Flight of the Bumblebee

Chapter 33 chapter 33

"I lived in Hamburg as a child..."

"what?"

"Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany. Not the kind of burger you eat."

"Oh oh oh... I misunderstood, sorry sorry."

"I came back to live for a while, in a courtyard house in Beijing, with many people."

"It turns out that you are still a son of a rich family."

"My family's situation is not rich. My mother and my father both studied classical music. They went abroad for further study in the 80s. They met and got married in Germany. They got divorced not long after I was born. I have an older brother who was awarded to my father later. Live with him in Vienna to play the violin. I have been living with my mother in Hamburg to learn the piano."

"Who taught you Mandarin? No one in Germany speaks Chinese, right?"

"My mother spoke Mandarin to me when she was at home. When I returned to China, an uncle who lived with me kept correcting my accent."

"No wonder you speak so slickly, but you don't know a single big character."

Xing Yan corrected him: "I'm not illiterate, I can still understand simpler sentences."

"Okay, okay, just pretend that you are not semi-literate and continue."

"Probably my talent in playing the piano is becoming more and more outstanding. My mother is so happy that she can't wait to press me in front of the piano 24 hours a day." Having said that, Xing Yan showed a short and bitter smile, "She I was afraid that I would be confused by the colorful world outside and neglect my piano study. I thought she would feel relieved after winning the international award, but I didn't expect that my nightmare had just begun."

"What happened?" He Qi didn't hide the worry in his eyes.

"A young Chinese boy who won an international piano award, what do you think it means to a businessman?"

"The piano award you mentioned, shouldn't it be the one won by XXX?"

"You know him too?"

"In recent years, his popularity has been quite high, even ordinary people like me know it."

"He won the highest honor. Although I have also received the award on that stage, I am still a little worse than him."

"You both got it in the same year?"

"How is it possible, I was still preparing for the entrance exam in Hamburg more than ten years ago."

"Let me think about it... he won the award in 2000, now 2017, 17 years have passed, how old are you now?"

"27."

"Liar! You are four years older than me!"

"It doesn't look like it?"

"It's pretty similar when the hair is long."

"..."

"And then? Your worth must have been fired."

Xing Yan smiled wryly, and said: "Not really. Although the popularity of awards will increase, most people will only remember the best one. I am not the best, but I am Chinese. It happened that my father One of my female apprentices also won a grand prize in an international violin competition, and at that time the boss of a record company in China said, why don’t you form a duo of golden boys and girls together, release the film and have a concert.”

"This is too bullying, it sounds like buying one cabbage and getting one free!" He Qi complained on his behalf.

"It's not considered bullying. After all, there are many people who are short-lived after winning international awards. The person who made the suggestion just wanted to use this opportunity to push the two of us in front of the world. My mother thought the same way. She pulled her face and flew to Vienna negotiated with my dad, and brought that girl here regardless of her willingness or not.” He paused for a while, then continued: “But my mom is really eager to succeed. She was the first one to be invited in the 80s The female pianist who came to Germany thinks she is better than everyone else, but after more than 20 years, she still has not achieved her ideal achievement in that land. My mother is a woman with strong self-esteem, and she put all the faults on me On her father. She regretted knowing him, regretted having a child too early and ruined her career. She felt that her failure was because she was entangled in love and family at her best time, and did not let more people know her. Heard her play. She said she was going to seize this opportunity, she was going to make me a classical music superstar..."

"Your mother sounds crazy."

"She's got the two of us touring around the world [-]/[-], doing magazine covers, doing TV promos, and trying to turn us into real 'golden girls.'"

"Wow... my God..." He Qi couldn't help but call out to God.

"At first I was able to grit my teeth and endure like hell, but then I couldn't."

"What happened? Did your little junior sister run away?" He Qi could still make a joke when he heard this.

"I have a panic attack."

Judging from He Qi's shallow understanding of mental illness, he will never understand the meaning conveyed by these three words.The mental illness he hears most often is "depression", which is especially common in big cities. Sitting in the office from time to time, you can hear colleagues gossiping about the wife of a former colleague's friend. The younger brother’s classmate got depressed and hanged himself at home, or there was news about a little-known celebrity committing suicide because of depression.But "panic attack"?He didn't understand it, let alone understand its seriousness.Xing Yan's expression was so serious that he couldn't help feeling anxious.

"Is it serious?" he asked.

"When I have an attack, I feel cold all over my body and can't breathe. Even if I gasp for air, I can't feel the air entering my lungs. It's like a pair of invisible hands covering your nose and mouth. The only thing you can feel What is more hopeless is suffocation. The lights on the stage will dazzle me, the noise of the crowd that cannot stop will stimulate my nerves, and I have to take a lot of anti-anxiety drugs before going on stage, but the aftereffects The effect will dull my senses, and I will not be able to play the piano sound that people expect. The voice of discussion and criticism will reach my ears, which will become a panic attack again. The cycle repeats, and my world becomes a world. A huge trap traps me in it. No matter how hard I struggle, I can't break the chain on my feet. It's like a person who can't swim falls into the water. He just instinctively steps on the water and reaches out to call for help. He can't at all. Swing your arms and send yourself ashore."

