Mi Cai stayed curled in my arms, and this kind of closeness truly brought warmth between us. My heart gradually calmed down, and then I fell into a state of infatuation.
“Zhaoyang, your heart isn’t beating anymore!”
Mi Cai seemed to have been listening to my heartbeat all along, but this sentence startled me. I hurriedly checked my pulse—it was steady, proving that I still had a heartbeat.
Just as I was about to speak, Mi Cai corrected herself: “Don’t get nervous, it’s just beating slower now.”
“Why should I be nervous? You should be the one nervous!… If my heart really stopped beating, would you be scared?”
Mi Cai moved away from me and looked into my eyes, nodding slightly.
I shook my head with a smile and sighed, “You really are a scaredy-cat!”
Mi Cai looked away, and after a long pause, she whispered softly, “It’s not a corpse I’m afraid of, but rather… a world without you in it.”
Suddenly, the world grew quieter, so quiet that I could hear her heartbeat and mine. At that moment, I felt as if the fortress I had carefully built around myself had suddenly developed cracks, and was on the verge of collapse.
Still smiling, I asked, “Do you care about me… a lot?”
If Mi Cai had nodded at that moment, I would have embraced her again. Even if she had simply asked in return, “What about you? Do you care about me?” I would have answered, “Yes, very much,” and then held her close.
But she hesitated, saying nothing. Then her phone rang, breaking the silence and snapping me back to reality.
Mi Cai took her phone out of her pocket—it was a WeChat voice message—and CC’s voice came through: “Honey, are you asleep yet?”
“Not yet. Anything up?” Mi Cai replied.
“It’s almost New Year’s. I wanted to ask where you’re spending it this year.”
Before Mi Cai could respond, I pressed my hand over the phone to stop her from sending the voice message and said, “Don’t reply to CC yet. I have something to tell you.”
Mi Cai looked puzzled. “What is it?”
“Ban Da said: If you’re going to be alone for the New Year, come with me to Xuzhou. My family’s New Year celebration is always lively.”
I looked at Mi Cai sincerely after speaking. But on her face appeared hesitation. After a while, she replied, “Thanks for the offer, but I’m going to the U.S. this year. Wei Ran hasn’t left yet—he’s waiting for me to finish up with the company matters.”
Suddenly, my heart felt like it had plunged into an icebox. It took me a while to recover before I joked with Mi Cai, “Is he planning to switch battlegrounds and confess again in the U.S., where he has home advantage? That should give him extra points…”
But Mi Cai ignored my joke and said, “His mom has always been very kind to me and taken good care of me in the U.S. I also have some American friends I haven’t seen in a long time. I’ve been back in China for quite a while now—I miss them.”
Hearing Mi Cai’s words, I realized she was definitely going to the U.S., and I had no reason to keep her here. But why did my heart feel so heavy and painful?
In my silence, Mi Cai finally pressed the voice message button again and told CC, “I’m going to the U.S. for the New Year.”
CC replied quickly: “Oh, I thought you’d be staying in Suzhou!”
“What about you? Are you going back home?”
“My parents are going to Hong Kong for the New Year. I’ll stay here in Suzhou.”
Mi Cai thought for a moment and said, “Then why don’t you come with me to the U.S.? Think of it as a vacation!”
A sudden hope stirred in my heart that CC might agree. If she were by Mi Cai’s side, at least I’d be able to hear about Mi Cai somehow. But CC’s reply disappointed me: “Honey, I think I’ll pass. I suddenly feel like going to Beijing to find Luoben and Leyao. It’s more fun celebrating the New Year in China!”
“Okay then, wish you a happy new year in advance!”
“Yeah, you too, honey!”
Thus ended the conversation between CC and Mi Cai, while my world suddenly felt icy cold, as if I had lost interest in everything. Only smoking remained appealing. I took out another cigarette from the pack and lit it. Mi Cai, like Jian Wei before her, no longer seemed to mind the smoke continuously coming from my mouth.
Still, I instinctively moved away from her and sat down on a barstool in another corner, forgetting entirely that I had intended to invite her to sing “Clearly, My Heart” together before coming to the bar.
Mi Cai put her guitar back into its case. I knew this meant it was time for us to leave, to end this night spent together.
