I Promise to Walk With You for Half of my Life’s Journey - Chapter 34

First Day of Work: Monday, 8:40 AM

The advertising agency where Cheng Sutong was hired was called “Echo Culture.” The receptionist was a young girl with haze-blue dyed hair who was practicing a finger dance in front of her phone screen. When she looked up and saw Cheng Sutong, she paused for a moment and asked if she was there for an interview.

“I am starting my first day of work. My name is Cheng Sutong.”

“Ah, Director Chen mentioned you,” the girl said as she quickly stood up. “I will lead you there. The Creative Department is on the second floor.”

While walking through the lobby, Cheng Sutong’s attention was captured by a massive mural on the wall. It was a city skyline constructed from thousands of discarded keyboard keycaps. The letters on the keycaps faintly formed lines of poetry.

The receptionist followed her gaze and explained that it was the work of Zhou, the Art Director. She mentioned that he had a bit of a strange temper, but his craftsmanship was unparalleled.

The staircase was a preserved cast-iron spiral, and the anti-slip patterns on the steps had been worn smooth over time. As Cheng Sutong lightly touched the handrail, she recalled what An Chuxin had told her before she left this morning. An Chuxin said that if she encountered people or things she disliked, she should remember that she could come home at any time, as they did not need that salary to survive.

At the time, Cheng Sutong answered with a smile that she needed that salary to go to Yunnan.

The Creative Department occupied the entire east side of the second floor. Every workstation felt like a small island. Some were piled with art albums and color swatches, while others were decorated with strange collectibles. One workstation even had a small ecological tank where several guppies swam among green algae.

Cheng Sutong’s desk was by the window next to an old tree whose branches almost reached the glass. The desk was empty except for a computer, a plain ceramic pen holder, and a blank sketchbook prepared by the administration.

“Are you Cheng Sutong?” A middle-aged man with a small ponytail approached her. He held a coffee cup labeled “Extra Strong Americano.” He wore a wrinkled linen shirt and old, worn-out canvas shoes.

“Hello, Director Chen,” Cheng Sutong said as she stood up.

Director Chen did not ask her to sit. Instead, he opened the portfolio she had submitted before being hired. He pointed at a series of visual designs titled “The Sound of the Heart” and asked her to explain the creative logic behind them.

Those were sketches Cheng Sutong had drawn while in her hospital bed. In the drawings, electrocardiogram waves were transformed into mountain ridges, IV tubes became rivers, and medicine bottles were arranged like a starry sky.

“I wanted to turn invisible pathological processes into a tangible landscape. Disease is a mountain, and those who climb it need a map.”

The director stared at her for three seconds before closing the folder. He told her there would be a meeting in the conference room at 9:30 AM. Her first brief had arrived.

9:30 AM, Conference Room

Seven or eight people sat around an oval conference table. Most were leaning back lazily, scrolling through their phones or talking in low voices. Director Chen tapped the table and introduced the new colleague, Cheng Sutong. He announced that she would be taking over the public welfare project regarding natural sounds in the city.

A few people looked up with a flash of sympathy in their eyes, as if a newcomer had been assigned a very difficult task.

“The brief is simple. Create a communication plan that makes people pay attention to the disappearance of natural sounds in the city,” the director said as he pushed a stack of materials toward her. “The budget is limited, resources are limited, and you have two weeks to produce a first draft.”

Cheng Sutong flipped through the materials. In the past ten years, the variety of street cries in Beijing’s hutongs had decreased by 67 percent. The shouts of tinkers in Shanghai’s alleys had almost vanished, and the rattling sound of dim sum carts in Guangzhou’s tea houses had been replaced by central kitchen delivery systems.

A young man wearing black-rimmed glasses, whom Cheng Sutong recognized as the Art Director Zhou Ming, spoke up. He said the problem was that the concept of “disappearing sound” was too abstract. He noted that everyone was busy wearing headphones or watching short videos, so no one cared about what sounds were missing outside their windows.

