suddenly, the intro cuts in, very loud, with live reverb and background noise from the audience cheering, creating a powerful and almost overwhelming effect that seems to burst out of the screen.
Cheng Sijie said, "Wow, it looks like this is a band performance, and Jiang Hui is on stage."
She took a sip of water and exclaimed, "Jiang Hui's face is so handsome that it will keep me in a good mood for another twenty years."
The lead singer had dyed silver hair, silver earrings, and wore sunglasses; he looked very young.
"Wow, he must be pretending to be young. This is totally the outfit of a teenage high school boy!"
In a rapid scan, the camera abruptly pauses and focuses. An extremely clear, steady, shallow depth-of-field close-up captures the details of the girl's face. However, the camera doesn't show the girl's features; instead, it precisely focuses on her thick, slightly trembling eyelashes, blurring her excited friends and other spectators into soft patches of color and light.
Cheng Sijie was taken aback.
In an instant, the camera cuts sharply to Jiang Hui on stage, where the lead singer is roaring and playing instruments. The music explodes and roars, and the low-angle shot perfectly showcases Jiang Hui's control on stage.
Sweat dripped from his temples, his knuckles turned white as he gripped the microphone, the veins in his neck stood out as he sang, and his eyelashes trembled as he closed his eyes and focused on the song. These details were not shown in any close-up; they flashed by and seemed to be insignificant.
However, when facing the other protagonist in the music video, the camera moves slowly or zooms in slightly, capturing the small mole on her cheek, her slightly pursed lips, and her somewhat empty or uninterested eyes.
At the end of the music video, a close-up of Jiang Hui looking in the girl's direction reveals a domineering, confident gaze. The music abruptly stops after the last note, leaving only faint ambient sounds: the cheers of the crowd gradually fade, and the faint echoes of guitar harmonics linger. In the center of the screen, a line of text appears—clean handwriting, Jiang Hui's handwriting:
Eighteen,
And she came to see me play.
(She was eighteen when she came to see my performance.)
This seemed like a fan's expectation, a message to all his devoted fans: "Take my show when you turn eighteen." However, the comments on the music video immediately sensed something was amiss:
"No, I'm panicking! Who's going to come see his performance?"
"Who has ever seen Jiang Shen be so romantic with us fans..."
"I'm feeling really anxious."
"Eighteen years old? Was it when his white moonlight came to his concert? Hahaha, how innocent Mou Hui is!"
"OMG, Miss, do you know what you missed by not watching carefully? qwq"
"I really want to see Jiang Hui's performance by the 18-year-old band!"
"It seems that Jiang Hui is a band's lead singer in the MV storyline, who falls in love at first sight with a fan in the audience. The fan seems to have been dragged to see his performance by a friend..."
Cheng Sijie summarized: "The close-up shot is definitely simulating Jiang Hui's perspective. This shot is aimed at that girl, right? This shot is very interesting; it should be a crane shot, so it's particularly dreamy and ethereal. The girl's mole, her thick eyelashes, her listless expression..."
Cheng Sijie said, "The lead singer was fully immersed in his performance on stage, but the constantly changing camera angles clearly showed his prying eyes at the girl. Soul and body were separated, and half of his heart was in the music, while the other half swayed under the passionate dizziness of this love at first sight."
The comments section was full of praise for her poetic and apt summary.
After finishing her speech, Cheng Sijie seemed to have more to say, and paused slightly, "Thank you everyone, the anchor is just so beautiful and intelligent."
etc.
She suddenly remembered Jiang Hui's invitation from high school.
Cheng Sijie: Holy crap.
Jiang Hui suddenly transferred to her high school. When they first met, she thought that although he was good-looking, his behavior was too strange. Not long after, he transferred to her school.
In addition, Jiang Hui revealed that he was a die-hard fan in her live broadcast room, a long-time fan she had a very good impression of, and the two became acquainted because of this, and gradually had more exchanges.
After all, they're in the same school and are old acquaintances, it's practically impossible for them not to get to know each other.
That was probably the second year after Jiang Hui transferred here.
Summer vacation after her second year of high school began. It was her first summer as an eighteen-year-old, and it was incredibly hot, often exceeding 32 degrees Celsius. Even the cicadas seemed to be singing weakly.
She was thoroughly irritated by the sun and couldn't feed the cats in the scorching afternoon heat. She could only go to find the adorable kittens in the evening when the heat subsided a bit.
