Lu Zi Wen climbed to his feet with difficulty and staggered out of the bar.
His body felt weak with exertion as if his heart had been ripped apart. The pain was intense, and his brain swam with dizziness. He could not understand where he was, neither did he know what happened.
His ears caught the sound of voices by the bar. When the door opened, a group"s loud laughter interrupted Lu Zi Wen"s thoughts, "Hey Qi Mu, you"re not dying out here, are you? It"s only eight o"clock?"
Lu Zi Wen abruptly turned and stared at the group of punks who spoke with horrified eyes.
They had dyed hair in shades of red and yellow, and they sneered a few words in his direction before turning back to the bar. They left the pale-faced Lu Zi Wen standing by himself, his eyes wide. What they were saying, it was——
Chinese!
Shocked for quite a while, Lu Zi Wen slowly raised his hands and looked at his fingers.
As a musician, the most familiar part of his body to him was not his face, but his hands.
Even among musicians, not everyone could have beautiful hands but, no matter what they looked like, the hands were the most valuable to them, even more so than their ears.
Even without ears, it was still possible to compose and play music, such as the master Beethoven. But, without hands, it was a complete farewell to the music industry and to their instrument.
Lu Zi Wen had a pair of slender, nice-looking hands with distinct joints and slim knuckles. This pair of hands were especially best when holding a brown violin. They looked good, but could not compare to the pair he currently had——
The nails were smooth and round, and the fingers slender and pale, a white jade that people would seldom want to let out of their sight. At the root of the left index finger, about a centimeter from the knuckle, a red cinnabar mole was shone shining brightly in the light of the city"s street lamps.
Lu Zi Wen subconsciously turned the left hand to look at the tips of the fingers, a thin layer of hardened skin adorning each.
These calluses belonged to a violinist!
Lu Zi Wen became suddenly clear-headed. Though his reactions were initially sluggish, he swiftly moved over to a curbside display window and peered at into it. When he saw the blurred reflection, he promptly froze.
The youth reflected in the gla.s.s was pale and had dark but could still be described as elegant and beautiful. Lu Zi Wen had spent enough time in Europe to see many beautiful people, including models, over the years. However, this youth was still exceptionally pretty, though not in the sense of feminine beauty.
Lu Zi Wen searched his brain for quite some time, then suddenly thought of a name.
"Qi. . . Mi?"
Lu Zi Wen frowned as the remembrance of this name also brought back other memories.
Qi Mu, these two words would probably not rock the boat too much in Europe right now, though perhaps a few would recall him. However, eight years ago, this dark-haired, dark-eyed Chinese teenager would have set off a Chinese fever, casting Vienna into a sensational hype for a long time.
He was a genius.
He had an excellent family. His father was the chief conductor of the famous Chinese S-symphony orchestra, and his mother was the chief of the S-symphony orchestra. Under the influence of such a family, he learned to play the violin at the age of 3 and was famous in the Chinese music industry by the age of 6. At the age of 13, he won the junior group championship of the Chopin International Violin Compet.i.tion.
His name became incredibly renowned throughout Europe the following year.
He traveled the world with his parents. Even at the age of 14, he gave a performance with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and achieved great success. Lu Zi Wen also came into contact with him at the time.
With his family’s reputation, this boy was arrogant and difficult toward ordinary people.
He looked down on everyone and never liked anyone. Every time he practiced in the orchestra, his nose would go up to the sky, and when the practice was over, he would leave directly, and even have others carry his case.
To be honest, Lu Zi Wen did not like Qi Mu, and he could even say that no one in the Vienna Symphony Orchestra liked this kid. But Qi Mu’s talent was truly amazing, and Lu Zi Wen, who had high standards, was convinced on that.
Qi Mu’s change occurred at the age of 14.
His parents were in a car accident, and the two died on the spot. Although the two died unexpectedly, they still left a substantial legacy to Qi Mu. So, although there were no relatives in the family, he could live well. Moreover, his parents were famous in the Chinese music industry, and their popularity was good. Many people were willing to take care of him.
However, if he was taught really well. . .
Would he have still suffered such a complete collapse afterward?
When his parents died, the boy with a talent higher than everyone was already arrogant. No one forced him to practice the violin. No one asked him to partic.i.p.ate in compet.i.tions. He did not hesitate to trample his talents into dust. It was rare for him to even see a violin.
Although his parents left him with many properties, it couldn’t sustain his lifestyle of lavish spending. By the time he was 18, he had to pick up his violin and rely on “selling art.” Although there are people who could not look on and wanted to help, he had no intention to do anything about it. He was always cheated out of money, but he still refused to change.
