How About Letting Me Play the Guitar for a While?

Click! Zhao Yu looked at the steaming bowl of pork trotter soup before him and took out his phone to snap a photo.

"It's so late. Aren't you having a midnight snack?"

He typed the message into his chat with Yuuka while sending her the photo.

A few seconds later.

"What is this? It looks really delicious!"

"It's a Sichuan-Chongqing specialty—pork trotter soup."

"Damn it! Just looking at it is making me so hungry!" Yuuka sent a crying bunny emoji.

"Hahaha, then have a little?" A scheming smile appeared on Zhao Yu's face as he tempted Yuuka.

"N-No! I'll gain weight!" Even through text alone, Zhao Yu could see Yuuka's struggle.

"I can't chat with you anymore. I can't even focus on studying!" Yuuka sent an angry emoji and stopped replying to Zhao Yu.

That felt good. Sure enough, teasing girls really did brighten his mood. Zhao Yu happily began working on the pork trotters in front of him.

By the time he finished the tender, glutinous pork trotters, it was already past midnight.

Zhao Yu still did not plan to head back. Although Chengdu was somewhat chilly in November, it could not stop him from wanting to stroll around.

Looking at the familiar scenery around him, Zhao Yu felt a long-lost sense of peace. It was a feeling he had never experienced again after becoming a corporate drone.

After he started working, his life had become a straight line between the office and home. Not only did he have no time to play games, even rest had become a luxury.

Whenever he worked overtime late into the night and looked out at the brightly lit city beyond the windows, he would wonder whether he was enjoying life or merely being swept forward by it.

Zhao Yu had once heard someone say that the most relaxing moment in an adult man's life was when he lit a cigarette in a parking lot.

The old Zhao Yu had never understood why someone could have a job and make money yet have no time left to enjoy themselves.

But later, he came to understand that once a man started working, he carried more than just himself on his shoulders.

Now that he had finally returned to this parallel world just after graduation, he finally had the chance to appreciate the scenery around him again.

He exhaled a cloud of warm breath and gazed at the Jinjiang River beneath the night sky. The river reflected the neon lights of the surrounding buildings, its surface shimmering with ripples.

Not far away was Nine-Eye Bridge, the brightest jewel in all of Chengdu at night. The bars and snack streets around it were incredibly lively.

Whether it was a workday or a day off, the crowds never stopped flowing. When he was young, he had always wondered why there were people who seemed not to work and spent every day eating, drinking, and having fun.

He had thought that once he grew up, he could become like those people he had seen as a child. But in reality, the gap between people was greater than the gap between people and dogs.

"Forget it. Why am I always thinking about this stuff? I finally got reborn, and if I still can't live freely, I might as well smash my head into a block of tofu and die."

After muttering that complaint to himself, Zhao Yu continued strolling forward at an unhurried pace.

The night was still long. He wanted to see more of this city, more of the scenery he had once overlooked.

He did not know how long he walked, but he eventually reached the vicinity of Anshun Covered Bridge. The splendid buildings on the bridge seemed to carry Zhao Yu back a hundred years into Chengdu's past.

He raised his phone and took a picture, capturing the beautiful scenery.

The next moment, a burst of singing drifted over. Zhao Yu turned his head and discovered a man busking beside the sidewalk.

The cold evening air had made the man shiver nonstop. He breathed warm air into his hands, rubbed them together, and only then resumed playing the guitar.

As China's most tolerant city, this place was home to many dream-chasers, but not everyone could succeed.

Though life here did not move at a fast pace, it would not stop for someone's downfall and wait for them, either.

Pedestrians came and went around him, but not a single one stopped. The young man was singing an old Wu Bai song, and he sounded remarkably like Wu Bai.

After stopping to listen for a while, Zhao Yu hesitated for a moment before walking toward him.

Li Fei strummed the guitar with all his strength. This was his final attempt. The strings were ice-cold, making them difficult to play.

The biting wind kept pouring in through his collar. He felt as though his entire body was about to freeze stiff, yet even that could not compare to the desolation in his heart.

He was a folk singer. He had come to Chengdu because he believed it was an incredibly romantic city.

But after performing in countless bars, he had never found even a glimmer of hope for making it big. This was already his third year.

Not only had he failed to settle down, he had even been thrown out after offending a bar owner.

It had all stemmed from the pitiful pride he possessed as a folk singer.

A drunken customer had insisted that he sing some trashy song from the Sound platform, but to him, singing that kind of song would be an insult to his pursuit of music.

And so, he had ended up like this, losing his source of income just before the Lunar New Year.

Whenever he recalled the concern in his parents' voices over the phone, Li Fei wanted to cry. The bold promises he had once made to them left him too ashamed to face them.

But besides himself, he also had a girlfriend who had always supported him, so he could not stop making money.

Now, the last solution he could think of was busking on the streets.

Forget it. Once he saved enough for rent to last until the New Year, he would return to his hometown's small county town and find another job. He could not go on like this.

"Up ahead, there is no direction; on my body, there are no clothes... Blood seeps from my wings..."

Wu Bai's "White Dove" seemed to tell of his own failure to chase his dreams. Li Fei sang with all his strength, sang with all his heart, even though no one stopped for him.

Only after the song ended did Li Fei let out a relieved breath, as if he had finally vented the last of the stubbornness in his chest.

"Not bad, brother."

A warm voice rang out, followed by a red banknote dropping into the guitar case.

Li Fei looked up. Before him stood a clean-cut young man whose eyes were full of appreciation, as though he truly liked his singing.

"You gave too much." Li Fei tersely pointed at the sign beside him, which read: One requested song, 10 yuan. No specific song requests accepted.

Refusing to sing songs he disliked was perhaps the last scrap of pride he had left.

"You sing this well. Why not try performing at a bar?" Zhao Yu ignored his reminder and asked instead.

"I'm not going anymore. After the New Year, I won't be a singer anymore." Li Fei sighed.

"Your dream failed?" Zhao Yu asked.

"Yeah, it failed. Failed miserably." Li Fei gave a bitter smile.

Though Zhao Yu was a stranger, perhaps because he was the first person to stop today, Li Fei did not hide his circumstances.

"Big cities are cruel. Sometimes, it's better to face reality early."

An adult's first lesson was learning to make peace with oneself and admit one's own ordinariness.

And only now did Li Fei understand that even if he sang well, he was still an ordinary person.

If his singing had truly been first-rate, would he have offended the owner just because he refused to sing songs the customers liked? The owner would have practically worshipped him.

No matter how proud he was, he had to admit that he was merely an unremarkable singer. There were plenty of people in the world who could replace him.

"True. Big cities are cruel." Zhao Yu nodded.

"But isn't that exactly why they're even more captivating?"

Li Fei looked at Zhao Yu in confusion.

"They embrace everyone chasing their dreams, which is why they seem so cruel. After all, before dreams, everyone is the same."

"How about letting me play the guitar for a while? Consider the extra money I gave you payment." Zhao Yu extended his hand to Li Fei, a faint smile on his face.