One day after work, passing by the lobby of the office building, I noticed that Hai Linlin played the piano every day when she got off work, she was on a business trip for half a month, and the piano did not sound for half a month. The setting sun is shining into the hall through the glass curtain wall, and half of the piano is exposed to the red light of the setting sun, and the shiny piano paint and the sunlight combine to make the layer of dust on the piano very visible. Just out of love for the piano, I involuntarily walked up to the stage, found the rag that Hai Linlin usually wipes the piano, and carefully wiped the piano. I was careful not to wipe the piano clean without leaving my fingerprints on it. I was half-kneeling and looked up after wiping my piano legs, and when I was about to get up, I saw Hai Linlin standing under the stage looking at me and the piano. The hall was empty, unusually quiet, and I didn't notice anyone approaching, nor did I hear her approaching. She was smiling, just like the look she had when I looked up in the library more than eight years ago and saw her sitting across from me, an expression that I never forgot and that became an eternal memory in my brain, and I always thought I would never see that expression and the feeling that it gave me again. I smiled at her as I had been more than eight years ago – the only difference was that I no longer had the surprises I had been at that time – but with the calmness of her ordeal. But I still felt that it had happened too suddenly, and I remained in a half-kneeling position, my right leg on the ground, and my left hand holding a rag on my left leg. Eight years ago, she spoke to me and led to a story we had never told anyone before, and that first real conversation between us took my life into a trajectory I never thought I would have ever imagined. In front of a piano eight years later, I felt it was my turn to break the silence.

"You've been away for too long." I said, "There's a layer of dust on the piano, and I want to wipe it clean when I see it." ”

"You're very delicate." "It's always been like this, it's never changed," she said. ”

The moment she walked up to the stage, I stood up from a half-kneeling position. She walked up to me, took the rag from my hand, tore it in two, and gave me half of it, and we each wiped one side of the piano. After wiping, we all circled the piano half a circle and stood face to face in front of the piano. She took the half of the rag from my hand, crumpled it with her own half, and threw it where I found them. This was supposed to be the end of the matter, the two of them said goodbye to each other and left the hall of the office building, but just as she threw the rag together in the corner, the way she turned made me feel a little sad in the coming twilight, and I felt that I should not leave her here, and should stay with her for a while to calm my mind. And the smell of her unchanged shampoo filled the air as old as twilight, and I only felt that the past was like a flickering light. She and I are like fish in the net of time, time swept away everything in the harvest of years, but deliberately spared the two of us, so that we could not lose our way in the fog of each other in the days to come, and forget the unpleasant experience of the past.

"Can you play a few songs now?" I said, "I want to hear you play." ”

"Yes." She said.

She didn't ask me what I wanted to hear, but sat down at the piano and adjusted her breathing, and began to play, a piece I had never heard before, and it was so euphemistic that the notes seemed to have been washed and jumped in the hall. She showed a much higher level than when she usually played after work, just as I always admit that my painting skills are far inferior to hers, and my piano skills are far inferior to hers. As I stood behind her, I watched her emaciated figure, as it had been more than eight years earlier, gradually merge with the twilight, and felt more and more how visible and indelible the marks she had left on my life; In the same way, her attitude of playing the piano without distractions, I believe, is also out of respect for the past - she is playing for me alone. And I have always adhered to my life creed for her, and it was she who made me believe for a while how correct and indestructible my life creed is, and only my life creed can be high and able to overcome all the love senses of the mortal world. But it wasn't until a woman who was almost exactly like her appeared that I had abandoned the tenets of life that had made me self-righteous, and stepped on another sail that was about to set sail, wandering in the stormy seas, towards the shore that I would never see. And the various women I've had sex with, all of them flashing through my mind like a slideshow made of oil paintings. In the sound of Hai Linlin's piano, although I knew that she and I had long since lost the relationship beyond ordinary friends, and even once became strangers, when those women were remembered by me one by one, I still felt guilty for my infidelity to Hai Linlin. The notes of her piano struck my heart with remorse as I felt guilty. I really wanted to kneel in front of her, and tell her all my romances, so that she could see thoroughly that I was not the person who was as decent as she usually saw and abided by the laws of life and universal values, but a shameless person who had been covering up his crimes with gentleness and good style; Tell her all about it and make her hate me more than eight years ago even bigger — or ask for her forgiveness. Either way, the purpose of this is only to alleviate my own guilt and make the rest of my life better. I couldn't even control myself, and a few times when the words came to my lips, her music would change, and I would press the desire to speak back into my heart.

It wasn't until she turned around and looked at me after she finished playing that I came back to my senses in a trance, glad I hadn't said a word to her. But the desire to tell her everything ran rampant through my heart, and I felt like I would be completely crushed if I didn't say it. Just as I felt when I went back to the city by the sea in the demolished yard where I lived, I felt that I needed to paint to pour out my emotions; And with Hai Linlin in front of the piano, I felt that I urgently needed to say what I wanted to say to her through the piano.

"I want to play a song too." I say.

