Since childhood, I had been alone,
taking care of,
the stars of all ages.
—"Loneliness"
***
**
The oil lamp of life eventually burned out, but the night sky was boundless.
When he was little, he had often heard stories like this: after people died, they became stars in the sky.
Yeah, an incredibly cliché idea.
As the times developed and the Information Explosion Era arrived, precocious little brats no longer believed such stories.
"Not listening, not listening. The turtle is chanting sutras."
And becoming stars in the sky, too! That was utter bullshit.
Lu Yibai gazed at the scattered stars above with his "Gintama-style" dead-fish eyes and couldn't help thinking of that saying.
The reason he had thought of it was that his father had passed away just a week ago.
He had been very busy lately, occupied with handling his father's funeral arrangements.
If the idea of "becoming a star" was true, then there ought to be one more star in the sky now, right?
Lu Yibai had been very close to his father. Although he had grown up in a divorced family, he felt he had never lacked love.
When his father was young, he could barely be considered a Beijing drifter. He sang folk songs. Folk music had still been very popular in those days. Of course, it had made a comeback in recent years.
Back then, many Beijing drifters had made it big, but his father hadn't.
He often performed as a resident singer in bars. It was hard work, but the income was fairly good.
Later, he took up a more stable line of work.
When he had to choose between his dream and his son, he had not hesitated.
But perhaps because of that experience, his father had always wanted to own a bar.
More precisely, he had wanted a "quiet bar."
A quiet bar was different from those noisier bars. It was the kind of place where people drank and chatted, perhaps with a resident singer—or he could perform himself. After all, he had once sung folk songs, so it could become a "live bar."
Of course, his father had no interest in the kind of bars young people liked. He couldn't understand why those sharply dressed, even scantily clad men and women had to go do "wellness disco" every so often.
He was like a chef who wanted a restaurant of his own. It was simple and pure.
A few months ago, his father had begun planning to open a bar and had even hired a renovation company to design it.
The day before the car accident, his father had excitedly taken him to the renovation company to look over the designs.
Yeah, the style was great.
While looking at the designs, he had been like an emperor taking his crown prince to view the map of the empire.
"Look! What's this?"
"A picturesque landscape."
"Wrong! It's my and your picturesque landscape!"
Of course, those lines, steeped in the slightly chuunibyou atmosphere of a grand historical drama, would never have come from the mouths of father and son. But when his father looked at the designs, then at Lu Yibai, his eyes had been full of ambition.
This was the bar belonging to me and my son.
It was a pity...
Could it really be like that classic line from The Stick?
—Is this fate?
Lu Yibai shook his head, pulling himself out of his sorrow.
He opened his "Gintama-style" dead-fish eyes as wide as possible to make himself look more energetic, then climbed onto a shared bicycle.
He wanted to find a bar and drink himself senseless.
Lu Yibai looked like someone who was not especially energetic. In the popular terminology of the time, his personality could be described as that of a "Zen man."
He was a fairly casual person.
Since he wanted to ride around and clear his mind anyway, he figured he would see whether he happened to pass a bar. If he did, he would go in and have a few drinks.
He would leave it to fate!
In October, the weather in Crow City was still quite pleasant. He first rode around the famous International Trade City for a while, then began cycling aimlessly.
He didn't even look at the road signs. Whenever he reached an intersection, he simply picked a direction at random.
He turned this way and that and somehow ended up in a narrow lane.
He had rarely come to this area.
"Huh, I've ridden this far?"
A man had to have good stamina. How could he stop after only a short ride?
Lu Yibai got off the bicycle and pushed it forward.
The reason he hadn't ridden through quickly was that although the alley was pitch-black, it didn't give him a gloomy or frightening feeling. Instead, he felt very calm inside.
Calm for no reason at all.
In front of a storefront stood an old locust tree. On a little folding stool beneath it sat a middle-aged man wearing a three-piece suit.
This was a very refined man.
It wasn't just the three-piece suit. His little mustache was also trimmed with meticulous care, and his leather shoes were spotless, without a speck of dust.
Oh, right—he also wore a pair of round, black-rimmed glasses.
Strangely, the eyes beneath the frames were difficult to see clearly.
Staring so intently at a stranger was very impolite behavior, even when one man was looking at another.
But Lu Yibai noticed him anyway.
He couldn't help it. Who told him to dress like that while sitting on a little folding stool?
Besides, the things he said successfully caught Lu Yibai's attention.
The man picked up a fallen leaf from the ground and said in a deep, melancholy tone:
"When a leaf falls, is it the wind's pursuit, or the tree's failure to hold on?"
So non-mainstream!
Huh, it even rhymed pretty well...
Lu Yibai ruthlessly mocked him a few times in his heart.
He was dressed like quite the gentleman. He looked like a cultured man, so Lu Yibai had thought he might say something sophisticated and pretentious.
What a cliché!
A slightly impatient female voice came from inside the building. Her voice was quite pleasant, though. "Isn't it because autumn has arrived?"
Wow! There was an honest person here!
"What do you know!" the middle-aged man sitting on the folding stool beneath the old locust tree shouted toward the room.
The woman inside chose to ignore him.
Then he saw Lu Yibai standing nearby, listening to their conversation with great interest, and said, "Young man, what do you think?"
Lu Yibai was like an exemplary student called on by the teacher in class. He looked at the man and answered solemnly, "The leaf falls because of abscisic acid."
As soon as he finished speaking, several more leaves fell from the Great Huai Tree.
The scene became extremely awkward.
"Wh... what acid?" After a long while, the man asked.
Lu Yibai naturally had no intention of explaining the thing.
What surprised him was that he saw a small blackboard nailed to the Great Huai Tree. Written on it were the words: "This shop is for transfer."
"What kind of shop is this?" Lu Yibai asked curiously.
"A bar."
What a coincidence.
Speaking of which, after riding for so long—and having downed a glass of cola before leaving—he was getting rather desperate for the bathroom.
"Are you still open?" Lu Yibai asked.
This middle-aged man who spoke nothing but non-mainstream nonsense was probably the bar's owner.
"We're open, we're open." The middle-aged man immediately stood up from the folding stool and straightened his suit jacket.
Then he bent down, hugged the folding stool to his chest, and happily minched toward the bar.
He was so gay it hurt...
Now he suddenly didn't want to go in. Would it be dangerous?
"Whee—"
The guy had even started whistling happily, making Lu Yibai's urge to pee even worse.
Should he go in or not?
It was pretty urgent. Online, waiting for answers.
Before you continue