Chapter 52: Strive to Grab That Pulp of Order
When they arrived at the electronics city, Xie Kang got off the car alone and took the SD card to get a card reader, while the others sat in the car waiting for him.
As soon as Xie Kang left, Zhuang Yongyuan turned from the passenger seat and asked Du Jiahao, "Is that SD card really Li Xiuyu's?"
Du Jiahao was looking up and down at the interior of Xie Kang's car and said, "Anyway, I've never seen this thing before. It can't be my grandma's."
Xu Zhen poked Zhuang Yongyuan and said, "Listen to Lily's song."
Du Jiahao agreed: "Yes, let's see how good Xie Kang's car audio is."
Zhuang Yongyuan shook his head: "It's not my car, I won't let it go."
Xu Zhen took advantage of him not paying attention and snatched Zhuang Yongyuan's phone. Xu Zhen's action was too fast, and Zhuang Yongyuan didn't have time to lock the screen. Xu Zhen switched to the Bluetooth interface, and without her having to do anything, Zhuang Yongyuan's phone automatically connected to the Bluetooth in Xie Kang's car when she got in the car.
She proudly shook the screen in front of Du Jiahao, opened the music software, and commented on Zhuang Yongyuan's music collection.
"Wow, you listened to the songs from Lily Heart's album over three hundred times?"
"Did you create this playlist? I've saved it before, '20s Chinese New Voices,' but why are you playing your own songs?"
"One hundred hit songs on TikTok? I thought you guys in bands were all so noble."
Zhuang Yongyuan's face flushed red, and he tried to snatch the phone back from Xu Zhen. Xu Zhen shrank under the car window. Zhuang Yongyuan stretched out his hand but couldn't get the phone back through the car seat. He could only watch Xu Zhen play Lily Heart's first album, "My Own Words". The intro's drifting synthesizer and drum beats sounded, accompanied by a faint human voice, like heavy worries, echoing in the small space inside the car.
"You don't hate the songs you make as much as you say." Xu Zhen said.
Zhuang Yongyuan turned back, covered his ears with his hands, and glared at Xu Zhen through the rearview mirror.
Xu Zhen was uncomfortable with his glare and protested loudly: "Do you have a conscience? Haven't you heard that a teacher is a father for life? What's wrong with me listening to your work?"
"For mother." Du Jiahao corrected.
Zhuang Yongyuan curled his lips and said, "Then I'll call you mom. Can you return my phone to me?"
"Is this necessary? I was the one who gave you your first guitar." Xu Zhen rolled his eyes at him. "I have a child, so stop yelling."
Zhuang Yongyuan felt guilty at this point and stopped talking. Xu Zhen pressed on, "You've become so bad-tempered now. You used to be so cute. Remember when you first saw the music store open, you were too embarrassed to come in, so you stood outside the glass door looking in. And when I asked you to come in, you blushed."
"You were only in junior high school back then, right? You were so small, but you grew a lot taller later..."
"What do you mean by growing taller?" Xie Kang opened the door and got into the car, throwing the card reader he had bought to Zhuang Yongyuan. "What are you talking about?"
Zhuang Yongyuan deliberately changed the subject and grabbed Xie Kang's injured hand to examine it.
The wound, which had only been scraped off, was still exposed. Zhuang Yongyuan said, "Didn't I tell you to go to a pharmacy and buy some iodine and a Band-Aid to treat the wound?"
Xie Kang didn't take it seriously: "It's not that serious."
“The soil at the construction site is very dirty. What if it gets infected?”
"Then you have to be responsible for me."
Du Jiahao interrupted their conversation with a smile and said, "We were just talking about when Xiaozhuang was in junior high school."
"Junior high school? I didn't know you at that time." Xie Kang tilted his head and said to Zhuang Yongyuan.
Xie Kang's expression is a bit like that of a teenager, in contrast to the gentle middle school teacher he is now. He is proud, confident, and has high standards. If you don't know him, you will be nervous when he sees you.
Zhuang Yongyuan was intimidated by him. He wanted to interrupt rudely, but now he couldn't say anything. He replied hastily, "I didn't go to the same junior high school as you."
