Camphor Tree Chords

Summer in a small southern town is always filled with two sounds - the intermittent sound of the piano in the piano room, and the crisp sound of badminton hitting on the open-air court. Su Qingqian's fingertips are always scented with rosin, and the piano score contains words she dare not say to her mother: she does not want to give up playing the piano for more than ten years, even if the pressure of study weighs her down like the piano cover. Lu Ming's right hand is covered with a thin callus, and the badminton racket is his weapon against his father's expectations: He loves the freedom of the court, but is afraid of living forever in the shackles of "must win." During the summer vacation of the first year of high school, a badminton accidentally crashed into the piano room, causing two boys and girls who were hiding their worries to intersect. She heard the soft sound when he chased the ball, like playing wrong notes; he remembered the wrong notes in her musical score better than his own tactical notes. During the sophomore year of high school, they became tablemates. He borrowed her math notes, but drew the arc of a badminton ball in the blank space; she marked the launch angle formula in his physics textbook, and when her fingertips accidentally touched his hand holding the pen, it felt like touching a hot piano key. There is always an ice-cold soda lying on the window sill of the piano room, and unopened band-aids are often placed beside the court. Those unspoken concerns are hidden in the wrong notes of "Moonlight Sonata" and hidden in the sweatband of the badminton racket. When their mother's seal locked the piano, and when their father's roar hit the court, they discovered that the most moving melody was not the perfect scale, but the moment when he said "it sounds good even if you play it wrong" when picking up the ball; it turned out that the most powerful smash was not winning the game, but the gentle words "take a rest when you are tired" when she handed over the keyboard stickers. This summer, about love and compromise, about temptation and bravery, they are all hidden in the collision of piano keys and badminton - it turns out that liking someone is like playing a piece of music without an ending. Even if the rhythm is messed up, I still want to play with him until the last note. Purpose: The growth of adolescence is not only the sprint of academics, but also the tug of "self-love" and "external expectations", learning to face the inner voice - just like Su Qian's piano and Lu Ming's badminton, which seem to run counter to "entering higher education", but hide the most authentic love; and those temptations and tacit understanding hidden under the camphor tree also tell us: true growth is the courage to accept the imperfect self, and also knowing how to cherish the person who can "resonate" with you.