A puzzled look flashed on Hai Linlin's face, but she quickly returned to normal, and she still got up with that faint smile and gave me the stool. I adjusted my breath like she did, and then played a tune I didn't know the name of. That piece was written by Qiu Pei with a pencil on a piece of linen paper, with many traces of modification written on it, without a name, I practiced many times and played it very skillfully. Hai Linlin stood in front of my side, looking at me and the piano, and the piano made my heart stop without the slightest nervousness. I know I'm not as good as her, but I'm better at that piece and I think I can play it well. In the song, I am reminded of the city by the sea, the humid heat that greeted me when I first arrived in that city and just got off the train, the thin Yingxiu who went to pick me up like a two-dimensional silhouette at the station, the hurricane and the blizzard that destroyed the city, the kapok trees in the yard where I lived that bloomed every February, and the fatal blow that the same smell of her hair and Hai Linlin's hair gave me when I pressed Qiu Pei under me...... I thought of Hai Linlin again from Qiu Pei, who was diagonally in front of me and listened quietly to me playing this song whose name I did not know. I think that there is actually a logic to what happened before and after in life, and if I learned this piece to trace back to its roots, it can also be traced back to Hai Linlin, if it weren't for her, I wouldn't be able to play the piano. It can be said that I went to the city by the sea because of her, and I stayed in the city by the sea for three years and didn't go home because of her, just to stay close to the city where she used to stay. In my three years in that city, even though I thought I could see the illusion of the past with a normal mind, she still took up most of my brain's thinking time. It was only in front of the piano that I appeared with her that I played the piano in front of her that I also figured out why I was able to swing my fist at the shopping guide and knock her to the ground when Yingxiu fell into the obsession with that shopping guide. I was not so much protecting Yingxiu as I was protecting myself. In fact, since the first time I saw Hai Linlin at the art exhibition, the moment we played the piano together, all the things I have experienced related to her, all the thoughts related to her in my heart, and all the decisions I have made related to her are all seeking selfish self-protection.

The playing of that piece completely made the desire to pour out in my heart completely disappear, and I returned to normal, looking at Helen with a relieved expression.

"It must be a woman's tune." She said.

I only know that this piece was written by Qiu Pei on paper with a pen, and I never thought that it was made by her, Hai Linlin's words made me feel a little suddenly realized, this is indeed very likely to be a song made by Qiu Pei. And these words came from Hai Linlin's mouth, there is no doubt that in the end, I fully believe that this must be Qiu Pei's own music. But I don't know how to answer Hai Linlin, but I just said that it might have been a woman's song. She said she wanted to hear it again, and I played it to her again. Then she played two more tunes, and I listened quietly. At the end of the day, she asked me when I learned piano and if I taught myself. I answered truthfully.

"I started learning more than six years ago." I said, "A girl taught me." ”

"So." She said, "She must have made that tune." ”

We talked a lot, and it was the most relaxed and stress-free time I've talked to her since I met her, and I felt like talking to myself. Although there was a time when I missed the feeling of being with her, which was torturous, but also nostalgic, it often left me in a state of inner self-conflict. It wasn't until this time that I finally felt the feeling of talking to her with a completely normal state of mind and language, which was more comfortable, but not nostalgic. Still, I believe that I have been looking for this feeling, looking for an opportunity to speak to her as an equal, and to perceive that true love is the basic principle of no pressure. She was as cheerful as she had been when she graduated, she never spoke in a secret, and she was no longer or never had a dull aversion to the unpleasantness she had with me, as if she didn't know what was going to happen when we first met. I know that the reason why I am relaxed is that on the one hand, one note by one breaks down the wall that has been between us, so that we can see each other more completely; On the other hand, we have indeed reached the age when we have all reached the point where we can see through the nature of love. I believe she has also been looking for an opportunity to release the mistakes that have been tied to the past and put everything that concerns me on track.

She sat on a stool with her back to the glass wall, it was getting late, and the twilight was gradually covering the space we were, and we were both beginning to see each other's faces clearly, but it made the words they spoke cleaner and more accurate in the quieter environment. She speaks standard Mandarin, speaks clearly, and has a soft voice, with memories of the first time we talked to her in the library many years ago, and we talked about things from our recent work and some things that happened at the company, to what happened some time ago, to things that happened earlier. None of us noticed that the two of them were walking back in time step by step, from the present to the past, without any time jump. When we pivoted back to the point in time when I went to the city by the sea, we realized what we were doing, and we both knew that the wisest thing to do was to stop the precipice and let both of our time end at that moment. We tacitly stopped talking, leaving only a silence completely shrouded in darkness, and we all walked into the sentimental darkness unconsciously, not knowing how to rescue each other and let this chance encounter in front of the piano end.

"Time flies." She said.

"Yes, it's already dark." I say.

Actually, I know what time she means when she says time flies so fast, although we have been reduced to a relationship that is not even commensurate with each other, but the moment that I will never forget many years ago, coupled with the grinding of life, and the spirituality I just felt from the piano music, let me have a deeper and keener insight into the meaning of what she said, I know that she also knows that I can understand the meaning of what she said, and she is also waiting for me to let this chance encounter in front of the piano end naturally, and will not make the two of them feel any discomfort. That's why I've narrowed down what she called the broader concept of time to a point in time that belongs to us, so that she can better answer the call and let us all leave the office lobby and go back to where we should be in the evening.

"It's late." She said, "Then let's all go back." ”

We packed up everything and walked out of the office hall together, and unlike when we came out of the studio and library together more than eight years ago, I didn't send her downstairs to her dormitory. I watched her emaciated back fade away under the dim red street lamps of the park, turning the corner and never seeing it again.