“That is why we need to turn the abstract into something concrete,” Cheng Sutong replied, causing everyone to look at her.

She opened her sketchbook and used a pencil to quickly sketch an idea. She suggested that they could collect those disappearing sounds and turn them into physical records. However, she proposed that the records would be more than just something to hear. Each record cover would be printed with heat-sensitive material. When the record was played, the temperature of the cover would rise and reveal old photographs of the places where the sounds originated.

The conference room fell silent for a moment.

Zhou Ming finally looked up and noted that the cost of heat-sensitive materials was too high.

“Then we can change the approach,” Cheng Sutong said as she continued to draw. She suggested making the records themselves out of dissolvable material. After listening, the listener could soak the record in water where it would slowly dissolve, leaving behind a single seed of a local plant. The sound would only be truly preserved once the listener planted the seed and watched the plant grow.

Director Chen’s lips curled upward slightly as he told her to continue.

Cheng Sutong spoke faster, explaining that for communication, they should not seek out influencers but rather “memory keepers of sound.” This would include elderly people in vegetable markets who remembered street cries from twenty years ago, middle-aged people who grew up listening to the sound of knife grinders, and children in parks who could imitate ten different bird calls. They would let these people describe what the disappearance of these sounds meant to them.

Zhao Xueqing, a twenty-two-year-old intern sitting to the right of Cheng Sutong, could not help but ask what would happen next. She wondered if people would simply feel emotional for a moment and then go back to wearing their headphones.

“No,” Cheng Sutong said as she drew a closed loop in her sketchbook. She explained that every person who heard a story would be encouraged to record and upload a mundane but precious sound from their own life. This could be the sound of a mother stir-frying dinner, a partner’s steady breathing while asleep, or the pitter-patter of rain on a balcony. These sounds would be collected to create a “Museum of Sound” that would never stop updating.

“We are not mourning a disappearance. We are establishing a new legacy.”

There was a long silence until Zhou Ming gave a light laugh and called it “idealism.”

“Perhaps,” Cheng Sutong said as she closed her sketchbook. “But it was these idealistic sounds that kept me alive when I was sick.”

She paused and added, “There was also someone who sent me tapes from a far-off place. She recorded the early mornings of the village where she was teaching. There were roosters crowing, streams flowing, and the sound of children reading their lessons. Those sounds made me believe there was still a vibrant world waiting for me outside the hospital ward.”

The conference room became completely silent.

“Alright,” Director Chen said, breaking the silence. “We will go in this direction. Cheng Sutong will be the lead creator, Zhou Ming will handle the art, and Zhao Xueqing will handle the copywriting. Meeting adjourned.”

Cheng Sutong soon discovered that Echo Culture was a place that seemed relaxed on the surface but was actually very strict.

Tuesday, 10:00 AM

Zhao Xueqing moved her laptop over to Cheng Sutong’s desk and asked for help. Her screen showed a copywriting draft she had written the night before. The title was “Hearing the Disappearance,” and the content was filled with heavy words like “endangered,” “elegy,” and “the last.”

Cheng Sutong asked her what she felt was wrong with it.

“The director said it sounds like an obituary,” Zhao Xueqing replied.

Cheng Sutong thought for a moment, minimized the page, and opened a recording software. She told Zhao Xueqing to close her eyes and recall a sound she used to hear as a child but could no longer hear now.

Zhao Xueqing hesitated but complied. Ten seconds later, she described the loud “pop” of a popcorn machine. She remembered an old man outside her primary school who used a machine that looked like a black gourd.

“How did you feel back then?” Cheng Sutong asked.

“I was both scared and excited. I would cover my ears and hide far away, but my eyes were fixed on it.”

Cheng Sutong stopped the recording and told her to write down exactly what she just said. That would be the copy.

Zhao Xueqing was surprised and asked if it was too colloquial.

“We do not want a formal copy. We want a memory,” Cheng Sutong said seriously. “Real memories have the flavor of life in them.”