Jiang Hui sent her a WeChat message: "Cat photo.JPG"
"Hey, the cat misses you, hurry up and get down."
When Cheng Sijie saw that cool cow-cat photo, her heart skipped a beat. She rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. To be honest, at that moment, she realized that she had a bit of a crush on Jiang Hui.
Cheng Sijie has a very brave personality, but that doesn't mean she wants to start a puppy love that she knows will make her obsessed and immersed in before the college entrance examination. So she has been avoiding this mixed-race psychopath.
but……
Just as she was fretting, Jiang Hui called. She quickly pressed the "reject" button. Uh... wasn't this too obvious? Would she be looked down upon?
Cheng Sijie rubbed her forehead, thinking to herself, "Fine, even if there are mountains of knives and seas of fire ahead, I'll still go and see. Well, it's definitely not because she wants to go too."
She eventually went downstairs. Jiang Hui stood in the twilight, dressed simply in a white T-shirt and shorts, feeding the cat with a relaxed air. He looked up at her, his bright grey-green eyes shining: "Our band has a performance in the next province this summer, are you coming?"
He smiled and said, "I'll give you a ticket if you want to come."
Cheng Sijie loved to join in the fun. Seeing his slightly greenish pupils, like a lake bathed in springtime light, she blurted out, "Go!"
Jiang Hui said, "Why have you been avoiding me lately? Do you have a crush on me?"
Cheng Sijie became mute.
Should I tell the truth? Because I can tell that you're not only handsome, but you're also very interested in me. You've confessed your feelings openly and subtly, and even transferred to my school. I'm not stupid; I know your family is well-off, glittering with wealth. Whether it's money or genuine affection, I'm very tempted. You seem like a perfect match for me...
Thinking about the subtle differences in life that one can notice without consciously paying attention, she felt rather unhappy.
When provincial leaders came to inspect the school, Jiang Hui, as a model student, accompanied them throughout the visit. Later, he even took a friendly group photo with the leaders at the school history museum.
This family was clearly not an ordinary one. Later, a group of teachers from the provincial experimental school arrived. They were supposedly working on some kind of mobile teaching experimental base, and they happened to be selected for the first batch of experimental slots. Suddenly, the teaching staff of the science key class improved significantly. Whenever Cheng Sijie sat in the classroom and saw the faces of these provincial-level famous teachers, she felt like she was dreaming.
Although her family was well-off, they had been poor for three generations and had never enjoyed such special treatment before. However, this special treatment did help her improve her grades and get into a better school.
She had conflicting feelings towards Jiang Hui; she wanted to get closer to him, yet she couldn't help feeling a strange sense of being invaded.
She deeply felt that beauty could lead one astray, "cough cough... how can I go? My parents won't agree."
Jiang Hui said, "Indeed, this is not very safe."
He said with a smile, "I'll send you the video later."
Cheng Sijie breathed a sigh of relief. "That's pretty good."
Jiang Hui guessed her reaction and used a feigned retreat to advance, saying, "There was also an officially produced DVD from that day. Do you want it? I'll give it to you for free."
Cheng Sijie said, "Okay."
Jiang Hui said, "Then write me an 800-word review after you finish watching it."
Cheng Sijie: "...Are you trying to die?"
She wouldn't dare take the high-speed train to the next city to see Jiang Hui's performance during her summer vacation after her junior year of high school. Whether it was her parents' opposition or her own age, those were secondary; what truly mattered was her constant wariness of Jiang Hui.
This person's rebellious and wicked nature is so prominent that even if he behaves properly, he still seems dangerous.
And isn't Jiang Hui just showing off like a peacock? Is he deliberately trying to display his excellence to her? Heh, Cheng Sijie sneered, definitely.
Seeing her sneer, Jiang Hui politely reminded her, "What's with that twitching at the corner of your mouth?"
Cheng Sijie said, "What's it to you?"
Jiang Hui gave him a look that said, "Are you kidding me?" He added, "I've noticed you're really hostile towards me."
"No way!"
Cheng Sijie stood up abruptly, his hands unconsciously clenching into fists. "This is blatant slander."
Jiang Hui squatted on the ground, still stroking the cat with one hand, unfazed by her imposing manner. "I've said it before, we really are destined to be together. You know, I knew that the first time I saw you."
How would I know?