Lu Zi Wen heard people say that he once said such a sentence: "The two old fogies are fortunate enough to die early, or else I would have killed them sooner or later! I am forced to learn the violin all day, and they say I’m f.u.c.king gifted? f.u.c.k the talent! Even if this Laozi* has to beg for food, I won’t touch the d.a.m.n violin!"
(*An ancient Chinese philosopher. In this context, was used like saying “ore-sama”)
Of course, he hadn’t fallen to the point of begging for food. He was just stricken by the transition from his previous lavishness to his current lifestyle, and it left him depressed. Lu Zi Wen remembered that he seemed to have left Europe and returned to China at the age of 19. He never knew what happened to him afterward.
However. . .
“He. . . was using drugs. . .?”
Lu Zi Wen sat on the side of the road with his back against the window. The pain in his chest gradually weakened and almost disappeared entirely.
Lu Zi Wen remembered that when he woke up, his eyes flashed to the scene in front of him, a pile of white powder and a few discarded plastic straws on the small table. The other people in the bar were holding the same thing, their expressions full of obsessive madness. He fell to the ground for a long time, but even if he walked out along the wall himself, no one paid any attention.
Sitting on the ice-cold brick floor, Lu Zi Wen complexion paled.
His memory stayed in the backstage lounge of the Golden Hall, his face buried in the fiber of the carpet, how hard he struggled, and feeling as though his whole body was constricted by his throat, even moving a bit was difficult.
That feeling, that no matter how much he struggled to breathe there would be no air entering his lungs.
His trachea was completely blocked, he could only feel the oxygen in his chest growing less and less. His body was so painful that he was unable to extricate himself from it. At the moment before death, Lu Zi Wen felt desperate beyond h.e.l.l.
He hated it!
He hated the fact that Luo Yu Sen was so unfeeling and just watched him die!
He hated it!
He hated that he was ignorant and believed in such an animal!
Most of the causes of asthma were caused by allergies. Lu Zi Wen had not found out what his allergens were. But, he never thought that he would eventually die under the hands of Luo Yu Sen.
Perhaps it was the little dust on Luo Yu Sen’s hands, maybe it was pollen on his arm, but when the violent and sudden asthma attack struck, Lu Zi Wen had no path of resistance.
Lu Zi Wen reached out and grabbed his face, leaning back against the cold gla.s.s. The pa.s.sers-by looked curiously at this handsome youth, but Lu Zi Wen was unaware of it as he contemplated. Suddenly, he jerked his hand away and slammed it to the wall. He instantly sobered.
“Luo Yu Sen. . .”
“Luo. Yu. Sen!!!”
Smiling a dark and cold smile, Lu Zi Wen whispered the name of that sc.u.mbag between gritted teeth.
At this time, even though it was absurd, Lu Zi Wen understood what happened. He didn"t know if he really died, but thinking of that feeling, being so out of breath, he thought that he——Lu Zi Wen must have died.
And now, he was reborn in Qi Mu’s body.
“Luo Yu Sen, you said. . . you have to wait 92 years for me?”
“Then. . . you must wait for it.”
As if he could see the cold and shameless face of that sc.u.m, Lu Zi Wen narrowed his eyes into a dangerous stare and looked up at the city"s reddish night sky. His ears were clamoring with every type of noise, the sound of a car’s horn, pedestrians talking, the hum of footsteps. . .
Suddenly, Lu Zi Wen drew his mouth into a slow smile: "It turns out... this original, you, really did have a gift. Is this... absolute pitch?”
In response to Lu Zi Wen"s words, the stream of vehicles on the busy traffic formed a harmonious melody, and the whole city pounded with sound. And all the sounds split into pieces, one by one in Lu Zi Wen"s ears. From different directions, with different pitches, and even just the sound of metallic impact, Lu Zi Wen could hear its accurate rhythm.
Lu Zi Wen gawked for a long time, then he recovered: “Not only absolute pitch. . . Hey, aren’t you very talented?”
As Lu Zi Wen said, if it was never encountered, this kind of talent could not be believed.
All those sounds were as if they had thoughts, and they automatically went to their own position, rushing to tell him their direction, pitch and even the frequency of their tremors.
The absolute pitch was already very rare, and there were very few people in history to have it, such as the musical genius Mozart.
Although Lu Zi Wen did not know what kind of talent these masters had, he believed that the Qi Mu’s absolute pitch could not be inferior to them, and it. . . might even be higher. The sound of all things in this world was discerned and recognized, and it was something that Lu Zi Wen could not have imagined.
He finally understood why his parents would demand that Qi Mu not waste his talent.
