Going home for the Chinese New Year with a year-end bonus of 100 million

On Friday morning, Lin Che sat on the edge of the bed, holding a handwritten budget sheet in his hand, and pressed the calculator on his phone three times.

The numbers haven't changed.

He broke down every single expense—recording studio fees, arranger's fees, musicians' fees, mixing and mastering—down to the smallest detail, even including travel expenses to and from the recording studio. The final figure was 16,200 yuan.

He had nine thousand himself. Yang Fan contributed five thousand. The remaining three thousand two hundred was raised by the others in the group. The extra two hundred was added by Su Jing—"You always need to leave some leeway in the budget, just in case you go over it."

There's enough money.

He folded the budget sheet and put it in the drawer, then opened his phone, found a contact named "Old Xu," and sent a message: "Brother Xu, I'm ready. Can we book a studio this week?"

Old Xu was a recording engineer he'd met in Chengdu. In his forties, with a goatee, he spoke slowly but had an exceptionally sharp ear, able to detect delays as small as a fraction of a second in a recording. In the first few years after Lin Che arrived in Chengdu, he'd performed with Old Xu's band at several shows. The band later disbanded, but they remained in touch. Old Xu later opened his own recording studio—not large, but all the equipment was personally tuned by him, and he had a very good reputation in the city's recording industry.

Ten minutes later, Lao Xu replied: "I'm free after next Wednesday. We'll talk when I get here."

There were no small talk, no formalities. That's just Lao Xu's style.

On Saturday afternoon, Su Jing arrived at Lin Che's studio.

She was carrying a paper bag containing a freshly made shirt—a gray-blue cotton shirt with a stand-up collar, Chinese knot buttons, and cuffs that were a finger's width wider than those of a regular shirt, just wide enough to be rolled up.

"Try it on." She handed the shirt to Lin Che. "Call me when you're done."

Lin Che paused, holding the shirt, and asked, "For me?"

"Otherwise what?" Su Jing raised an eyebrow. "You can't exactly go to the recording studio in a T-shirt, can you?"

Lin Che went into the room and changed. The shirt's shoulder and waist lines were perfectly fitted, neither too tight nor too loose. The fabric felt comfortable against his skin, with a slight weight that made him look more upright. He stood in front of the mirror, looked at himself, and awkwardly tugged at the collar.

Su Jing leaned against the door frame and glanced at it: "It's alright, no need to pull on the collar, it's the design."

Lin Che lowered his hand: "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Su Jing said. "Consider it a stake in your new song."

After she finished speaking, she turned and went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water.

Lin Che stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself again. The person in the mirror was wearing that gray-blue shirt and looked like someone who was about to do something.

On Sunday night, Chen Mo (Cultural and Creative) locked himself in his studio, repeatedly adjusting the layout of the seed postcard proof on his computer.

Three versions of the sample have been produced, and each version has a minor problem—the paper in the first version was too thick, and the seal could not be pressed flat; the paper in the second version was fine, but the distribution of the seeds was uneven, and in one postcard, all five seeds were off-center to one corner; the color was off when the third version was printed, and the line "To everyone who chooses to come back" turned into dark purple instead of the dark green he wanted.

I need to go to the printing factory tomorrow to oversee the fourth edition.

He glanced at the time—11:40 PM. He saved the file, shut down the computer, and leaned back in his chair. The outline of the university library was visible from the studio window, with lights still on in several windows.

He recalled a line from Lin Che's song: "The autumn light shines on their faces, and that light doesn't say anything."

He silently repeated it to himself.

Then he turned on his computer, created a new file, and began designing the fourth version of the layout—this time, he put the line of text on the back of the postcard, changed the font to a thinner regular script, and left a small blank space on the right side of the text.

He planned to leave that blank space for the person who bought the postcard to write a sentence.

On Tuesday morning, Yang Fan received a call from Lin Che.

"Brother Yang, we'll be going into the shed at 2 PM tomorrow. It's Old Xu's shed."

"Okay, I'm free tomorrow afternoon, I can go and take a look."

"No need, you go about your business. I just wanted to let you know the song is ready."