"They all knew you before I did." Xie Kang released the handbrake and reversed the car while staring at the rearview mirror. Zhuang Yongyuan looked hard at his face, but could not see any expression.
Xu Zhen interjected, "Li Xiuyu has been using this camera for a long time. If this is his SD card, it might contain photos of Xiaozhuang from junior high school."
Xie Kang heard this and said excitedly, "Hurry up and find a place to put the card into the computer and take a look."
"Let's go to the Internet cafe?" Du Jiahao suggested.
Zhuang Yongyuan was dissatisfied: "There are too many people in the Internet cafe."
"Let's get a room at the hotel?"
Zhuang Yongyuan thought for a moment and said, "Let's go to my house. I live alone anyway."
Xie Kang nodded and said, "Then go to my office and get a computer. You don't have one at home."
When Xie Kang was halfway to the road, Zhuang Yongyuan suddenly said, "Forget it, just drive straight to my house. I brought my computer."
"Oh?" Xie Kang looked at Zhuang Yongyuan playfully, but Zhuang Yongyuan turned his head away to avoid his gaze.
After all, Xie Kang had asked him before if he had any demos of new songs to listen to, and he had told Xie Kang in person that he felt sick when he saw the music arrangement software and had left his computer in Shanghai.
Kaiping Street was still a stairway, making it impossible to drive in, so Xie Kang parked his car on the side of the road as usual. To get to Zhuang Yongyuan's house, they had to pass by the former Huixiang Music Shop. Several people in the group simultaneously slowed their pace in front of the old shop.
After Li Xiuyu's death, the shop remained open, but Xu Zhen had no interest in managing it. He gave the key to Zhuang Yongyuan, allowing them to come and go as they pleased. He rarely appeared, hiding somewhere unknown. After they graduated from high school and left Pingnan, he simply sold the equipment at a low price and closed the shop.
She changed her QQ and cell phone numbers. Later, Xie Kang and Zhuang Yongyuan couldn't reach her. The next news they saw about her was that she was marrying the only son of the founder of a well-known company in the same province. The wedding was lavish, with the venue built to resemble a palace studio in a historical drama, estimated to have cost seven figures, and became a hot topic. Zhuang Yongyuan had seen a wedding video taken by someone else. A fleeting image of Xu Zhen, adorned with gold jewelry, made it hard to discern her expression.
Du Jiahao also disappeared during that time. In the last days of Echo Music Shop, only Xie Kang and Zhuang Yongyuan were left, accompanying each other in boring and clumsy practice over and over again.
After the music store closed, the space was left vacant. Kaiping Street's remote location meant it wasn't in high demand. Six months later, a collector of antiques and junk rented the space. His first move was to remove the glass door and replace it with a stainless steel roller shutter. Atop the shutter was a small, person-high door, always mysteriously ajar, leaving only a tiny crack, even in the middle of the night.
After taking care of Zhuang Fu's funeral, Xie Kang and Zhuang Yongyuan never came to Kaiping Street again. They didn't know when the antique shop went bankrupt.
They stood at the door and looked around for a while. People passing by thought they looked suspicious and kept looking back at them. Only the owner of the grocery store next door recognized Xie Kang and Zhuang Yongyuan and greeted them.
The antique shop looked nothing like the musical instrument store it once was. Xu Zhen tried to push the door, but it wouldn't open. So he gave up and said to Zhuang Yongyuan, "Let's go home."
There is not much furniture upstairs in Zhuang Yongyuan's house, and usually no one except Xie Kang comes here. Even though there are people living there, it seems empty and deserted. When so many people suddenly squeeze in, the crampedness of this small building becomes apparent.
Zhuang Yongyuan opened the closed door of Zhuang Fu's bedroom and dragged out a large suitcase from under the bed. He looked up and wanted to ask everyone to go away first, but three pairs of eyes were all on him. He didn't know how to start, so he just made up his mind and spread the suitcase in front of everyone.
