Mr. Lizard Outside the Window - Chapter 29
Chapter 29: Ling Dong
While Banxia was talking to Lin Shi, the piano music upstairs stopped.
When she entered her apartment, she saw her little lizard perched on the windowsill, gazing out at the night.
Outside, the dark shapes of the trees stretched towards the distant, twinkling lights of the villa district.
Xiao Lian's eyes were deep and dark, with subtle gold flecks, like mysterious jewels from a fairy tale.
His gaze drifted over the treetops, towards the distant lights.
The black night seemed to absorb his small, dark form, making him almost invisible against the windowsill, like a pool of ink merging with the darkness.
Banxia was suddenly reminded of the first time she had seen him, drenched and injured, appearing at her window during a thunderstorm.
Tonight, the moon and stars were bright, and Xiao Lian was clean and healthy. But for some reason, Banxia felt like he was hurt.
When Xiao Lian had first arrived, Banxia hadn't been able to read his emotions. If he didn't speak, she couldn't tell whether he was happy or sad. He was just a small, dark head with big, round eyes.
But after spending so much time together, she had learned to decipher the subtle shifts in his expression, the unspoken emotions hidden beneath his non-human features.
"Xiao Lian, look what I brought you," Banxia said, taking her lunchbox out of her bag. Xiao Lian usually filled it with delicious food for her to take to school.
But tonight, she opened the lid to reveal food she had brought home from Bar Street.
In the top compartment was half a red fermented rice duck.
The tender, juicy duck meat, marinated in red rice wine, simmered with cinnamon, star anise, and ginger, its fragrant steam filling the air as she opened the lid.
In the second compartment was a small bowl of abalone and pork rib soup, the clear broth fragrant and savory.
"You must be tired of cooking all the time. Let's take a break tonight and have takeout," she said, showing him the food.
Xiao Lian climbed down from the windowsill.
These dishes were expensive, a treat Banxia rarely bought for herself. She had bought them especially for him.
"This place is famous for its red fermented rice duck, besides their soups. I waited in line for half an hour," she said. "Make sure you eat a lot. You looked a bit thin this morning."
She had almost let slip that she had seen him in his human form that morning and quickly added, "I mean, you've been working so hard lately. You should eat more."
So that Xiao Lian could eat comfortably after she fell asleep, Banxia got ready for bed early.
Seeing him sitting on the floor beside her bed, looking up at her, she couldn't resist reaching out.
"Want to come up?" she asked.
The lights were off, only a dim nightlight illuminating the room. The light cast a long shadow behind Xiao Lian, stretching across the wall, like a monstrous figure struggling in the darkness.
The black shadow hesitated for a moment, then climbed onto her outstretched hand and into her bed.
Banxia placed him on her pillow and lay down beside him.
"Let's talk. Are you feeling down today, Xiao Lian?"
Xiao Lian looked up at her, and Banxia knew she had guessed correctly.
"You always listen to me complain. If you're feeling down, you can tell me too."
Xiao Lian wasn't much of a talker, but Banxia was a master at putting people at ease, especially when she wanted to comfort someone she cared about.
She started chatting, telling him stories from her childhood, anecdotes from her part-time jobs, her cheerful chatter gradually drawing him out of his gloom.
"Last night, at Bluegrass Cafe, a man proposed to his girlfriend with roses and asked me to play 'Salut d'Amour.' It was the third time I'd seen him propose, and each time, it was to a different girl."
"You know, back in my village, if a boy liked a girl, he wouldn't give her flowers. He'd tease her, try to scare her with caterpillars and frogs. My cousin, Huhu, once made Xiao Cui cry with a caterpillar. I had to beat him up for her," she chuckled.
The little black gecko sat on her pillow, listening to her stories, his dark eyes reflecting her face, so close to his own. He was enveloped by her scent, the warmth of her body radiating through the sheets.
Suddenly, he felt something unlock within him, a deep, primal longing, a monster's greed.
At first, he had just wanted a warm place to shelter from the cold, rainy night.
Then, he had wanted to stay near her, to be by her side, to listen to her music.
Now, he realized he wanted more.
A greedy, insatiable desire, impossible to suppress, impossible to control.
Ling Dong arrived late at the concert the following evening. He chose a seat at the very edge of the VIP section, trying to be inconspicuous.
Under the spotlight, the young man in white, his features delicate, his frame slender and elegant, exuded an air of cool detachment.
Most of the students weren't particularly interested in the sponsored event. Their attention was focused on the rarely seen piano prodigy.
"He looks so aloof."
"He's always like that, indifferent to everything."
"Well, he's a genius. He's supposed to be different."
"I'm so envious! I wish I could be up there, shaking hands with the school president!"
Amidst the whispers, Ling Dong sat quietly, his expression impassive, his gaze distant, as cold and remote as winter ice and snow.
