ECG -Chapter 16 Ten Minutes on Stage, Ten Years of Practice Off Stage

Just after the band left, a black BMW sedan stopped at the entrance of the bar. A fat man wearing glasses got out of the car, carrying a black briefcase, and walked toward the bar.

Brother Guang hurried over to open the door for him, bowing and nodding. “President Hu!”

“Mm.” The fat man nodded.

Chu Yu came over and greeted him with a smile. “Brother Hu!”

A smile immediately spread across the fat man’s face.

“Dongbing is inside.” Chu Yu pointed toward the corner.

“Brother!”

The fat man sat down opposite Zhou Dongbing and placed his bag on the table.

Zhou Dongbing took a drag of his cigarette and asked, “Found out?”

The fat man nodded. “Yeah. It was Cao Yitui who spilled it after he got drunk and started talking nonsense.”

Zhou Dongbing was clearly stunned for a moment, then laughed.

“That kid… his mouth really never stops.”

“I told Xiao Shi and Feng San to…”

Zhou Dongbing waved his hand and said quietly, “Forget it.”

The fat man fell silent.

Amid the drifting smoke, he said, “Brother, tomorrow is Jianguo’s death anniversary.”

Zhou Dongbing nodded. “Mm. I’ve already bought the paper offerings and incense. Tomorrow morning at seven, come pick me up at my place.”

“Brother, that foul mouth of Cao Yitui’s…”

The fat man still couldn’t hold back. Seeing Zhou Dongbing’s expression turn unpleasant, he could only stop.

He stood up and said softly, “I’m heading back.”

“Mm.”

Chu Yu walked the fat man out. She watched the black BMW 7 Series drive away into the distance before turning around and returning to the bar.

She sat opposite Zhou Dongbing and said softly, “No matter what, Brother Hu is the director of a mine and a well-known figure in Chunhe. Don’t always treat him with such a cold face.”

“Director of a mine? Heh… but Jianguo died in his mine!” As he spoke, his hand had already crushed the half-pack of soft Zhonghua cigarettes on the table until it was deformed.

“You know better than anyone that this matter has nothing to do with Brother Hu. Why are you still unable to get past this?”

Zhou Dongbing stayed silent for a long while, then asked in surprise, “Was I giving him a cold face?”

Chu Yu smiled. “Go look in the mirror yourself. Your face is stretched longer than the sole of a shoe!”

Zhou Dongbing grinned slightly, then sighed.

“Time really flies. Tomorrow is Jianguo’s death anniversary again.”

Chu Yu knew his pain. She sighed softly in her heart and quickly changed the subject.

“Before you came over this afternoon, President Cao came by.”

“Mm.”

“He sent a pair of flower baskets and also one hundred thousand yuan.” Chu Yu said.

“Oh, keep it.”

“But…” Chu Yu thought for a moment and said, “Everyone else only sent five thousand or ten thousand. Why did Old Cao send so much?”

Zhou Dongbing chuckled. “That foul mouth of his—he’s afraid I’ll beat him up. It’s fine, if he gave it to you, just accept it.”

“By the way, people from the city area also sent money, but they didn’t send flower baskets.”

Zhou Dongbing sneered. “They don’t dare write their names on the flower baskets!”

“That’s true.” Chu Yu thought for a moment, then said, “Tomorrow, I’ll go with you?”

Zhou Dongbing gently shook his head.

……

The next day.

Amid the monotonous ticking sound of the metronome, practice continued as usual.

By the afternoon, the index and middle fingers of Wu Xiaozhou’s right hand were already wrapped in band-aids.

With a miserable expression, he glanced pitifully at Lin Hao, who was lying in front of the computer desk playing a game. He finally understood why Lin Hao had brought a stack of band-aids with him when he came over that morning.

“Wrong!” Lin Hao didn’t even turn his head. “The third note of the eighth bar is a hammer-on!”

“Use more force! Did you eat that big bone for nothing at lunch?”

“Pull-off! Damn it, this note is a pull-off!”

“Smack!”

A copy of Story Meeting flew over and hit Wu Xiaozhou right on the head.

“Idiot! Your left-hand position shifted!”

“……”

After dinner, Lin Hao patted his round belly and asked Wu Xiaozhou whether he was going to the bar with him.

Wu Xiaozhou lay sprawled on the bed like a puddle of mud, completely motionless.

“Are you going or not?”

“Just kill me. Right now, I just want to get a good sleep!”