In addition to the computer, the suitcase also contained a bunch of equipment including MIDI keyboards, drum machines, speakers, microphones, and many rolls of connecting cables of different specifications.
He ignored everyone's gazes, took the computer and placed it on the square table outside where water cups, wine bottles and ashtrays were placed, turned it on and inserted the card reader.
Several people gathered around a square table, staring nervously at the screen. Zhuang Yongyuan clicked on the hard drive interface, but only Drive C and Drive D were displayed; no external disk was listed.
Zhuang Yongyuan swallowed hard and subconsciously moved closer to Xie Kang, muttering to himself, "This SD card is a very old model. It might take a while to read it."
While Zhuang Yongyuan was speaking, the interface refreshed several times per second.
Time slowed down, and when the words "My Camera" appeared on the screen, the tense string in his mind suddenly broke. His vision was blurred, his mind was in a mess, but his hand clicked on it quickly as if it was a conditioned reflex.
There were so many photos that Zhuang Yongyuan tapped the touchpad for a long time before reaching the end. The photos taken by Li Xiuyu's Olympus compact camera were covered with a soft light, with a greenish hue and a slight graininess, like a thin layer of sand smeared on the lens of memory.
He clicked on a random photo and it happened to be a picture of himself and Xie Kang sitting cross-legged on the carpet, facing each other. He was holding a guitar, but he couldn't remember what song they were playing. The setting sun was bright, and the scene outside the window was overexposed, with the dark areas like a black fog enveloping something.
After seeing this photo, Zhuang Yongyuan finally understood why Li Xiuyu could tell at a glance that he was secretly in love with Xie Kang.
In the photo, his face was clearly facing the acoustic guitar in his arms, but he half-raised his head and glanced at Xie Kang's face, and the content of his eyes was even more obvious.
No one spoke. The only sound in the air was the muffled tapping of Zhuang Yongyuan's fingertips on the touchpad. Old photos appeared before them one by one, like a revolving lantern.
Zhuang Yongyuan, ostracized in junior high, has a solemn expression on his young, immature face, clutching his guitar tightly like a refugee's only possession. Xu Zhen stands in the corner of the camera, a look of worry on his face.
In the summer when Zhuang Yongyuan and Xie Kang officially met, Xie Kang said he was learning guitar, but he spent most of his time teasing Zhuang Yongyuan to talk more or singing and playing for him.
In the afternoon, Xie Kang and Zhuang Yongyuan leaned on each other for a nap. They shared a pair of headphones. Xie Kang slept so soundly that half of the headphones slipped out.
Lily Heart was officially established, and everyone practiced until late at night, looking tired but with shining eyes.
At the Christmas Eve performance, everyone walked onto the stage from backstage. The lights on the stage were dazzling, and a circle of light surrounded everyone.
On the school club day, Du Jiahao borrowed a school badge to sneak into No. 1 Middle School and sat on the lawn of the playground to perform. Most of the people in the school came to watch Lily Xin's performance.
With nowhere to plug in the speakers on the playground, they had to perform unplugged. Xie Kang and Du Jiahao repeatedly asked the audience to quiet down before the performance could begin. It was Xie Kang's first time singing at the top of his lungs, and towards the end, he just went with his gut and felt his singing wasn't good enough. Fortunately, his classmates were very supportive, cheering and cheering non-stop.
Beyond these shared memories, many more photos feature distinct characters: various versions of Du Jiahao. One with a solemn expression, one injured in a fight, one choking on water, one who lost his rhythm while playing drums but learned to twirl the sticks first, one with red eyes for unknown reasons. Li Xiuyu's photos of Du Jiahao are different from others, revealing a sense of daily life and intimacy, like a breath of fresh air.
Li Xiuyu's lens is more honest than Li Xiuyu himself and knows what he wants better.
After watching the latter part, Du Jiahao couldn't stand it anymore. He took the ashtray and went to the side to smoke. After a while, he came back and the photos on the screen had come to an end.
The day before Li Xiuyu's nineteenth birthday, the original generation of Lily Hearts had their last gathering, a camping trip in the suburbs. There won't be any newer photos on this SD card.
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