232: Chapter 232 Adding a Spicy Touch to the Soul – Bonus Chapter of <Chen Taibai is No Longer White>

The screen lit up.

【Fugitive Beethoven】: Where are you? Mr. Top Scorer. [Peeking.jpg]

Looking at that familiar rabbit avatar, he leaned against a tree trunk and typed a reply with one hand.

【Mu Xia】: Just survived a public execution. The whole class recited my essay in unison, and then I had to listen to the homeroom teacher's reading comprehension analysis.

I'm on my way home now.

Less than three seconds after the message was sent, a call came through directly.

Lin Que pressed the answer button and held the phone to his ear:

"What's up? Don't you need to practice the piano?"

A rustling sound of friction came through the receiver,

followed by Ye Xi's deliberately lowered, breathy voice, as if she were afraid of disturbing something.

"Shh—keep it down."

The sound from her end was a bit muffled, mixed with a slight echo, unlike the usual spacious piano room.

"I'm crouching in my family's storage room."

Ye Xi whispered.

"I just managed to distract my teacher and slipped in. This place is full of dusty timpani and music stands; I'm choking to death."

Lin Que laughed:

"Instead of staying in a perfectly good piano room, why run to a storage room? Experiencing life?"

"To read those two essays!"

Ye Xi's voice rose slightly, then she quickly suppressed it again:

"The official website lifted the restriction at twelve o'clock, and I really couldn't contain my curiosity.

You know me, once I have something on my mind, I can't even press down the piano keys."

Lin Que raised an eyebrow, looking at the leaves overhead illuminated by the sunlight:

"Finished reading? How do you feel? Care to give an evaluation, Great Artist?"

"You didn't end up all EMO like my classmates, did you?"

In his view, as someone involved in the arts, Ye Xi

should resonate more with a story like the metamorphosis, which is full of absurdist aesthetics and metaphors of alienation.

After all, after Gregor turned into a beetle, the change in his family's attitude,

and finally the sister's violin performance, which was full of vitality yet cold,

practically tore open the contradiction between art and survival for all to see.

However, there was silence on the other end of the phone for a few seconds.

"the metamorphosis is indeed cold; it makes one shiver."

Ye Xi's voice was a bit tight.

"Especially at the end, when the sister is playing the violin and Gregor drags that rotting insect body closer, wanting to listen... that scene of family affection being erased for the sake of survival is truly the ultimate irony for Gregor."

She paused, her tone suddenly becoming somewhat ethereal.

"But... Lin Que, what truly made me feel fear wasn't turning into a beetle. It was fan jin passes the imperial examination."

Lin Que was somewhat surprised and shifted his stance:

"Oh? Why? Isn't that a satirical comedy? Everyone treats it as a joke."

"A joke? I can't laugh."

Ye Xi's voice held a sensitivity that only those of the same kind could understand.

"Most students see the butcher's sycophantic face and the old scholar's decades of pathetic poverty when they read this.

But I... I see myself."

"Yourself?"

Lin Que frowned slightly.

"Yeah."

Ye Xi gave a bitter laugh.

"For that ticket to the Golden Hall... I'm like a machine, sitting in the piano room for twelve hours every day, my fingernails worn down to nothing.

Sometimes when I walk out of the piano room and look at my peers outside, I don't even know how to open my mouth to talk to them."

"What's the difference between the current me and that Fan Jin, who took exams until his beard turned white and his mind went hazy?"

"We're both crossing a single-plank bridge. I'm just afraid... that I'll go mad too."

Lin Que fell silent.

He hadn't expected that this satirical piece, which had been analyzed to death by countless people in his previous life,

could actually evoke such a strong self-projection from this genius piano girl.

Perhaps this was the charm of a classic.

It was like a mirror where everyone could see the shadow they feared most in the depths of their hearts.

"You won't go mad," Lin Que comforted her softly.

"You have talent, and besides, you are more clear-headed than Fan Jin."

"Being clear-headed is the most terrifying part."

Ye Xi interrupted him, her voice trembling.

