Hedgehog on Guitar Strings

Luo Yi (is a well-known prick in the fifth middle school) - irritable, rebellious, and the last in grades. He uses his fists and cold face to wrap himself up like a hedgehog that no one can approach. The only thing he cares about is his ten-year-old sister Luo Li. He has long since stopped caring about his parents' neglect and teacher's rejection. Until that rainy night, after he had a big fight with his family, he aimlessly broke into the concert hall next to the school. Someone is playing an electric guitar on the stage. The wild notes split the air like electricity, penetrating a corner of Luo Yi's heart that had never been touched before. He didn't know how long he stood in the audience, but he only remembered that his heart was beating faster than the drums. That person's name is Ye Qi. The first in grade, the gentle academic master, and the perfect student in everyone's eyes. But no one knew that he would hide his hottest emotions into his guitar late at night. "You play... Very noisily." Luo Yi said, scratching his neck. Ye Qi raised his eyes to look at him, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly: "But you listened to it all night." From then on, Luo Yi began to appear frequently in the concert hall. He didn't know why he came, he just couldn't help it. Ye Qi didn't ask, occasionally handing him a bottle of water, and occasionally asking him to help tune the music. They are like two instruments with completely different frequencies, but they play the same melody inexplicably. Until rumors spread, until pressure came from all directions, until someone pointed at Luo Yi and said, "Don't you feel ashamed to hang out with that kind of person?" Ye Qi stopped smiling in front of Luo Yi for the first time and asked, "Do you feel embarrassed?" Luo Yi didn't say anything, turned around and left. Three days later, the sound of guitar rang out again in the concert hall. Ye Qi looked up and saw Luo Yi standing in the same place, soaked to the skin, holding a crumpled performance poster in his hand. "Hey," Luo Yi's voice was hoarse, "do what you said that day still count?" Ye Qi put down his guitar and walked towards him. It was still raining outside the window, but the concert hall was quiet. It was so quiet that you could hear each other's heartbeats - those two heartbeats had never been able to synchronize back to the normal frequency since they first looked at each other. Intention: When Luo Yi rushed out of the house, it was already raining heavily. He wiped the water on his face, unable to tell whether it was rain or something else. In the old residential building behind him, the quarrel continued - or rather, it was the unilateral scolding of his parents. "Why can't you strive for success like other people's children?" "Looking at your grades, I'm embarrassed to go to the parent-teacher conference!" "Luo Yi, apart from fighting, what else can you do?" He has long been used to it. But today, when those words were cutting into him like a dull knife, his sister Luo Li quietly poked her head out from the crack of the bedroom door, her amber eyes like his were filled with tears. Ten years old. A child who is only ten years old should not have to endure this. Luo Yi put the remaining thirty yuan in Luo Li's hand into Luo Li's hand and rubbed her soft hair: "Go buy breakfast by yourself tomorrow and leave them alone." Then he turned around and disappeared into the rainy night. The night in Yinxue City looked particularly unreal in the rain, and the street lamps shattered into millions of pieces of dim light in the puddles. Luo Yi walked aimlessly, her blue and white school uniform already soaked and clinging to her thin body. He is 1.83 Meters tall but only weighs 98 pounds. Every time the school doctor said he was malnourished during a physical examination, he just laughed - the family never lacked money to buy food, they just lacked people who were willing to cook a good meal. The rain was getting heavier and heavier, so he ran and found a random building to get into. After pushing open the heavy glass door, Luo Yi realized that he had entered the Yinxue City Concert Hall. It wasn't the dilapidated small venue of the school, but the real concert hall in the city center - the silver-gray building lay like a huge piano in the rain. He had passed by it countless times before, but had never been in. The hall was empty and quiet, with only a few wall lamps on, casting a warm yellow light. Luo Yi stood in the porch wringing the water from his school uniform, and was about to find a place to sit down and wait for the rain