sunk into the earth

Zhang Chen was leaning on his balcony, looking up at the light snow flying in the sky, with an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar leaning on the balcony. He planned to watch the snow for a while before sitting on the balcony fence and playing a few songs as usual.

When he got off work, he called Cheng Sheng a few times, but no one answered.But it’s a common thing. After moving to the new building, their company is like a high-speed spinning top. They no longer lack employees or cooperation. They just keep running forward. Cheng Sheng, a young entrepreneur, runs around every day, isn’t it? To talk about cooperation is to go to preach, and to come back to the company is just to hold a meeting. It's really normal to be too busy to look at your mobile phone.

Before starting to play the guitar, Zhang Shen called Qiyuan and Lao Liu each, and told them in a formal tone that the production of the band's fifth album was about to be finalized, and that they would come directly to the recording studio to record next weekend, and that the follow-up production was all up to him.

Qiyuan was stunned when she heard the sudden news, "Aren't you as busy as a national leader now? Why do you have time to make an album?"

Zhang Chen told her: "I plan to quit my job, and I will do music full-time in the future."

As soon as the words came out, the opposite party immediately uttered an exaggerated "really?", but the tone that followed was more like a complaint: "Before you said that you resigned and devoted yourself to making music, you said it so swearingly, and the result? You actually danced in two weeks. Go to Boss Qin's friend's company, how much salary did that careless second-generation official give you to make you temporarily regret it?"

Zhang Chen had a premonition that she was going to continue a long speech, so he stopped the next sentence in time, and said directly: "This time it's true, I have already contacted our company's personnel before I get off work today."

It was snowing lightly outside, and Zhang Chen was only wearing the most common white T-shirt, leaning on the balcony fence with both arms, looking up at the snow while explaining the band's rehearsal recording to the other end of the phone.

The snow fell on his face, and Zhang Chen kept his head up, so that his entire upper body was bathed in the fluttering snow.

After a while, he opened his eyes, and then called Cheng Sheng a few times, but there was still no answer on the other side. When he reached the fifth call, Zhang Chen stopped. He climbed up the balcony railing with his guitar in his arms, and slowly Start today's tune.

He played a few songs from the band's first album. At that time, they were still orthodox indie rock. They relied on foreign songs to learn how to write melody lines and arrange guitar, bass and drums. The favorites were Nirvana and Radiohead.After playing the seven songs in the first album, Zhang Chen was planning to switch to the second album, but before he pressed the first chord, he suddenly felt someone calling him in the air.

Zhang Chen stopped playing the piano, looked up at the source of the sound, and found a strange man sitting on the fence like him on the balcony on the fifth floor diagonally above.

The man has a refined appearance, with a pair of ordinary frame glasses on his nose, and he is dressed extremely formally, as if he is about to attend some important meeting. His face is faintly reddened by the sunset light behind him, and his expression is unnaturally relaxed. At this time, he was waving his hands to greet Zhang Chen who was holding the guitar on the third floor: "Brother, you play the piano really well, what's the name of the song you just played?"

Zhang Chen raised his head to observe this strange person, and said truthfully, "It's called [-]."

"Three thousand and zero years?"

"Correct."

"How come I've never heard this song?"

"Because it's a song in my own band. Our band is underground rock. It's not famous. It's normal that I haven't heard it before."

The man grinned his dry lips, lowered his head and smiled at Zhang Chen: "You can write songs? Then you must be a person with a lot of stories. Tell me the story of this song."

Zhang Chen was not at all offended by such an abrupt request from a stranger, but instead asked, "Why do you want to listen to other people's stories?"

