The Eye of the Storm

In the darkness, Liang Sizhe reached out and pulled off the two earphones, and sat up irritably.

The passionate singing downstairs has been roaring for almost an hour, and there is still no sign of it going to stop.The sound insulation of the room is too poor, and even wearing headphones can't resist the sound of magic.The sound didn't even seem to come from his ears, it was more like it seeped in from all directions and then penetrated into the cracks in the bones, making it unavoidable.

How long does it take to close down?Don't want to sing till dawn...

He couldn't bear to throw the earphones aside, changed his clothes, got out of bed and put on his shoes, opened the door and went out.

When he passed the row of dark wooden doors, he couldn't help but wonder again, did people live in it?If anyone lives there, how on earth do they tolerate the noise downstairs?

All other shops in the alley were closed.The bustling fireworks at night disappeared without a trace like the ebb tide.

As soon as Liang Sizhe appeared at the door, several drunkards who were smoking cigarettes turned to look at him.

The white light on the second floor was shining, reflecting on the road downstairs, and reflecting the thick layer of reflective oil on the ground.

He walked along the shoulder of the road and found himself in the bar again.

The bar seemed to be closing, the music inside had died down, and someone came out with a big bag of trash in one hand and a battered acoustic guitar in the other.

That man came out to throw out garbage. When passing by Liang Sizhe, he saw him parked on the side of the road and looked towards the direction of the bar. He glanced at him deliberately, and said lazily: "It's closed, come back tomorrow."

Liang Sizhe played elementary school music and was very sensitive to all sounds, so he immediately recognized that the song "A Piece of Red Cloth" he heard at the door a few hours ago should be sung by this person.

The man lifted the lid of the trash can, picked up the bag of garbage in his hand and threw it in. The trash can was full immediately, then he bent down and leaned the old acoustic guitar against the side of the bucket, and walked back empty-handed.

Seeing that Liang Sizhe was still standing there, the man glanced at him again, and this time he spoke up: "Hey, what are you doing here?"

Liang Sizhe didn't answer this question, but just looked at him and asked, "Is that guitar gone?"

"Yes."

"Then can I take it away?" Liang Sizhe asked again, since it was trash.

"You can take it if you want," said the man, shrugging nonchalantly, "but it's too damaged to play, and the string is broken."

"It's okay." Liang Sizhe said, walked over to pick up the acoustic guitar, and looked at the body of the guitar under the dim light.The man was right, this acoustic guitar was too old, the paint on the body was peeled off, making it impossible to recognize its original color, and the broken string curled up weakly in the air.

The man followed suit, stopped beside him and asked, "Do you know how to play? Or do you want to learn?"

Liang Sizhe said very vaguely: "I want to try."

"Oh, I don't think I've seen you here before? First time here?"

Liang Sizhe said "Yes".

"No wonder... what are you here for?"

Liang Sizhe doesn't seem to belong to this alley. If he insists on linking him with this alley, then he can only come to this bar.Unexpectedly, Liang Sizhe gave an unexpected answer: "He's here for a part-time job," and he turned his head to gesture to the flashing lights of the Blue Banquet not far away, "It's over there."

The man was stunned for a moment, then smiled and said, "Are you kidding me..."

"Really." Liang Sizhe's tone was natural, making it difficult to tell the truth from the fake.

"Okay...it's what you say," the man didn't take him seriously, "I'll help you find someone to fix this guitar, or it really doesn't work. I just cleaned it up from the backstage today. I don't know when it was. Throw it there." The man took the guitar from him, plucked the strings twice, and the sound of the changed tune was like that of an old-fashioned tape recorder that was about to run out of power.

Liang Sizhe thought for a while and asked, "Is it troublesome?"

"Hey, what's the trouble? My friend repairs this professionally. It's a casual thing. After a few days, I'll bring it to you and leave a call?"

Liang Sizhe reported his mobile phone number to the man, and the man called back.The bell didn't ring, so he explained: "I didn't bring my phone, it's turned off." He had just laid down on the bed two hours ago, was annoyed by the music downstairs, and was just getting a little sleepy when Lin Yan made a phone call. They just called, and after Liang Sizhe hung up the phone, the drowsiness that had finally come up to him faded away, replaced by a burst of restless impatience—the joke was on his own head, does he know Cao Ye very well?

"Oh, I understand." The man put the phone back into his pocket, "OK, I'll contact you later."

