53: Chapter 53 New Clues in Dali Ancient City

Dali Ancient City.

The morning wind carried a hint of chill from Cangshan Mountain.

There were not many tourists yet on the stone-paved road, and the bluestone slabs were covered with a thin layer of morning dew.

Yan Yu carried a backpack, her eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.

She walked at the very front.

Brother Cai and A-Li followed behind, holding a few printed photos in their hands.

Those were the group photo of the thirteen people in the cafeteria they had saved online, as well as screenshots Yan Yu took from the video of Yunnan BIGBANG.

"There are at least over a hundred musical instrument shops in Dali Ancient City," Brother Cai rubbed his throbbing temples. "If we search blindly like this, it's pretty much like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"As long as he has touched a guitar in Dali, he will definitely leave a trace."

Yan Yu pushed open the door of a music store with a wooden sign.

Ten minutes later, the three of them walked out shaking their heads.

None.

Never seen him.

Unawares, the sun had risen directly overhead.

Twenty-one shops.

All gave the same answer.

A-Li sat on a stone pier by the roadside, unscrewed a mineral water bottle, and took a big gulp. "Sister Yan Yu, do you think God Su might not have stopped at these shops at all? That night he only played for a dozen seconds before leaving; maybe he really doesn't want to touch instruments again."

Yan Yu looked at the long pedestrian street without replying.

She walked to a fork in the road, her gaze drawn to an inconspicuous storefront at the street corner.

The storefront had no large sign.

Hanging in the display window were a few aged handmade wooden guitars.

Stuck on the door was a yellowed piece of paper: [Searching for Sound with Old Strings].

Yan Yu took a deep breath and pushed open the glass door.

The doorbell made a crisp "ding-dong" sound.

The shop was very dim.

The walls were covered with guitars and basses of various models, and in the corner there was even a dusty synthesizer.

The air was filled with the scent of wood and rosin.

Sitting behind the counter was a man in his thirties with dreadlocks and a baggy coarse cloth T-shirt, lowering his head to string an old guitar.

"Look around freely, no bargaining."

Yan Yu walked to the counter and placed her phone screen on the desktop.

"Boss, I want to ask you about someone."

The boss's fingers paused, and he raised his eyelids to glance at the screen.

On the screen was the screenshot of eating in the cafeteria, magnifying Su Chen's profile.

"Don't know him." The boss continued to turn the tuning peg.

Yan Yu did not take back her phone; she pulled up the audio clip of just over ten seconds sent by the boss of Buyu Inn in Dali.

She clicked play.

"Dong, dong-dong, dong."

The rough Strumming sound rang out in the quiet shop.

The boss's hand turning the tuning peg stopped abruptly.

His gaze locked dead onto Yan Yu's phone.

"Where did you get this chord progression?" The boss's voice changed in his urgency.

"An inn in Dali, a few days ago, someone played it with a guitar that had a broken string." Yan Yu stared closely into the boss's eyes. "This guitar had its third string broken, and the person playing used fingering to avoid that pitch register, directly reconstructing the harmonic progression of these chords."

The boss put down the tools in his hand and stood up.

He sized Yan Yu up a few times.

"You understand music?"

"I don't." Yan Yu pointed at the photo. "But he does."

The boss fell silent.

He walked to the shop door, flipped the [Open for Business] sign over to [Closed].

"Follow me."

The boss turned around and walked towards the rest area at the back of the storefront.

Yan Yu, Brother Cai, and A-Li exchanged glances.

Could there be a clue? ? ?

Their heartbeats accelerated instantly, and they quickly followed.

In the rest area sat a shabby genuine leather sofa facing a desktop computer.

The boss pulled out a chair and sat down, clicking open a surveillance software on the desktop.

"My shop has been open for eight years. The guests who come are either internet celebrities checking in to take photos, or pretenders acting artistic."

The boss spoke while dragging the surveillance progress bar.

"Three days ago, which is last Thursday afternoon."

"There were no guests in the shop. It was raining."

