Entertainment: A song that brought his deceased wife back to life.

Chapter 265 The Ring

When Luo Qianyu stepped off the stage, her legs were already weak.

Once the adrenaline recedes, all the body's bills are settled at once.

All four fingers on his right hand were covered in string marks. The pads of his index and middle fingers were cut, and blood was dripping down the gaps between his fingers onto the steps.

My throat felt like it had been sanded inside and out with sandpaper, and every sip of saliva felt like it was on fire.

She gripped the guitar neck and slowly made her way to the waiting area.

When she reached the seventh step, a hand reached out from the side and snatched the guitar from her hands.

Xu Qing.

He didn't know when he ended up standing at the entrance of the passage.

He rested the guitar neck on his shoulder and used his other hand to support Luo Qianyu's elbow.

"walk."

Luo Qianyu looked up at him.

"a bit?"

"98.8".

"We didn't win." Her voice was hoarse, like a broken bellows, but there was a hint of regret in her tone. "We were 0.7 points behind."

Xu Qing looked down at her hand.

The blood was still seeping.

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket—it was one he had brought with him before leaving home that day, washed and neatly folded.

"Did you know I'd get a bloody hand before you left?" Luo Qianyu stared at the handkerchief.

"I know." Xu Qing wrapped the handkerchief around her index finger, her movements as steady as someone who had defused bombs all her life. "Your fingering technique is already bad, you'll definitely get hurt when you try to strum in a lower key."

"Then why did you make me play!"

"Because you insisted on going." Xu Qing tied a knot in the gauze. "Could I have stopped you?"

Luo Qianyu opened her mouth, but couldn't find a way to refute it.

It was indeed unstoppable.

Xu Qing packed her up and took her back to the lounge, pressed her into a chair, and took out iodine and bandages from the first-aid kit, treating her finger by finger.

Luo Qianyu twitched in pain, but didn't utter a sound.

She tilted her head to look at Xu Qing's face.

His complexion had improved somewhat, and it was no longer the frighteningly pale white it had been before.

But the bloodshot eyes hadn't faded.

"Are you alright?" Luo Qianyu asked.

"You're already bleeding like this, and you still have time to care about me?"

Answer me.

Xu Qing finished applying the last band-aid and closed the first-aid kit.

"I'm fine now."

"That's a lie."

"It's really nothing."

Luo Qianyu raised her hand, which was covered in bandages, grabbed his collar, and pulled him to eye level with her.

Their noses almost touched.

"Xu Qing, listen carefully." Her voice was hoarse but she was still holding on, each word hissing with an electric current, "Whether it's your PTSD, the sirens, or the mess in Berlin—you're not allowed to carry it all alone."

"You said last time that you would call me Teacher Luo after I win."

"I haven't won yet. But is my coming on stage today enough to earn me a single honest answer?"

Xu Qing looked at her eyes, which were bloodshot from lack of sleep and red from screaming, yet still so bright they could light up the entire lounge.

He was silent for a long time.

Then he said, "I'm scared."

Two words.

So light it was almost silent.

Luo Qianyu released her hand from his collar.

She nestled herself into his arms, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her face against his chest.

There was no need to ask what I was afraid of.

No need to ask.

She knows everything.

……

The corridor outside the lounge.

Adam was about to push the door open when he heard the noise inside. His hand hovered in mid-air for three seconds.

He lowered his hand.

I turned around and leaned against the corridor wall, looking up at the cold fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling, and stood quietly for a long time.

Then he took out his phone and scrolled to the bottom of his contacts, to "My Guitarist".

This time he didn't hesitate and sent a text message directly.

"You've found someone better than me."

After sending the message, he put his phone back in his pocket, put his hands in his pockets, and strode towards the exit.

At the end of the corridor, someone stopped him.

Chen Che.

The two people stood facing each other in an empty corridor.

Chen Che was clutching a crumpled sheet of music in his hand.

His face was expressionless, but his eyes were red.

Adam looked at him for a while.

"What do you want to give Xu Qing?"

Chen Che didn't say anything.

He handed over the crumpled sheet of music.

Adam took it, unfolded it, and glanced at it.

That's not sheet music.

A set of frequency waveforms is drawn above.

Extremely precise, extremely bizarre.

The crests and troughs exhibit an unnatural symmetry, with the spacing accurate to four decimal places.

Adam couldn't understand audio engineering, but he had spent two years with Xu Qing and had gradually come to recognize the nature of these types of diagrams.

"What is this?"

Chen Che's voice was hoarse and barely audible: "Give it to Xu Qing. He can understand it."

Adam folded the paper and held it between his fingers.

"Your ring—"

"Don't mention that." Chen Che interrupted him and turned to leave.

He took three steps and then stopped.

There was no turning back.

"Please tell him for me."

Chen Che's voice drifted from the end of the corridor, mixed with the buzzing noise of the HVAC pipes.

"I am not serving different masters."

"I'm betting he can win."

The footsteps faded into the distance.

Adam stood in the corridor, clutching the crumpled piece of paper in his hand, a helpless smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

This group of Chinese people make music like they're waging war, and they make war like they're staging a melodrama.

He stuffed the paper into the back pocket of his jeans, walked to the lounge door, and knocked twice.

The door opened a crack.

Luo Qianyu poked half her head out, her face still bearing traces of undried tears, but her expression had already switched to standard "territorial defense mode".

"what?"

Adam raised his hands in surrender, took the paper out of his pocket, and handed it over.

"Chen Che gave it to Xu Qing."

Luo Qianyu used two fingers with bandages to hold the paper and pulled it away.

"Anything else?"

"That's all." Adam took a step back. "Goodnight, Miss Luo."

The door slammed shut.

Adam muttered a broken Chinese phrase to the closed door: "How fierce."

……

In the lounge.

Luo Qianyu unfolded the crumpled paper and handed it to Xu Qing.

Xu Qing took it.

The moment he saw the waveform diagram on the paper, he froze.

Three seconds later, he sat up abruptly.

"What is this?" Luo Qianyu leaned closer.

Xu Qing did not answer immediately.

His fingers slowly traced the lines of the peaks and troughs, his fingertips pausing at a certain symmetrical point.

That node was marked with a set of extremely precise values.

Xu Qing recognized these numbers.

Seven years ago, he personally wrote this set of parameters in the underlying code of the Siren system.

But the waveform on the paper in front of him was not the version he had written.

This is a set of modified parameters.

The direction of the modification is to adjust the resonant frequency originally used for treatment to an aggressive hallucinogenic frequency.

In other words, this is the blueprint for the fatal parameters that Deepsea Capital used to illegally conduct excessive tests on Lily after tampering with the Siren system.

Chen Che has brought over the deep sea's trump card.

Xu Qing folded the paper again and held it in her palm.

The knuckles are slightly white.

"Xu Qing?" Luo Qianyu's voice was tinged with unease.

He raised his head.

The bloodshot eyes were still there, but that thick layer of shadow was being replaced by something else.

It wasn't anger, it wasn't fear.

It is a kind of clarity that is extremely cold and belongs to the hunter.

"Please bring me my phone."

Luo Qianyu handed over the phone.

Xu Qing unlocked the phone and dialed Ma Dongteng's number.

He answered immediately.