At two o'clock in the morning, Liang Sizhe came back from wandering in the neighboring street, and walked slowly back to Yinsi Street with his hand in his pocket.

A row of stores on the adjacent street have been closed, and there are only one street lamp standing on the street.The night was quiet, and the restlessness in his heart was gradually soothed by the night wind.

When we turned back to Yinsi, the neon lights of the Blue Banquet were still flashing non-stop, but from a distance, the noisy howling ghosts and howling wolves seemed to be exhausted—the guests who had vented all night were finally tired of shouting.

Liang Sizhe stopped, and looked up at the dilapidated five-story low building in Lanyan tens of meters away. It was an old-fashioned house with extremely poor security design, with small intervals between floors and cement-built window sills. Goes thick and bulky.There is a greyish-white, crude drainage pipe sticking to the edge of the building wall. It should be installed after the roof was designed too unscientifically, and water always accumulates in rainy days.

Maybe you can step on the edge of the cement window sill, grab the pipe exposed outside the wall with your hand, and climb to the upper floor. It doesn't seem difficult... Liang Sizhe looked at the five-story low building, thinking This thought arises.

——The roof of the building looks very flat, maybe it will be quieter when you go up there.He needs somewhere quieter.

-

Liang Sizhe slept until after nine o'clock the next morning.

After washing, he stood in front of the window and looked down. The breakfast stalls in the alley had already started closing down, and the smell of fried oil filled the air of the entire alleyway.

He went downstairs. Compared with the noisy atmosphere a few hours ago, the first and second floors of the Lanyan were as quiet as if no one lived there, and the wooden furnishings even exuded a slightly stale smell.

The Blue Banquet during the day and at night are two completely different worlds.Lan Yan at night is like an old bustard trying to dress up but shows his ugly appearance, while Lan Yan during the day is like a lady in a deep house who has lived in a back alley for a long time and does not wear makeup.

The curtain on the first floor was closed tightly, and the room was the same as yesterday afternoon, only a dim ceiling light was on. The waiter in charge of cleaning was immersed in cleaning up the mess in the early morning. Seeing someone walking down the stairs at this time, he looked up in surprise At a glance, seeing that it was the new boy who arrived yesterday, he numbly lowered his head and continued to clean.

The door was locked with a heavy chain lock, Liang Sizhe asked the waiter to open the door for him, went out, found a random breakfast shop that had not closed the stall, ate a drawer of steamed buns, drank a bowl of pumpkin porridge, and talked to the shop owner. After inquiring clearly about the bus route to the Film Academy, I paid the fare and started on the road.

Starting over has to be a little bit like starting over.

He doesn't know anything about movies. In the past, he watched some old movies on CCTV-6 at most, and occasionally went to the movie theater with his friends—not many, at most two or three times a year, and spent the rest of his time practicing the violin.

To be honest, before yesterday, even if he borrowed eight of his brains, he couldn't think of anything that he would have anything to do with the movie.

The film school is approaching the graduation season, and the students have nothing to film and their prospects are bleak. They sit under the shade of a tree playing cards and setting up stalls, selling all their belongings for four years at a low price.

Seeing an attractive boy come to patronize the business, the senior sister who set up the stall swept away her bored expression before, stood up and greeted Liang Sizhe enthusiastically: "Where are you from? Not from Nortel, right? I haven't seen you before, is it a Chinese drama?" What?" Seeing Liang Sizhe shaking his head, he said, "That means you want to be admitted to our school in the future, right?" Before he could speak, the senior sister squatted down and took a few books and piled them together, "This book, this book, and There is this...all of which are professional books recommended by our teachers in class..."

On the opposite side, a senior stretched his neck and greeted the businessmen: "Hey, come over to us and have a look. It's useless for you to read so many books, watch more movies!"

Liang Sizhe's trip was fruitful. He carried a stack of books and video discs, as well as a video player that his seniors resold at a low price, and took the bus back to Lanyan.

Lan Yan was still in the state of sleeping during the day, out of place with other shops in the alley, Liang Sizhe couldn't move his hands, turned his body sideways to push open the glass door, and walked in backwards.

He went back to the room and fiddled with the DVD player, and it was able to connect to the TV on the wall. He casually took the top CD and put it in. The title of the dragon logo appeared on the screen, and it was playing the black and white movie "Roman Holiday". He sat down on the edge of the bed, and was watching intently, when there was a knock on the door.

Standing up to open the door, the young waiter downstairs was carrying a brown paper bag and asked in broken Mandarin with a slight accent, "Is Cao Ye in?"

