110: Chapter 110 Friendship, Not Business

Tonight on Santa Monica Boulevard, Sean pulled over a passerby dressed as Chewbacca to take a group photo for them—

The three of them stood side by side in front of a bar decorated for Halloween, with orange and purple neon strips in the background and a string of paper bats hanging overhead.

Sean stood on the left, his Han Solo black vest damp with sweat in one spot, his blaster hanging crookedly at his waist.

Charlie stood on the right, his Jedi white robe dragging at his ankles, his lightsaber still deactivated, the hilt gripped in his hand.

Chen Mo stood in the middle, Darth Vader's black helmet completely concealing his face, his black hoodie and black trousers blending into the night.

Three faces hidden by masks, three different plastic heroes, standing on the last night of October in Los Angeles.

He opened Instagram, selected the photo, and typed a few words in the caption box: "Guess who is who."

Then he pressed send.

Outside the window, the last of the fireworks in the direction of West Hollywood died out, and the night sky over Los Angeles fell quiet once again.

He closed his eyes.

The phone screen was still lit, and the like and comment counts in the notification bar began to scroll at a rate of 99+ per second, but he didn't look again.

The next morning, Chen Mo was woken up by the grinding sound of the coffee machine.

He walked out of the bedroom barefoot and found that Sean was already awake, standing in the kitchen fiddling with his coffee machine, muttering, "What does this button do? Why isn't water coming out?"

Charlie was still sprawled on the sofa, using his Jedi robe as a blanket to cover his face, with only a tuft of messy hair poking out.

Chen Mo pushed Sean away from the coffee machine, pressed the correct button, and the coffee began to drip down.

He picked up his phone from the shoe cabinet; the notifications on the screen were already filled with Instagram likes and comments.

Last night's Halloween group photo had broken eight million likes.

The top comment in the comment section, which had been pushed to the first spot, had already surpassed four hundred thousand likes.

"No need to guess. Even if the one in the center is standing still wearing a mask, I can still recognize him. The angle of the shoulders, the watch on his left wrist, the center of gravity in his stance—who else could it be but Chen Mo?"

Someone replied underneath this comment: "Did you study criminal investigation?"

The commenter replied: "I studied photography. His stance is very distinctive, like a model."

Another highly-liked comment read: "Sean's blaster is crooked, Charlie's lightsaber isn't on, and Chen Mo is standing in the middle carrying nothing, because Darth Vader doesn't need weapons."

It was followed by a row of laughing-crying emojis.

Sean carried his coffee mug over and took a look at the screen.

"How did she tell the blaster was crooked? I didn't even notice myself."

Charlie poked his head out from under the robe, his voice still husky with sleep, and said: "You put the gun in backward after we finished dancing at the bar last night. I reminded you three times, and you said, 'It doesn't matter.' Now over eight million people have seen it."

Sean looked down at the like count on that comment, set his coffee mug on the coffee table, and said: "Over eight million. Alright, fair enough."

The doorbell rang.

Chen Mo opened the door. Scott stood at the entrance, wearing a dark gray cashmere coat, holding his phone with the Halloween group photo on the screen.

He walked into the living room and looked at Charlie, who was sprawled on the sofa with his Jedi robe crumpled over his legs.

Scott looked at Sean, who was holding his coffee mug, his Han Solo vest still on, the blaster tucked crookedly at his waist, and then he turned to Chen Mo.

"The three of you have a combined follower count of nearly two hundred million. Let me know before your next get-together, and I'll arrange for someone to follow and film you. Just from that photo last night, my PR team could package it as 'The Iron Triangle of the New Generation of Music'—I've even thought of the title, called 'The Leftover Pizza Alliance.'"

"Then we won't get together."

Scott rolled his eyes, the roll so wide that you could almost see the entire white part of his eyeballs.

"I'm not saying I want to disturb your get-together; I'm saying, if there's a suitable opportunity, like the three of you writing songs together, recording demos together, eating pizza in the recording studio…"

"If we film content like that, you don't need to retouch photos, you don't need copy—once you post it, it's a trending topic. Your team works hard managing your social media accounts; when you occasionally post something on your own, they're as happy as if they'd won the lottery, but could you occasionally post something we've prepared?"

"Last night's photo was taken by a random passerby Sean pulled over as Chewbacca; we couldn't have prepared for that."

Scott placed his phone on the coffee table and sat down on the armrest of the sofa. Seeing the giant pumpkin plush toy leaning against the shoe cabinet, his gaze lingered on the pumpkin for a moment.

"Whose pumpkin is this?"

"Charlie won it shooting hoops," Chen Mo said, leaning against the kitchen counter and lifting his coffee mug, "he shoved one on me, and I shoved one on him."

"As for the trending topic you mentioned, that group photo from last night has already been posted, but as for the filming, forget it."

Scott nodded, stood up, straightened his coat collar, and when he walked by the shoe cabinet, he looked down at the pumpkin again, then turned and walked toward the door. After walking a few steps, he turned back and said: "Nice pumpkin."

After the door closed, Charlie crawled completely out from under the robe and sat cross-legged on the sofa.

"He stopped bringing up business collaborations; you won." Sean pulled the blaster from his waist and placed it on the coffee table, "He said 'The Leftover Pizza Alliance' earlier—I think it's pretty good, classier than our group chat name."

Chen Mo leaned against the kitchen counter, the warmth of the coffee mug in his palm seeping through the ceramic.

"Then let's change it to our real group name. True friendship doesn't need business collaborations to prove it."

"Cool, bro!"

Outside the window, the morning sun of Los Angeles already blanketed the entire living room, and the Halloween paper bats were still hanging on the neighbor's porch.

Chen Mo spent the entire morning in the recording studio, the mixing console screen glowing with a melody he had just finished writing.

It was piano-based, in A-flat major, with the right-hand melody line jumping repeatedly between the second and third beats, like a person drifting on the water, not knowing whether to swim to the shore or keep drifting.

He looped this melody over twenty times, pausing before the chorus each time, always feeling that a line of lyrics was missing in that spot, like a missing piece of a puzzle.

He picked up his pen and wrote a line in his notebook: "If I die tomorrow, would you remember my name?"

He stared at this line for a while, drew a line under "die," and noted in the margin: Too absolute.

Change it to "left"?

But "left" was too light, and "die" was too heavy.

He put the pen down, leaned back in his chair, and let the melody continue to loop.

The door was pushed open.

Half of Charlie's head poked in, his curly hair brushing against the doorframe. He was holding an iced Americano, his guitar—which never left his side—strapped to his back, and in his other hand, he carried a brown paper bag, the bottom of which was stained with a few translucent circles from grease.

"You made an appointment with me, did you forget?"

Chen Mo glanced at his phone. They did indeed have an appointment to write songs together today, but it was for one o'clock in the afternoon, and it was currently twelve-fifty-eight.

For once, Charlie wasn't late.

"You're early today."

"Because last time you said I was nine minutes late, I set my watch ten minutes fast, but I didn't tell you how fast it was, so you wouldn't know if I was actually early or not."

Charlie set the iced Americano on the coffee table, leaned the guitar against the sofa, and then leaned over to look at Chen Mo's notebook.

Chen Mo closed the notebook and said: "It's not finished yet. Let's listen to yours first."