Rolls-Royce drives through the rugged San Francisco night, the evening breeze of the Pacific Ocean is the unrelenting song, and the moon is the most loyal guard, overlooking the joys and sorrows of this mountain town. (BGM - "Greasy Taste" Kim Minqi)

When passing by the majestic white jade palace-like San Francisco Opera, Cheng Xiaoyu told Rolls-Royce to stop, and when the car stopped on the side of the road, he pushed the car door, stood by the flower bed full of shrubs and looked up.

Cheng Xiaoyu remembered that on New Year's Day one year, Cheng Qiuci took him to watch the opera.

In general, winter and spring are the best seasons for opera, symphony and ballet performances, with September to December being the main opera season. The world's top San Francisco Opera Company presents a classic opera program every year, including "Carmen", "Serbian Barber", "Don Giovanni" and many more, and the performances are often sold out.

With Cheng Qiuci's economic ability at that time, he naturally couldn't afford to buy a ticket.

However, they don't need to buy tickets to enter the venue, because Cheng Qiuci has found a cleaning job here, for Cheng Qiuci, even if the salary of factories and restaurants is higher, she is reluctant to go, she would rather work two more jobs, and will stay in places such as libraries and opera houses where the salary is not very high.

Although Cheng Qiuci worked in the opera house, that was the first time Cheng Xiaoyu followed her mother to the opera house to watch a performance.

He clearly remembered that day he was dressed in a small suit and a black bow tie that he would only wear during the piano competition, and his mother wore a cheongsam that he rarely wore once, even though he and his mother did not have a seat and could only stand in the most remote corner of the stage.

The lights are dim, and on New Year's Day, an opera related to China is being staged on the stage of the San Francisco Opera, "Turandot" (Turandot).

At that time, Cheng Xiaoyu was only twelve years old, and he didn't have a deep feeling for Puccini's greatest work, and this kind of BT Chinese legend imagined by Westerners was even more incomprehensible, and he only felt a shock when he heard "Nobody Sleeps Tonight".

At this time, his mother was already in tears.

Cheng Xiaoyu couldn't understand why his mother was crying over a vulgar fairy tale, and he guessed that maybe depression had made her tears so low.

After a long time, Cheng Xiaoyu had more memories and realized that "Turandot" was not Turandot at all (Turandot means warm in Mongolian), and this story that began in bloody torture should have ended with Liu Er's suicide, leaving a huge exclamation point for the audience, but Franco Alfano added a seemingly warm and vulgar ending to the opera after Puccini's death.

made Turandot, who was not originally the heroine, the heroine, the heroine, and Liu'er, who was supposed to be the heroine, became a supporting role.

Cheng Xiaoyu still remembers the scene when his mother took off her beautiful and gorgeous cheongsam and changed into old clothes to clean up after the long opera, and he would also help her wring out the rag and watch her wipe the floor on the bright yellow stage barefoot.

The spotlight is so warm.

Cheng Xiaoyu, accompanied by Xu Qinning, stood in the wind and stared at this magnificent and cold building for a long time, and then returned to the car, directing Meng Guozhen to continue to move forward.

The quiet neighborhoods in these nights gradually overlapped with the memories of everything, and the strange thing is that after so many years, Cheng Xiaoyu's memories of the past are still extremely clear.

He remembers that the old apartment he lived in with his mother was a few blocks away from the school, and that he had to walk a few steep roads and how many mountain kapok plants he had to pass, that the shop he had just passed by and that the roller shutter was a bakery, and that the owner was a fat man who loved to laugh, that there was a Starbucks at the intersection next to the school, and that the beautiful blonde senior sister used to sit by the window, and he remembered that it was sunny everywhere in Hunter's Point. Bird-talking, but the streets were filled with grotesque hippies and punk youths with colorful hedgehog hair, and he remembered that the sun-drenched green ground was not filled with romantic couples, but with rows of ragged homeless people.

Memory is really a magical thing, after opening the valve, it is like a picture flowing in Cheng Xiaoyu's mind.

It wasn't until Rolls-Royce arrived at his former home, a small building called Christopher's apartment, that Cheng Xiaoyu came to his senses.

Looking through the window, it was an old three-story apartment, with cement grey walls repainted, pointed eaves and white window lattices as before, wires ripped low in the air, and vintage cars parked next to each other on both sides of the road.