"No."

"Where's Liang Sizhe?"

"I am."

"Oh, here is the meal for you," the boy pointed downstairs, "someone brought it to you just now." He couldn't help but glanced into the house curiously, as if aware that this room was different from other rooms. different.

Liang Sizhe thanked him, and shut the boy and his curious eyes away from the door.

The meal was ordered by Zheng Yin.

Zheng Yin was really thoughtful, worried that Cao Ye would not be used to the food here, so he specially ordered the dishes from his own kitchen, and asked someone to deliver them from a distance of ten kilometers away every day.There are two meals a day, in duplicate, and the dishes are never repeated.

It's just that Cao Ye didn't plan to live here at all, and Liang Sizhe got paid for it.

Liang Sizhe ate one portion and the other portion, and it would be a pity to feed the remaining portion to the dog, so every time the waiter came over, he only kept one portion and left the other portion for the waiter who brought the food.

The little waiter was a boy about his age, who looked timid, took the meal, and nodded happily to him.

Liang Sizhe adapted well here, and his biological clock quickly adjusted to be consistent with Lan Yan.

Read professional books for a while in the morning, take a nap in the afternoon and watch a movie, and run around the nearby path twice after dinner. Life is more regular than in Yancheng.

One evening, after watching a movie, he went downstairs twice and was about to open the door to go back to Lanyan, when someone called him from behind: "Hey!"

He turned his head, and the resident singer of the bar that night stood under the steps, squinted his eyes and looked up at Lan Yan's door, and then his eyes fell back on him: "You really live here?"

Liang Sizhe smiled, "Yes."

"Here, the guitar has been repaired." The man lifted the acoustic guitar in his hand to him, "I changed all the strings and adjusted the tone. I tried it, and the tone is okay."

Liang Sizhe walked down the steps, took the guitar, looked down, and said to the man, "Okay, thank you, how much is it?"

"No money, I'll give it to you," the man raised his chin at him: "Don't you want to try?"

Liang Sizhe didn't intend to play, shook his head and said: "Forget it, I didn't play well, don't show timidity."

"Okay," the man was quite casual, and looked up at the upstairs of Lan Yan, "The third floor is the guest house? How much is it for one night?"

"I don't know." Liang Sizhe said.

"Don't you live here?" The man raised his eyebrows and looked at him.

"I work part-time," Liang Sizhe said with a smile, and it sounded like that, "food and lodging are included."

The man looked him over from head to toe: "It's really rare. You remember my number, and if you want to change jobs later, remember to contact me."

"Okay." Liang Sizhe said, taking out the phone from his pocket.

"Did you turn off the phone today?" The man looked at his phone and smiled.

"No." Liang Sizhe said.In fact, he hadn't turned off the phone for several days. The phone call from Cao Ye that night was an accident. Usually, no one would call him, so it didn't matter whether he turned off the phone or not.

As soon as I opened the address book in the phone, Cao Ye's name popped up, and the surname took advantage of it, which happened to be the first one.

"What's the number?" Liang Sizhe asked. When he looked up, he saw a taxi driving in front of him and stopped at the entrance of Lanyan.

As soon as the car came to a complete stop, the car door was pushed open immediately, a young man got out of the car, and after closing the car door, he hurriedly raised his legs up the stairs.The legs are quite long, and I can take three steps in one step.

The driver was even more anxious than him. He pushed down the window and shouted excitedly at his back: "Money! The car money hasn't been paid yet!"

Cao Ye had just finished climbing the steps when he braked suddenly, turned around recklessly, and ran down again. He fumbled in his front and back pockets with one hand, only then realized that he didn't bring any clothes with him. Qian, when he looked up, he saw Liang Sizhe, as if seeing a rescuer, his eyes lit up instantly: "Hey buddy, have you brought any money?"

"Bring it." Liang Sizhe didn't wait for him to ask to borrow it, and walked over to help him settle the car money.These days, Cao Ye only ate so many meals, and gave the waiter so many favors, so he should help settle the car money.

"Thank you, I'll pay you back later." Seeing that the fare was paid, Cao Ye held his arm and pulled him up the stairs. "My dad is coming right now, go upstairs."

His tone was so urgent that Liang Sizhe didn't realize for a moment, what was the relationship between Cao Xiuyuan's coming over and going upstairs quickly.He hastily said goodbye to the resident singer, and was dragged upstairs by Cao Ye the next second.