Chapter 11.After 28
Although work has always been busy, Xie Kang, a young teacher at Pingnan No. 1 Middle School, was busier than ever during this year's National Day holiday. Competitions, papers, and project applications were all part of the workload.
Xie Kang only slept three or four hours a day these days. As soon as he opened his eyes, he would wash up, change his clothes, and go to school to work overtime. He only managed to submit the materials two days before work.
After finishing work, there are still countless social interactions to attend to. I just attended a colleague's wedding last night, and this morning I had to get up to go to the airport to pick up my uncle and his family who were returning home.
Xie Kang joined No. 1 Middle School after graduation through the civil service exam. After just six years, he'd already been promoted to Level 2, the fastest-rising teacher of his time. Even among Pingnan's teaching community, only a handful of teachers have had such a smooth career path.
Xie Kang's rapid promotion to Level 2 was bound to spark discussion. After all, besides his impressive undergraduate program, Xie Kang's dedication was evident to all. He often worked late into the night, yet remained energetic throughout morning self-study the next day. He had mentored two top-scoring students in the Gaokao (National College Entrance Examination) and, at a young age, became the head teacher of an Olympiad class.
He is strict with himself, but he has a good reputation among students and never loses his temper.
Many people advised him to take more rest, and Xie Kang agreed verbally, but he didn't think that such a life was bad.
If you are busy with work every day, both your mind and body will be busy, then you won’t have random thoughts. If you don’t have random thoughts, you won’t feel uncomfortable.
Just like when he was a child and was taken to various cram schools by his parents, the road had been paved by someone, and he just had to do it. If he did it, everyone would be satisfied, and he would still be the child prodigy who appeared on the third page of Pingnan Evening News.
His father cut out the newspaper and pasted it into the album. The first piece of news was that the Russian Mir space station ended its fifteen-year space flight and successfully disintegrated, with the debris landing in the Pacific Ocean, making a huge contribution to human exploration of space and development of space technology.
Below this news was Xie Kang’s news, “A little prodigy emerged in Pingnan: An eight-year-old primary school student can recite 600 digits of pi”, which took up one-third of the page. On the yellowed newspaper, Xie Kang was seen with his hands on his chest, looking proudly at the camera.
Xie Kang couldn't memorize such long sentences anymore; he only remembered 3.1415926. But he was living a peaceful and happy life until he saw that Weibo post.
Xie Kang saw that Weibo post a week ago. @百合心Lily'sheart is flying into the Pingnan Mountain and Sea Music Festival. I am the lead singer Zhuang Yongyuan. I will be with you this National Day. See you there!
After Lily Heart officially announced its joining, tickets for the Pingnan Music Festival, which had been lukewarm during the National Day holiday, were immediately sold out, and scalpers from all walks of life also came out.
Lily Heart was previously just a young band with a good reputation in the circle. Last year, they participated in a band variety show. Although they withdrew from the competition at the last minute during the finals and failed to win the championship that fans expected, they still became the most popular band among all the participating bands, and received many commercial performances and advertisements.
Xie Kang found a discussion thread the day before yesterday, in which an industry insider vaguely revealed that several top music festivals offered high prices to invite Lily Heart during the National Day holiday, but all were rejected. Everyone speculated that the band was fully preparing for an overseas tour, and did not expect Lily Heart to suddenly participate in such a little-known music festival.
The music festival is today, and Lily Heart's performance is from 3 to 4 p.m. The venue is in the suburbs, so if there's no traffic, it's only a half-hour drive away.
In other words, he and Zhuang Yongyuan were only half an hour's drive away.
But Xie Kang is now driving his uncle and aunt home from the airport.
"This girl is very outstanding. I'll recommend her WeChat to you. You can get in touch with her." The aunt lowered her head and tapped a few times on the phone screen, then said to Xie Kang.
"Need not……"
His aunt interrupted him: "Just think of it as a task assigned by your aunt. Go and give it a try. Lifelong events are as important as your work."
She frowned, her thinly drawn eyebrows twisting as she continued, "Your parents have always cared about you since you were a child. You've already disappointed them once, so you can't be so willful now. You're almost thirty, you need to be more sensible."
Xie Kang saw his smiling face in the rearview mirror, his mouth opening and closing as he spoke. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white and the skin on the back of his hands looked like it was about to split.
He took a few deep breaths and drove off the highway. Pingnan wasn't a big place, and after about ten minutes, they arrived at the entrance of Xie Kang's aunt's villa. Xie Kang got out of the car, helped his aunt and her family carry their luggage inside, and then planned to park the car.
