Being a gigolo was too much for him, so he had to become a music superstar.

He looked up and spoke into the microphone.

"The song I'm singing today is called 'One Meat and One Vegetable'."

The voice is flat and unintentional, simply stating one point.

Someone in the audience muttered quietly, "Just one guitar?"

Lin Buyi didn't look at the audience. He lowered his head, tuned his strings, plucked a note with his right hand, listened, and was satisfied.

He didn't say anything more.

After eight bars of prelude, he began to speak.

"Sunrise and sunset, deeper and deeper—"

The moment the sound came out, the expressions of several people in the front row changed.

Their shoulders relaxed.

Lin Buyi's voice is unpleasant. At least by traditional vocal standards, it's unpleasant. It's a bit dry, a bit harsh, and has a rough, gritty quality. When Fang Yizhou said his "basic skills are extremely poor," he wasn't being polite; his breath control is indeed problematic, and the breath placement for certain words isn't clean enough.

But this song doesn't need to be clean.

"A small square table, with one meat dish and one vegetable dish."

When this lyric came on, a woman in her forties in the third row of the audience put down her glow stick.

"A figure busily and calmly moves about, and a pair of hands bring warmth to this moment."

When Lin Buyi sang these two lines, his tone was particularly soft. He wasn't singing; he was reciting spoken words. It was as if there really was a small table in front of him, with a meat dish and a vegetable dish on it, and someone bustling around in the kitchen.

The first verse is finished.

The guitar intro is the same few chords, but the tempo is slightly increased.

Lin Buyi pressed his fingers on the strings and closed his eyes for a moment.

"People who are too young are never satisfied—"

The tone changed as he said that. It had been gentle before, but now it carried a hint of something. It was hard to pinpoint what it was; it wasn't anger, nor sadness, but more like a deep, long-suppressed sense of self-reproach.

"Stubbornly unwilling to stop the journey."

His voice started to rise, not in the form of hitting high notes, but in the kind of emotion that surged up and couldn't be suppressed.

"I walked a long road, gazing at the high sky—"

Arrived.

Lin Buyi paused for a moment.

That brief pause seemed to freeze the air in the entire stadium. More than two thousand people sat in the audience, and not a single sound was uttered. Not even a cough.

"I forgot to look back and see if she was crying."

When he uttered the last word, "cry," his voice cracked.

That wasn't a technical crack in his voice; it was a tear in his heart that he couldn't hold back when he uttered that word.

The woman in her forties in the third row in front lowered her head and reached into her bag for a tissue.

A young man in the fifth row on the right had reddened his eyes at some point. He kept staring at the figure in the spotlight on the stage, his lips pressed tightly together.

Lin Buyi had no idea what the audience was doing. He closed his eyes and began the chorus.

"The moon is bright, the breeze is gentle—"

He sang those words very softly, so softly that the first three rows could barely hear the original sound, while the people in the back relied entirely on the sound system.

"But you're knocking on my window."

"Don't worry if you hear that, I'm actually doing fine."

Upon hearing this, someone in the middle of the audience let out a soft sob.

"Things are alright"—these five words are the most painful part of the whole song.

Because everyone can tell. People who say "I'm doing alright" are definitely not doing well.

But he didn't want that person to worry. So he lied.

He told a gentle lie through a song.

Lin Buyi's right hand continued plucking the strings, the rhythm and speed remaining constant, everything steady. But his voice trembled. A very slight tremor, barely noticeable unless you listened carefully.

"The moon is bright, the breeze is gentle, have you ever come into my dreams—"

On the mentor's panel, Xue Xinghe's hands rested motionless on the table. His gaze remained fixed on the person on the stage. From the very first sentence until now, he hadn't uttered a single word.

Zhou Wanting took off her glasses.

Fang Yizhou leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed in front of his chest. There was a small smile on his lips, the kind of expression he only wore when he saw something good.

"It must be because you were too careful when you came, knowing I'm a light sleeper."

After Lin Buyi finished singing this line, his fingers paused on the strings for a moment.

The second verse started again. The same melody, the same lyrics, but the intensity changed. His voice was a bit heavier the second time than the first; the volume remained the same, but he enunciated each word more deeply.

"People who are too young are never satisfied."

"Stubbornly unwilling to stop their journey."

"Looking up at the high sky, I walked a long road."

I forgot to look back and see if she was crying.

When the song reached this line for the second time, more than one person in the front row was already wiping away tears.

A girl in a school uniform covered her face with her sleeve. The boy next to her patted her on the back, his own eyes reddening.

The second chorus.

"The moon is bright, the wind is gentle, but you are knocking on my window—"

Lin Buyi's voice suddenly rose a little. Not much, maybe just half a tone higher, but the intensity increased.

"Don't worry if you hear that, I'm actually doing alright."

Some people in the audience stood up and listened quietly.

The final chorus.

"The moon is bright, the breeze is gentle, have you ever come into my dreams?"

Lin Buyi's voice reached its highest point in the entire song during this line, and then slowly, slowly fell back down.

"It must be because you were too careful when you came—"

The fingers plucked the last chord on the strings. The sound spread out.

"I'm afraid I'll think of you again."

The last four words.

He sang very softly.

She spoke so softly it was almost as if she were talking into a microphone.

The guitar music stopped.

Only the spotlight remained on the stage, shining on a young man with his head down. His hands were still on the strings, motionless.

The entire room fell silent.

one second.

two seconds.

three seconds.

Four seconds.

Five seconds—

Applause erupted.

Lin Buyi raised his head.

He glanced at the audience, his expression unchanged. He stood up and said two words into the microphone: "Thank you."

His voice remained flat, as if he hadn't just made the entire room cry.

The applause lasted for a long time.

Lin Buyi stood on the stage with his guitar, waiting for the applause to slowly subside.

Fang Yizhou picked up the microphone.

The entire room fell silent.

Fang Yizhou didn't speak immediately. He looked at Lin Buyi for a few seconds, put the microphone to his mouth, then put it down again. Then he took a deep breath and raised the microphone again.

"Lin Buyi."

"exist."

Fang Yizhou stared at him for a long time before speaking.

"Who is this song written for?"

Lin Buyi remained silent for two seconds.

"my mom."

Fang Yizhou nodded.

"So now she..."

"Gone."

Lin Buyi uttered those three words very calmly. It was as if he were talking about something from a long time ago, so long ago that he no longer needed to wrap it up with emotions.