Chapter 35: Missed Connections

Shu Shu successfully navigated her way over to the string instrument audition wing.

As if to guarantee absolute silence inside the venue, the direct access corridors had been closed off, preventing her from heading down to the floor level. Shu Shu could only peer over the railing of the massive spectator upper deck, watching the audition process from a distance and at a sharp angle.

This side was visibly far more formal than the pianist auditions.

The judging panel was fully staffed, featuring several foreign faces among them.

The atmosphere was incredibly solemn.

Gripping the handrail, Shu Shu watched the young contestants take the stage one after another, straining her ears to listen closely. Her legs grew completely numb from standing, yet she never heard the name “Pei Muyin” called out.

Seeing that only three contestants remained, she watched as the third-to-last wasn’t Pei Muyin, and the second-to-last wasn’t Pei Muyin either. It wasn’t until the absolute final contestant took the stage that a name suddenly caused Shu Shu to freeze in her tracks.

Shi Yao.

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However, all Shu Shu saw next was the judging panel rising from their seats one after another and exiting the floor, signaling that the string auditions had officially come to an end.

Pei Muyin wasn’t here.

Was it because she had delayed herself during that piano audition earlier and arrived too late, causing her to completely miss her daughter’s time slot?

Or had her daughter simply skipped this orchestra recruitment altogether?

Or perhaps… that girl just happened to share the name Shi Yao by pure coincidence, there was no such person as Pei Muyin in reality, and the dream had been entirely a illusion.

The overhead intercom system chimed with a polite announcement requesting everyone to vacate the premises.

Having found no answers, Shu Shu could only turn and leave the theater for the time being.

Consequently, she failed to notice that after she turned her back, a foreign female panelist who was right on the verge of leaving the judges’ table looked down at a registration document in her hand. Using slightly accented Mandarin, she inquired of her colleague with a look of genuine concern:

“This violinist named Pei Muyin, where is she? Why did we not see her come today…?”

…

When Shu Shu exited the theater interior, she reached the main entrance only to find that a heavy downpour had started outside.

Tucking her phone out to check the time, she realized it was already nearly half past one in the afternoon.

She hadn’t brought an umbrella.

Fortunately, when she booked her hotel yesterday, she had selected a VIP suite. After a quick call to the front desk, it took less than three minutes for a staff member from the luxury hotel across the street to arrive with an umbrella to escort her back.

Having failed to find her daughter, Shu Shu naturally had no intention of lingering in Beijing. Skipping lunch entirely, she checked out of her room and caught the next flight straight back to Anshi.

~

The rain pattered on relentlessly, veiling the sky in a dim, murky gray.

Pei Muyin arrived home almost entirely soaked to the skin.

Water dripped down from her damp hair and the hem of her clothes, tracing lines down her chubby frame. One of her hands clutched her violin case tightly, while the palm of her other hand was clamped in a fierce, iron grip over something pressed against her chest. Her lips were deathly pale and trembling as her entire body shuddered violently from the biting cold.

“Miss?!”

The maid stationed near the entrance was thoroughly startled by her wretched appearance. “Weren’t you supposed to be attending the orchestra audition? How on earth did you end up like this?”

Pei Muyin acted as though she hadn’t heard the maid’s voice at all. Keeping her eyes downcast, she walked past her and headed straight up the stairs toward her bedroom.

The maid seemed entirely accustomed to her cold, uncommunicative demeanor. After staring at her retreating back for a couple of seconds, she mumbled a few complaints under her breath, picked up her dust cloth, and went right back to her chores.

Up on the second floor, the bedroom door clicked shut.

Pei Muyin set down her violin case, completely ignoring her own soaked state as she immediately checked the black voice recorder clutched securely in her right palm.

She pressed the playback button, and only when the elegant, resonant notes of a violin piece echoed out perfectly intact did her heart finally settle entirely into her chest.

This voice recorder, along with the audio file contained inside, was her most treasured possession in the world.

It was also her personal guardian angel.

Whenever she participated in an important competition or a high-stakes violin audition, as long as she listened to it once beforehand, she would always pass smoothly.

This morning, while she was en route to the Berlin-Su Orchestra’s violin audition, she had intended to put on her headphones and listen to the recording as usual. But after pressing the play button, an absolute silence greeted her. She immediately pulled the recorder close to inspect it, only to realize with a jolt of panic that this wasn’t her recorder at all!