“If you haven’t wasted all these years. . . I’m sure you wouldn’t die in that pub, but instead, you would’ve become one of the few people standing at the top of Vienna.”
Lu Zi Wen did not know the cause of Qi Mu’s death.
After leaving Europe, Qi Mu tended to loiter about and make a mess. So even if he began to accept the kindness from his parents’ friends, how could he live as he wished?
He took the money from the elders to go clubbing, pick up girls, and later even raced cars and took drugs. This made the elders cold, and they no longer wanted to see this rebellious music prodigy.
He did not touch marijuana for a few days, and this time drank too much wine, so he fainted then ate too much marijuana. The feeling of dreaming while drunk gave him the illusion of returning to the past years of brilliance. However, after his heart became vigorous and his blood went frantic, the genius, known as a rare genius, died in a dirty and dark bar. His peers and friends were still smoking drugs, no one even noticed his death.
And Lu Zi Wen woke up in his body when his corpse was about to stiffen.
“Di——”
A loud whistle sounded suddenly at Lu Zi Wen’s side, shaking his body, and fragments of memories poured into his brain. Only a few seconds later, Lu Zi Wen returned from that awkward state and hurriedly looked through Qi Mu’s life.
“So it turns out. . . you also wanted to go back to that place?”
He had already fallen, and he did not have the determination to quit the drugs. Nor did he have the confidence to work hard enough to return to the music hall’s stage. He just wanted to be the focus of the world"s attention, but he did not make an effort, so he now wandered bars and the underground streets.
After all, he was a flower that grew up in a greenhouse. Although he had been frustrated for eight years, he never suffered, so he had no courage to climb up from the bottom.
Lu Zi Wen sighed: "Then. . . let"s go back to that place together, Qi Mu.”
When his voice fell quiet, Lu Zi Wen felt that this body became light, as if the obsession that belonged to Qi Mu had finally disappeared.
The eight-year-old lifestyle had long been exhausted, his money was about to be completely spent, and his parents’ friends were not willing to help him again. It was a hopeless future for him, so he gave up.
“From now on, I am you, Qi Mu. I will make you the sound of Huaxia, I want everyone in Europe to know who you are, I want to let these two words spread all over the world! This is your last wish. . .”
“This is also my dream!”
“Qi Mu, we will go back to that place together!”
“Lu Zi Wen has died, now it’s the era of Qi Mu. . .”
“And it is about to begin!”
-
Vienna, 2 p.m.
A city of music that is half the world away down from B City was holding a not too fanciful funeral.
Most of the members of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra came to offer their condolences. They held white bouquets and walked to a man surrounded by wreaths to express their sorrow. At the end of the day, when the guests were almost gone, there was only a whisper amongst the crowd of departing guests.
“I heard. . . that Luo was taken away by the police?”
“Well, it seems that before Lu’s death, he had a fight with Lu Zi Wen, and the police are investigating it.”
“Oh, but Lu died because of asthma, this truly is regrettable!”
“Yeah, Lu was an excellent violinist. It’s a pity.”
“Hey, how could Lu not bring his medicine? This is truly a joke by G.o.d. . .”
The guests left in succession. After the last left the hall, a black Bentley slowly stopped at the entrance of the venue. Then, a pair of bright leather shoes appeared on the slate, then a handsome indifferent man got out of the car.
He walked into the mourning hall step by step, holding a large bouquet of white lilies in his arms, and did not speak. He just stared at the man in the black and white photo for a long time, as if to become a statue.
No one knew how long he took, but he put the white lilies in his hands before the photograph and finally turned away.
It was just a simple action, and he did not even say a word. This man who had been hailed as the king of modern cla.s.sicality disappeared into the mourning hall as if he has never been there. Only the white lilies swaying in the wind in the mourning hall he left behind told the truth.
“Min, I didn"t expect that when you just found him. . . this would happen," said a blond-haired man who waited at the entrance of the venue. Then he walked back to the car and sat down with him. He couldn"t help but turn and said: "This accident is lamentable. As to your Chinese culture, my condolences to you, Min.”
Min Chen turned to look at the trees that flashed by the window, his eyes deep and unclear, like a deep pool.
After a long time, he whispered, "Was it really. . . an accident?”
The blond man asked in surprise: “Min, did you say something?”
The solemn and elegant man shook his head. He lowered his eyes and covered the emotions in his gaze.
The blond looked at him puzzled, then finally turned around and stopped asking.
Min’s face was dull but handsome, and this beautiful face that was like a carving finally showed a trace of sadness, but it was well hidden within him.
Was it an accident. . .
Sooner or later, that much would be understood.
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Chapter translated by Kuroshinji and edited by Betwixted