"A person pushed the door open. Without an umbrella, his shoulders were all wet."

The progress bar stopped at ten past three on Thursday afternoon.

The boss clicked the play button.

The surveillance footage appeared on the screen.

The image quality was not high-definition, but because the rest area was very close to the counter, plus the shop's surveillance had a sound pickup installed, both the image and sound were very clear.

Inside the screen, a man wearing a black windbreaker pushed open the door.

He was very tall.

His figure was thin and lean, yet his spine was held straight.

He wore a baseball cap with the brim pulled down very low, making it impossible to see his full face.

But Yan Yu recognized him at a glance.

That superior jawline, that familiar figure.

It was the exact figure teaching Zhang Yixing how to Dancing in the video!

"He didn't look at those flashy branded guitars on the wall."

The boss's voice sounded beside them.

"He walked straight to the corner and picked up that broken wooden guitar that I had thrown on the floor to scrap for parts because its soundboard was cracked."

In the surveillance, the man picked up that guitar.

His movements were very gentle.

He sat on a round wooden stool and placed the guitar on his thighs.

The man did not play immediately.

He lowered his head, his fingers stroking across the strings one by one.

That movement was like stroking an old friend he hadn't seen for many years.

He was very quiet in the footage.

One could even feel a profound sense of loneliness.

Brother Cai clenched his fists in the back, his breathing growing heavy.

A-Li held his breath, staring fixedly at the screen.

"I asked him at the time if he wanted to try a new guitar." The boss pointed at the screen. "He didn't speak, just borrowed a set of tools from me."

In the video, the man began tuning it himself.

He did not use an electronic tuner.

Relying entirely on his ears.

Turn a tuning peg, pluck a string.

Closing his eyes, feeling the vibration of the sound waves in the air.

In less than a minute, the sounds of the six strings were completely seamless.

Yan Yu looked at the screen.

Her eye sockets began to sting.

This man had vanished from this world for five years; he carried bricks in the countryside, he wandered in Dali.

He avoided all camera lenses.

But he still walked into this shop and picked up a nearly scrapped guitar.

"Then, he began to play."

Inside the surveillance footage.

The man's right hand lowered.

His fingers came together, and his index and middle fingers steadily plucked the first string.

"Zheng——"

The clear, full sound of the guitar came out from the computer speakers.

Shortly after.

The man's fingers began to move along the fretboard.

Without any sheet music, without any preparation.

That was muscle memory carved into his bones.

A series of complex arpeggios poured out from his fingertips like flowing water.

Notes jumped, melodies undulated.

First came a low and oppressive buildup, like walking alone in the dark for a long time.

Gradually, the rhythm accelerated.

The force of his right hand's Strumming increased.

The man's shoulders swayed slightly with the rhythm; beneath the baseball cap was a state of complete immersion in the world of music.

In the entire rest area, only the sound of the guitar echoed.

The boss sat in front of the computer, his eyes staring blankly.

"Listen to this chord arrangement." The boss pointed at the screen. "He isn't playing someone else's song. He's improvising an arrangement. The wide-span fret pressing with his left hand, the Strumming mixed with palm mutes and percussive hits with his right hand. This is simply not something an amateur enthusiast can play."

Yan Yu's tears fell.

Of course it wasn't an amateur enthusiast.

Single-handedly, he carried the music library of a major portion of South Korea's star-making factories.

The songs he casually wrote became wildly popular across all of Asia.

In the surveillance.

The man's playing became increasingly invested.

He forgot his surrounding environment, forgot the exhaustion of living under an assumed name.

His lips parted slightly.

A husky, low hum was transmitted out through the sound pickup.

There were no specific lyrics.

He was just casually humming along with the melody.

Yet the loneliness and power within this humming were like a knife, piercing straight into the hearts of everyone present.

That was the grievance of five years unable to see the light of day.

It was the resentment of having one's talent stolen and one's name erased.

It was also the burning instinct of loving music deep into one's bones even when having nothing left.

The song ended.