A perfect score on the college entrance exam? The Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng has astonis

A microphone stand stood in front of him, and next to it was a guitar case containing an acoustic guitar.

The body of the instrument is dark brown, gleaming with a warm glow in the setting sun.

He was tuning the instrument, head down, intently looking at the neck of the violin.

A dozen or so people were gathered around, some of them recording with their phones.

Some people sat on the stone benches nearby waiting, while others held their children, who stared curiously at the guitar.

Su Wanci tugged at Chen Mo's sleeve.

"They're street performers, let's listen to them."

Chen Mo didn't say anything and followed her over.

The two stood on the periphery of the crowd. Su Wanci tiptoed to look inside, while Chen Mo stood behind her with his hands in his pockets and a calm expression.

The young man tuned the strings, looked up, and said something into the microphone.

"The next song, 'Encounter,' is dedicated to everyone I met by West Lake today."

He plucked the strings, and the prelude began—a song that many people know and can sing.

His voice wasn't particularly pleasant, but it was very clean, as clean as the water of West Lake.

Su Wanci swayed her body gently to the rhythm, humming the lyrics softly.

Chen Mo looked at her.

Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the willow trees, falling on her hair, shoulders, and the back of her hands, shattering into patches of golden light.

Her eyes were closed, the corners of her mouth slightly upturned, and she seemed to be wrapped in a warm, soft blanket of music, making you want to reach out and touch her hair.

Chen Mo did not reach out.

He just watched.

When the music ended, the young man stopped and took a sip of water.

People around him applauded, and someone shouted, "One more song!"

The young man smiled and was about to speak.

Su Wanci turned her head and glanced at Chen Mo.

There was something in that look.

It's something like expecting something but being too embarrassed to say it.

Chen Mo understood.

He took two steps forward and stood in front of the young man.

"Hi, could I borrow your guitar?"

The young man was taken aback.

He looked up, saw Chen Mo's face, and his mouth opened slightly.

He recognized him.

Not everyone can recognize Chen Mo's face in a crowd, but a street performer who frequently uses Douyin (TikTok) must have seen that face before.

That was a face that gained countless followers within a month.

It is the face that bears the inscriptions of "Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng", "Ode to the Goddess of the Luo River", "Exhortation to Learning", "Ten Years of Life and Death", and "On the Love of Lotus".

It was the face of someone invited to be the vice president of the Mathematical Sciences Association, and the face of someone who refused the chairmanship of the Writers' Association.

"You are... Chen Mo?" The young man's voice trembled slightly.

"Um, can I borrow it for a moment?"

The young man didn't say another word.

He handed over the guitar, stood up, and gave up his seat.

Chen Mo took the guitar and sat down on the folding chair in front of the microphone.

He hugged the guitar to his chest, tuned it, then looked up and glanced at Su Wanci.

She stood in the middle of the crowd, clutching the hem of her clothes with both hands, a light shining in her eyes.

It wasn't surprise, it wasn't anticipation, but a brighter, star-like light.

She didn't know what he was going to play, but she knew that whatever he played would be good.

Chen Mo lowered his head and placed his fingers on the strings.

Then he played it.

The intro isn't from any popular song.

It's not like "Chengdu", not like "Nanshan Nan", not like any song that has been played a thousand times on the street.

It was an unfamiliar melody, not complicated, even somewhat simple, as simple as someone walking by a lake, humming it casually.

But there was something in that tune that made you not want to talk after listening to it.

Chen Mo spoke.

"At the head of the Xunyang River, I saw off a guest at night; the maple leaves and reeds rustled in the autumn breeze."

"The host dismounts, the guest remains on the boat; they raise their cups to drink, but there is no music."

"Drunk, I could find no joy as we parted in sorrow; at parting, the vast river was bathed in moonlight."

The crowd fell silent.

It's not the kind of quiet where "everyone stops to listen to music," but a deeper, more essential kind of quiet.

It was as if everyone's ears were captivated by the sound plucked from the strings, unable to break free.

The young man stood to the side, his mouth slightly open, forgetting to close it.

He played guitar and sang for ten years, and he had never heard anyone transform a Tang poem like this.

It's not a recitation with background music, not spoken dialogue, it's a real song.

The melody and lyrics fit together perfectly, as if this "Pipa Ballad" had been written a thousand years ago.

I've been waiting for this melody today.

He didn't know when Chen Mo wrote this song, or when he started practicing guitar.

He didn't know that besides writing poetry, prose, and proving mathematical conjectures, he could also sing. All he knew was that he had witnessed a genius today.

Su Wanci stood in the middle of the crowd.

Her hands fell from the hem of her clothes and hung at her sides, her fingers trembling slightly.

She had heard Chen Mo speak, heard him recite poetry, and heard him softly recite "Ten years have passed, and we are separated by life and death" on the Broken Bridge.

But she had never heard him sing.

His voice was different from when he spoke. When he spoke, it was calm, composed, like a deep pool of water.

When I was singing, something was churning in the pool of water.

It wasn't sadness, nor excitement; it was something very deep and profound, like something that had been hidden away for a long time and was finally being shown to others.

She didn't know if he was singing Bai Juyi's name or his own.

Chen Mo continued singing. His fingers danced across the strings, neither too fast nor too slow, each note clear and precise.

"Suddenly, the sound of a pipa was heard on the water; the host forgot to return home, and the guest did not depart."

"Following the sound, I secretly inquired who was playing; the pipa music stopped, and they hesitated to speak."

"We moved our boats closer to each other, invited each other to meet, added wine, relit the lamps, and resumed the feast."

"She finally appeared after much coaxing, still holding her pipa and half-concealing her face."

That's where the song ends.

Someone in the crowd started recording a video.

It wasn't just one person, it was many people.

They all raised their phones, pointing the cameras at Chen Mo, but no one spoke.

It's not that I don't want to talk, it's that I don't know what to say.

They were rooted to the spot by those words and that melody, like trees frozen in place by the wind.

Some people's lips were trembling slightly, some people held their phones high with shaking hands and shaky screens, but no one put them down.

In the live stream, the young man's Douyin account, which originally only had a few hundred viewers, suddenly attracted hundreds of thousands of people.

The barrage of comments poured down like a waterfall, hundreds per second, stacking together to form a wall of text.

"Is this Chen Mo???"

"Wait, what is he singing???"

"The Song of the Pipa??? Bai Juyi's The Song of the Pipa???"

"He turned 'The Ballad of the Pipa' into a song???"

"This isn't a recitation with background music; it's a real song! The melody and lyrics are set together!"

"I got goosebumps."

"After much anticipation, she finally appears, still holding her pipa, half-concealing her face"—when these two lines were sung, I cried. I don't know why I cried.

"Because he's singing about himself; he's the one who's been 'long awaited' – the whole internet has been waiting for him for so long, and he's only appeared a few times?"

"Did you notice? His guitar playing isn't great, but it's good enough. He's not showing off his skills; he's using the simplest way to get these words into your heart."

"That's enough. There are many people who can play the guitar well, but he's the first to sing 'The Song of the Pipa' like this."