touchnovel Chapter 247 I've Never Forgotten You
Chapter 247 I've Never Forgotten You
Just as the skepticism from the audience reached its peak, Jiang Baizhi took her seat on television.
She made no extra movements, her slender, fair fingers gently caressing the dark piano keys.
Immediately afterwards, a heavy, deep piano chord, seemingly carrying a sense of compassion that transcends centuries, resounded unexpectedly in every corner of the tea restaurant.
"Thump—"
The voice was extremely steady.
The elderly overseas Chinese man, who had been tapping his pipe, suddenly trembled, a look of astonishment flashing in his cloudy eyes:
"This finger technique, this strength... this young girl, has she practiced?"
"It's not just that I've practiced."
An elderly overseas Chinese man, who had once been a music teacher, sat up straight, his eyes solemn.
"This has surpassed the level of a typical amateur level 10 piano player, and is almost at the level of a professional performer."
"For someone so young to achieve this level, it's quite impressive."
"This intro...it's got the atmosphere in it!"
Many people discussed the piano's level, and the doubts in their eyes decreased slightly.
Before everyone could recover from the shock of the music, Jiang Baizhi on the television slowly closed her eyes.
She spoke.
There was no soaring, high-pitched praise.
There was no empty shouting either.
Rather, it was a slightly ethereal voice, conveying endless longing and vulnerability:
"Whenever I feel pain, I want you to hold me tight~"
"Just like you've always done, touch my soul~"
boom--!
When everyone thought it was nothing special.
Yang Yang felt as if he had been punched hard in the chest.
He had expected to hear grand, eulogistic praise, but when these two lines came out, he heard a kind of coquettishness.
That's the kind of unconditional attachment a child has shown to their mother after being wronged and battered outside.
"This word..."
Xiao Yuan, standing next to her, was still muttering under his breath, "The lyrics are pretty catchy, but I wonder if this young girl can hold her own in a patriotic song performance..."
Yang Yang did not respond.
If the words "I love you, China" hadn't already been displayed on the screen, Yang Yang wouldn't have thought it was a revolutionary song.
At most, it's a song about mothers.
As the song began.
He recalled the skilled yet malicious contemptuous gesture from the young Black man on the street earlier.
He recalled that three months ago, a foul-mouthed drunk white man bumped into him, not only failing to apologize but also calling him a "sick man of East Asia."
He recalled how, in the classroom of that school that touted "equality and freedom," the instructor always carried a subtle hint of contempt when taking attendance.
He even privately mocked other teaching assistants during a group discussion, calling him a "yellow-skinned monkey who can only solve problems."
In this so-called free country.
In New York, where skyscrapers make you dizzy.
Even during the two years he attended school.
He never felt a sense of belonging.
All that remains is endless unfamiliarity and loneliness.
In this foreign land where even the air is thick with anti-Chinese sentiment.
He had countless thoughts of giving up in the dead of night.
Screw degrees, I'm buying a ticket and going home right now!
But whenever that happens, he thinks of his parents and the land behind him.
"Whenever I'm confused, you give me a sense of warmth."
"Like someone's arm, tightly wrapped around my shoulders~"
Upon hearing these words, Yang Yang felt as if a gentle hand had lightly touched a hard layer of ice in her heart, causing it to crumble instantly and shatter into countless glistening tears.
"warmth......."
Yang Yang repeated the two words in a low voice, his eyes beginning to lose focus.
He recalled receiving that heavy package last Mid-Autumn Festival in this laboratory that prided itself on elite social interaction but was cold and impersonal everywhere.
Those were health packages and mooncakes from their hometown, sent from their motherland across thousands of miles of ocean.
At that moment, his hands were trembling as he unwrapped the package.
That red ribbon was the only color in his eyes in the gloomy New York.
This is the kind of warmth that Jiang Baizhi sings about.
It's not the kind of insincere social niceties.
From small things like holiday greetings to large things like sending special planes to safely bring children from war-torn areas back home.
It's a kind of warmth that, even if you're thousands of miles away from home, even if you're in dire straits, as long as you're there, that touch of red will always shine for you.
Yang Yang lowered his head, and a salty liquid fell onto the table with a thud.
Yes, our motherland has always been there.
She is neither in the neon lights of Wall Street nor in the hustle and bustle of Times Square.
She is in every embassy abroad, and she is in every community where Chinese people live.
She is in his blood, in his bones.
In his heart.
.......
Inside the tea restaurant.
Some of the elderly overseas Chinese put down their chopsticks, while others took off their reading glasses, staring intently at the screen.
