Forest Memories

Chapter 15. Dispersing the mind

The next morning, Anna asked for another leave from Niu Qingfeng.

The doctor took out a stack of papers for Anna to sign, with boxes and bars telling her about the risks of the operation.

Anna signed her name with trembling hands, accompanied by her aunt and uncle.

Gugu held her tearfully and said, "Yi Yi, don't be afraid. It's just a minor operation. Your father will be fine."

"Yes, it's a minor operation. It's all right. Let me and your aunt take care of it here. You can go back to school first." Uncle Zhou Zhixing also comforted him.

"How long?" Anna asked.

Zhou Jixing shook his head. "I don't know, the doctor didn't say."

"Go back to school first." Qingya let Anna go. "I will let you know as soon as I have any news."

"good."

Anna returned to school obediently and finished her morning lessons without saying a word.

After a quick lunch, Anna opened her phone and looked again. There was still no news.

It is often said that no news is the best news, but Anna was uneasy. Because her aunt and uncle were there, there was not enough food to eat, so Anna decided not to bring any today and rode her bike to the hospital empty-handed.

Walking quietly down the hospital corridor, Anna's heart was pounding. Bang bang bang, as if it were about to jump out.

As she approached her father's room, Anna suddenly stopped. She looked up, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes to think about all the possibilities. After a long time, she overcame her fear and bravely walked toward the room.

"hoot ~"

Anna heard her aunt sobbing as soon as she reached the door and rushed over.

"Yi Yi, your father just had surgery and needs to rest. Just look at him, don't disturb him."

It turned out that her aunt had cut her brother's stomach out of pity.

Anna touched her chest without making a sound. Her father, pale-faced, lay quietly in bed. She did not dare to touch him, but stared intently at the quilt on the bed until she saw it rise and fall steadily.

My uncle reached out and signaled her to go out first, as if he had something to say to her.

Anna nodded, followed her uncle out of the ward, and walked away.

"Yee, your father's spleen is gone."

Anna nodded.

"You've studied biology. What does it mean to be missing one of the organs?"

Anna still nodded her head.

Zhou knew that the little girl had lost her mother since she was a child, and now she was almost half a father. He patted Anna's shoulder and said, "Be strong, kid."

There was a surge of liquid in her eye socket, Anna looked up and pressed them down, smiling and saying to her uncle, "Don't worry, Uncle, I will."

"Well, it's time to go to school."

"good."

After the operation of Qing Hongzhi, Qing Ya went back home and left Zhou Zhixing to take care of him until Qing Hongzhi was able to take care of himself.

Anna would ride her bike to deliver clean and abundant meals from the school canteen to her father and uncle every noon and afternoon, and take their clothes to the school to wash and then dry them at the hospital.

For more than twenty days, the weather was fine.

Finally, on a day in late October, Qing Hongzhi was discharged from the hospital after being cut.

The day I left the hospital happened to coincide with Anna's final exam at the end of the month. This was not an ordinary exam, it was both a midterm and a city-wide joint exam. Niu Qingfeng expressed sympathy and understanding to Anna, but he could not agree to her skipping the exam because she had to take care of her father.

Anna had no choice but to stay at school for the exam. Fortunately, her aunt called her to take the exam in peace and her uncle would go to the hospital to pick up her father.

It had been only a month since Anna took her last exam, but she felt like it had been ten or eight years since she had written the test again.

The first subject was Chinese, and Anna's mind was blank. She answered the questions by feeling her way. What made her a little more awake was the theme of the essay —— emotion.

There are many kinds of emotions in this world, family love, friendship, love, gratitude, and so on.

Anna's first thought was of her father. Instead of thinking for a moment as she usually did, she wrote.

I am grateful to my relatives and pay tribute to them. Anna wrote all her 18 years of feelings into this essay.

My father was written in one go.

After finishing, Anna had forgotten what she had written. She rubbed her wrist and suddenly found that she seemed to have lost a few pounds. She rolled up her sleeve and looked at it, wrapped her fingers around her arm to measure it, and reached behind her back to touch it. It was indeed much thinner.

"breathe out!"

Three days passed in a flash, and it was time for the lunar holiday.

After being depressed for almost a month, Anna decided to go for a bike ride to relax and adjust before going home to see her father.

After standing by the dorm window and looking down the road, Anna picked up her bag and went downstairs to the parking shed.

She found her horse, stroked its head and said affectionately to it, "My beloved little bike, your mission is finally complete. In order to thank you for these days, I will take you to the county town for a walk, ok? Ok. Let's go!"

"bang ~"

Anna had just lifted her feet to ride when she heard the rumble of a motorcycle starting. She turned around and saw the owner's raised eyes in one glance.

For a long time, Anna paused.

The last time she looked at the boy so seriously was a month ago when she went home to ride her bike. Since then, she has been busy shuttling between school and hospital without looking at him more than once, and even forgot what they had in common.

Just Jack was sitting on the car with his helmet on, adjusting it. He stopped what he was doing and asked casually, "Going home?"

Anna was awakened by his words and silently turned away. Because of the previous shadow, she looked around to make sure he was asking her before replying, "Yes! What about you?"

"I'm going for a drive." Jack said and started the engine.

It was a ride! Anna suddenly remembered her embarrassing guess a month ago and smiled unconsciously.

She waved her hand at him, "Have a good holiday and have fun. Bye~"

"Happy! Bye!"

