It seems like an old friend has come.
The competition proceeded smoothly, and soon it was time for Li Yutao's group to perform on stage.
Song Weidong sat in an inconspicuous spot in a nearby corner and turned to see his aunt beside him with a slight frown.
He asked with concern, "You don't look well. Didn't you get enough rest? Why don't you go back first?"
Aunt forced a smile. "I'm fine. By the way, when is Xiao Xu's performance?"
“The next one is right.” After answering, Song Weidong glanced at Li Yutao, who was playing the violin with her head tilted on the stage. Seeing her radiant presence, he couldn’t help but smile.
Song Weidong turned to his aunt and whispered, "Aunt, you can't just focus on Xiao Xu. Didn't you see that Xiao Tao was already a little unhappy?"
My aunt looked surprised. "Huh? I didn't see her. What happened to her?"
"It's a long story," Song Weidong scratched his head, unsure how to summarize it concisely, and could only say vaguely:
"In short, Comrade Xiao Xu and I are just ordinary friends. My current girlfriend is Comrade Li Yutao. You should focus all your energy on her, just like I do, and don't worry about other female comrades."
"Okay, I got it." Auntie said with an awkward smile, "I'll go talk to Xiaotao after I finish watching Xiao Xu's show."
“No.” Song Weidong refused her sternly and decisively. “You come with me to find her now. She just finished her performance and definitely wants us to praise her.”
“But…” Aunt hesitated.
"No buts, let's go!" Song Weidong used his cane to forcefully pull her backstage. There, Xu Tangmian was talking to a man in a suit who was sitting with his back to her.
Song Weidong turned around as if he had seen something, then lowered his head and instructed, "Aunt, I'm going out for a bit, don't wander off."
My aunt nodded absentmindedly, her eyes fixed on the couple not far away.
Upon seeing her arrive, Xu Tangmian waved warmly to her and then patted the shoulder of the man beside her, signaling him to greet her as well. The man's arms were propped up on the accordion, preventing him from raising his hands, but he turned slightly to the side and nodded in acknowledgment.
Aunt's gaze suddenly became somewhat unfocused. This profile was just too similar to him... It had been almost twenty years since they parted ways, and this young man playing the accordion instantly pulled her thoughts back to decades ago.
Her father died fighting when she was one year old. Her mother supported the whole family on her own and, under the arrangement of the women's director, also took care of a mother and child with similar tragic backgrounds as her.
At that time, everyone said that the child's father and the woman's lover were also fighting outside. They said that her husband had died, and the child's mother was depressed all day long, her health was poor, and she had no breast milk.
The boy was three months younger than her and, like her, had grown up drinking her mother's breast milk. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, his father, who had been "dead" for several years, became an official, found them, and brought them, mother and son, to Beiping (Beijing).
The boy's mother, remembering the four years she and her daughter had spent together, brought them along. But not long after, he went to Moscow with his father, who was seeking medical treatment.
When she grew into a graceful young woman, the boy had also grown into a handsome man. That morning, as snow fell heavily, the tall man, wearing a gray-brown turtleneck sweater and carrying a suitcase, ran from the alley entrance into the courtyard, humming a song all the way.
She was busy bringing the dried goods into the house. Through the lattice of the courtyard wall, she saw him standing under the eaves, stamping his feet a few times, then shaking the snow off his head. His thick hair trembled with the movement.
He suddenly looked over, his bright eyes, like glass, fixed on her, and said excitedly, "You're Li Youlan, right? I'm Kong Lin, do you remember me?"
Later, he was admitted to Peking University and became the president of the student council. Every day after school, she could hear the sound of an accordion and the laughter of a group of young men and women coming from the next courtyard.
That day, he accompanied her to shovel snow on the street, carrying a large broom. As dinnertime approached and most of the people had left, he suddenly confessed his feelings to her and asked her to be his girlfriend.
She didn't sleep all night, she was so excited. She liked him so much.
But she knew he didn't have much romantic feeling for her. The childhood friendship had long since faded after years of separation; what he liked about her was simply her identity—an ordinary sanitation worker.
He muttered many things in the yard, and she remembered them all. She understood that he didn't really like her; he was just using her to realize some ideological ideas and relieve his hormones during his most impetuous youth.
He believed that bamboo doors should be paired with wooden doors, that poor boys who couldn't afford to eat should marry rich young ladies who had no worries about food and clothing, and that illiterate country girls should marry erudite university professors.
He confessed his feelings to her, and she didn't know whether to be happy or cry.
Too many girls liked him, but due to the huge gap between them, she didn't agree to be with him. However, the man continued to treat her and her mother very well as always.
She neither felt nor gave him any romantic feelings, but he always patiently taught her many principles from books as a friend and family member.
But these principles were just empty talk; he didn't understand them, and neither did she. After hearing about his accident, she was frantic with worry but couldn't help him at all.
This profile really looks like him…
Well past forty, she stared intently at the young man not far away, her feet unconsciously taking a few steps to the left, trying to see his face. But there was a group of children rehearsing to her left, and she couldn't push her way in any further.
She pursed her lips and remained silent, finally mustering the courage to go up and talk to him directly. But as another teacher called out, "Ready to go on stage," the man stood up again, carried the piano, and walked forward.
