She Saw Her

Closer. Almost there.

Yu Mao stopped on the step just below her and went no farther. The fever in her body burned hot, and her eyes shone with the desperate brightness of a dying person’s last flare of light.

She had a pair of very round catlike eyes, her eyelids usually half-lowered, which made them look long and narrow.

But now they were wide open. From below, she looked up at her with a gaze that was almost parched.

“Hello. My name is Yu Mao.”

Her voice was light as fluff. Mixed in with the noise of everyone else, it still came through somehow, distinct and clear, carving out a small pocket of silence.

Nan Changgeng seemed to sense it and lifted her head, meeting her eyes.

She froze for a moment, then gave a friendly smile.

“Hello, I’m Nan Changgeng.”

Those were a pair of pale gray-blue eyes; her brows and eyes were deep-set, and whether she smiled or not, she always looked cold.

A high bridge of the nose, full lips, and cool pale skin only deepened the mixed-race impression, making her seem like an icy mountain, hard and forbidding to approach.

Her voice was low and rich, with the deep resonance of a cello; that voice, which had rung in Yu Mao’s ears day and night until this very moment...

Yu Mao could not help trembling. Behind her back, she dug her fingers into her own hand.

Her mouth opened, and air rushed out of her lungs, vaguely like the dry gray smoke of something burned to ash.

She could not speak.

With all her strength, she forced out a smile that she wasn’t even sure was proper, then turned in embarrassment and climbed two steps higher, taking a seat behind the woman and slightly to her right.

Her slight body curled in just a little; her hands were clasped together and held in front of her chest, like a prayer full of hope.

But for Yu Mao, it was only a form of restraint and suppression.

Her fingertips pressed so hard against her skin that they nearly broke the back of her hand.

Nan Changgeng remained in her seat, blinking in mild confusion. After a moment of awkwardness, she lifted a hand and scratched lightly at her cheek, then lowered her head and continued reading her notes.

She was used to it already; this face always seemed to scare off anyone who tried to come near.

Inside the venue, under the cameras of Xiao Feixia, the extroverted contestants and the introverted ones were easy to tell apart at a glance.

The lively ones chatted nonstop; the quiet ones sat in their seats without saying a word, heads down, picking at their fingers, repeatedly admiring their delicate hands.

The livestream had already started. Though this program was not a proper music competition, its traffic and buzz were still considerable, and the total number of viewers online had already broken one million.

The sixty individual livestream rooms were split into separate streams; at the moment, the most popular was a twin duo called Flying Flower.

They had debuted early. More than ten years ago, when they were still teenagers, they already had quite a few fans. Although they were only middling in popularity now, they still had the largest active fan base.

Among the non-ordinary contestants, Nan Changgeng’s livestream ranked somewhere in the middle-lower range.

She was the oldest contestant on the show, and also the one who had debuted earliest.

Fourteen years ago, at twenty, she had won a professional singing competition and spent five or six years at the height of her popularity before gradually moving behind the scenes to focus on writing songs and no longer appearing in front of the camera.

Now that she had returned, more than half of her fans from back then had drifted away. Some probably had grown older, focused on real life, and no longer paid attention to the internet; others had only ever heard her songs and no further news from her, so they had left and moved on to other people.

And the few die-hard fans left now were all gathered in her livestream room.

[What’s going on with that ordinary contestant? Was she intimidated by our Changgeng’s aura?]

[My sis was smiling so gently; why did she run?]

[Big sister awkwardly scratching her face.GIF]

[LOL, Nan Changgeng joke of the day: I was clearly speaking nicely, so why do you still look so scared?]

[All right, be satisfied already. After all this time, she’s the only one who took the initiative to come greet sis. (covering face with a bitter laugh)]

[Speaking of which, these young people really aren’t afraid of the cold; she came in wearing a short-sleeved shirt]

[No... I just went to look at that girl’s livestream, and something about her feels off]

[I zoomed the livestream screen out a little, and I could just see her. Those eyes are practically glued to our sis...]

Yu Mao’s personal livestream room began to gain viewers in ones and twos.

The minor incident at the entrance had already drawn in a wave of people, and this time, a few more Nan Changgeng fans had arrived.

[Too bad we can’t interact in real time. I really want to ask her if she’s my sis’s fan]

[What is this kid doing? She’s scratched the back of her hand raw. Is she that nervous?]

[She’s so delicate-looking, but too thin. Why does she look underage?]

[That look in her eyes is so weird; it gives me the creeps...]

Another ten minutes or so passed before the first mentor finally walked in. After waving to the contestants, she took her seat in the mentor row.

There were five mentors in total, each specializing in a different area. Seated in the very center was Mo Lei, forty-three years old, deeply versed in the fusion of classical and modern music.

She had once been a violinist in a nationally renowned symphony orchestra, then later become an independent musician, creating many works that blended classical elements with modern pop.

On the far left was Zhang Ling, twenty-five, who had graduated at the top of her class in vocal performance from a well-known music conservatory and later won a singing competition.

Second from the left was Chen Shuyun, with ear-length short hair, twenty-eight years old. Her clothes were plain and unremarkable, making it hard at first glance to connect her with rap. In reality, she was a very famous rapper with quite a number of singles to her name.

