The October breeze seemed to blow everything away, the pedestrians were lonely, the crabs came ashore, the big fish jumped up to the river bank to commit suicide, the sun hid in the clouds, and even a few drops of rain did not bother to rain, only the sea was as blue as ever, the kapok trees in the yard were still standing, and the old man, who was deaf and could only hear his own voice, was found quietly dead in his house. A few more families moved in the yard, and they set their tables in the yard and ate half-dead fish and crabs raw.

Qiu Pei moved out on a somber October afternoon, passed her teacher certification exam, and quit her hotel job. She had already packed everything when I knew it. I asked her where she was going, and she told me she would go home first and then look for a job teaching and educating people. She didn't leave early, just to wait for me to come back and tell me in person the fact that she was moving out, and to thank me in person for the selfless help I had given her for more than a year. I sent her downstairs and the driver to carry the things to the car, she was going to the post office to send them home, and then took the evening bus home, I told her I was going to drop her off, and she refused. She turned to me and waved goodbye before she got into the car. The car stopped again after more than 20 meters, and she got off the passenger seat and returned to me.

"You feel sad even when you're happy. She said, "You can never play the piano like this." ”

She got back in the car and waved goodbye to me – and this time she was really gone.

I never saw her again.

In the first few days after she left, an unsinkable sense of loneliness lingered in my room, in my studio, on my commute to and from work, in the dining room, in the paintbrush, between the keys, and for a long time. I always thought I was alone, and it was only then that I realized that I was not alone, but that I was under protection, and that all protection, although it was accidental, did save me from being corrupted by the peculiar format of solitude and forgetting myself. I felt more deeply how important she was to me, how kind she was, and yet I was ashamed to let her smell my "breath" was full of another woman's smell. "I suspect she must have not slept that night. Before that, she almost always went in and out without makeup, and only rarely wore light makeup for hotel activities. For the rest of the night, she wore fashionable makeup, not purely for the hotel's events, but for me—I believe—that was true. She used makeup to hide her heart, separating the distance from me, and then pretending to be nothing, so that I could avoid the guilt in my heart. She spent the last time working on it, and I never noticed it, thinking that everything was due to her character, and she also avoided the confusion in front of me. When she felt that my breath was "full of the smell of another woman," she must have also known that my heart was surrounded by a strong wall, and that what was protected in that fortress was real and unreal, but it must be indestructible, and that the deepest secrets would never be known and would never disappear.

I tried to find her in the keys, and when I played the Waltz, the softness of her lips seemed to come with the sound, but quickly dissipated. In order to keep her, I played even harder, for fear that the song would be interrupted, and some things would disappear and never be recovered, until my fingers cramped and I couldn't press the keys, and the softness of "Waltz" was completely gone. I got up and punched the piano a few times.

"Everything is fake. I said.

The next day, I had someone come over and fix the electric piano for 1,200 dollars. I put it back in place and watched the score and practiced Chopin's Etude in C minor. The piano sounded, the memories followed, and I felt like I was sinking into a quagmire of déjà vu, and her departure left my life empty.

I sat on the couch in Yingxiu's living room, trying to dilute the memories of her through the hard memories of her when I first arrived in the city. Yingxiu's shaved hair has grown new stubble, standing on top of his head one by one, as if he has changed to another person. In the end, he was unable to complete the all-encompassing task, and he kept his promise and shaved his head. But he said that he had found new techniques and ways to work in the failed work he led, and he believed that he would make a big difference in the next work. He changed his face again, his salary increased, and his life became more nourishing. I asked him if he wanted the camera that had been with me all along.

"What camera?" he said, "why don't I have any impression?"

I continued to sleep in Yingxiu's living room for many days in a row, just to escape the courtyard and my own house that brought me back to Qiu Pei's memory. Yingxiu didn't mind at all that I heard the sound of him and Shin Xiang upside down in the bedroom, I was always sleepy and couldn't disturb me with anything. He is a talented worker, forward-thinking, creative, and has a brain-teaser that is set up like a professional brainteaser machine, always able to give a perfect solution to seemingly difficult things from unexpected places. Of course, there is absolutely no law for everything, and it is difficult for him to complete the work of absolute death, and the shaving of his head is an example. His willpower and momentum are sometimes firm and sometimes weak, and every time he completes his work well, he immediately shows sluggishness, as if he never took his work to heart. Because of this, he has never been promoted to a good position. But the leader took him seriously, and was often temporarily reported by the leader as a firefighter, but he was soon demoted because of a major mistake. The leader told him that there was a management position in the company waiting for him to sit in, as long as he completely threw away the occasional sluggish mental head. Every time he promised to lead, every time he broke his trust in the leader. He is committed to it, but in this matter he is not ordinary.

He gave me a key to his door and said I could go to his house at any time. One late night, I opened the door and saw two naked bodies on the couch, gasping for breath on the girl, and the two of them forgot to hear the door open. My presence startled them all, and so did I. I closed the door and stood in the doorway, waiting for them to vacate the living room. In less than a minute, he opened the door and draped a bath towel.

"I'm sorry. He said, "I'm scared of you." ”

I felt that he needed precious personal space and that I could no longer be with him, so I gave him the keys and told him to call him later. He told me to take the keys with me.

"I don't necessarily have time to open the door for you. He said.

I continued back to my yard, and no one had moved in to the room next door. I moved all my belongings into the next room, the room where I had been living in the first place, and the three paintings on the wall were still hanging securely. Every night in the night, I think of the people who lived in this room and the feeling she gave me that I will never forget. I continued to practice the piano, I never knew what Qiu Pei said "you are sad even when you are happy" is like, she said that this state will never talk about playing the piano well, I believe that her persuasion to me in music must be golden and jade. I had to figure out what it looked like to be "happy and sad" in order to better follow and fulfill her teachings. I've been looking for answers, but I haven't found them. Several times, I tried to call her impulsively, but I refrained. Finally, one day I couldn't hold back anymore and wanted to ask her what kind of state it was. I dialed her number, and there was a voice prompt on the other side of the phone, "The phone you dialed is empty", and I realized that I hadn't spoken to her on the phone since she left.