021 In That Faraway Place
Pei Ningle stood in front of the entrance to the Imperial Capital West Railway Station, like a small, isolated reef amidst the bustling crowd.
This girl, who had loved music since she was a child, had finally had a complete falling out with her family after failing her college entrance exams. She didn’t want to spend four ordinary years at some diploma mill or vocational college. With the New Year’s money she had saved up over the years, she headed straight for the Imperial Capital, becoming a young “Beijing drifter.”
However, in less than a month in the Imperial Capital, the girl quickly experienced the cold cruelty of reality. She discovered that although she was confident in her voice and talent, no one would give her a chance to showcase herself. The dream of music was too much of a luxury for a bar singer. The basement she rented didn’t brew inspiration; it only gave the girl a swift lesson in what reality was.
Moreover, a job like a bar singer offered no sense of security. The pay could change at any time, there were no guarantees, and the work environment was a small, late-night bar where she had to deal with the ill-intentioned gazes of certain men. What was worse, the bar manager was always hinting that she “could dress a little more revealingly,” which made Pei Ningle, who was venturing into society for the first time, feel like she was on the verge of a breakdown.
Recently, the new semester was about to begin. Seeing her peers, full of youthful energy and aspirations for the future, walk into various campuses, made it even more…
But fortunately, sometimes pies do fall from the sky.
She had posted several of her original songs online. Although they didn’t get much attention, they happened to catch the eye of an independent music producer. After a brief chat, this not-so-famous but professional producer extended an invitation, hoping the girl would join his music studio in Rongdu.
The timing of this offer was perfect. A few hours later, her mother called, urging her to come home. If it weren’t for this pie that fell from the sky, Pei Ningle felt she would have definitely gone back obediently to be scolded…
But at this moment, standing in the crowd, she couldn’t help but wonder if her choice was right or wrong.
“Rongdu…” The girl stared at the train ticket in her hand, feeling a little uneasy. She had never been to this place. Besides its famous calling cards like hot pot and snacks, she had almost no concept of it.
Unconsciously, the departure time drew closer and closer. Finally, Pei Ningle came to her senses, dragged her suitcase, and hurried into the train station.
She rushed into the train car, making it just in time for the final boarding call, and found her berth.
Because Brother Song from the studio had promised to reimburse her travel expenses, Pei Ningle had bought a sleeper ticket, and a luxurious soft sleeper at that, using up almost all of her remaining funds. In other words, if anything went wrong in Rongdu, such as losing contact with Brother Song or discovering that it was all a scam, she wouldn’t even be able to afford a hotel. The few dozen yuan in her pocket was only enough to buy some drinks and instant noodles on the train…
Sitting on her lower bunk, Pei Ningle simply placed her suitcase on the bed. The girl was already petite, and even lying flat, she couldn’t fill the entire space. The suitcase, standing on its side, wouldn’t take up too much room on the bed, which was just right for her.
Then, Pei Ningle took out a pen and a notebook from her backpack and began to write a simple musical score.
The first step in her songwriting process was always composing the music. And the prerequisite for composing was to find a certain emotion, a certain feeling.
Looking around, then at the suburban scenery that was rapidly receding outside the window, the girl wrote down the two words: 【Lost Path】.
She began to hum softly.
Although Pei Ningle’s science grades were quite poor, she certainly had no problem with middle school physics concepts. She understood that sound came from the vibration of air, and the pitch was determined by the frequency of the vibration.
Therefore, in theory, every sound the ear heard could be distinguished by its pitch. It was just that the human ear was not a machine. To directly distinguish do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti, and which octave it was, was a bit too difficult.
But Pei Ningle could do it. This was what was known as absolute pitch.
In the soft sleeper car of this train, each compartment had four berths. In the one Pei Ningle was in, one was empty, and the passengers on the other two beds were already settled.
One was a middle-aged to elderly man with graying hair in a suit, and the other was a well-dressed middle-aged woman. Compared to these two, Pei Ningle, in her simple sportswear, seemed a bit out of place. But the girl didn’t notice this. She was engrossed in her creation, humming softly from time to time, picking out the most satisfying fragments from countless mediocre melodies.
Among strangers on a train, some could strike up a lively conversation, while others remained silent strangers throughout. The three in this compartment were clearly the latter. However, the two middle-aged people occasionally glanced at the girl with a hint of curiosity in their eyes.
Unconsciously, the sun sank in the west, getting closer and 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 girl had only taken a few sips of mineral water and hadn’t eaten anything else…
**
Wang Heng had been feeling a little uneasy lately.
After registering as a new student, he had completed the enrollment procedures, paid the tuition and accommodation fees, and got his campus card… He was already familiar with these processes. Although it was a different school, the general procedures hadn’t changed much, so he naturally didn’t have the same sense of novelty as the other students.
And what troubled him even more was another problem.
The Spacetime Administrator had gone missing.
Before coming to Rongdu, Wang Heng could get a response from the Spacetime Administrator just by speaking to the screen of any electronic product. He had even deliberately tested it on the washing machine and had seen a Chinese character that should have been absolutely impossible to appear on the small screen of his own washing machine—【Scram】.
But ever since arriving in Rongdu, the Spacetime Administrator seemed to have disappeared. No matter what he said, he couldn’t get any response. Even cursing the guy as useless at his computer was futile.
This made Wang Heng feel a little flustered.
Now that he didn’t even have a reminder, what if another knife-wielding girl was about to appear, and he didn’t get any warning at all? Wouldn’t that be terrible?
“This is like forcing a heart patient to play Silent Hill…”
Standing on the balcony of his dormitory, looking down at the vibrant campus below, Wang Heng lamented.
But just then, he heard a slightly sharp voice:
“I’m sorry, but you have to continue playing this Silent Hill, and you only have one life, no save files.”
Wang Heng was startled. He looked in the direction of the voice but saw no one, only a hamster squatting by the sink, staring at him!
Sure enough, it was the hamster speaking. Under Wang Heng’s gaze, it spoke again: “It’s been a while. You seem to have missed me quite a bit…”
“Are you that administrator?” Wang Heng asked tentatively.
The hamster patted its tiny chest. “Show some respect. Drop the ‘that’. Before you stands the one and only Spacetime Administrator of this plane.”
Wang Heng: “…”