to stop, when he suddenly heard something. It's music. No, not just music. It was the sound of the electric guitar, wild, tearing, like a red-hot knife, piercing into a corner of his heart that had never been touched before. The voice came from deep in the hall. Luo Yi followed and pushed open a soundproof door that was not closed tightly, and found himself standing at the side door of a small concert hall. There was only one tracking light on the stage. There is a person sitting in the light. He was wearing a simple white T-shirt and black casual pants. His slightly long black hair hung down, covering half of his face. The electric guitar is held in my arms, my fingers are flying on the strings, and every note seems to be torn out from the depths of my soul. Not classical music, not the kind of pop songs Luo Yi heard on TV. It was something he couldn't put into words - intense, hot, with a kind of madness that finally broke out after being suppressed to the extreme. Luo Yi didn't know how long he stood there. He only felt his heart beating so hard, faster than the drumbeat of the guitar. Rain dripped down the tips of his hair and fell on the floor at his feet, making a slight sound, but he couldn't hear it. He could only hear the sound of the guitar and see the man's silhouette in the light. The last note vibrated in the air and disappeared. The concert hall became quiet again, so quiet that you could hear the rain hitting the roof. The people on the stage raised their heads, as if they felt something. Their eyes crossed the rows of empty seats and landed on Luo Yi by the side door. Those are a pair of very quiet eyes. The black pupils reflected the residual light of the stage. He was playing such wild music just now, but now it was like a deep pool of water with no waves visible. Luo Yi suddenly felt uncomfortable all over. He should turn around and walk away, pretending he was just in the wrong place. But he couldn't move, his feet felt like they were nailed to the floor. The man put down his guitar, jumped off the stage, and walked closer step by step on the steps. Only then did Luo Yi realize that he was about the same height as herself, maybe even a little taller. Looking closer, the man's skin was very white, as if he had not seen the sun all year round. The lips are a bit thin and look a bit cold when pursed, but the corners of his mouth seem to be naturally slightly upward, making people think he is smiling. "You got caught in the rain." When the man spoke, his voice was lower than Luo Yi expected, gentle, like silk dipped in warm water. Luo Yi lowered his head and looked at himself - his school uniform was soaked and clinging to his body, and there was already a small puddle of water under his feet. He suddenly felt embarrassed and subconsciously raised his neck: "It's none of your business." The man was not angry, but the corners of his mouth really curved: "There are tissues over there." He pointed in the direction of the backstage entrance, then turned back to the stage and began gathering wires. Luo Yi stood there, not knowing whether to leave or stay. He should go. He is a scumbag, a thorn in his side, and a troublemaker in everyone's eyes. This kind of place does not belong to him, and this kind of person is not from the same world as him. But the feet still didn't move. "You play so well..." Luo Yi heard his own voice, which was hoarse and hard, "very noisy." The man paused in his movements and raised his head to look at him. Luo Yi was prepared for disgust or impatience - he was all too familiar with that expression. When the teacher sees him handing in a blank paper, when his classmates see him fighting, when his parents see his report card, they all have that expression. But the man just looked at him, the light in his eyes was too gentle to be true. "But you listened all night," he said. Luo Yi was stunned. All night? He looked down at his phone and saw eleven forty-seven on the screen. It was just after nine o'clock when he came in. Two hours. He stood here and listened for two hours. "What's your name?" The man asked. Luo Yi opened his mouth and almost blurted out the words, then swallowed them back alive. Why should he tell a stranger his name? "My name is Ye Qi." The man said to himself, "Shuang Er Ye, Qi from Qilian Mountain." Ye Qi. Luo Yi recited it silently in his heart. Qi in Qilian Mountains is the name of the mountain range that I have seen in textbooks but don't know where it is. "What about you?" "Luo Yi." As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Luo Yi wanted to bite off his tongue. Ye Qi nodded and put