Yang Fan sensed the restrained nervousness in Lin Che's tone—not the panic he felt before his first time on stage, but more like someone who had traveled a long way and was finally standing at the door of his destination, unsure whether or not to knock.

"Lin Che," Yang Fan said, "do you remember what you said to me at the noodle shop last time?"

Which sentence?

"You said she was with you, letting you finish sewing by yourself."

There was silence for a few seconds on the other end of the phone.

"Remember."

"It's the same in the recording studio," Yang Fan said. "The equipment and the recording engineer are there with you, letting you finish singing on your own. You just finish singing."

Lin Che didn't answer immediately. After a while, he said, "I understand."

After hanging up the phone, Yang Fan thought for a moment and then sent another message: "Bring your mother along on the day of the recording."

Lin Che replied with a question mark.

Yang Fan didn't explain, only replying with three words: "Listen to me."

At 1:30 pm on Wednesday, Lin Che stood at the entrance of the recording studio with his guitar on his back.

The recording studio is located in a small shop on the ground floor of an old residential complex, sandwiched between a barbershop and a dry cleaner. The sign at the entrance is a dark-colored sheet of metal with four characters painted in white: "Shiyin Recording Studio". The metal sheet is a bit rusty, but the four characters are still clearly visible.

Old Xu, dressed in loose cargo pants and a faded T-shirt, stood at the door smoking. Seeing Lin Che, he flicked his cigarette ash and nodded: "You're here."

"They're here."

"Go in. Let me make this clear first, this shed isn't big, but I set up the equipment myself. If you think it's shabby, you can leave."

"I don't mind."

Lin Che pushed open the glass door and went inside. The interior was larger than the exterior, divided into a control room and a recording studio. The mixing console in the control room was covered with a dense array of indicator lights, and next to it stood a row of effects pedals and an old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder. The recording studio was on the other side of the glass window, with gray sound-absorbing cotton lining the walls, an old carpet on the floor, and a condenser microphone standing in the center.

Old Xu followed him in and patted the chair next to the mixing console: "Where are your musicians?"

"I made plans for 3 o'clock. The bassist and drummer are people I've played with before."

"Okay, then record your part first. Is two hours enough?"

Lin Che glanced at the microphone on the other side of the glass window: "Enough."

He walked into the recording studio, put on his headphones, and stood in front of the microphone. Old Xu's voice came through the headphones, transmitted from the control room via the intercom system: "Test, one, two, three."

"one two three."

"Your voice is fine. Once you're ready, let's begin. First, go through the entire sequence without recording it; I want to hear the overall sound."

Lin Che took a deep breath and took the guitar out of its case.

He played the first chord.

C major.

He recorded it five times in the first hour.

After the first take, Lao Xu said in his earphones, "Your breath control isn't steady enough, and you rushed the first line of the chorus by half a beat."

After the second take, Lao Xu said, "The emotion in the third verse is too tense. Relax. You're singing a song for your mom, not for the judges."

The third time, Lao Xu didn't say anything, but after he finished singing, he was silent for a few seconds, and then said, "Let's do it one more time, just keep this feeling."

On the fourth take, Lin Che stopped halfway through singing: "Brother Xu, I sang a word wrong in one part."

"I know. Let's try again."

On the fifth time, he sang the entire song.

The lingering echo of the last note faded in the recording studio. Lin Che stood in front of the microphone, eyes closed, motionless. In the darkness, he could hear his own heartbeat, steady and calm, unlike the frantic pounding it had been before.

Old Xu's voice came through the earphones: "That's a wrap. Should we re-record the guitar part?"

"No need, this is the feeling this guitar is meant to convey."

"Okay. Come out and rest for a while while the musicians arrive."

Lin Che took off his headphones and walked out of the recording studio. Old Xu handed him a bottle of mineral water, lit a cigarette for himself, and leaned against the mixing console.

"Did you write the lyrics yourself?"

"Um."

Old Xu exhaled a puff of smoke, squinting at him through the smoke: "I've heard all the things you wrote before. This song is different."

"What's different?"