This question made the man laugh out loud, and his legs dangling in the air swayed with the laughter. After laughing enough, he straightened his face again and said seriously: "Do you all like to listen to stories? Otherwise, why do so many people spend money to buy them?" See? Stories are worth money!" The man put his hands together again, and his gestures were quite begging, "Aren't you telling stories when you write songs? You like to tell and I like to listen, isn't it just right? Just tell me! "

This time Zhang Shen didn't ask any more questions, he turned sideways, put the guitar back neatly into the balcony fence, and said, "Actually, there is nothing to tell, it's just a story about the future." He paused, looked up Looking at the man above him, the man was staring at him with interest, as if he was interested in his story. Zhang Chen thought this man was interesting, so he began to talk slowly: "When I wrote this song, I was still in college. The night before was the last day of the [-]th century. I played the guitar all night on the top floor of the dormitory. I forgot how many songs I played. I was so excited at the time, I was thinking, if I was born in the new century, I would never experience this feeling again, and I would have to wait a thousand years to wait until the next century beginning with [-]. Do you understand that feeling? The world seemed to be set to a timed alarm clock, and with a bang, the new century came, and everything would be better. At that moment, I felt very happy, all the bad things were no longer important, and I could have a new start, so I wrote this song [-] the next day, and I want to jump to [-] right away and experience this feeling again.”

After listening to Zhang Chen's words, the man let out a long "Oh" in the air, the drawn-out tone seemed to be ironic and emotional, and as expected, he immediately went on to say: "The new century is also very bad, isn't it very exciting?" Disappointed?"

"No." Zhang Chen raised his head in the sunset, and said to the man above his head, "At least I didn't disappoint."

"That's great!" The man swung his legs, sighed heavily, and then asked Zhang Chen: "Because you have a man who lives with you, right? Having a partner really makes you happier."

Zhang Chen asked: "How do you know that I have a man living with me?"

The man smiled: "I often see him drying clothes on the balcony, sticking his face to the clothes and sniffing them obsessively. I can feel his expression at that time from so far away from your balcony, as if he has taken drugs. Same." He pointed to Zhang Chen, "It's the clothes you're wearing, he's also smelled the clothes you wore when you played the guitar on the balcony a few days ago, and even a blind person can see the relationship between you two."

Zhang Shen generously admitted: "We really have that kind of relationship."

Such a frank answer caused the man upstairs to keep sighing like a repeater: "That's great! That's great!"

He sighed to himself for a while, muttering something, because the floor was separated by a certain distance, Zhang Shen couldn't hear it clearly, but soon the man came back to his senses, and shouted to him: "Can you play me a cheerful song?" Song? The happiest song in the world."

Zhang Chen let go, intending to turn around and turn back, turning his back to the man and refusing: "I don't know how to play cheerful songs."

The man on the fifth floor had his back hunched, and his arms were loose on the railing, as if he was not afraid of falling. He laughed again when he heard Zhang Chen's words, and his cheeks twisted into balls following the laugh. He was obviously not reconciled. Xiang Zhang Chen's back continued to shout: "Actually, I was about to jump off the building just now, but I just heard you playing that song about the future. For some reason, I suddenly couldn't bear it. Play another song for me, please. "

Zhang Chen, who had just turned halfway through, paused for two seconds when he heard the man's words, then turned around and came back, and tightened the guitar in his arms by the way, and looked up at the man diagonally above him without saying anything about playing. Just ask back: "Why did you jump off the building?"

The people above probably didn't expect this person to ask the bottom line while playing a song, and the smile stopped abruptly: "Why are there so many reasons? If you can't survive, just dance, it's so simple."

Zhang Chen thought of something, and asked again: "Have you ever been in love?"

This inexplicable question made the people above let go of their laughter. Zhang Chen raised his head and could even see his chest rising and falling. After leaving, my wife ran away with a boss who was making medicinal materials, and now I am a widow, living alone in a rented house, and my parents still have to support me in my hometown."

After speaking, he urged Zhang Chen in an almost begging tone: "Dude, why are you so weird? I just want to listen to a cheerful song right now, so you can do it!"

This time Zhang Shen didn't ask any more questions, lowered his upturned head, closed his eyes like every time he played the piano, and played a cheerful song with his usual memory of listening to songs.