the collected guitar into the case. He moved slowly, as if he was waiting for something. "Do you come here often?" Luo Yi asked. After asking, I regretted it - what does it have to do with him? "I come here at night when no one is around." Ye Qi said, "This place is rented for performances during the day, and I can only practice by myself at night." "Alone?" "A person." Luo Yi wanted to say something, but didn't know what to say. He had never spoken to anyone like this before - no provocation, no defense, just talking. The rain seems to have lightened up a bit. Through the window, I could see the street lights outside making up blurry lights in the water vapor. Ye Qi put the piano case on his shoulder and walked towards Luo Yi. When passing by him, he paused and turned his head to look at him. "Next time you come, take the front door." He said, "The side door will be locked at night." Then he opened the door and disappeared down the corridor. Luo Yi stood there until he could no longer hear the footsteps. Next time? Who said there will be another time? But he found that he remembered that face, remembered that name, and remembered the way those hands flew across the strings. I don't know when the rain stopped. Luo Yi walked out of the concert hall. There was no one on the street. The stagnant water reflected the street lights and the occasionally lit windows. He walked home slowly. His school uniform was still wet, but it didn't seem so cold anymore. When I opened the door, there was a dark light in the house. The door to my parents' room was closed, and there was no sound. Luo Li's door was ajar. He pushed it open gently and saw his sister curled up on the bed, holding the old stuffed bear in her arms. There was a piece of bread and a note on the bedside table. "Brother, I left some bread for you." Luo Yi stood at the door and stared for a long time. He closed the door quietly, returned to his room, and changed into dry clothes. Lying on the bed with my eyes closed, I still have the same image in my mind - the white chasing light, the black guitar, and those quiet eyes. Ye Qi. He chewed the name many times until the tip of his tongue was numb, and then he fell asleep. The next morning, Luo Yi was woken up by Luo Li. "Brother, brother, it's almost seven o'clock!" Luo Yi sat up suddenly, his head still a little groggy, maybe because of the rain last night. He put on his school uniform, grabbed his schoolbag, pulled Luo Li and ran out. He sent Luo Li to the entrance of the elementary school and watched her blend into the crowd before turning around and running towards the high school. The fifth middle school in Yinxue City is one of the bottom schools in the city. But being at the bottom also has the advantage of being at the bottom - teachers have long since stopped expecting students, and as long as you don't cause trouble, they can treat you as if you don't exist. Luo Yi was twenty minutes late. When he slipped into the classroom through the back door, the math teacher just looked at him and continued to explain his problem. The classroom was noisy, with people sleeping and playing on their mobile phones, and not many people actually listening to the class. Luo Yi sat in the last row by the window, which was his regular seat. "Hey, Brother Luo is here." The fat man at the front table, Zhou Jian, turned his head, "I heard that you had a fight with your dad again last night?" Luo Yi ignored him, but his eyes involuntarily glanced ahead. Class 5, Grade 1, forty-three people. He knew about a third of them—people he'd fought with, people he'd fought with, and people he'd beaten. The remaining ones who go to class peacefully have no interactions with others, and others don't mess with them. But his eyes moved around the classroom and stopped in the third row by the window. There was a man sitting there, wearing a clean blue and white school uniform, with his back straight, taking notes. Side face. Slightly long black hair. Luo Yi was stunned. Zhou Jian followed his gaze and looked over, laughing: "What are you looking at, Brother Luo? Isn't that the top university student in our class?" "What?" "Ye Qi, don't you know him?" Zhou Jian lowered his voice, "He is first in the grade, and he is fifty points higher than the second place in the midterm exam. Awesome, right? But he is very low-key and never plays with people like us." Ye Qi. First in grade. Luo Yi leaned on the back of the chair and stared at the back. Sunlight shone in from the window and fell on Ye Qi's shoulders, giving him a light golden edge. It's different from what it looked like on stage last