Chapter 21: 021 In That Distant Place
Pei Ningle stood in front of the main entrance to the Imperial Capital West Train Station, like a small, isolated and helpless reef amid the flow of passing people.
This girl who had loved music since childhood finally had a complete fallout with her family after failing the Gaokao. She didn’t want to spend four ordinary years at some shady university or vocational college, so she took the New Year’s money she had saved over the years and headed straight to the Imperial Capital, becoming a young drifter in the north.
However, in less than a month in the Imperial Capital, the young girl quickly experienced the cold cruelty of reality. She found that although she was very confident in her singing voice and talent, others wouldn’t give her a chance to show herself. Music dreams were simply too luxurious for a bar resident singer. No inspiration could brew in the rented basement, allowing the young girl to quickly learn what reality meant.
Moreover, a position like bar resident singer had no sense of security at all. Remuneration could change at any time with no guarantees, the work environment was a small bar late at night, and she had to deal with some men’s ill-intentioned gazes. Even worse, the bar manager always hinted that she “could dress a bit more revealingly,” making Pei Ningle, who was venturing into society for the first time, feel like she was on the verge of collapse.
Recently, the new semester was about to start again. Seeing peers full of youthful energy entering various campuses with aspirations for the future made it even more…
But fortunately, sometimes pies do fall from the sky.
She had posted several original songs she wrote online, and though they had no popularity, they happened to catch the attention of an independent music producer. After chatting a bit, this not-famous but professional producer sent an invitation, hoping the young girl could join his music studio in Rongdu.
The timing of this invitation was perfect. A few hours later, her mother’s phone call came, urging her to go home. Without this pie from the sky, Pei Ningle felt she definitely would have obediently gone back to get scolded…
But at this moment, standing in the crowd, she couldn’t help doubting whether her choice was right or wrong.
“Rongdu…” The young girl stared at the train ticket in her hand, feeling a bit uneasy. She had never been to this place and had almost no concept of it except for its signature hot pot and snacks.
Unknowingly, the departure time was getting closer. Finally, Pei Ningle snapped back to reality, dragged her suitcase, and hurriedly ran into the train station.
Almost at the last moment to board, she rushed into the carriage and found her bed.
Because Brother Song from the studio promised to reimburse travel expenses, Pei Ningle bought a sleeper ticket, and a luxurious soft sleeper at that, which almost used up her last chips. In other words, if something went wrong after arriving in Rongdu, like losing contact with Brother Song or discovering it was actually a scam, she couldn’t even afford a hotel. The few dozen bucks in her pocket would only be enough to buy some beverages and instant noodles on the train…
Sitting on her own lower bunk, Pei Ningle simply placed her suitcase on the bed. The young girl’s figure was petite to begin with, and even lying flat didn’t take up much space. Standing the suitcase upright on the bed wouldn’t take up too much room either, which was just right for her.
Then Pei Ningle took out a pen and notebook from her backpack and started writing simple notation.
The first step in her songwriting was always composing. And the premise of composing was to find some emotion, some feeling.
Looking around and then at the suburban scenery outside the window accelerating backward, the young girl wrote down 【Lost】.
She began humming softly.
Although Pei Ningle’s science stream grades were quite poor, junior high physics knowledge points were of course no problem. She understood that sound comes from air vibrations, and pitch depends on vibration frequency.
Therefore, in theory, every sound the ear hears can be distinguished by pitch. But the human ear isn’t a machine; directly distinguishing do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti and which octave it is has excessive difficulty.
But Pei Ningle could do it, which is called absolute pitch.
In this train’s soft sleeper carriage, each compartment had four beds. In the one Pei Ningle was in, one bed was empty, and the passengers on the other two were already settled.
A middle-aged man in a suit with graying hair, and a elegantly dressed middle-aged woman. Compared to these two, Pei Ningle in her simple sportswear seemed a bit out of place. But the young girl didn’t notice; she was immersed in her creation, occasionally humming softly, picking the most satisfying segments from countless mediocre melodies.
Strangers on the train: some could chat endlessly, others remained silent strangers. The three in this carriage were clearly the latter. But the gazes of the two middle-aged people toward the young girl occasionally carried a hint of curiosity.
Unknowingly, the sun had set in the west, getting closer to the horizon.
Pei Ningle’s stomach growled in protest, but she ignored it. The two passengers in the same compartment had eaten lunch and then dinner, but the young girl had only drunk a few sips of mineral water and eaten nothing else…
————
Wang Heng had been feeling uneasy lately.
After freshmen reported, he handled enrollment procedures, paid tuition and accommodation fees, got the campus card… He was already very familiar with these processes. Although he changed schools, there wasn’t much difference overall, so he naturally didn’t have the novelty that other classmates did.
And what troubled him even more was another problem.
The time-space administrator had lost contact.
Before coming to Rongdu, Wang Heng could speak to the screen of any electronic product and get a response from the time-space administrator. He even deliberately tested it on the washing machine, and on his home washing machine’s small screen, he saw a Chinese character that shouldn’t appear—【Get lost】.
But since arriving in Rongdu, the time-space administrator seemed to have vanished. No matter what he said, he got no response; even cursing at the computer that the guy was useless didn’t work.
This made Wang Heng feel a bit panicked.
Now with not even a reminder, if another knife-wielding girl appeared and he got no hint at all, wouldn’t that be terrible?
“This is like forcing a heart patient to play Silent Hill…”
Standing on the dormitory balcony, looking at the vibrant campus below, Wang Heng sighed.
But just then, he heard a slightly sharp voice:
“Sorry, you’ll have to keep playing this Silent Hill, and you only have one life, no saves.”
Wang Heng jumped in fright and looked toward the voice, but saw no one, only a hamster squatting by the sink gazing at him!
Sure enough, it was the hamster speaking. Under Wang Heng’s gaze, it said again: “It’s been a while, and you seem to miss me especially…”
“You’re that administrator?” Wang Heng probed.
The hamster patted its little chest: “Show some respect, drop the ‘that.’ Before you is the sole time-space administrator of this plane.”
Wang Heng: “…”
————
Saw book friends’ messages in the backend, but… inconvenient to reply, sorry. But everyone’s goodwill and support, this salted fish appreciates it greatly, thank you very much.