Sure enough, she said to me, “Zhaoyang, I’m leaving. Want to go together?”
“We’re not going the same way. You go first.”
Mi Cai nodded, walked to the door, and then stopped and said to me, “It’s late. You should leave too.”
I smiled and replied, “I need to check today’s accounts first. I’ll be done soon. Please turn on the bar lights for me.”
Mi Cai turned on the bar lights, looked at me for a moment, and finally left the bar carrying her newly purchased guitar.
…
Feeling a bit choked up, I crushed the cigarette in my hand and lit another one, then turned on the POS machine behind the bar to check the day’s accounts.
It was already so late it was almost dawn. After finishing the accounts, I returned to the small stage and sat cross-legged on the floor, with only the guitar that was soon no longer mine for company.
I felt tired and lay down beside the guitar, but suddenly my mind became clear again, and I couldn’t help but think of Jian Wei.
If we had continued loving each other back then, what would we be like now?
I didn’t know. But I remembered how we once treated love as our religion, loving each other madly.
I knew that in that failed relationship, I had lost my faith and gained only despair. I could no longer pursue the next love with that kind of pure passion.
Wait, did I even still believe in love now?
I had no answer, because there was no love in my current world. The only relationship I had entered into recently with Li Xiaoyun seemed to have nothing to do with love—it felt more like finding a harbor after being worn out by life.
I sat up from the floor, took out my phone, and took a photo of the guitar that had been with me for so many years as a keepsake.
Holding the guitar in my hands again, I gently strummed the strings. But I couldn’t control myself, and as dawn approached, I sang “Runaway” alone with all my might, my voice hoarse with emotion.
But with whom could I run away now? My life was left with only myself, experiencing loneliness!
…
The next day, I slept until noon. I didn’t even feel like eating lunch and planned to sleep through the afternoon when Ajit called me. He couldn’t wait to ask me to give him the guitar. I told him I hadn’t even gotten up yet, but he insisted on coming to my place to pick it up, which I found hard to understand. I doubted even his wife could have stirred such eagerness in him at night! Still, I agreed to let him come.
After getting up and finishing my morning routine, before I could even make myself a bowl of instant noodles, Ajit had already arrived at my place. As soon as I opened the door, his eyes shot straight toward the guitar leaning against the sofa. He rushed over with a big smile on his face and grabbed the guitar like a kid who had just received a treasure.
“Zhaoyang, you’re not going to take it back, right? I heard from Xiao Wu that this guitar was a gift from your first love!”
Before I could answer, he continued, “We had a deal—no backing out now!”
I tore open the noodle package and poured in hot water before replying, “Do I look like the kind of person who would go back on his word? Take the guitar, and never show your face around me again!”
Ajit gave a wry smile and said, “We’re both musicians. We both know what a guitar that’s been with you for years means… I shouldn’t really be taking it from you, but I just love this guitar so much…”
I cut him off, “You already said the same thing yesterday. Can you shut up with that nagging mouth of yours? Blah blah, blabbering nonstop!”
Ajit ignored me and continued playing with the guitar, clearly loving it. Suddenly, he put the guitar into its case and said, “Zhaoyang, I’ve got some business at my music shop. I’ll take the guitar with me now… Sorry, bro!” Without waiting for my response, he rushed out the door at lightning speed, faster even than our old landlord, Old Li!
Watching Ajit’s back disappear with the guitar, my heart suddenly felt hollow, and the emptiness came too suddenly, catching me completely off guard.
I seemed to see again that cold winter day when I was performing at CC’s restaurant. Back then, no matter how late it was, Jian Wei would always stay by my side, and I would always play this guitar to entertain her. Everything seemed hard and difficult on the outside, but my heart was full.
Now, I had finally lost this guitar, and with it, the fullness of those days seemed to vanish as well. I felt empty, as if I were nothing but a shell. Who could save the withered soul inside this shell?
No one could save me—I could only save myself. So I hurriedly lit another cigarette, and in the smoke, I thought again of Mi Cai, of how she was about to leave for the U.S. with Wei Ran. Instantly, my heart felt even emptier… so empty it felt like I had lost my soul, to the point that my noodles had gone soggy without me even noticing.
It wasn’t until the door opened again and Mi Cai stood before me, dragging her suitcase, that I finally snapped out of my daze…
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