Su Mingan opened his eyes.
He stared at the dark ceiling, thinking back to the meeting.
He is "Number One" and the person with the highest status. If he can take the opportunity to come up with some plans, he can control the overall situation invisibly.
He closed his eyes and fell into sleep again.
The night wind blew on his cheeks through the window screen. He wrapped the quilt around his head and turned his back to the window.
...So tired.
He only had three short days of rest before the end of the Eighth World, and he also had to endure the temptations of the organizers... His mental state had not recovered at all.
Perhaps because it was late at night, the sounds of gunfire and fighting outside the window stopped, and were replaced by a tune that sounded very much like the sound of a piano, with someone playing an instrument.
He had a dream amid the sound of sleep-inducing nocturne.
…It was a winter night, and as a child he played a Schubert serenade.
Perhaps he was just too tired, and he actually started to have such dreams.
He missed a note, and the piano case was pressed down by the woman's own hands, hitting the backs of his hands.
He pushed her away. The woman saw the blood and burst into tears, saying that she would take him to see a doctor, but she seemed to have forgotten that this was the injury she had just caused.
[Ming An... Mom, I am in so much pain. People outside say that I only have skills but no emotions. You have emotions, so why can't your skills keep up?]
[You don't know how much your mother envies you. Your piano music is my most precious treasure. But why, why do you waste this talent? ]
[If I hadn’t met your dad… If your dad could spend more time with mom, if your dad didn’t have to be on duty, train, be on duty, or stay out all night…]
[If Dad could be by Mom's side when she was most vulnerable, if Dad didn't always disappear... Mom wouldn't have become like this...]
Anxiety, sadness, joy, anger... He had never seen such a mixture of emotions on a person's face.
The woman's expression was half happy and half angry, as if half of her face was torn apart. One corner of her mouth was upturned, as if she was smiling, while the other corner of her mouth was pressed down uncontrollably in anger.
She reached out and grabbed his bloody wrist, as if she wanted to crush his bones.
So he rushed out without hesitation and rushed downstairs.
Women are a difficult person for him to evaluate.
...If I really have to say, she is a lunatic, a mentally ill lunatic. Only music can make her black and white life come alive, and only emotional music can enter her almost rigid brain.
Her love for piano and music has reached a terrifying level.
Sometimes, she almost knelt down and begged him to play the piano, looking at him as if he were her lover...but when he played it wrong, she would be so disappointed in him that she wanted to break his hand.
[Ming'an, Ming'an, don't leave... Mom knows I was wrong, stay with me, I will take you to see a doctor.]
[Now that your hand has healed, Mom will teach you to play Debussy’s “Moonlight”, okay… Bach, Canon, Czerny… Mom will practice with you every day, please don’t leave…]
[Ming An, Mom is in so much pain, so much pain... Mom wants to die, but Mom can't bear to leave you...]
He didn't look back.
Perhaps the only thing that can sustain a woman's life is music, and he can bring it to her.
So, in her morbid and absurd mind, he was no longer her child, but an emotional piano-playing robot that could bring her satisfaction and happiness.
During a concert tour a few years ago, she was criticized by a master for having "no emotion, only technique", and she became like a madman, staying at home and not going out.
She felt as if she could see pairs of eyes laughing at her and making random comments about her whenever she went out. Once she went online and logged into a forum, she would see one negative comment after another about her.
Her madness reached its peak after her husband was on duty for a long time and did not come home all night.
The complexity of life made her originally young and beautiful face become more and more yellow, stained with ugly spots that could not be erased. Her hands began to have chilblains, and every winter when she played the piano, her arms would tremble in pain.
The marriage she thought was happy had worn away her beautiful youth. She no longer compared lipstick shades or looked in the mirror. Instead, she often sat in front of the piano all day long, dishevelled, without touching a single key.
He was four years old and she was crazy.
His grandfather disappeared before he was born, his grandmother who protected him died not long ago, and his grandparents were unwilling to run the family, so the housework fell into his hands.
My father often only came back once every half a month. The family's originally affluent financial situation became worse and worse. The medicine the woman took was very expensive, the house began to become smaller and smaller, and the car was gone. The only thing that could not be replaced was the piano that the woman often stared at.
Later, the woman began to teach him to play the piano, and her hope was so burning that he could not resist.
…After that, it became like that.
He rushed out of the building and dragged his thin body outside. The world was big, but he didn't know where to go.
The scene in the dream was vague, and the memory of his childhood was not very clear. Finally, he saw an ordinary street... a street that was slightly bleak, but not dim.
A child, walking alone on a deserted street late at night...what was he thinking at that time?
...Perhaps, he thought of his grandmother who was still alive and would take out maltose from her pocket to give to him. Perhaps, he thought of the time when the woman was not so crazy and the three of them went on an outing to the park...The spring days are warm, and the warm wind will wrap around him. That kind of warmth is definitely more endurable than the cold wind at this time.
He endured the pain in his hands and walked on the asphalt road between the brick and stone platforms on both sides. The surroundings were empty and quiet, and the windows were dark in the middle of the night. Perhaps there were children huddled in their parents' arms and playing, but all this had nothing to do with him.
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