Without waiting for Meng Guozhen to open the door, Cheng Xiaoyu couldn't wait to walk out of the Rolls-Royce, looked up at the wooden lattice window on the top floor, and he seemed to hear Mrs. O'Connor knocking on the window with a coat hanger downstairs and shouting loudly in her black voice as fast as a machine gun: "Rain, can you move quietly, as soon as you play the piano, my roof will fall into dust.....

Then the mother would poke her head out of the window and whisper sorry, and baked a small cookie at night, asking Cheng Xiaoyu to send an apology to Mrs. O'Connor's family, a resident on the third floor, although Cheng Xiaoyu was not willing at all, but his mother would always pat him on the shoulder and say: "Neighbors should live in harmony with each other, and mutual understanding is the most important thing." ”

Xu Qinning also got out of the car wearing Cheng Xiaoyu's usual dress, walked to Cheng Xiaoyu's side in her high-heeled shoes, and asked with interest: "You used to live here, much better than I imagined.....

Cheng Xiaoyu shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's much better now, but it turns out that this is a well-known uninhabitable area in the whole United States..... You can hear gunfire every night, not the sporadic gunshots, but the kind of continuous gunfire that makes you think that you are in a city where war broke out, and one of the things you have to learn to live here is to lie down ....."

Xu Qinning said: "Is it so exaggerated?"

Cheng Xiaoyu shrugged his shoulders and said: "This is a relatively quiet neighborhood, if you want to choose a 'lively' place, you will see black people wandering all over the street, the windows of the house are not glass, all are nailed up by wooden boards, and the cashier at the gas station is sitting in a transparent cell with bulletproof glass..... When you hear the sound of firecrackers, don't get me wrong, it must not be the sound of firecrackers, the submachine guns of the police, or the gangsters..... As for the drunks making trouble, turning on the stereo of the classic car, and throwing glass bottles, that's really a trivial thing that is not worth mentioning....."

Xu Qinning said with a look of surprise: "It's impossible, right?

Cheng Xiaoyu said with a smile: "My mother never brought a bag when she went out at that time, and she only carried twenty US dollars in change and a stopped credit card.... In fact, Hunter's Point is pretty good during the day, but the ghettos of Philadelphia and Chicago are more terrifying, like the Kowloon Walled City..... But it looks like it's all demolished now....."

Cheng Xiaoyu thought that after he won the prize money in the piano competition, the happiest thing at that time was that he could move away from this ghost place, and he was silent again.

Xu Qinning pulled Cheng Xiaoyu to the door of the apartment, and the words "Blue Inbox at 176 Constance Street" were propped up next to a shrub like a bird's nest, and there was no light in the whole apartment.

Cheng Xiaoyu, who was dragged away by Xu Qinning, said helplessly: "It's so late, there's nothing to see...."

Xu Qinning said: "It's all here, just take a look!" As soon as she arrived at the door, Xu Qinning exclaimed and said, "Come and take a look!"

Cheng Xiaoyu looked at it, and under the dim corridor lamp with a cone-shaped iron sheet, next to the familiar white lattice wooden door, there was a wooden sign with English and Chinese writing on it: "Cheng Xiaoyu's former residence, please make an appointment to visit"........

Cheng Xiaoyu watched a few moths flying in front of the wooden sign, a little crying and laughing, I don't know if this is a surprise or a fright, and said: "I don't know how much it costs to see it once....."

Xu Qinning said: "No matter how much money you charge, I have to buy this place...... Then build a Cheng Xiaoyu memorial!"

Cheng Xiaoyu said with a black line: "Do you want to make me a mummy, and then use it as a treasure of the town hall?"

Xu Qinning smiled and said, "Of course not, just make a wax figure and put it here..... Tickets have to be sold for at least $100 each! Don't be too expensive, cheap won't show the love of your fans!"

Cheng Xiaoyu knew that Xu Qinning had really done it, so he knocked on Xu Qinning's forehead and said, "Don't you really mess around like this.....

Xu Qinning said: "Then it depends on your performance!"

Cheng Xiaoyu was about to tease Xu Qinning, when a somewhat old question sounded through the wooden door: "Who is outside?"

This familiar voice was the landlord's grandmother Teresa, Cheng Xiaoyu didn't expect to be woken up by the landlord's grandmother, and subconsciously asked, "Grandma Teresa?"