Pei Muyin instantly recalled that when school let out yesterday, she had accidentally collided with a classmate. Their belongings had scattered all over the floor, and two identical voice recorders had dropped side by side.

Her own recorder had a tiny scratch measuring less than a centimeter near the base. When she had picked up the closest one yesterday and spotted the scratch, she had naturally assumed it was hers. She had gathered the rest of her fallen things and left in a hurry.

It wasn’t until she was in the car this morning that she discovered the mistake.

In a state of frantic anxiety, Pei Muyin managed to track down that classmate’s phone number to ask about the whereabouts of her actual recorder.

The girl replied with an apologetic tone, stating that her own voice recorder had been broken anyway. After realizing she had picked up the wrong one yesterday, she had casually tossed it into one of the school campus’s trash cans—though she couldn’t recall exactly which one it was.

Pei Muyin felt incredibly fortunate that the school’s Friday sanitation work was occasionally deferred to Saturday morning. She immediately instructed her driver to pull a U-turn and race back to the school.

The heavy downpour had started precisely while she was tearing through one trash bin after another, ripping open plastic bags.

She hadn’t cared about the rain at all, frantically digging through the refuse like someone possessed. Finally, after tearing open an unknown number of trash bags until her fingers were completely raw and aching, she found her recorder.

By then, she had completely missed the time window for the Berlin-Su Orchestra’s violin audition.

By the time she finally managed to rush over to the grand theater, the auditions had concluded exactly thirty minutes ago…

Likely due to having spent so much time exposed to the freezing downpour, Pei Muyin began sneezing repeatedly, her head feeling heavy and dizzy.

Realizing she was probably catching a cold, she took a hot shower, swallowed a cold tablet, and curled deep beneath her blankets. She carefully placed the voice recorder right beside her pillow before slowly drifting off to sleep.

Before closing her eyes, she caught a glimpse of the calendar on the wall, noting vaguely that today was the fifth.

The Pei family maintained a strict tradition: the fifth of every single month was reserved for a mandatory family dinner.

Therefore, it was also a day when her father would return home.

Pei Muyin slept incredibly deeply, only to be gradually pulled from her slumber by the faint echo of cheerful laughter and lively conversation floating up from downstairs.

She snapped her eyes open, a sudden thought striking her heart. Without even bothering to put on her shoes, she scrambled out of bed and rushed over to the window to peer outside. The designated VIP parking space in the courtyard sat completely empty.

She let out a quiet sigh.

Even though her father had consistently missed these monthly fifth-of-the-month family dinners for over a decade, Pei Muyin still found herself holding onto a shred of hope time and time again, wishing she might see her father’s car parked in that slot.

Yet this time was no exception; her father still hadn’t returned.

As for that cheerful laughter outside—

Knock, knock, knock.

A light tapping sounded against her door. It was the maid.

“Miss, dinner is about to be served.”

Pei Muyin sat on the edge of her bed, spacing out for a brief moment before changing into fresh clothes. Opening her bedroom door, she walked slowly down the sweeping spiral staircase.

Inside the opulent, magnificent living room.

The matriarch of the previous generation of the Pei family, Madam Song, sat elegantly on the sofa.

Despite being seventy-seven years old, she showed very few signs of aging due to immaculate skincare and a lifetime of high-end luxury. Exquisite jade ornaments adorned her earlobes and neck, radiating grace and nobility. One could easily trace the stunning beauty of her youth from her features.

Right now, she wore an expression of deep satisfaction. “Xiao Qing, I’ve been a tea connoisseur my entire life, yet the tea you brew remains the absolute most pleasing to my palate.”

The woman addressed as Xiao Qing possessed a remarkably gentle and refined appearance. She wore a simple, elegant qipao, her hair pinned up in a style that radiated intellect and propriety.

Shi Qing.

A high-level English educator who had accidentally saved Madam Song during a fire at a banquet eight years ago. Having earned Madam Song’s high regard and affection, she was frequently invited to the Pei family estate for dinners.

Later on, she was even included in highly private occasions like these monthly family gatherings.

Madam Song favored Shi Qing immensely, extending that deep affection to Shi Qing’s two children as well, completely untroubled by the fact that Shi Qing was a single mother.

Everyone within their social circles quietly speculated that Shi Qing was highly likely to become the next matriarch of the Pei family.

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