My aunt was knocking on Xie Kang's car window, and Xie Kang opened it.
My aunt said, "Park the car and come in for tea. Your parents will be here soon."
Xie Kang smiled and nodded: "Okay, auntie."
The garage door was open, and the interior was empty and dim. A glance inside was like a whiff of damp dust. Xie Kang drove the car to the garage door, stopped for a moment, and didn't drive in.
"Something happened at school, so I'm going to work overtime."
After sending this voice message, Xie Kang turned the steering wheel to the left twice, turned the front of the car left, left his aunt's driveway, and drove onto the road outside.
Without using the navigation system, Xie Kang has been driving to the music festival venue every night recently, and he is very familiar with this road.
Xie Kang drives a Volkswagen Touareg, not too flashy for a teacher, but certainly classy. His house is in the new urban area across from the Yanjiang Bridge. The neighborhood has the highest average price in Pingnan and is assigned to the best school in the area. Many of his neighbors are prominent figures in Pingnan. If Xie Kang continues to work hard, he too will become as prominent as those neighbors.
When driving on the Yanjiang Bridge, Xie Kang thought that he only needed to take a look at Zhuang Yongyuan from afar under the stage.
The river beneath the bridge lay white and calm. But Xie Kang's heartbeat was rapid, his breathing quickened, as if something unexpected was about to happen. The peaceful and fulfilling life he had chosen seemed to be in jeopardy.
He could have turned the car around and gone back to his aunt's house, but he felt as if his hands and feet were out of control and drove straight to the music festival.
There are more than a dozen intersections where he can turn around on the remaining road, which means that Xie Kang still has more than a dozen chances to choose to go back, give up meeting Zhuang Yongyuan, and continue to walk steadily on his own path.
The street scenes passing by outside the bus window were both familiar and unfamiliar. Zhuang Yongyuan withdrew his gaze, rubbed his dizzy head, took out his mobile phone to look at the contract, and began to calculate the penalty for breach of contract for this music festival.
Because it is a government-sponsored music festival with a public welfare nature, the remuneration and liquidated damages are not high, which is something Zhuang Yongyuan can afford but will still feel a little reluctant.
Many friends asked Zhuang Yongyuan indirectly why he wanted to go to such a small music festival, but he just smiled and glossed over the question. Even when facing other members of the band, Zhuang Yongyuan could not give a reasonable explanation.
He himself was also trying to understand why he had made this impulsive decision on that sleepless night a week ago.
Returning home in glory? Zhuang Yongyuan knew he wasn't that kind of person. So was he returning to seek revenge against Xie Kang?
Did he want Xie Kang to see with his own eyes that Lily Xin, whom Xie Kang looked down upon and wanted to quit six years ago, is now gaining both fame and fortune, while Xie Kang will be trapped in the mess of Pingnan for the rest of his life?
Xie Kang's voice resurfaced in his ears. Those words he had deliberately forgotten so many times, only to keep remembering them, those words that always appeared like a ghost in otherwise normal situations.
Xie Kang said, "Yes, I have decided to return to Pingnan. I went back to take the exam to become a teacher at No. 1 Middle School. I did very well in the exam, so I will go back to work after graduation."
He also said, "Zhuang Yongyuan, can you be more realistic? I was too naive before and didn't consider many things comprehensively. Playing in a band is too risky."
"Our business...let's leave it at that."
The car arrived at the venue, and Zhuang Yongyuan got out, his guitar on his back. With two hours left before the show, he still had time to regret. Suddenly, his cell phone rang. It was an unmarked number. Zhuang Yongyuan saw it, frowned, and didn't answer.
He asked his teammates to help bring the piano to the artist's tent. He found a secluded shady spot and leaned against the tree trunk to smoke fiercely. In a short while, he smoked half a pack of cigarettes, but still felt very unwell. He had a headache, black spots in front of his eyes, rapid breathing, and a fast heartbeat.
Reluctantly, Zhuang Yongyuan pulled out a medicine bottle. It said Fluoxetine Hydrochloride, effective for treating adult depression, was labeled. He poured out two white tablets and swallowed them dry. Then he hurried back to the artist tent to prepare for the performance.
As the black curtain of the stage slowly descended, Zhuang Yongyuan put his piano on his back, stood in front of the microphone, and habitually glanced at the audience. His heart suddenly skipped a beat and he almost made a series of noises.
Xie Kang was standing on the right side of the first row, wearing a black hat and with his head lowered, as if afraid of being recognized.
Zhuang Yongyuan thought of a prank. He waved to the staff around him and whispered something.
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