Lin Hao was helpless. “Fine, then I’ll go by myself. We’ll continue at eight tomorrow morning!”

The moment he walked out, he heard a “whoosh” from behind the door. He knew the pillow had been thrown at him. He laughed and walked away.

It wasn’t that he was being cruel. There was no choice. Time was tight and the task was heavy. If they wanted to amaze everyone with a single performance, they had to put in hard work.

People often said, “Ten minutes on stage requires ten years of practice off stage.” In reality, it was far more than ten years.

Whether it was dance, vocal performance, or instrumental music, every single note that jumped out contained the performer’s sweat and tears, and sometimes even their blood.

How many days had Wu Xiaozhou only been practicing? Compared to Lin Hao in his previous life, the gap was more than just a thousand miles!

Looking back now, Lin Hao felt that he might have been somewhat autistic as a child in his previous life. A seven- or eight-year-old kid would sit in front of that old, broken piano in the orphanage for more than ten hours at a time. Except for eating and going to the bathroom, he rarely left that piano.

While the other children were playing with mud and marbles, his childhood was spent among piano pieces and sweat.

Lin Hao first went home and changed into a short-sleeved white shirt, black sports pants, and white Huili sneakers.

He bought two baskets of steamed buns from the roadside and hung them on his bicycle handlebars, then went to take a look at his father Lin Qingsheng’s repair stall.

Watching his father wolf down the buns, his nose felt a little sour. He called out:

“I’m leaving!”

Then he got on his bicycle and rode away.

The bar was packed tonight. Voices filled the air, with people shouting and yelling everywhere.

Lin Hao was a little surprised. Looking more carefully, he thought, Damn, eight out of ten people have shaved crew cuts and are wearing huge gold chains.

Although he had never mixed with society in his previous life, he had spent enough time in places like this, so he understood these kinds of people pretty well. He even had some friends from that circle.

He greeted Chu Yu, then went up onto the stage.

A tall bar chair was placed in the middle of the stage, with a black microphone stand set up in front of it.

Beside the chair, a beige-colored acoustic guitar rested on the guitar stand.

He picked up the guitar and sat down. His thumb brushed across the six strings. The tuning was long gone—those notes had probably already traveled all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

He didn’t need to search for the notes on a keyboard because the international standard A note was already in his head. He tuned the fifth string first, adjusted it a few times, then tuned it again.

Soon, all six strings were tuned.

Just after finishing, Lin Hao raised his head and saw a big pancake-shaped face staring at him from below the stage.

The sudden appearance of such a person startled him.

The man looked about forty years old. He had a middle part hairstyle, small eyes, but an unusually large mouth. A cigarette was hanging from the corner of his lips.

He wore a T-shirt from Jeanswest, and a gold chain as thick as a little finger was exposed around his neck. Hanging below the chain was a blood-red pendant; he had no idea what material it was made of.

“Hey!” the pancake-faced man called out.

Lin Hao froze, not knowing what he wanted.

The music was a little loud, so he carried the guitar and walked to the edge of the stage.

“Big brother, were you calling me?”

The pancake-faced man smiled until his eyes narrowed into slits.

“Little brother, sing a song about deep brotherhood. I’ll send you ten flower baskets. How about it?”

A flower basket at the bar cost 100 yuan each. Ten of them would be 1,000 yuan. When the bar and the band divided the money, the usual arrangement was fifty-fifty.

Lin Hao hadn’t discussed flower baskets beforehand, but he had a rough idea in his mind. After all, he had the experience from his previous life.

“Sure!” Lin Hao smiled and waved his hand, signaling him to return to his seat.

The pancake-faced man crossed his arms and didn’t move.

“I’ll listen from here. It’s clearer!”

Lin Hao had no choice but to go back. In places like bars and nightclubs, all kinds of people existed. He was already used to it.

Sitting on the chair, he thought for a moment.

A song about deep brotherhood… what would be suitable?

Got it!

This one!

This song had a strong northeastern flavor and a deep sense of brotherhood. It was absolutely suitable.

He nodded toward the sound engineer on the left side of the stage. The sound engineer lowered the background music.

Lin Hao didn’t say anything. A section of the intro began directly:

“I still haven’t figured it out until now,

Why did you choose to leave…”

Lin Hao had only sung a few lines when Zhou Dongbing walked in from outside.

“I still remember the glass marbles we played with as children,

And the big bowl of thick corn porridge you loved to drink…”

The pancake-faced man standing in front of the stage seemed to have eyes on the back of his head. He immediately turned around and walked toward the entrance.