"Bang!" The locomotive sped past her.

Anna mounted her horse and was about to set off when she failed to steady herself and hit two girls from the liberal arts class who were walking.

"Sorry, sorry." Anna hurriedly apologized.

The two girls were not injured and managed to bypass them while chatting.

Anna smiled and slowly rode behind them.

"Where to play?"

"Lancang Lake."

"What's the fun of a fake natural lake that tricks people from other places."

"The lake is not very interesting, but I heard that Alpha plays at the Lake Pavilion at 2 p.m. Are you sure you won't go?"

"Alpha? The guqin master who never shows his face?"

"Yes!"

"Good, I'll go too. I've heard his music on the Internet, it's so good and healing."

"come on."

"walk."

The two girls got on the bus at the school gate.

Anna didn't want to eavesdrop, but she had a good impression of Lankang Lake and hadn't thought of wandering around yet. She thought, why not go to Lankang Lake.

The guqin master, Alpha, Anna never pays attention to internet celebrities; she has never even heard of such a person. However, she finds the guqin player quite interesting. As it is a guqin, it is a national treasure. Instead of giving him a name that fits the setting with its ancient charm, he uses foreign characters.

breathe out!

After watching so many period dramas and admiring so many handsome men playing the flute and playing the qin, Anna suddenly got interested in seeing what it would be like for a real boy to play the qin.

Anna said goodbye and rode her little bike straight to Lankang Lake.

It has to be said that the popularity of Alpha is really good. The Lancang Lake, which is usually crowded only on holidays, is now full of people everywhere, and most of them are teenagers.

The bike was not allowed into the scenic area, so Anna had to lock it outside and go in alone.

Lancang Lake itself is indeed a natural lake in the shape of a heart, but the "heart" is not straight enough. Later, it was excavated and transformed by capitalists to form the standard love lake today.

The capitalists not only transformed the lake, but also built a wooden bridge across the lake along the axis of symmetry, and built a circular pavilion of about 20 square meters of steel and concrete at the midpoint of the bridge, which is also the center of the lake.

The pavilion is simple, with a stone table 1.2 meters in diameter and three stone benches around it.

At this time, a qingtong guqin was placed on the stone table, and two people were sitting on the stone bench. One was responsible for photography, and the other was responsible for playing the qin.

The audience on the shore knew which were the two types of people, but they could not tell which was the musician and which was the photographer.

They are about the same height, both about 185.

They are similar in type, all exuding the vitality of youth.

What's more interesting is that they are dressed in identical suits of long clothes and trousers, wearing identical baseball caps, big glasses and black masks. They look like twins.

The name hip-hop is fine, but the costume... is out of place with the beauty that is about to be shown.

Anna couldn't help laughing, but if it weren't for the seven-string silk guqin in front of her eyes, she would have thought she had gone to the wrong place.

Seeing that it was almost time, the twins began to move and take their places.

When the people on the shore saw this, they also sat down on the ground. The banks of Lancang, which had been noisy, were instantly quiet with the sound of a tuning string.

Influenced by the atmosphere, Anna sat up straight and listened attentively.

The melodious sound of the piano drifted into people's ears through the pavilion in the middle of the lake. People closed their eyes and tasted it carefully.

Only Anna stared straight at the man who played the piano. She watched his left hand slide alternately, and her right hand hold, rub, pick and kick. She watched every movement and heard every note clearly.

In the past, books always said that playing the zither was a pleasure for the soul, and listening to it was a delight for the heart. Anna always felt that such refined activities were out of place with her rough and ready nature. But now, listening to the soft and ancient sound of the zither, she instantly felt as if she were in a fairyland, forgetting all her sorrows and troubles.

Anna didn't know the music, but she had seen a lot of period dramas and listened to a lot of ancient BGM. She knew many famous songs, but she had never heard this one.

Anna thought that not having heard it herself only meant that she was not knowledgeable enough, but it did not mean that the song was unknown.

How can one listen to music with distractions? One cannot desecrate this precious and elegant environment, so Anna closed her eyes quietly as people listened.

The music seems to tell a story of joy and sorrow. At this time, it has reached the climax. The protagonist is reluctant to say goodbye to his relatives and friends, but he has to go far away. However, he does not stick to the short parting sadness, but expresses his broad-mindedness that separation will eventually lead to reunion.

This is...

Anna suddenly opened her eyes and hurriedly closed them again. She silently recited the timeless "Water Melody" in her mind along with the rhythm of the song, and she could really match it.

Just as Anna had an epiphany, the music ended.

The applause was thunderous on the shore.

The two men exchanged tools, the photographer holding the violin and the musician holding the camera. Each of them held an oil-paper umbrella and walked toward their temporary shed amid the crowd, apparently not wanting anyone to know their true appearance.

The more they tried to hide, the more curious people became, and those curious people chased them with questions like paparazzi. But the twins were like mute, not saying a word.

As he passed Anna, the musician with the camera suddenly said, "Go back. Don't follow us. We can't show our faces."

This voice is... Jack??

Anna shock.

Who could it be?

Anna was incredulous, but then suddenly she met Jack in Lancang Lake that day, and he was painting in the sunset, and he was painting in ink Lancang.

All other paintings are ok, what's wrong with the guqin?

With this in mind, Anna was curious and joined the "doggy" army.

When he felt a girl coming, the boy with the camera smiled lightly with his lips behind the mask.