On the far right was a long-haired male band singer named Zhao Xuan, thirty-one, with some name recognition in the industry.

Second from the right was a former boy band member, Xin Heng, twenty-seven. After his group disbanded, he went independent. He specialized in hip hop and pop dance, and his choreography skills were pretty good.

Before the initial stage began, Zhang Ling and Xin Heng first went up to warm up the crowd; one sang a love song, the other performed song and dance.

Amid the exciting performances, the atmosphere was obviously heating up.

Once the cheers died down, Mo Lei adjusted the microphone and gave the contestants a warm smile. “So, how is everyone feeling now? Nervous?”

Responses came from across the room, all kinds of answers:

“Not nervous!”

“So nervous I could die.”

“My hands are shaking...”

Mo Lei said, “Do you have confidence in earning a high score with your performance?”

“Yes!”

This time, the answer came in unison.

Because the ones without confidence were the ones who stayed silent.

“All right.” Mo Lei clapped, her tone growing energized. “Then it’s time for the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Looks like everyone’s ready to conquer the stage with their performances. Come on, who wants to go first?”

Anyone who dared sign up for the show had to have some courage and enough confidence. A girl immediately raised her hand and stood up.

“Wow!”

Everyone applauded and cheered. Some regretted being a step too slow.

The girl moved briskly; she took off her thick coat, revealing a snow-white dress underneath, placed the coat on her seat, and walked down the steps to the microphone at center stage.

Mo Lei gestured. “Introduce yourself.”

“Hello, everyone. My name is Lin Baiyu. I’m twenty-two this year, and I’m a senior at S City Music College.”

She bowed slightly. Her makeup was exquisite, her long hair softly waved, and she looked completely at ease, not nervous in the slightest. “I’m good at vocals and dance.”

Chen Shuyun smiled. “Going first takes real courage. Looks like you’re very confident in your abilities.”

“Maybe I just want to get it over with sooner rather than later,” Lin Baiyu joked, easing the pressure of being first up.

Everyone laughed, and the mentors said no more. “Then start your performance and let us see whether it really is ‘sooner rather than later.’”

The music began.

Lin Baiyu chose a girl group song. Her stage presence was unexpectedly mature; her singing was a little lacking in steadiness, but there was nothing to fault in her dancing, and even her facial expressions were on point.

The mentors were very surprised that a contestant like this would be a civilian. They praised her as worthy of being the first to go onstage; she was already at a level where she could debut directly in a girl group.

With enough ability and the added advantage of going first, all five mentors gave high scores, and Lin Baiyu crossed the cutoff into Class A by a hair.

With a strong opening, the contestants relaxed quite a bit, and one after another went up to perform.

Yu Mao stayed curled up in the back row, her gaze barely moving, fixed on Nan Changgeng, who was sitting so close to her, counting how many facets there were in the diamonds on her left earring.

Because there were so many cameras, any unusual movement in the venue was easy to notice. This excessive quiet on this side instead drew in another batch of viewers.

[...What’s wrong with this kid? Everyone else is performing, and she’s spacing out?]

[I specifically opened a second stream and stayed in this room just to see when she’d finally move her eyes]

[Is Nan Changgeng’s back of the head really that good-looking?]

Recording had already continued for more than four hours. The contestants finished performing one by one, and there weren’t many who made it into Class A; up to this point, there were only five in total.

The remaining contestants who went into Classes B and C made up about half, while Classes D and E accounted for the other half.

Several particularly brilliant performances livened up the atmosphere, but there were more performances of mediocre standard; before long, the mood would sink again.

Nan Changgeng, who had been sitting until she was tired, finally decided to go onstage.

The moment she stood up, Yu Mao’s gaze followed her movement, her eyes widening a little more.

[...Confirmed, she wasn’t spacing out]

[Confirmed, she really is my sis’s fan]

[...Staring for over four hours; how is she doing that? I’m tired just watching the livestream lying down]

[I wanna ask too. This generation of netizens is really something else, camping outside someone’s stream for over four hours just to see when she turns her eyes]

Nan Changgeng stood at the center of the stage and, feeling the cold, polished hardness beneath her feet, was suddenly a little dazed.

How many years had it been since she’d been in a place like this...

To save time, self-introductions were placed after the performance at this point; once the contestant stepped onto the stage and got ready, they could begin directly.

“The song I’m going to perform is ‘Mountain Lake.’”

Nan Changgeng closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and gave the staff member on the right an OK sign.

A graceful cello melody rose.

The woman stood straight before the microphone. Tall and upright, the black suit made her shoulders look broad and her frame straight-backed, as if she possessed the strength to shoulder anything.

Her eyes were lowered; her red lips parted, and her deep, magnetic voice carried an irresistible force, reverberating across the stage.

This was an English ballad she had written years ago in praise of nature.

The profound, powerful voice, accompanied by the low notes, let the melody drift like an autumn wind; heavy yet cool, the two intertwined and flowed through each other without the slightest trace of awkwardness. The fit was astonishingly beautiful.

Everyone fell silent at once and listened carefully to this performance of such high quality.

The four-minute song washed away the restlessness that had accumulated in everyone’s hearts over the past four hours.

When the music stopped, the contestants’ seats erupted into fierce applause.

Author’s Note:

The song title is fictional.