night. Last night, he was hot, crazy, and could play the guitar on fire. Today, he is quiet, gentle, and a standard, perfect academic. Which one is true? "He plays the electric guitar." Luo Yi suddenly said. Zhou Jian was stunned for a moment: "Who? Ye Qi? It's impossible, right? That guy looks like a Bodhisattva. He knows how to read, and how can he play with that?" Luo Yi didn't explain. When the bell rang, he saw Ye Qi stand up, say something to the classmate next to him, and then walk out of the classroom. Luo Yi didn't know what he was thinking, so he stood up and followed him out. There were many people in the corridor, and they were crowded. Ye Qi walked slowly, as if taking a walk. Luo Yi followed not far away, but when he reached the corner of the stairs, Ye Qi suddenly stopped and turned around. Luo Yi almost bumped into him. Looking closely, Ye Qi's eyelashes are very long, casting a small shadow when they hang down. "Why are you following me?" Ye Qi asked. There was no reproach in his tone, just a hint of curiosity. Luo Yi opened his mouth, but his mind went blank. He didn't even know why he wanted to follow him. "Um..." He said bravely, "What was the name of the song last night?" Ye Qi looked at him, his eyes curled up as if smiling. "There's no name," he said. "I wrote it myself." Wrote it myself. Luo Yi didn't know what to say. He only fights, skips classes, and gets into trouble. He doesn't understand music, what flows from the strings. But he remembered the feeling of standing there last night - his heart was beating painfully, as if something was breaking out of the ground in his body. "Do you want to learn?" Ye Qi asked. "What?" "Guitar." Ye Qi said, "I can teach you." Luo Yi was stunned. He looked into Ye Qi's eyes, trying to find a hint of ridicule or teasing in them. But no. Those eyes were very clean and serious, as if they were saying something natural. "I can't learn." Luo Yi said. His voice was a little tough, as if he was angry with someone. "How do you know if you haven't tried it?" "My grades are poor and I am at the bottom of the school." "It has nothing to do with grades." "I have no money." "No charge." Luo Yi was speechless. The school bell rang, and there were fewer and fewer people in the corridor. Ye Qi was still standing there, waiting for his answer. "I..." Luo Yi heard himself say, "Let me think about it." Ye Qi nodded, turned around and walked to the classroom. After taking two steps, he turned back and said, "I'll go again tonight." Then he disappeared into the crowd. Luo Yi stood there until the second bell rang, then slowly walked back to the classroom. He didn't listen to a word of the afternoon class. My mind was in a mess, sometimes it was the sound of the guitar last night, sometimes it was Ye Qi's eyes, sometimes it was his words "I'll go there tonight". Going to a concert hall? What to do? Listen to him play the piano? Or... When school was over, Luo Yi went to the elementary school to pick up Luo Li, sent her home, and had another quarrel with her parents. This time it was because he stayed out last night. His mother cried, his father scolded, and Luo Li hid in the room and wouldn't come out. At the end of the quarrel, Luo Yi slammed the door and walked out. When he came to his senses, he was already standing at the door of the concert hall. It was already dark, and the night sky after the rain was particularly clear, and a few stars could be seen. The lights of the concert hall were on, and the silver-gray building shimmered in the night. Luo Yi stood at the door and hesitated for a long time. He didn't know why he came. He hates school, hates home, hates all rules and restrictions. He should go to an Internet cafe, play billiards, and do things that can make him forget everything. But the foot still stepped through the door. This time he took the main entrance. There was a security guard on duty in the hall. He glanced at him and said nothing. Luo Yi walked through the hall and walked towards the small concert hall last night. The door was ajar, and there was light shining through. He pushed open the door. It's still the chasing light, and it's still the person sitting in the center of the stage. But tonight's song is different, slower and lighter than last night's, like telling a long, long story. When Ye Qi saw him coming in, he didn't stop, but the corners of his mouth curled up. Luo Yi found a seat in the last row and sat down. He closed his eyes and let the sound of the guitar drown him out. Chasing the light on a rainy night, my fingertips are on fire. A scumbag meets a soul who sings on guitar.