26: Chapter 26: The prince airlifts a piano and plays love songs for her amidst the flames of war!

The twenty-sixth white contrail exploded in mid-air, its altitude noticeably lower than before. Orange-red fragments dragged short trails of fire as they crashed into the sea, kicking up a fleeting cloud of white mist.

Jiang Rumu's pinky finger curled instinctively.

But she didn't pull her hand away.

On Li Li's phone screen, the bullet comments were boiling like water.

[Mumu, sing a song! Please! Not singing in this atmosphere is practically a crime!]

[Yes, yes, yes! "Love Bubblegum" is fine too! Please grace us with your voice!]

He glanced beside him.

Jiang Rumu was also looking at her phone, the white light of the screen illuminating her profile. The sea breeze blew loose a few strands of her tied low ponytail, brushing them past her ear.

She didn't say a word, but silently turned off her phone screen, placed it face down on her knees, and looked back at the sea.

A posture of refusal—silent but firm.

In Li Li's livestream room, rows of rocket special effects were still scrolling.

[Why isn't she singing? Is Mumu shy?]

[What do you guys know? Mumu said herself that hearing her own sweet songs makes her curl her toes in embarrassment. The lyrics are too cringe.]

[The first line of "Love Bubblegum": "You are my little sweetie, sweetening my heart to go bling-bling"... Uh, never mind. Singing this in a war zone is indeed a bit of a dark joke.]

Li Li more or less understood.

A top-tier actress with thirty-four million followers, forced into a silent social death on a beach where missiles were flying, all because of her early-career bubblegum pop songs.

This was harder on her than riding a Yadea.

He withdrew his gaze, looked at the gold foil shredded by the lights on the sea's surface, and said casually, as if to break the awkwardness:

"Too bad there's no piano, otherwise I could play a song too."

No sooner had he spoken than Jiang Rumu beside him whipped her head around, her hair sweeping over her shoulder.

"You can play the piano?"

"A little."

"What level?"

"I can carry a tune," Li Li answered casually.

Her posture changed. From hugging her knees and watching the sea, her entire body slightly turned toward him, and the phone on her knees was placed on the sand.

"If you can play a song right now—" She paused, seemingly formulating an equivalent exchange, "I will sing too."

This condition she offered felt like she was acting in a huff, yet also like she was throwing down a gauntlet.

Li Li was actually taken aback by her reaction.

"No accompaniment."

"Play it on your phone?"

"It's an original, not online," he fibbed casually.

In truth, it wasn't an original; it was a love song that was incredibly common in another dimension. But in this world, it was the only copy in existence.

"You write songs too?" Jiang Rumu's interest was completely piqued, and her body nudged an inch closer to him.

"Just occasionally for fun."

"Then... play it for me when we get back if there's a chance."

After saying this, she seemed to feel it was a bit inappropriate and turned her head back to look at the sea. However, her posture, slightly angled toward him, did not shift back.

The bullet comments instantly caught the key point.

["Play it for me when we get back"—that's a date invitation! Dog Li, did you get that!]

[Mumu's body language doesn't lie! She is way more interested in the piano than in singing!]

Li Li didn't look at the bullet comments. Since there was no piano anyway, saying it was pointless.

However, a minute later.

From the curved road connecting to the hotel in the distance, the sound of a diesel engine echoed.

It wasn't a missile, nor was it an anti-aircraft gun.

The two of them looked toward the sound at the same time.

A small white truck drove out from the corner of the road, its two piercing headlights cutting through the night as it headed straight for the beach. Its wheels rolled onto the sand, making a dull, bumpy sound.

The truck's bed was open, and a massive black object was tied down with thick, heavy straps.

An object... with a curved shape and the outline of a piano lid.

Li Li's mouth fell slightly open, forgetting to close it.

The truck braked to a halt fifteen meters away from them. Three staff members in hotel uniforms hopped out of the cab, put on white gloves, and quickly walked around to the back to unfasten the straps.

The hotel manager leaned halfway out of the passenger seat, his face as white as paper under the headlights. He growled into the walkie-talkie on his collar in Arabic: "It's His Highness's order! I'm not crazy! Hurry up!"

The phone in Li Li's pocket vibrated.

It was a voice message from Fahd, still in Arabic:

"My people are monitoring the global livestream. Your female partner wants to hear you play the piano. That Steinway D-274 in the lobby of the Burj Al Arab—there are no more than three in the entire Middle East. I had people dismantle the stage and load it onto the truck five minutes ago."

The voice message paused, and a loud boom echoed in the background.

"Oh right, the tuner came with the truck too. Have fun."

The Seventh Prince of Dubai, watching a Dating Reality Show livestream, decided that because a guest wanted to hear a piano, he would directly dismantle a national treasure-level piano from the lobby and transport it overnight to a beach under the flames of war.

The joy of the ultra-rich was just so simple and unadorned, yet so absurd it made one's brain short-circuit.

A man wearing a gray suit and a bow tie got down from the back seat, holding an exquisite toolbox. His custom leather shoes stepped into the soft sand, sinking two centimeters.

The muscles on the man's face twitched violently, but his excellent professional etiquette allowed him to steady his posture.

He walked to the unloaded piano, lifted the lid, and took out his tools.

"Plink... plonk, plonk..."

Note after note rang out on the silent beach; it was the standard calibration process for A440 Hz.

Jiang Rumu had stood up at some point.

Barefoot, she stepped on the warm, fine sand and walked a few paces toward the piano, then stopped and looked back at Li Li.

