Chapter 22 The Opportunity, Second Album
Wen Feng called his mother back, feeling that Yu Xue was really not suited to return to work.
Whether facing fans or ordinary audiences, she should give her best performance. If her performance is unsatisfactory or something unexpected happens, Yu Xue's confidence will be hit even harder, and she may really not be able to sing anymore.
Wen Feng is willing to support her for the rest of her life; she doesn't even need to work for the rest of her life.
But as her mother said, Yu Xue doesn't care now, but if she regrets it when she gets old and is immersed in this regret every day, her condition will worsen.
She has already lost a lot. If she loses even the job she loves, then all she can hope for is Wen Feng and Liu Xin. She can't be mentally ill for the rest of her life. If this situation continues, the two of them will torment each other for the rest of their lives.
He has to help Yu Xue make the selection.
A year, at least a year of rest.
Let Yu Xue completely disappear from the public eye this year and focus on recovering.
As Wen Feng lay in bed that night, he thought that if Yu Xue hadn't married him, she probably wouldn't have given up her job and wouldn't be alone in that square room, lost in thought. No husband would be as irresponsible as him; all these years, he hadn't even noticed that Yu Xue had a problem.
If it were someone else, they might have discovered it much earlier, and things wouldn't have escalated to this point.
After seeing the doctor off, he sat by the flower bed for a while, then mustered his spirits and went to comfort Yu Xue.
The first thing Yu Xue said when they met was that she was "hungry".
"Okay, I'll have the chef cook." Wen Feng tried to turn his bitter expression into a smile. He sat down on the edge of the bed, took Yu Xue's hand, and looked at the white cotton cloth on her face. It was so big that it covered half of her face, almost covering her eyes as well.
After hesitating for a moment, he turned his gaze to Yu Xue's eyes, cleared his throat, and asked, "What would you like to eat?"
Yu Xue looked at his hand and said, "I'm very hungry today, and I want to eat more. I want to eat... sweet and sour pork."
“Okay,” Wen Feng said. “Then I’ll have the chef prepare it. But we can’t overeat, it’s bad for our health. Let’s eat half a bowl more than usual, okay?”
"Okay." Yu Xue nodded. "Did you come to see me earlier because there was something you wanted to tell me?"
Wen Feng: "I originally wanted to hear you play the guitar, but since you're injured, let's skip it."
"What's the big deal?" Yu Xue sat up, but Wen Feng pressed her down. "I just... uh... if you hadn't come in, I wouldn't have even realized I was injured. I should thank you. Shall I play the guitar for you?"
"Okay." Wen Feng looked at her slightly pursed lips, leaned down, and gave her a light kiss. "I'll go get your guitar."
Yu Xue's guitar was hanging on the wall. For a period of time during her junior year, Wen Feng could hear Yu Xue practicing the guitar at home every day. She said that the dormitory had signed up for a New Year's Eve party together, and she was the accompanist, so she couldn't embarrass her roommates.
He touched the strings; they hadn't been played in a long time and were covered in dust.
He and his aunt wiped it quickly, then took it to Yu Xue.
Yu Xue slowly sat up again, reaching out with her slender hand to catch it. Wen Feng looked at her thin wrist and was afraid she wouldn't be able to catch it.
But she caught it, holding it very steadily.
She propped the lower half of the guitar against the bed, resting the other half on her body. She said, "When I was little, I loved music. My mom took me to an after-school program. I think it was called... Little Star? There were many different classes there. After I joined, I suddenly didn't want to learn the guitar anymore. I wanted to learn to draw instead, so my mom enrolled me in that class. But after a while, I didn't want to go anymore. I still wanted to learn the guitar, so my mom enrolled me in an electronic keyboard class."
She smiled and stroked the guitar, saying, "I always lose interest quickly. Later, my mother enrolled me in almost every extracurricular class at that institution, and I attended them in rotation, but I didn't stay with any of them for long."
She plucked a string, paused, and suddenly asked, "What about Yu Xue in this world? Did she learn it?"
Wen Feng: "She did study music, but she only went to an arts exam preparation institution in her senior year of high school. However, she started learning guitar on her own after she went to university."
He looked at Yu Xue's clumsy fingers and said, "She mentioned Little Star to me."
Yu Xue stopped pointing, looked up, and listened to him.
Wen Feng: "I remember that she stayed at my house during her third year of junior high school. I was a freshman in college at the time, and I finished class early, so the task of picking her up from school fell to me. One time, on the way home, she told me that she really wanted to learn to draw when she was little, and she dragged her mother to the Little Star Training Institute. She said that every time she passed by there, she would see the older brothers and sisters carrying drawing boards out, and the apples on the drawing boards looked so real. She really wanted to go there."
Wen Feng rubbed his fingers, looking at his fingertips. "She and Chen Wanxi were passing by Little Star when she pulled Chen Wanxi aside and said she wanted to go in and take a look, just one look. She thought that as long as her mother saw those beautiful paintings, she would definitely pay for it for her."
"So, was it finally reported?" Yu Xue asked impatiently, as if she were listening to a story.
Wen Feng nodded. "I signed up. The aunt at the front desk said a lot of things. Although Chen Wanxi was very reluctant, she still signed up. Chen Wanxi said, 'You chose to sign up yourself, so you have to study hard.'"
