Sleeping Late in the Long Summer

Shen Qinghe, an ancient book restorer, is aloof and aloof, and is the "god statue" in the family that cannot be desecrated. Jiang Yubai, PhD in acoustics, paranoid and crazy, had a secret love since he was sixteen. During a confrontation on the terrace on the Mid-Autumn Festival night, Shen Qinghe withstood all the trials with the words "I seduced her." In exchange, the two of them escaped hand in hand from the front door of the family and were placed under house arrest in a nursing home. Jiang Yubai escaped by jumping out of the window and found her in Suzhou using a self-written voiceprint program. After living together for three years, Jiang Yubai used ultrasound to interfere with her heartbeat. He spent three years writing a 300-page experimental report, recording each of her 40.7Hz tremors. Shen Qinghe went from being a "paper prisoner" to picking up the repair knife again, from passively accepting it to actively kissing her. When the Shen family received a letter asking her to admit her mistake under the memorial tablet in the ancestral hall, Shen Qinghe framed the letter and wrote on the back, "Shen Qinghe and Jiang Yubai are here together." This is a long experiment in taboo, domestication and redemption. Ancient books will be broken and dignity will collapse, but the 40.7Hz heartbeat will always resonate. Because they sleep late in the long summer, they calibrate each other. Regarding "frequency"—— I always believe that people will encounter many kinds of voices in this life. Some express love with words, some use hugs to convey warmth, and some use tears to wash away wounds. But Shen Qinghe and Jiang Yubai are not. Shen Qinghe is an ancient book restorer. Her world is quiet - rice paper, paste, bamboo lids, insect-eaten holes, broken silk. She was used to silence, used to pressing all her emotions on her fingertips, and repairing the broken past one stroke at a time. She thought she was a dry well that would never see the light of day. Jiang Yubai is a Ph. D. In acoustics. Her world is noisy - ultrasonic waves, infrasound waves, 40.7Hz sine waves, and the beating green curve on the oscilloscope. She is used to observing, used to recording everything with data, and used to turning love into a quantifiable frequency. She thought she was a precision instrument that would never deviate from the baseline for anyone. Then they met. Not on some romantic occasion. It was in the courtyard of the Shen family's old house, with sweet-scented osmanthus scattered all over the ground. Shen Qinghe was sitting in front of the restoration table, with his head lowered and a bamboo opener in his hand. Jiang Yubai stood at the door, looking at her, his heart skipping a beat. That beat was later measured by Jiang Yubai and was 40.7Hz. This novel is about how two "abnormal" people fall in love in an "abnormal" way. One uses silence to repair the world, and the other uses sound to invade the world. One buried himself alive for thirty-six years, and the other had been guarding the well since he was sixteen, waiting for her to climb out. Their love is indeed paranoid. Pathological indeed. It really doesn't fit into any mainstream narrative of a "healthy relationship." But you know what? Sometimes, only bigotry can fight bigotry. Only illness can cure illness. Only the person who is willing to use ultrasound to interfere with your heartbeat can pull you out of that dry well. So, this is a story about "resonance". It's not the definition in the physics textbook. It's two broken frequencies that found each other in the abyss, superimposed into a song that will never die. 40.7Hz. Forever. I hope you can hear the frequency that belongs to you during the long summer. Intention: The real salvation is not to be pulled out of the abyss by someone, but to hear the heartbeat of another person in the abyss, and then discover that the frequency is exactly the same as your own. Love is not possession, it is resonance; it is not domestication, it is two broken frequencies finding each other and superimposing into a song that will never die.