She didn't speak, but her eyes, incredibly bright in the night, and the upward curve of her lips that she could no longer hide, completely gave away her mood.

The livestream room was no longer boiling; it had directly vaporized.

[I'm going crazy! I'm seriously going crazy! A prince air-shipping a piano for a Dating Reality Show guest, ahhh!]

[A Steinway D-274! Moved from the lobby to the beach! I saw the tuner's expression the moment his foot sank into the sand, and my DNA reacted too!]

[The atmosphere has been hyped to this point. Li Li, if you don't sing today, you are cheating the feelings of people all over the world!]

Five minutes later, the tuner finished his work. He closed his toolbox, bowed to Li Li from a distance, and tactfully retreated to the side of the truck.

A black Steinway concert grand piano stood quietly on the white beach just like that.

The lid was fully prop-opened, and its three legs were firmly embedded in the sand.

Behind it was the 210-meter-tall giant sail of the Burj Al Arab, its lights slowly transitioning from blue to gold.

In front of it was the pitch-black Persian Gulf, moonlight shattering on the crests of the waves.

Overhead, the thirty-first interceptor missile tore through the night sky.

Li Li walked over.

He was barefoot, the sleeves of his old shirt rolled up to his forearms, revealing firm and clean-cut lines.

He sat down on the red velvet piano bench.

His fingers rested on the keys. The ivory-white touch carried the unique warmth of a desert night. The skills bestowed by the system completely took over his body at this moment, every inch of muscle memory incredibly clear, as if he and this piano had been companions for ten years.

His left hand descended.

The prelude began. B-flat major, 4/4 time. The broken chords of his left hand spread out like ocean waves, while the melody of his right hand was like moonlight, starting from the middle register and climbing up note by note, clean and bright.

This song was called "Season of Fireworks".

He began to sing. His voice was not as gorgeous as a professional singer's, but it carried a texture polished by grit, steady and real.

"Your faint smile is like the morning sun piercing through the mist"

"In a daze, I hear my heartbeat accelerating"

"So happiness is two hearts silently rushing toward each other"

"At this moment, I have found my home"

No pitch correction, no reverb. The sound of the piano and his voice, mixed with the salty tang of the sea breeze, poured directly into the ears of over fifty million viewers in the livestream room.

Jiang Rumu had sat back down on the sand at some point, right next to the piano. She hugged her knees, her face turned to the side, listening quietly.

At first, she looked at the sea, but gradually, her gaze shifted from the distant horizon to his fingers on the keys, and finally, fixed on his profile.

"Borrowing your eyes to look up at the most brilliant prologue of the starry sky"

"Illuminating the unknown distance, letting love be the only direction"

"Borrowing your eyes to look up at the most brilliant prologue of the starry sky"

"Lighting up sleeping desires, blooming the burning heat of life in every chapter of loving you"

In the chorus, the emotions built up layer by layer.

On the horizon, the thirty-third interceptor missile exploded with a boom. The orange-red fireball lingered briefly in the high sky, as countless fragments dragged long trails of flame across the night sky before extinguishing.

True fireworks.

Reflected in his focused eyes.

The final chord dissipated amidst the sound of the waves.

Li Li's fingers lifted from the keys.

The beach was dead silent for a full three seconds.

Jiang Rumu finally turned her head, her voice very soft.

"What is the name of the song?"

"Season of Fireworks."

She repeated the name, then looked up, glanced at the smoke that had not yet fully dispersed in the sky, and looked back down at him.

"...You did it on purpose."

"What?"

"There are 'fireworks' going off in the sky, and you sing this."

"A coincidence."

"A coincidence?"

She just looked at him like that for two seconds, asking no further, but buried her face in her arms, her shoulders shaking almost imperceptibly.

In the livestream room, before the bullet comments of emotion and awe could even finish scrolling, the style suddenly changed.

First a few scattered ones, then spreading rapidly like a virus.

[Wait... these lyrics... "Borrowing your eyes to look up at the most brilliant prologue of the starry sky"... I've heard this line before!]

[Holy crap! I remember now! Su Wantang! She cried during a livestream last year and said these were lyrics from a song her ex-boyfriend wrote for her!]

[Yes! It's Su Wantang! She said her ex-boyfriend played a song about fireworks for her on a rainy day! These were the lyrics!]

[So... Su Wantang's ex-boyfriend... is Li Li???]

The bullet comments were instantly flooded with "Su Wantang = Li Li's ex-girlfriend".

Li Li was about to stand up from the piano bench when his peripheral vision caught the frantically scrolling bullet comments on his phone screen.

His movements froze.

Su Wantang.

This name was like a stone that had been submerged at the bottom of the water for a long time, suddenly dragged to the surface by today's bullet comments. There were no waves of emotion in his heart, only the annoyance of a project halfway through suddenly being forced to accept a new requirement by the client.

Troublesome.

Just then, Jiang Rumu lifted her head.

She also saw the bullet comments.

Her beautiful eyes were staring at him unblinkingly at this moment. That gaze had changed; it was no longer simple appreciation or curiosity, but a scrutiny of having discovered a key clue, like a detective who had finally held the last puzzle piece in her hand and was confirming if it fit.

She spoke, her voice not loud, yet clearly penetrating the sound of the waves.

"Su Wantang."

Li Li withdrew his hand from the piano keys.

The romantic atmosphere was completely torn to shreds in this very second.

Jiang Rumu looked at him and asked the question that was enough to blow up the entire internet:

"Was this song written for her?"