"During that time, I always cried without warning. When my mother saw it, she just sneered and said that my weak part was very similar to my father. I began to be afraid of seeing people. Someone knocked on the door outside the lounge. My heart is scared out. I think I should rest and see a psychiatrist for treatment instead of being carried around like a toy puppet all day. But my mother disagrees. She thinks I should overcome my character flaws and overcome myself How ridiculous, her son is sick like this, and she still wants to be the mother of a pianist."

He Qi looked at him with pity, and asked softly, "Didn't your father say anything?"

"He doesn't know. But even if he knew, I don't think he would say anything. As my mother said, my weak character is inherited from my father. He has been away from her for so many years, and he is still willing to suffer psychologically. At her mercy."

He Qi couldn't help shivering, and said with great emotion: "Your mother is really scary."

"She is a woman with a strong desire for control, with a strict and self-denying personality. Her desire for success blinded her heart. I was not the only one who was sick at that time."

"How did you get out?" He Qi finally asked the most critical point, which was also the question he cared about the most and couldn't ask the most for more than a month.After living in his house for nothing for so long, Xing Yan was finally willing to open up to him.

Hearing this question, he pondered for a while, and then said: "My departure was not because of what my mother did to me that day. To be precise, it was the last straw that finally broke me. Our tour came that day. In Tokyo, the auditorium is full of Japanese people. I don’t think I can understand what they are saying anyway, so I will take it easy on stage this time. I didn’t take medicine that day, and the stage was very dark. Two strong spotlights came from It was shot down above, and it shined on the piano and violinist in the middle. The Japanese audience is very educated, and the concert hall that accommodates hundreds of people can hardly hear any loud disturbing noise. I thought everything was fine Yes, the task can be completed perfectly. But before going on stage, I overheard the staff chatting, they were hiding in a dark place, probably thinking that no one could hear them there, and gradually the content of the conversation became They are getting bolder and bolder. They are people from the record company. They followed all the way from China and are responsible for negotiating with Japanese personnel and our itinerary. I never imagined that they would talk about me behind my back. At that time, my brain went blank. I was stunned in place. I was pushed to the stage in a daze, and I was also in a daze. I stood still under the spotlight for a long time, and I didn’t sit down in front of the piano. People started whispering, and someone said something loudly, although I heard the content I don’t understand, but I had a panic attack, and I felt my soul was pulled out of my body in an instant. I saw someone rushing to the side of the stage and shouting loudly, with a ferocious expression and agitated emotion, but I couldn’t hear anything. I was so scared Thinking he was deaf, he ran off the stage in a panic, walked through the auditorium, opened the door and ran out."

"Then how did you come back? You ran away in Japan, shouldn't you be wandering in Japan?"

"I ran back to the hotel to get my passport and money. I wanted to fly back to Germany, but I didn't have enough money, so I had to go back to China first. When I got back to China, I didn't think about anything. I just wanted to escape far away from my mother's control. .I first arrived in Beijing, took out all the money in my account, and took the shortest flight to Changsha after arriving at the airport. Since I was not familiar with the place, and I didn’t know much about the geographical distribution of China, there were two or three years. Time has been wandering aimlessly between provinces and cities. My passport was lost at that time, and a lot of cash was stolen one after another. By the time I arrived in Harbin, I was almost a pauper .”

"Wait, you said that you have no money when you arrive in Harbin. Harbin is a whole of China away from here. How did you get here without money? I don't believe you came all the way!" He Qi said in surprise.

"I came here by long-distance bus. At that time, all I could think was that I would die in the warm south. The north is too cold. I can't bear the ice and snow anymore."

"How did you think of going to Harbin?"

"Someone told me that there is an annual ice and snow festival there, and there is an ice sculpture piano that can be played. I wanted to try it, so I passed."

"No wonder you were still wearing winter clothes when I saw you for the first time. That's why."

"I was robbed as soon as I got out of the car. All the valuable things on my body were taken away, and I really lost everything. I still had a long down jacket that was very warm."

"On such a hot day in June, if you were still wearing that down jacket, I really can't guarantee that I will hug you on the bridge. I guess I would run far away and walk around you." He Qi joked .

Xing Yan also laughed, and he continued: "I got off the bus in XX city and walked a long way before I came here."

"Why did you choose this place? Isn't there a provincial capital closest to City X?"

"I don't know, maybe it's in the dark. Looking back now, I always had a secret thought in my heart at that time - 'Go to the south! Go to the south!' I didn't even realize it, I just lowered my head all the way to the south Let's go." He raised his neck, looked at the white clouds floating in the sky, and said in a calm tone.

"Based on that, you've only been a homeless man for a few months. How did you make yourself so miserable?"

"I didn't just start homeless, I've been homeless since five years ago."

"Is that so?"

"He Qi," he called his name, "from the moment I ran out of the gate of the concert hall, I have been wandering until I met you on the Baishui Bridge."

Xing Yan looked at him with inexplicable emotions in his eyes, but for a moment he was caught by those deep eyes and couldn't take his eyes off his face.He seemed to have vaguely noticed something, but he still seemed to be ignorant.