"You work hard performing, earning a pittance to survive. Does that money count as feeding the dogs? Only if you're not doing it for a living, just for fun, could you barely call it tossing spare change to the dogs." Zhong Yi said, "Clearly, you have another income. You're not the last of the Mohicans, either, so why imitate someone else's blood and tears?"
The musician smiled mildly. "How was my playing?"
"Very good," Zhong Yi said. "It felt even better than the original. There was less sorrow in its mood, but no less weathered depth, and a stronger sense of boundless vastness. You're a man with a story."
"So you stood beside me all this time just to listen to my music?"
"Yes."
The musician lost himself in thought for quite a while before sighing. "Someone who truly understands is hard to find."
He actually said that in Chinese, and very standard Chinese at that... No, not quite standard. He tried to curl his tongue for the "zhi" sound but couldn't quite manage it. Having lived in Nanjiang for so long, Zhong Yi's first impression was that it sounded a little like a Fujian accent.
Now Zhong Yi was genuinely curious. He couldn't help asking a question he hadn't intended to ask. "How did you know I was someone with immortality? I can't sense any esper ability in you... Could your ability really be that much stronger than mine?"
This was strange, too. Zhong Yi had been rated S-class, but that measured the potential of his esper ability. However impressive immortality was, it wasn't beyond the scale, so S-class potential was perfectly normal. In reality, however, plenty of people rated higher than him had abilities that fell short of his, because he had lived a long time and spent