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

Lin Che was woken up by his phone vibrating on Monday morning.

He groggily reached for his phone, squinted at the screen—a notification from the music platform, containing only one line:

"Your work, 'Sewing Machine,' has passed the review and can now be streamed on the platform."

He stared at the line of text, his sleepiness vanishing in an instant. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and read it again.

It is indeed "approved".

The review process took two days faster than expected. He had thought it would take until at least Wednesday.

It was 5:47 a.m. The sky was not yet fully bright; outside the window was a gray-blue gloom, with only the outlines of distant high-rise buildings being gilded with a faint golden line by the first rays of dawn.

He opened the platform and searched for "Sewing Machine". The moment the search results popped up and he saw his song title appear in the list, he felt a strange sense of unreality - just six months ago, this name only existed in a bunch of messy handwritten notes in his phone's notes app; now, it had appeared on a platform accessible to everyone, and anyone, anywhere, could hear it simply by pressing play.

It was past five in the morning, and there weren't many people online on the platform. The play count was still zero. He didn't click play—he had already listened to it dozens of times in the recording studio and on his phone; he didn't need to listen again to confirm its existence. He put his phone down and lay back on his pillow.

The ceiling was an old, white color, with a thin crack running from one corner to the other. He lay there, staring at the crack, not thinking about anything.

After a while, he got up and walked towards the kitchen. As he passed his mother's room, he paused and heard her even breathing coming from inside. He didn't knock, but continued to the kitchen and began to boil water.

As the water boiled, he looked at the steaming kettle and wondered: Should I tell her?

After thinking about it, I decided against it. I'll wait until she wakes up.

The old lady woke up at eight o'clock in the morning.

Lin Che brought breakfast to the table—millet porridge, fried eggs, and a dish of cucumber salad. The old lady sat down at the table, picked up her chopsticks, and saw Lin Che sit down opposite her, holding a bowl, but she didn't eat immediately.

"Mom," he said, "that song is online."

What does "online" mean?

"It's just put online. Anyone who installs that software can find it and hear it."

The old woman nodded thoughtfully. She picked up a fried egg, took a bite, and chewed slowly. After finishing the bite, she said, "Can I hear you?"

"Yes. You can listen with your mobile phone."

"Then teach me how to do it."

Lin Che helped her install the music platform app on her phone, searched for "Sewing Machine · Lin Che," and pressed play. The phone's speaker quality was so-so, but the old lady didn't care about those details. She placed the phone on the table and listened while eating her porridge.

After listening to it once, she said, "Play it again."

Lin Che played it again.

When the third repetition was halfway through, the old lady put down her chopsticks and suddenly said, "When you were little, I made you a blue cotton-padded jacket with a little red flower embroidered on it. Do you remember?"

Lin Che was stunned. He didn't remember. He tried hard to recall, and a blurry image appeared in his mind—it seemed that there was indeed such a cotton-padded jacket, which he wore to kindergarten. His classmates laughed and said it was a girl's clothing, and he cried when he got home. He never saw that cotton-padded jacket again after that.

He didn't recount that memory. He only said, "I remember."

The old lady didn't expose him, but just smiled and said, "The cotton in that cotton-padded jacket was taken apart from an old one and re-fluffed. Your father wore that old cotton-padded jacket for more than ten years, and the cotton inside had become hardened. After being fluffed, it became soft again. When we made your cotton-padded jacket, that cotton was stuffed into your little garment."

She lowered her head, took a sip of porridge, and added, "Many things in life are like this: they're taken apart, become loose, but when they're made new, they're warm again."

At 10 a.m., Yang Fan saw the notification of the new song on the platform in his office.

He clicked on it, not listening to the song first, but glancing at the data—over 300 plays. For a newcomer's work with no promotion, no traffic sources, and no platform recommendations, this number wasn't bad. Seven comments. He clicked on the comments and read them one by one:

"I clicked in by accident, and it made me cry. My mom also has a sewing machine."

"This guitar intro is so beautiful."

"The lyrics are so painful, yet so gentle. It's like being pricked by a needle, but that needle is stitching up your wound."

"Keep it up, bro. You've been through so much since the last song, 'Track,' and you're getting better and better."

"You can tell this song was written with heart, not just for the sake of popularity."

"My mother is a seamstress, and I've worn clothes made by her for over thirty years without ever thanking her. Thank you for reminding me."

"Added to my favorites. Looking forward to more of your work."

Yang Fan read each of the seven comments twice before he finally played the song.

The feeling is the same as when I first heard it—no, it's even better than the first time. The recording and mixing have given the song a better presentation, but the core remains the same. It's still the sound of that old-fashioned sewing machine, and that needle that has traveled through time.

He sent Lin Che a message on WeChat: "I heard you. Very good."

After a while, Lin Che replied with two words: "Thank you."

"What are the next steps?"

"Let's put the song aside for now. I'd like to help out at the market this weekend."

Yang Fan looked at the reply, somewhat surprised, but mostly relieved.