The snow in the sky gradually grew bigger, falling on the face and hands as if being hugged by a cold person for a second.

Just as he was playing the happiest melody of the chorus, Zhang Chen suddenly felt the wind whistling around him. He realized something, but he was still proficiently pressing the strings and strumming the pick in his hand, playing all the sounds he knew. The happiest song in the world.The well-dressed man on the fifth floor leaped into the sincere and cheerful melody, with the slowly setting sun behind him, and he just jumped into the fiery red sun with satisfaction.Zhang Chen closed his eyes and couldn't see anything, but within two seconds he heard a loud "bang" from the ground under his feet.

He kept playing the piano in his hand, plucking the strings mechanically, and the snow in the sky fluttered down on Zhang Chen's shoulders with the cheerful melody, and slowly mixed into the fabric of the clothes as he plucked the strings.

When Zhang Chen opened his eyes again, he saw that a warning line had been pulled up on the ground on the first floor, surrounded by a lot of people, most of them were whispering and discussing something, but there were some other people in the middle, some taking pictures, some Some held up their mobile phones to make calls, while others looked up at him, but after meeting his calm gaze, they ducked and lowered their heads in bewilderment.

In the middle of the warning line lay the man who had just chatted with Zhang Chen. He was facing down and couldn't see his expression clearly, but Zhang Chen guessed that he was probably very satisfied with the half cheerful song he played.The fine snowflakes from the sky fell on his back, but soon melted into snow and soaked into his formal suit, and blackened blood kept pouring out from under him, staining the blue-gray ground nearby. Large black black red red.

It's red again.

Zhang Chen looked at the bloody dead man underneath for a while, didn't say anything, didn't think about anything, he just slowly leaned the guitar in his arms against the balcony, turned around and walked down the fence and walked back indoors.

The mobile phone in his pocket suddenly buzzed and vibrated at this moment, Zhang Chen took out the mobile phone, and a new message appeared on the screen: There are some problems with the company, you should resign early.

After reading it, Zhang Chen called Cheng Sheng, but the person on the other end hung up after a few rings. Zhang Chen continued to call, and then Cheng Sheng even turned off the phone directly. Zhang Chen planned to call Frank to ask about the situation, but Before I dialed out the phone in my hand, there was a harsh ringtone, and the caller ID flashed on the screen: Nursing home.

In the past few years, Zhang Chen has received countless calls from them. Most of the calls are to urge him to deal with Zhang Licheng's mess. Sometimes the manager yells at him: "Your dad stabbed the arm of the old man next door with a screwdriver." , and smashed a lot of equipment in our hospital, I will text you the amount of compensation and the bank card number." Sometimes the words on the opposite side are full of curiosity and disgust: "Your dad yelled in the nursing home, saying..." Speaking of Half of the people on the opposite side stopped talking, as if they were considering whether to repeat Zhang Licheng's words to Zhang Chen, but Zhang Chen would always ask thoughtfully first: "Just tell me what he said." After hesitating for a few seconds, he vividly imitated his father's tone to Zhang Chen: "Your father was telling a story to a group of people in the yard, saying that his son is a deadly gay who specializes in men's ass, and now he has become famous, just throw him here No matter. When your dad yelled, all the good old men and women in the nursing home came to watch, even the nurses and the uncles who cleaned the yard crowded in front to listen. There's really no place for your father's big Buddha here!"

Zhang Chen answered the phone and walked into the bedroom. He had expected that the call was because Zhang Licheng was causing trouble over there, so he didn't pay much attention to it, but there was an unusual urgent voice from the other side when he got through the call: "Mr. Zhang, you Dad was found to have drowned in the pond of the nursing home this afternoon, the police are now monitoring our place, and it is basically confirmed that he committed suicide, please go back to Yuncheng as soon as possible to deal with the follow-up matter."