He seemed determined to maintain his composure, his emotions perfectly controlled.
When the host invited him on stage, he walked gracefully into the spotlight, bowed to the audience, sat down at the grand piano, and began to play "La Campanella," the piece he had performed at the international competition.
The technically demanding piece, composed by Liszt, was a showcase of virtuosity. Ling Dong's playing was precise and controlled, textbook perfect, his fingers moving across the keys with incredible speed, creating a cascade of bell-like tones, cold, mechanical, precise… a relentless rain of notes.
The students in the audience were mesmerized by his skill.
Banxia, watching him from her seat, frowned.
His music shouldn't sound like this.
Though they hadn't interacted much, she had become familiar with his playing, having heard it through the wall almost every day.
His music was usually filled with emotion, a powerful, raw energy that resonated deep within her soul.
And he wasn't truly cold and aloof. He had helped her at the competition, his ears turning pink when he asked her to record the violin part for his song. He was different from the masked figure on stage.
Tonight, however, he seemed deliberately restrained, his emotions tightly controlled.
On stage, Ling Dong's cold gaze swept across the audience. Banxia suddenly felt like he had seen her.
And at that moment, the music changed.
The grand stage seemed to transform into a realm of countless clocks, the cloaked figure of Time himself appearing, his pale hands moving among the swinging pendulums, accelerating their rhythm.
Time was speeding up, running out, the relentless ticking of the clocks echoing in their hearts, filling them with a sense of urgency, of impending doom, a suffocating panic.
The music ended, the lingering notes fading into silence. The clocks, the shadowy figure, all vanished. Under the spotlight, the pianist in white, his eyes closed, looked as if he might disappear with the light.
Banxia watched him, along with everyone else in the audience.
A smattering of applause, then a wave of it, growing louder and louder, like a rising tide.
"That was… incredible! I've never heard 'La Campanella' played like that before!"
"It was so… unsettling! The melody was light, but it made me feel… afraid, like time was running out, like everything was about to be too late."
"My heart was pounding! Like something terrible was about to happen, and I couldn't stop it! The music was so suffocating! So powerful!"
"He's amazing! A true piano prince!"
The reporters and music critics exchanged excited comments.
"Ling Dong has reached a new level!"
"An unparalleled performance! Better than anything he's done before! We have to broadcast this!"
"Ling Dong is truly blessed! His future is limitless!"
But Ling Dong, despite the thunderous applause, disappeared backstage and left without a word, without returning for an encore.
Banxia barely noticed the rest of the concert, her mind still reeling from Ling Dong's performance.
Even on her way home, she kept replaying the music in her head, trying to imagine how she would interpret the piece on the violin.
"How can I capture that same feeling of suffocating urgency, that anxiety and unease, while still showcasing the technical brilliance of the piece?" she muttered to herself, stopping her bike and miming the violin part, her mind searching for the right expression.
She was far from the school now, nearing her village. The roadside was overgrown with weeds, the streetlights casting a dim glow on the quiet landscape. A rustling in the bushes made her jump.
She looked closer and saw a figure standing among the weeds and bushes. It was Ling Dong.
He had left the concert early, yet he was only here now.
He stood there, staring at his hands, the streetlight casting a long shadow behind him, making him look like a monstrous figure lurking among the trees.
His clothes were disheveled, covered in leaves and dirt, even his hair had twigs and leaves stuck in it, as if he had fallen and rolled around in the undergrowth.
But even a fall couldn't explain his current state. He looked like he had been dragged through the bushes.
What happened to him?
Banxia hesitantly called out to him. Ling Dong looked up, startled.
A gust of wind ruffled his hair and clothes.
He stood there, staring at her, his dark eyes intense, unsettling.
Do you remember, he seemed to be asking, when I was a child, living in that flower-filled courtyard, playing the piano by the sunlit window?
It had all been like a strange dream. And when he woke up, he wasn't a prince, but a monster.
"Senior Ling Dong? What are you doing here?" Banxia asked cautiously, patting the back of her bicycle seat. "Did you fall? Do you need a ride?"
Ling Dong's lips moved, but he didn't speak. He looked away, then reached for her bicycle handlebars. "I'll ride," he said.
There were no stars or moon tonight. Banxia sat on the back of the bicycle, the streetlights passing overhead, illuminating them as they rode.
As they went downhill, the wind lifted the edge of his coat, revealing a flash of pale skin at his waist, the taut lines of his slender frame.
From her position behind him, Banxia could see his hands gripping the handlebars, his long, pale fingers, the blue veins visible beneath his thin skin.
His hands look…familiar, she thought.
The
ReplyDelete"You know, back in my village, if a boy liked a girl, he wouldn't give her flowers. He'd tease her, try to scare her with caterpillars and frogs."
GOT ME STARING AT MY SCREEN FOR LIKE, 3 MINUTES