Du Moyu got more and more into it. Perhaps he was thinking of his own experiences; the tune grew increasingly mournful, until his eyes reddened.
When the piece ended, Jiang Cheng and the village chief couldn't help applauding. Jiang Cheng instinctively reached into his pocket, looking for some change to tip him.
After hesitating for a moment, Jiang Cheng couldn't suppress his curiosity any longer. He looked at Du Moyu and asked, "I remember you write novels. Aren't you usually busy? How do you have time to practice this?"
Du Moyu looked a little embarrassed and scratched his head. "I can't speak for other genres, but I write horror. The whole genre got cut, and they renamed it suspense. Back when things weren't going my way, I even spent a few days squatting at a subway entrance to clear my head."
"I... I just happened to practice this while I was at it." Du Moyu patted the erhu and gave an awkward smile.
"I see." Jiang Cheng nodded. He wasn't in the habit of rubbing salt in other people's wounds.
After the Fatty finished his piece, he clearly wasn't satisfied. He rarely came across an erhu player who meshed with him so well, and without thinking much of it, he clapped Du Moyu on the shoulder and said with a grin, "If you were begging, you could've just said so. Why dress it up in such fancy words? Your Brother Fugui did it back in the day, too. But our situations were different—I'd had my wallet stolen."
"Afterward, I played at a funeral with a band in a nearby village for three days. I earned enough for the fare and then went home." The Fatty bore no resentment when he recalled those days. If anything, he seemed carefree.
But Du