"You used to write 'Wanting to be heard,' but this song is 'Wanting to tell someone,'" Lao Xu said. "They're different."

Lin Che unscrewed the cap of the mineral water bottle, took a sip of water, and didn't reply.

But in his heart, he thought that Old Xu was right.

At 3 PM, the bassist and drummer arrived.

The bassist is called Ah-Kun. He's tall and thin with long hair and a somewhat reserved personality, but his fingers move incredibly fast. The drummer is called Little Fatty. He has a round face and a round body, and he's always smiling. When he plays the drums, he's like a precise machine, his rhythm so steady it's almost inhuman.

The three of them went through the arrangement several times in the recording studio. Lin Che had previously recorded a demo at home and sent it to them, and the two of them had already practiced it beforehand, so there weren't many problems with combining it. There were just a few places where the harmonic direction needed adjustment. Akun suggested modifying the bass line, and Xiaopang added a small detail to the drum beats in the bridge section.

Lin Che nodded after listening: "Let's do it this way."

Their joint recording took less than two hours. After the third take, A-Kun put down his bass and said to Lin Che, "I was a little off-key on the bass in the second verse, should we do another take?"

"Should we replenish it?" Lin Che looked at the glass window of the control room.

Old Xu's voice came through the communication system: "No need, that's not necessarily right. It leaves some breathing room for the song. If it's too clean, it won't sound like a human singing."

Little Fatty laughed from behind the drum: "Brother Xu's words are too clean, it doesn't sound like a human singing—then we won't need to wash our faces for the next few days."

A burst of laughter erupted in the recording studio.

By 5:30 p.m., the recording was basically complete.

Ah Kun and Little Fatty left first. Before leaving, Little Fatty patted Lin Che on the shoulder: "The song was good. Call me again if you need any work next time."

Lin Che escorted them to the door and returned to the control room, where he saw Old Xu wearing monitoring headphones, repeatedly listening to the track "Sewing Machine" that he had just recorded. His expression was very focused, and his goatee trembled slightly with the melody he was softly humming.

"I'll finish the mixing within three days." Old Xu took off his headphones. "Would you like to listen to the raw audio yourself?"

"want."

Old Xu dragged the audio file into the playlist and clicked play.

Lin Che sat on the chair next to him, listening to his own voice coming from the monitor speakers—no reverb, no compression, no embellishment, just a guitar and a human voice, as clean as singing in an empty room.

When he heard the second chorus, he noticed that his voice was a little hoarse. That was when he sang the line, "You owe me permission to say 'I'm tired'."

He originally thought it was a flaw.

But what Old Xu said when he called him out made him change his mind: "I won't fix that bit of hoarseness."

"Why not fix it?"

"Because it's true."

Lin Che stared at the indicator light flashing on the monitor speaker and remained silent for a while.

Then he said, "Okay, no need to fix it."

At 7 p.m., Lin Che walked out of the recording studio with his guitar on his back.

Autumn nights come early, and it was already completely dark outside. Sparse streetlights illuminated the neighborhood, and a cool breeze felt like tiny needles on his face. He stood at the doorway, zipped up his coat, and glanced at his phone.

There is an unread message from my mother, a voice message.

He clicked to listen. His mother's voice came through the receiver, with a slight regional accent: "Xiao Che, dinner's ready, come back and eat."

I didn't ask him how the recording went, or when he would be back. I just said that dinner was ready.

Lin Che listened to it twice.

He put his phone in his pocket and walked towards the bus stop.

The wind was still blowing, but his steps were lighter than when he came.

That night, Yang Fan received a message from Lin Che containing only four words:

"Recording is finished."

After seeing this, Yang Fan replied, "How does it feel?"

After a while, Lin Che replied with a voice message.

Yang Fan clicked on it and heard a noisy background sound—the clattering of pots and pans, the sound of the news broadcast on TV, and an old lady nagging, "Put more soy sauce in this dish."

Then Lin Che's voice rang out, very soft, but with a hint of amusement:

"Brother Yang, my mom's twice-cooked pork is especially delicious."

Yang Fan smiled at his phone screen.

He did not reply to the message.

He knew that this statement itself was the best answer.