After hearing this, Yu Xue breathed a sigh of relief, "I thought that most of the time, the story wouldn't end with a reward."
Wen Feng twitched his lips and said, "But Yu Xue said at the time that it would be better not to sign up. From then on, she had to draw every night after finishing her homework. Sometimes it was already very late after finishing her homework, but her mother still had to make her finish a drawing before she could go to sleep, and it had to be well done, taking three hours. Chen Wanxi would check it the next day, and if she hadn't drawn it, she would be scolded all day. If Chen Wanxi was in a bad mood, she would even be beaten. Once, the teacher forced her to make a blackboard newspaper. By the time she finished, it was already seven o'clock. She finished her homework at ten o'clock. At that time, she was only in elementary school, and she usually went to bed at nine-thirty."
"She asked Chen Wanxi, 'Mom, can I not paint tonight?' Her mother said, 'No, didn't you say you wanted to sign up? Didn't I sign you up? Are you just trying to waste my money?'"
"There was nothing Yu Xue could do, so she still drew it. It was already midnight when she finished, and Chen Wanxi was already asleep. But when she woke up the next morning, she still got a scolding because she made too much noise while washing up at night and woke Chen Wanxi up."
After Wen Feng finished speaking, the room remained silent for a long while.
Yu Xue asked, "That's her daughter, why doesn't she love her?"
Wen Feng: "Yu Xue said that she may have postpartum depression, which has not been treated. Her father does not love her, so he does not care about her. She can only take her anger out on the child."
One person's misfortune is the misfortune of an entire family.
It seems like no one is wrong, yet everyone is at fault.
But neither of them can forgive the other.
The silence lingered in the room, finally broken by the sound of a guitar.
Yu Xue seems to have finally found a way to play the piano.
Her voice flowed gently from her lips, creating ripples in the warm room.
The lyrics say, "If you can, please forget the wind and snow outside," and "If you can, please forget the gale last night."
"If you can, please stay in the mirror and talk to me." Wen Feng couldn't help but sing along with the guitar music.
"If you can, please hold onto my reflection and don't let me fall." Yu Xue's voice is very special, with a peaceful detachment that makes the pleading in the lyrics less heavy and carries just the right amount of self-respect.
She hasn't sung in a long time, and she doesn't remember some of the lyrics very well.
But Wen Feng remembers that there were several times when she almost couldn't continue singing, and it was Wen Feng who helped her keep singing.
Amazingly, she still remembered the sheet music and didn't play a single note wrong.
When she looked up, she noticed Wen Feng's eyes, which were gazing at her tenderly with a smile.
It seems that when I sing this song, I can really forget the wind and snow outside and the gale last night.
When the song ended, Yu Xue finally regained her senses from Wen Feng's eyes. She immediately looked away and moved the guitar away, saying, "I haven't played in a long time, I'm so rusty."
"No, it's very good." Wen Feng moved closer to her. "It sounds great, exactly the same as the voice in my phone ringtone. I was worried you wouldn't be able to sing it and would be sad, but I didn't expect you to sing so well."
Yu Xue fiddled with the pick in her hand, "What's there to be sad about not being able to sing... I stopped caring a long time ago."
Wen Feng looked at her long fingernails and said, "You said you released a second album in another world, can you play it for me?"
"Okay." Yu Xue seemed to be in a better mood when she talked about this. Her second album earned her two of the most prestigious awards in the music industry.
Every time her second album is mentioned, her achievements are brought up.
She deftly picked up her guitar again, raised her chin, and said, "Today, I'll make you the first person to hear this song."
Wen Feng: "Okay. I'm honored."
Yu Xue lowered her head and plucked the strings of her zither...
She plucked the strings twice, but her fingers suddenly got stuck. She sat there for a long time without starting to play.
She strummed the guitar pick a couple of times, producing a few beautiful notes, but then she couldn't play anymore.
Wen Feng realized he had made a mistake.
He thought Yu Xue's second album was just not perfect; it might only have a rough framework but no lyrics, or maybe just a short section.
He just wanted to hear a demo, give Yu Xue some encouragement, and see if she was in the mood to improve it.
Although Yu Xue's current health condition does not allow her to perform on stage, she can still release an album and record songs.
He didn't consider the worst-case scenario: there might never be a second album, and all of this was just Yu Xue's dream.
She only dreamt of how bright the future would be, but she lacked the energy to create a second album. Dreams don't automatically create songs.
She fiddled with the guitar, moving the pick back and forth.
But not even a short rhythm could be played.
“I remember it was…” she asked, fiddling with it a couple more times in confusion.
"Perhaps it's been too long, and I've forgotten." Wen Feng quickly took the pick and guitar from her hand, afraid that she might hurt herself in her panic. "After all, we've been here for so many years. Even a god would forget these little details."
Yu Xue looked at her hands, "Hmm...maybe?"
Wen Feng placed the guitar in the corner of the room. "It's okay. Your talent and skills are still there. One day, you'll remember them. Maybe all you need is a trigger."
Yu Xue stared at him and blurted out, "Where are we going to find this opportunity? Where is it...?"
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