"Are you .....?"

Cheng Xiaoyu said: "I'm rain..... I'm sorry to bother you so late!"

“rain？”

Before Cheng Xiaoyu could answer, the door creaked open, and Grandma Teresa's wrinkled face appeared in the narrow crack of the door with an anti-theft chain. When she saw clearly that the man in front of her in a shirt and trousers was really Cheng Xiaoyu, who had appeared countless times in TV magazines, Grandma Teressa's face smiled like a chrysanthemum, she pushed the door, the door made a loud noise, and she looked at it very unexpectedly, only to find that the anti-theft chain had not been untied, and hurriedly said: "You see I'm really happy! That's how old I am, I always make mistakes....."

Cheng Xiaoyu smiled: "It seems that there is no change when you go with me, and your body is still so good!"

The fat old lady Teresa with white hair and face full of age spots took off the anti-theft chain and pushed the door open with some slowness: "The body is fine, but the brain is not very bright....." After opening the door, I saw the slim Xu Qinning and said: "This is your girlfriend, right? I saw it in a magazine..... I'm even better looking than in the magazine!"

Xu Qinning bowed slightly and said, "Grandma Teressa, I'm Xu Qinning, I'm really sorry, we still disturbed you so late!"

Teresa waved her hands with a smile on her face and said, "It's okay, it's okay, I read the newspaper in the past two days and said that Rain would come to San Francisco, and I was thinking that he would definitely come to see it..... I just didn't expect it to be so late! I'm glad I haven't fallen asleep yet!"

Cheng Xiaoyu glanced at the wooden sign of "Cheng Xiaoyu's Former Residence" and asked, "Grandma Teressa, hasn't the house I lived in been rented out?"

Grandma Teresa raised her head and said with a strange expression: "Of course not! How can you rent it out, I have collected your father's rent for fifteen years, how can I rent him out....." After a pause, Grandma Teresa also looked at the sign and said: "It's just that after you became famous, many reporters looked everywhere for the place where you once lived, and there were many Chinese people, so I hung this sign, lest they couldn't find a place and go around asking and disturbing the neighbors...."

Cheng Xiaoyu cared about the fact that it was naturally not why Teresa hung a sign, but that Su Changhe said that he had quit the house, but he had paid the rent for fifteen years, and he said with a surprised face: "Has my father paid the rent for fifteen years?"

Teresa nodded, and said with some surprise, "Don't you know?"

Cheng Xiaoyu felt strange in his heart, recalled it carefully, and said hesitantly: "This matter ..... I really don't know.... Can I go up and have a look now?"

Grandma Teresa hurriedly removed her somewhat bloated body and said, "Of course, that house is still yours.....

Cheng Xiaoyu and Xu Qinning walked into this typical American-style house, and the interior of the house was exactly the same as Cheng Xiaoyu left many years ago, with light green floral wallpaper, heavy glass chandeliers, leather sofas covered with countless lines, and light brown walnut stairs.

Teresa took out the key from her pocket and handed it to Cheng Xiaoyu, then pressed the staircase light and said, "You still have to be careful when you go up.... I won't go up up, the stairs are so steep that I can't even climb them....."

Cheng Xiaoyu took the key and thanked him, told Meng Guozhen to wait at the door, and then walked up the stairs with Xu Qinning.

It was still the familiar creaking sound, which was particularly deep in the quiet apartment building, especially Xu Qinning's high heels, which struck a crisp echo, Cheng Xiaoyu remembered that the stairs on each half floor were twelve, and when he passed the door of the O'Connor family, Cheng Xiaoyu thought to himself that this noisy family didn't know what was going on now, he remembered that Mrs. O'Connor often pouted her fat ass and chased her little son with slippers, and he didn't know where the black kid with big eyes and snot who liked to call him "fat ass" was.

When he walked to the third floor and saw the light brown wooden door, Cheng Xiaoyu felt like a world away, he turned his head to Xu Qinning and smiled reluctantly and said, "I used to live here.....

Xu Qinning's diamond stud earrings shone in the warm light, like a crystal teardrop, spreading a halo through time and space in Cheng Xiaoyu's pupils, Xu Qinning smiled and held Cheng Xiaoyu's somewhat trembling hand and said, "Open the door..... Let me go in and have a look!"