"Lin Que, after I finished reading, I kept thinking about a question. A question that wasn't written in the book, but I really want to know the answer to."

"What is it?"

"What happened afterward?" Ye Xi asked.

"After Fan Jin passed the imperial examination, he became a high official, had money, and had status. Even that father-in-law who looked down on him bowed and scraped to him.

In those glory-filled days of the latter half of his life, did he ever, like that moment when he went mad,

truly, unreservedly, and from the bottom of his heart, laugh out loud even once?"

Lin Que's hand holding the phone paused slightly.

The wind blew through the treetops with a rustling sound.

This question was like a needle, accurately piercing into the most desolate blank space of this satirical literature.

In his previous life, when people read the scholars, they only remembered the absurdity of Fan Jin's madness and Butcher Hu's slap that "cured" him.

The ending was naturally a happy one; Fan Jin became an official, his mother became a noble lady, and they enjoyed wealth and honor.

But what about that soul?

Where did that soul go—the one that rolled in the mud, clapped its hands, laughed, and shouted, 'Aha! Good! I've passed!'?

Lin Que closed his eyes, and the image of Fan Jin from the original work appeared in his mind—dressed in official robes, subservient, and full of pedantic jargon.

That Fan Jin knew how to judge the situation, how to take bribes, and how to speak in officialese,

living as a standard, perfect, and enviable 'Master'.

But could he still laugh?

That kind of reckless, pure euphoria,

that release that was full of vitality despite being mad—was it still there?

"I think..."

Lin Que opened his eyes, looking at the busy street before him and the expressionless passersby in a hurry.

Addressing the microphone, he slowly gave an answer that was perhaps a bit cruel, but absolutely true.

"Never again."

On the other end of the phone, Ye Xi's breath hitched.

"That slap, Butcher Hu's aim was very true," Lin Que's voice was calm.

"With that slap, the part of Fan Jin that was a human being was completely killed off."

"The one who woke up was no longer that scholar who could cry and laugh, and who would go mad for his dreams.

Instead, it was an empty shell wearing official robes, who knew the rules and when to advance or retreat."

"In the second half of his life, he might smile, sneer, or fake a laugh. But he would never laugh like he did that day again."

Lin Que looked up, staring directly at the dazzling sun, squinting his eyes:

"Ye Xi, that madman clapping and laughing in the mud,

that was the only time in his life he possessed a free soul."

This was the soul-devouring essence of the feudal ethical code.

It didn't eat flesh; it ate souls.

It turned you into a respectable puppet and then told you that this was success.

The other end of the phone fell into a long silence.

Through the electronic current, Lin Que seemed to hear Ye Xi's heavy breathing.

This answer was too heavy for a young girl about to step onto the world stage and face flowers and applause.

It was practically a horror prophecy about the future.

She was afraid that one day, she too would become that person sitting at the piano in a magnificent gown,

fingers precisely playing every note, while her heart was an empty, exquisite puppet.

The silence on the other end was too heavy.

Lin Que didn't want this future great artist to have a mental breakdown before she even went abroad.

He straightened up, stretched his somewhat stiff neck,

and looked at an orange cat licking its fur by the roadside. The solemnity in his eyes faded,

replaced by a few hints of an irreverent smile.

"So, Great Artist."

"Hmm?" Ye Xi's voice was still immersed in the previous emotion, sounding a bit muffled.

"While you're in Europe, don't just pack gowns and sheet music in your suitcase."

"Remember to secretly stuff in a few bottles of Lao Gan Ma, or that insanely spicy beef sauce."

"Huh?" Ye Xi was stunned, clearly not keeping up with this leap in logic. "Why bring that?"

"For self-defense."

Lin Que spoke nonsense with a straight face:

"A place like Vienna is too pretentious.

If there's ever a day you feel the applause is too fake, or you feel like you're about to become that empty shell,

just hide in your room and devour a few mouthfuls of Lao Gan Ma."

"Keep a little bit of that madness; don't let that Butcher Hu called 'life'

slap you into a daze."

...