Seeing her flustered expression, Xu Tangmian came over and asked, "Auntie, is something wrong?" She dodged left and right, trying to catch one last look at the man before he disappeared around the corner.
The woman's silence left Xu Tangmian at a loss. She turned around and saw that Yu Chunsheng had already carried the piano onto the stage. Without bothering with politeness, she hurriedly said, "Auntie, I'm leaving now. The show is about to start."
Xu Tangmian took a step forward, and then heard a man shout from behind: "Youlan, what are you doing backstage?"
Yulan? That name sounds familiar.
Xu Tangmian suddenly turned around and looked at the woman again; she was Song Weidong's aunt.
Remembering the familiar eyebrows and the mole at the corner of her mouth, she suddenly realized.
No wonder she looked so familiar. Wasn't that the grandmother from Grandpa's funeral? Decades later, her hair had turned white, a few wrinkles had appeared at the corners of her eyes, a few age spots had appeared on her cheeks, and her lips had become thinner, but her eyebrows, eyes, and nose had hardly changed.
Xu Tangmian asked again in disbelief, "Are you Li Youlan?"
"You recognize me?" Li Youlan was surprised, then explained to herself, "Wei Dong must have told you."
Xu Tangmian suddenly didn't know what to do. In this unfamiliar era, she finally met the first acquaintance from her previous life.
Xu Tangmian was a little excited, but the performance was about to begin. She and Grandma Li Youlan only met once, decades later, at her funeral. This was really not a good time to reminisce.
Song Weidong and another man, presumably his uncle, have arrived. It seems they intend to send Grandma Li back home.
Xu Tangmian smiled and said, "Grandma... Auntie, you should go back now. I'm going to perform with the children on stage too."
Li Youlan nodded to her and gave her a thumbs-up.
The announcer was about to announce the program names when Xu Tangmian smiled, picked up the accordion from the table, and walked towards the stage.
Li Youlan looked hurried and rushed off the stage, ignoring the two men beside her.
Her husband, Liu Xingyao, suddenly grabbed her arm. "Weidong's girlfriend is inviting us to dinner. Let's go quickly."
Li Youlan frowned slightly. "Can't I just watch the show?"
"No way," Song Weidong said coquettishly. "If you don't go, Xiao Tao will complain about me again."
"Just a little while." Li Youlan was in a hurry to watch the show.
But then he was pulled back to reality. Liu Xingyao said, "What's so interesting about a bunch of kids singing? If you want to see that, have my son sing for you every day."
Li Youlan looked displeased and shook off her husband's hand: "It'll only be a moment, I'm leaving right away."
"Auntie!" Song Weidong couldn't help but rush up to stop her, throwing down his cane and running over, but the next moment he fell to the ground.
He had just finished surgery and the doctor told him to rest in bed. Li Youlan was so frightened that she and her husband helped him up and couldn't help but scold him: "You're a doctor, how old are you? You're acting like a child. Can you joke around with your health?"
Song Weidong clasped his hands together and pleaded with her: "Let me be frank with you. Before I went to Beiping, I had a fight with Xiao Tao. I told her out of spite that I used to like Xiao Xu, and now she and Xiao Xu are having a falling out."
...
"What kind of mess have you made!" Li Youlan said helplessly.
“She saw you talking to Xiao Xu just now.” He pleaded repeatedly, “Please, Aunt, don’t add fuel to the fire.”
...
Li Youlan sighed, "Alright, I'm not watching anymore. Let's go eat."
"Thank you, Auntie!"
However, as the group walked out of the venue together, Li Youlan couldn't help but look towards the stage.
The sounds of the accordion and piano were drowned out by the children's innocent voices:
"Tomorrow, tomorrow, this smile will be a field of spring flowers, a field of spring flowers~"
She saw the figure with his back to her on the right side of the stage again. Even though she knew it wasn't him, she still desperately shouted in her heart, "Turn around! Let me see you!"
The three people in front of her kept urging her on.
The music ended, and she had to leave, but the cry she had been suppressing inside her was being guided by a surging power to be released.
The thunderous applause served as a convenient cover; under the guise of it, Li Youlan shouted out her longing for him, a longing that had lingered for twenty years since their separation, to the figure on the stage:
"Kong Lin!"
The man on stage suddenly turned his face, but she was pulled away by her husband and didn't see it.
Li Youlan jumped up in a panic, but her husband was still scolding her in her ear:
"Why are you calling for him! For years, you've gone crazy whenever you see someone who looks like him. You've seen his body, and I dressed him in his burial clothes. Wake up!"
Li Youlan couldn't listen to a word and wished she could rush in and take one last look.
Liu Xingyao blocked her way, growling in a low voice, "Wei Dong is already thirty-two! Do you really have to make him lose face?"
Li Youlan stopped, looking at Song Weidong in the distance as he tilted his head to coax people, and murmured softly, "I made a mistake again."
She was then pulled into Liu Xingyao's arms, feeling his large hands gently patting her back, his voice as soft as his touch.
He seemed to choke up as well, but he still tried to comfort her: "Aren't we still trying to overturn his case? Everything will be alright, and he will bless us from heaven."
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