Many people, once they've finished one task, rush to do the next to solidify their foothold. But after Lin Che finished a song, he chose to help move tables and set up a stall at a market—this made Yang Fan feel more at ease than if he were to write another new song.

Because he knows that people who can stop to help others no longer feel like they are being chased by life.

That same morning, Su Jing completed the final step in the process of making the coat in her studio.

She sewed the piping on the cuffs, trimmed the loose threads, and then ironed the entire garment. The gray-blue cotton-linen fabric regained its softness and smoothness under the steam, and the Chinese knot buttons lined up along the front, like a row of quiet musical notes.

She hung the clothes on the mannequin, stepped back a few paces, and examined them for a while.

Then she took out her phone, snapped a picture, and sent it to Shen Wei: "It's done."

Less than a minute later, Shen Wei replied: "Looks good. Want to wear it to the market this weekend?"

"wear."

"Then I'll wait and see."

Su Jing put down her phone and gently smoothed out a small wrinkle on the front of her coat. The fabric felt slightly warm under her fingertips, as if it were alive.

She wanted to give it a name.

After thinking for a long time, she typed a word in her phone's notes: autumn frost.

It's a quiet, greyish-blue color, perfect for draping over your shoulders when the weather turns cool. Autumn frost falls silently on the grass, making everything clear.

Wednesday evening was the final preparatory meeting before the "Autumn Harvest" market began.

The location was a small conference room on the second floor of the cultural and creative space in the university town. Shen Wei, Yang Fan, Chen Mo (cultural and creative), Chen Mo (security), and several student volunteer leaders sat around a long table. On the table were a stall distribution map, a traffic flow plan, an emergency plan manual, and a pile of printed sign-in sheets.

Shen Wei stood in front of the whiteboard and drew a simple layout of the site with a marker, circling several key locations.

"This is the entrance registration area, this is the public welfare area, and this is the agricultural innovation exhibition area. Evacuation routes are marked at all four exits. The medical point is here—closest to the central area, equipped with a basic first aid kit and a volunteer with a first aid certificate."

She put down her pen and looked around: "Regarding supplies, the tents and tables and chairs will be delivered to the site by 3 p.m. tomorrow. Sunshades, stall signs, garbage bags, drinking water, walkie-talkies—I've made a list and checked it."

"There's one more thing," Shen Wei opened her notebook, "The weather forecast says there might be some light rain on Saturday. I've prepared fifty disposable raincoats, but if there's strong wind, we might need to adjust the setup of our outdoor stall."

Chen Mo (security) raised his hand: "I can coordinate two larger tents. If it rains, we can use the tents to connect the outdoor stalls."

"Okay, then I'll leave it to you."

Chen Mo (Cultural and Creative Products) said, "The seed postcards are finished, and 500 have been printed. I'll take them over on Saturday and put them at the entrance of the cultural and creative products area. I've also made a small installation—a wooden display stand where the postcards can be inserted and rotated like a windmill. It should look quite nice."

Shen Wei wrote it down in her notebook: "Okay, then the arrangement of the cultural and creative area is up to you."

The meeting continued for another forty minutes, confirming all the details one by one. By the time the last person closed their laptop, it was completely dark outside. Several people got up to pack their things, the chairs scraping against the floor with a few short, sharp squeaks.

Yang Fan walked over to Shen Wei and asked, "Are you nervous?"

"A little," Shen Wei said, "but mostly I'm looking forward to it."

"That's good tension."

"Hmm." Shen Wei put her notebook into her canvas bag. "Brother Yang, what do you think this year's market will be like?"

Yang Fan thought for a moment: "There will be a lot of people coming, a lot of noise, and it will be very lively. Some people will just pass by and leave without buying anything. There will be children crying, dogs running into the venue, and someone might stop at a stall, pick up something, and then remember something they haven't thought about in a long time."

He looked at Shen Wei: "The kind of 'liveliness' you're looking for isn't the perfect kind of liveliness, but the kind that's flawed, real, and alive."

Shen Wei was silent for a moment, then said, "Yeah. Like that."

She slung her canvas bag over her shoulder and walked out of the meeting room. The motion-activated lights in the corridor turned on, illuminating the path beneath her feet.

On Friday night, Lin Che lay in bed and opened the backend of the music platform.

Within four days of its release, "Sewing Machine" had accumulated over two thousand plays. Dozens of people added it to their favorites, and the number of comments grew to twenty-three. The platform's algorithm occasionally recommends the song to users who have heard similar music, so while the data growth is slow, it's consistently positive.

He read the comments again. Most were left by strangers. One comment read: "My grandma was also a seamstress, and she passed away ten years ago. I heard this song today and cried on the bus."

Lin Che took a screenshot of the comment and saved it to a folder on his phone called "Good Things". That folder also contained many other things - a photo of the shirt Su Jing made, a text record of what Yang Fan said to him in the noodle shop, the original cover photo taken by Zhou Jin, and his mother's back view sitting on a park bench.

He put down his phone, turned his head, and looked out the window at the night view.

Tomorrow is market day. Shen Wei asked him to be there at nine o'clock to help. He agreed.