Jiang Hui looked at her coldly, "But you speak nicely to your class's academic representative and the male students leading the exercises in the next class, and you smile at them from time to time. What, am I the kind of person whose life is so cheap that I don't deserve your nice attitude?"
Cheng Sijie was completely defeated by his unreasonable arguments. "Brother, do you want to think about where we first met? You came down the street carrying a guitar that was almost as tall as a person and told me we were destined to meet. If it weren't for the fact that you look like a foreign friend, I would have beaten you up long ago!"
Jiang Hui said, "The second time you saw me, you even rolled your eyes at me."
He pursed his lips. "Did you do this on purpose?"
"And the time you mentioned wasn't our first meeting."
Cheng Sijie said impatiently, "I know, you've already said that you're a loyal viewer of my live stream, and you can't fall asleep without my idiotic live stream..."
Jiang Hui said, "That wasn't the first time we met in person."
Cheng Sijie was impatiently reciting the crazy things Jiang Hui had said to her when she suddenly heard this sentence and froze.
"What?"
She pointed at herself with an incredulous look, then at Jiang Hui, "Where else have you seen me before?"
Cheng Sijie said, "You're not joking, are you?"
Jiang Hui stared at him without blinking. Perhaps due to the angle, his gray-green eyes now resembled spilled ink, dark and deep, as if a water ghost could crawl out of this misty green lake at any moment, grab her by the neck, and question her, "How dare you forget?"
Cheng Sijie was frightened by this association.
Jiang Hui smiled. "Just kidding."
Cheng Sijie's temper flared up instantly. "Hey, is this really funny? I'm not talking anymore. Yu Lingling asked me to go shopping, and I'm going to be late! Hahaha, what a coincidence! I should have treated you to something to eat!"
Jiang Hui: "It's okay, maybe we'll meet again in the future."
Cheng Sijie thought for a moment, then said, "Bye-bye-bye!"
After saying that, he waved and turned to leave.
Feeling a little guilty, she thought to herself, then called Yu Lingling without any hesitation: "Hey girl, come out and go shopping with me!"
That's right, she was just making up an excuse to fool Jiang Hui, that "big fool".
Jiang Hui watched her retreating figure from afar—
Their initial meeting likely occurred at different times. For Jiang Hui, it was less of an "acquaintance" and more of a one-sided "pursuit." However, he never mentioned this to Cheng Sijie.
He didn't pay attention intentionally, but one day, quite by chance, he saw the girl through the car window. She was with her friend, wearing a white polo shirt and pleated skirt, with her hair down, chatting and laughing with another girl. At that moment, he suddenly stopped holding the pen on his tablet, and then he began to stare at her involuntarily.
He knew her, and even listened to her ramblings online every day.
The world is so big, yet so small, seemingly separated by millions of miles, yet also seemingly within reach. This world, both big and small, showed him a butterfly and then told him that the butterfly could land in his palm.
Jiang Hui blinked and continued to stare at her, his gaze filled with malice.
She didn't look very old, about his age, yes, that's how she should be. She was very lively and clearly the social center of her peers, because several of them were listening to her.
He knew she would be returning to school soon, and this was probably a study tour she participated in in advance to help her adjust to school life.
Looking up at her from afar, Jiang Hui wondered why, even though she could have looked north or south, she was looking in his direction. He felt it was a mutual love at first sight, and that fate had tacitly approved of their destiny.
He told the driver, "Drive slowly forward."
When he got home, the house was empty. Jiang Hui suddenly changed his mind. He thought it was better to stay in China than to study abroad.
Then he arranged for himself to transfer to a public school he had never heard of before. Jiang Hui was a very smart kid, and no one in his family interfered with his decisions.
Meanwhile, Yu Lingling rejected her, calling her crazy for going shopping in such hot weather, so Cheng Sijie slunk home. Just as she stepped into the elevator, her phone beeped with a WeChat message notification. There was no signal in the elevator, and she swiped through her phone screen but couldn't see who sent it.
Only after stepping out of the elevator and stopping did the girl see the message from [h]: "You went to City C for tourism last year, right?"
Cheng Sijie was shocked.
Wait, so he wasn't lying after all?!
But... Cheng Sijie thought: How could such a coincidence happen?
She thought for a moment and calmly replied, "I mentioned this in my live stream. Do you think I don't remember? No picture, no truth."
There was no further reply from the other end.
They seemed speechless.
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