Jiang Baizhi's singing continued, her voice seemingly accumulating an indomitable strength:
Sometimes I feel lonely and helpless, like a pebble rolling down a hillside.
"But whenever I think of your name, I always regain my confidence."
Sometimes I lose my way, like a swallow separated from its flock in the sky.
A swallow separated from its flock in the sky.
When Jiang Baizhi uttered those words, the elderly overseas Chinese in the tea restaurant, who had been offering "technical comments," suddenly fell silent.
It was an extremely eerie, heavy silence.
Old Chen, sitting in the front row, is an old-timer who dared to venture into New York forty years ago with only a tattered suitcase.
He has survived gunshots in the middle of the night and slept on the streets in his life.
They even went to war with gangsters.
At this moment, his hand holding the teacup trembled violently.
In my cloudy eyes, I saw the slightly lowered eyes of the girl on the television.
Old Chen murmured, his voice hoarse as if it had been sanded by sandpaper.
"The lone swallow, the swallow, the swallow returns to its nest..."
Old Lin, sitting by the window, was holding a crumpled newspaper in his hand.
Upon hearing this phrase, his hands, covered in age spots, trembled violently.
He recalled forty years ago when he was a young man in his early twenties.
With a canvas bag on my back and a few borrowed US dollars in my pocket, I set foot on this unfamiliar land for the first time.
New York at that time was so cold it was despair-inducing.
He washed mountains of dishes in a dark, underground restaurant, his fingers becoming ulcerated and oozing pus from being soaked in dish soap.
In the dead of night, in his low-rent apartment, listening to the piercing sirens outside the window, he secretly wept under the covers.
He dared not write home to tell his family how hard he was working, so he could only write it over and over again in his letters:
Everything is good here; the buildings are tall, and life is sweet.
He was a swallow, flying out of that warm but dilapidated nest.
But it was only after it flew out that they realized it.
The wind outside is too strong, and the rain is too heavy.
This lone bird, having flown for forty years, still couldn't find a branch to perch on.
In another corner of the tea restaurant, Aunt Chen, who usually loves to boast about her son working on Wall Street, was clutching her apron tightly.
She thought back to those years.
To support her son's education, she worked day and night at the sewing factory, pedaling the sewing machine until the needle pierced her fingernails and her back ached so much she couldn't straighten up.
Whenever she was extremely tired, she would listen to those old, worn-out songs on cassette tapes.
But tonight, a little girl's shout on TV made her realize that those wounds she thought had healed were actually still there.
That sense of grievance of being "out of the group" was gradually revealed in the ethereal voice and exposed to the morning light of Manhattan.
The elderly overseas Chinese looked at each other.
A silent gaze speaks louder than a thousand words.
"Old Chen, are you homesick too?"
"Forty years have passed, and I wonder if the old tree in my yard is still there."
"Ah, how many years has it been since I last set foot on that red land?"
They've made this street their home for life.
To outsiders, they are successful people, overseas Chinese.
But only they themselves know the loneliness that is etched into their bones and cannot be explained to outsiders.
In the concrete jungle of New York, in Manhattan's Chinatown, which is always brightly lit but can never give them a sense of belonging.
Which one of them isn't that lone swallow?
This foreign land, which prides itself on freedom and equality, is actually cold and impersonal.
No matter how high they flew, in the eyes of those foreigners they were nothing more than outsiders.
They desperately wanted to put down roots, but whenever the night was quiet, they would hear the familiar melody and see that bright red color.
That deep-seated sense of alienation will overwhelm them like a tide.
It seemed as if I could see them, this group of people wandering in a foreign land.
A gentle singing voice drifted out continuously.
"But as long as I think of your existence, I will no longer feel afraid."
Jiang Baizhi's voice was like a pair of gentle yet enormous hands.
It pierced through millions of kilometers of fiber optic cables, through that cold television screen, and precisely retrieved these children who had spent their entire lives wandering in foreign lands.
Yes.
Whenever I think of my motherland and its growing strength, the loneliness in my heart dissipates and is replaced by a sense of peace.
No matter how long a swallow has been away from its flock, as long as it knows that the big nest is still there, as long as it knows that name, it can regain its confidence.
Then this life of wandering will no longer be a blind journey!
Old Chen couldn't hold back his tears any longer, and they fell into the Pu'er tea with a plop.
He lived for over sixty years and heard countless songs praising his motherland.
Those songs are grand, resounding, and full of power.
But no song has ever made him feel, like the line "a lone swallow," that his motherland truly saw him.
Seeing his lonely figure in a foreign land, seeing all the grievances he had suffered on this land, I gently said to him:
"My child, no matter how long you are away from the world, your mother will never forget you."