She Adopted Me After My Biological Mother Passed Away - Chapter 50

Shi Shuxue’s eyes turned red instantly.

Lin Canglian handed the bass guitar back to her, and Shi Shuxue took it stiffly.

Let Chi Yeyu accompany her?

Just the thought of performing in front of her senior with Chi Yeyu made her feel like her blood was rushing to the top of her head. She wished she could die a thousand times over, let alone find that so-called “living” feeling in her music.

She opened her mouth, wanting to find an excuse to decline, perhaps “I’ve never collaborated with her before” or “I suddenly don’t know what to play” but the words wouldn’t come out.

Lin Canglian’s gaze was like a torch, falling on her with unmistakable scrutiny. Shi Shuxue had no reason to refuse.

Sensing her abnormality, Chi Yeyu stood up wordlessly and walked toward the drum kit.

As she passed Shi Shuxue, she deliberately slowed her pace and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear: “Come on. I’m looking forward to it.”

To Shi Shuxue, these words were nothing short of added pressure.

She lifted her eyes to look at Chi Yeyu. The latter had already sat down behind the drums, tapping the cymbal with a drumstick to produce a crisp, ringing sound.

“How about we play Snowy Night Flight?”

Shi Shuxue hesitated for a few seconds before saying, “Okay.”

Wasting no more time, she struck the first note. Chi Yeyu didn’t join in immediately, she waited quietly until a familiar melody emerged, then began a light, steady beat.

Her rhythm was incredibly stable, the drumbeats supporting the bass melody perfectly without any intent to steal the spotlight.

Even so, Shi Shuxue felt entirely uneasy.

She didn’t dare look at Chi Yeyu. Her eyes were fixed on the strings, her fingers moving mechanically. All the emotions that should have flowed naturally were being forcibly suppressed.

Specifically, when they reached the section where she had previously made a mistake, her fingers faltered. She couldn’t help but rush the tempo by half a beat.

She stopped abruptly, lowering her head in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I…”

“It’s fine,” Lin Canglian’s voice chimed in opportunely. “I can see it. The problem isn’t technique, nor is it your coordination. It’s you. You’re too inhibited in front of her.”

The sentence pierced through Shi Shuxue’s disguise. She snapped her head up, her first instinct being to look at Chi Yeyu. The latter had stopped drumming and was looking at her with a hint of understanding and an emotion Shi Shuxue couldn’t quite decipher.

Leaning against the back of the sofa, Lin Canglian spoke plainly but sharply: “Emotions cannot be hidden in music. Your obsession with her has become a shackle that binds you. You must learn to relax completely in front of her, to hold your own rhythm under any gaze.”

“Otherwise, your bass will never truly come alive.”

Shi Shuxue lowered her head and didn’t argue.

Lin Canglian was right. She was so afraid of making a mistake in front of Chi Yeyu that she had lost her basic sense of ease. But she didn’t know how to adjust this state of mind.

Seeing her dejected expression, Chi Yeyu was about to say something when Lin Canglian stopped her with a look.

Lin Canglian stood up, walked over to Shi Shuxue, and looked at her hand tightly gripping the bass strap. She said slowly: “Don’t force yourself. Many instrumentalists hit this kind of bottleneck, especially bassists. We’re used to being the backbone of the melody, hiding behind the drums and guitar. Over time, we forget how to actively release emotion.”

Shi Shuxue remained silent. The bass naturally possessed an “invisible” quality. To those who didn’t understand music, the bass was often drowned out by the vocals or the guitar’s flashy techniques. Without careful listening, one might not even notice its existence.

The bass is like the foundation of a house, it supports the rhythm and harmony of the entire band. You can’t do without it, yet few people specifically cheer for the foundation.

Many of Shi Shuxue’s fans were only there for her face or her stage presence. They might applaud her performance, but they wouldn’t necessarily hear the ingenuity in her bass arrangements, nor would they notice her minor errors.