Wednesday, 3:00 PM

Cheng Sutong took her preliminary visual plan to Zhou Ming. His workstation was the messiest in the department, piled with paint tubes, sculpting clay, and various screws and gears. The walls were covered with sketches ranging from figure drawings to mechanical diagrams.

“Zhou, regarding the visualization of sound, I was thinking,” Cheng Sutong began.

Zhou Ming handed her a metal box. Inside were dozens of small glass bottles, each filled with fine sand of a different color.

He explained that these represented the texture of sound. He picked up a bottle of pale gold sand and said it was the sound of sunlight hitting old book pages. Then he picked up a bottle of deep blue sand and said it was the sound of ocean waves repeatedly washing over reefs.

Cheng Sutong was stunned and asked how he did this.

Zhou Ming explained that his daughter made them. She was deaf, and when she was eight years old, she asked him what shape sound was. He could not answer, so she started collecting sand herself, saying that different sounds felt like different grains.

Cheng Sutong carefully held a bottle. The handwritten label read, “The sound of Mom singing a lullaby feels like freshly dried cotton.”

She asked if she could borrow them, and Zhou Ming replied that they were intended for her. He said his daughter hoped more people could see the sound.

Friday Evening, 6:10 PM

On the last day of the first week, Cheng Sutong stayed late to organize materials as twilight fell outside. Her phone vibrated with a message from An Chuxin. The message asked what time she would be finished and mentioned that An Chuxin had made yam and pork rib soup. Attached was a photo of the pot simmering on the stove with steam blurring the lens.

Cheng Sutong’s heart felt warm, and she replied that she would be done in half an hour.

As she was saving her files, Zhao Xueqing approached her with two movie tickets. She mentioned that an art film about sound documentaries was opening tomorrow and asked if Cheng Sutong would like to go.

Cheng Sutong looked at the young girl’s expectant face and gently replied that she already had a date.

Zhao Xueqing apologized and said she did not know.

Cheng Sutong packed her things and went downstairs. The night lights of the cultural park had just turned on. The keyboard mural shimmered under the lights. Upon closer inspection, she realized that the “poetry” was actually composed of random typing sequences like “asdfghjkl.” The disordered letters formed an orderly landscape, much like life itself.

As she walked out of the park, she saw a familiar figure standing under a tree. An Chuxin was wearing a camisole with a cardigan, paired with a black fishtail skirt with a red lining and small high heels. She was holding a thermal container.

Cheng Sutong was dazed by the sight. She ran over like a happy puppy and immediately hugged her, sniffing her. “Chuxin, you smell so good. You are so beautiful.”

An Chuxin gently pushed her back and handed her the thermal container, saying it was still hot.

Whether it was because she was hungry or for some other reason, as the aroma of the soup hit her face, Cheng Sutong found herself staring at An Chuxin and actually drooling.

An Chuxin frowned slightly and asked if she was okay or perhaps too hungry.

Cheng Sutong quickly snapped out of it and tried to explain herself awkwardly.

An Chuxin laughed, took out a tissue, and carefully wiped the corner of Cheng Sutong’s mouth. The scene felt familiar. Cheng Sutong suddenly remembered a time back in high school. She started babbling about it.

“I see, Cheng Sutong,” An Chuxin teased. “No wonder you kept making excuses not to return my clothes back then. Did you already have designs on me?”

“Please have mercy, Sister. It was not like I intended to fall in love with you.”

“I intended to fall in love with you.”

“No,” Cheng Sutong realized no explanation sounded right, so she simply winked at An Chuxin and made a zipping motion over her own lips.

Cheng Sutong’s nose suddenly felt a bit stinging. It was not because she was tired, but because this moment felt too much like a dream she had once never dared to hope for. There was someone waiting for her to finish work, someone to play with, soup that was still hot, and a tomorrow to look forward to.

An Chuxin stopped teasing her and asked how work was going.

“I met a little girl who cannot hear, and she turned sounds into colored sand,” Cheng Sutong said. She took a sip of the soup, and the warmth traveled all the way to her stomach.

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