“This lack of being ‘seen,’ combined with your personality and your obsession with perfection, makes it easy to fall into self-doubt during a performance, to the point where you don’t dare to release your emotions boldly.”

Shi Shuxue’s eyelashes trembled as she looked down at the fingers she used to pluck the strings.

Lin Canglian had exposed her private struggles in a single breath.

When checking comments after a show, most were praising her visuals or stage charisma. Mentions of her bass playing were rare, and even then, they were usually vague comments like “it looks cool.”

Over time, she had begun to wonder if anyone actually cared about the melodies she spent all her effort refining.

Seeing her deep in thought, Lin Canglian paused.

Shi Shuxue looked up, a hint of confusion in her eyes as she asked directly: “Teacher Lin, what should I do then?”

Lin Canglian was amused by her bluntness, and her voice softened: “Try a different approach. Have you ever thought about singing it yourself?”

“Singing?” Shi Shuxue shook her head instinctively. “I’ve sung before, but I’m a bassist. I want the audience to focus on my bass.”

“I’m not asking you to be the lead singer, nor do you need great vocal skills.”

Lin Canglian waved her hand and explained: “I just want you to take the emotions you want to express in the bass and sing them out with your voice. Think about it, if you sing a melody until you’re familiar with it, knowing where to be light, where to be heavy, where to pause, and where to bring emotion… when you play it on the bass, the feeling will definitely be different.”

Her gaze swept over Chi Yeyu, who was playing with her phone, then she pointed to the mixing console. She told Shi Shuxue: “Don’t be shy, there are no outsiders here. Just find a melody you’re familiar with and sing a few lines without the bass. Don’t worry about pitch or technique, just sing the truest feelings in your heart.”

What feelings could she have? Shi Shuxue looked at Chi Yeyu, her eyes showing a rare plea for help. Chi Yeyu looked up from her screen, curled her lips into a smile, and said easily: “Give it a try. I won’t laugh at you.”

Lin Canglian added: “This isn’t a test, it’s to help you find the feeling. Often, a bottleneck with an instrument is actually a bottleneck in emotional expression. Once you liberate your voice, your fingers will naturally loosen up. That solo you composed is so emotional, if you can sing it first, you won’t be as tense when you play it.”

Shi Shuxue clenched her palms. With two people waiting for her, she couldn’t retreat now. She closed her eyes, and the melody of her solo surfaced in her mind.

After a few seconds of silence, a slightly dry voice rose softly in the rehearsal room.

Chi Yeyu suddenly remembered the first day she had brought Shi Shuxue back to her place. In the live-stream comments of the underground rehearsal room, many people had praised Shi Shuxue’s voice.

Ethereal, clear, pure.

It was like broken jade soaked in an icy spring, clean enough to wash away all restlessness.

Lin Canglian leaned against the mixing console, her fingers lightly tapping a rhythm on the surface, a slight smile spreading across her face.

She didn’t speak; she just tilted her chin toward Chi Yeyu, her eyes filled with a “see?” kind of certainty.

Chi Yeyu’s gaze fell on Shi Shuxue’s profile. The light cast a small shadow over her long eyelashes, and the lines of her neck were pulled taut, like a string drawn to its limit.

She heard the emotions in the voice build layer by layer from initial hesitation to eventual expansion. Especially when she reached her favorite sliding modulation, the trailing note turned slightly upward, carrying the lazy defiance unique to a bass guitar.

As Shi Shuxue sang the final note, her breath trembled slightly. She paused for half a beat, letting the lingering sound slowly dissipate in the room.

“I…”

Lin Canglian let out a whistle, her expression full of irrepressible admiration.

“How was it?” Chi Yeyu asked, a hint of a smile in her voice.

Shi Shuxue blinked, suddenly feeling the sweat on her palms vanish. She looked down at Chi Yeyu, whose eyes were shining brighter than the overhead lights of the rehearsal room.

“It seems… it really is different.”

Lin Canglian checked her watch and suddenly clicked her tongue, grabbing her jacket and slinging it over her shoulder. “Alright, I have a mixing job I need to keep an eye on, or I’ll be scolded by the client. Shi Shuxue, you’re good now, right?”

Shi Shuxue said, “I don’t know.”

“You have to find the feeling slowly,” Lin Canglian said.

She walked to the door, turned back to nod at the two of them, a mischievous glint in her eyes: “I’m leaving this place to you. Work together well, don’t waste that momentum you just found.”

With that, she disappeared behind the door, thoughtfully closing it and leaving the quiet room to the remaining two.

Chi Yeyu asked, “Want to go?”

Shi Shuxue stared at her bass, leaned over to pick it up, and looked at Chi Yeyu: “Let’s practice a bit more.”

Chi Yeyu smiled, turned, and walked toward the drums. She twirled a drumstick skillfully in her hand, her well-defined fingers resting on the edge of the snare drum.

She said: “Come on, I’ll accompany you.”

Shi Shuxue nodded, took a deep breath, and held the bass steadily again. She closed her eyes. The surge of emotion she felt in her chest while singing hadn’t faded yet, that feeling flowed through her veins to her fingertips, making her movements more relaxed than usual.

As the bass note fell, Chi Yeyu’s drums followed almost instantly. The fine rolls were like ripples on a deep pond under moonlight.

Shi Shuxue’s eyelashes fluttered, she could clearly catch the changes in Chi Yeyu’s rhythm.

She didn’t try to seize control of the melody. The bass stayed with the drums. The kick drum was thick and heavy, so she pressed down her intensity, letting the bass sink into the drumbeats, only peeking out in the gaps like a cat hiding under the shade of a tree.

Chi Yeyu’s strokes became more and more expansive, her wrists turning with a casual grace, the light taps on the cymbals as crisp as breaking jade.

She occasionally glanced at Shi Shuxue, seeing the girl with her eyes downcast, her fingers moving over the frets like flowing water.

As the song ended, the trailing note of the bass lightly brushed against the resonance of the cymbal. Shi Shuxue’s fingertip remained on the string.

This performance was perfect. Shi Shuxue hadn’t made a single mistake.

She set the bass down, picked up her phone, and said, “Chi Yeyu, I recorded it. I’m going to post it online.”

The camera had been focused on her bass the entire time, not capturing even a corner of Chi Yeyu’s clothes.

Chi Yeyu watched her. At some point, the smile had vanished from her face, her voice turning flat: “Shi Shuxue, your bass sounds like it’s acting coquettish.”

Shi Shuxue’s hand paused as she went to unlock her phone, and she entered the wrong password. “What do you mean?”

“The bass just now, do you think you played it well?” Chi Yeyu’s gaze settled on her.

Shi Shuxue’s hand tightened around the phone, her knuckles turning white. She said calmly: “I didn’t make any mistakes, and I hit all the rhythms. There was nothing wrong with the completion of the piece.”

In front of Chi Yeyu, she hadn’t stuttered or been nervous. That was rare.

“You call hitting the rhythm ‘good’?” Chi Yeyu gave a soft scoff. “You’re placing yourself too low, Shi Shuxue. The bass isn’t an appendage of the drums; it’s not something that only exists to hide in the gaps and play it safe.”

Shi Shuxue frowned: “I know that.”

“Then it should have its own tension, its own emotion. But your performance just now followed me from start to finish. There wasn’t even a hint of resistance. If that’s not acting coquettish, what is?” Chi Yeyu asked.

She knew Shi Shuxue’s potential too well. She understood better than anyone how stunning her solos used to be. But Shi Shuxue was always like this, always placing herself in a position secondary to Chi Yeyu, thinking of accommodating and coordinating, while forgetting that music should be about self-expression.

During the duet just now, Chi Yeyu had deliberately slowed the tempo and left plenty of space for Shi Shuxue to play, but the other girl hadn’t grasped it. Instead, she had treated that space as a reason for dependence, causing the bass to lose all the edges it should have had.

Shi Shuxue froze, and her eyes turned red in an instant.