In the tavern’s staff lounge, the air smelled of spilled hops and sleep.

“Bipu crossed Pipe’s flat halfway-up-the-hill house… like this?” Her black hair framed black eyes like ink around a well.

The girl’s black greatcoat flared like a crow’s wing. She struck an operatic pose, reeled off a long string of test lines, then watched the gray-haired youth, eyes bright as lanterns.

She loved to perform; the sound itself was plain. What came out was a man’s hoarse rasp, like gravel in a reed pipe.

“Mm… Miss Qing An’s fundamental pitch is fine now. Not obvious, but the overtones… cancel overtone six, then add this one—overtone twelve.”

The gray-haired youth slipped his tied hair to a better perch on his shoulder, like a cat finding a warm step. He adjusted his glasses, calm as rain, and wrote a formula in neat strokes.

A pale smile rested on his face like winter sun. He wore a white lab coat, loose easy pants, a look that clashed with the tavern’s warm wood, and barely matched a musician’s stage.

The girl’s trust in him sat steady as a stone in water.

“Here. Voice it exactly by this formula.”

“Got it, Maestro!” Her grin flashed like a small knife.

He handed her the scrap of paper; the paper whispered like a dry leaf.

Describing timbre in human words is fog on a mirror—vague, soft, easy to smudge. You get “higher,” “lower,” “not enough feeling,” and it all floats.

But a unified formula cuts like a scalpel. It pins down each color of tone, peels it coldly, until “emotion” and “beauty” have nowhere to hide.

It’s precise, like frost geometry on glass. Yet most minds can’t map symbols to sound; even masters stumble linking numbers to a living voice.

Still, some are born like lightning rods for meaning. Minds that turn speech into clear concepts. Throats that work like tuners. Ears that catch another’s intent midair.

That, of course, was the girl—this black hair, black eyes, all in black like a night bird. When she met the musician she couldn’t read a note; math to her was mist.

Less than half a month, and she ran neck and neck with any living master, like a wolf keeping pace with a train.

She devoured whatever her eyes caught and her hands could snatch, like a starved beast at a kill. She gulped, chewed, ground down, and burned it to fuel.

No prayer before the meal, no polite posture at the table. Knowledge or food, all went down without a bow, and became blood and bone as it fell.

That appetite was not quite human; it was a different species, a dark constellated hunger.

If you forced the talk back to the gray-haired musician and this word “genius,” he’d only shrug like a breeze over reeds:

“These are skills anyone can learn by practice. It’s about effort and grit, not the throw of your birth. Ten years of whole-hearted training and you’ll get there. It’s within a mortal’s reach.”

He always spoke of his own path that way, like a craftsman counting tools.

“But how many tens of years does a life hold? And in ten years, how many days are truly whole-hearted?” The girl lifted the paper, eyes running each line like a river over stones.

“That’s the shallowness and folly of humans,” he said, voice mild as ash. “‘Can be done’ and ‘will be done’ are different rivers. I only prove possibility. Whether mankind climbs or not—no concern of mine.”

His hands idle, the musician began to tune his violin. Each string thrummed like a silver thread in dawn fog.

“Challenging the impossible is the work of the Hero. I admire that courage, but I don’t expect many. So I prove heights reached by effort alone. If you still fall short, blame your own soft knees.”

“You sound harsh, Maestro… Bipu crossed Pipe’s flat halfway-up-the-hill house… how’s that now?” Her voice rasped like bark, steady as a metronome.

“No, how is that harsh? Humans are small reeds before wind. If you can’t even carry your will to the end, are you still human? You’re only residue shaped like a man. Also, this time sounds good. I’ll adjust overtone three.”

“I feel overtone one’s a hair off too. This formula reads better to my throat… which is why I say you’re too harsh!”

Their talk flowed flat and calm, like tea cooling in a white cup. They traded micro-adjustments of her tone, both pleased by the still water between them.

The musician finished a formula of thirteen overtones, neat as chess lines, and handed it to the girl.

“…This will be the last music lesson. Maestro, thank you for these days.” Her voice carried a soft dusk.

She dug in her pocket, fishing like a child in a pond, and found only lint. No candy. Her mouth tilted like a wilted petal, and she sighed on purpose for the stage.

With her stomach always a hollow drum, having nothing to chew was slow torture, like a reed drying in sun.

“I do wonder, Miss Qing An, why you insist on this persona—let’s say, ‘a man of twenty-eight, who speaks low by habit, voice rasped by shouting, weathered, with a soul older than his flesh.’”

He asked lightly, and brushed the bow across a string. The tone pleased him; his nod was a small ripple on still water.

“Because my dream is to be a stand-up comedian!” Her eyes sparked like flint.

“Then you should gather more bits. Your fussy gestures are comic, but overdone. That’s a mime’s toolkit, not stand-up.”

“Er, how to say it, Maestro, before I become a real stand-up, I still have to eat, right? I’m practicing this register to do… uh…”

“A stand-up should riff and keep the ball in the air any time,” he said with a faint smile, like smoke. “But being a clown isn’t shameful. You can say it plainly.”

“Ah… if that’s how you see it—cough, cough—fine, Maestro, think of it that way. It’s all ‘actors’ anyway. If you work a craft, respect the craft.”

She coughed, embarrassed, like a sparrow clearing dust. Then she sat, ready to pay her tuition with a story.

That was the price they’d agreed on, due at the end of each lesson like last notes settling.

The musician readied pen and paper, set like oars on a quiet lake.

“Maestro, listen. This is a story about the future. My dad told it. He gave it a name: Cyberpunk…”

…

“Then I’m off. Bye-bye, Maestro!”

“Mm, take care.” His voice was a lamp behind paper.

Dressed in dusk-black, the girl ran out of the lounge like a gust. The door banged, a gong in a small temple. The musician drifted out after, and took his seat at the counter like a leaf finding its eddy.

“‘The Hero’s Ironblood Altar,’ Chapter Six, Verse Twenty-Six: A beauty should taste richer than wine, as a lavish main course outshines dessert. Ignoring a woman on purpose is the highest insult.”

“‘The Hero’s Ironblood Altar’ records King Solomon’s life, not a book of poems. So that’s the last line of Chapter Six, not a verse. Also, when did you arrive?”

He wore that almost-there, pale-colored smile, like a cloud’s edge, and turned toward the literary girl to his left.

“Just water for me. I’m not of age.” The literary girl answered with a smile like a bookmark, then turned her head. “And a martini for this gentleman of fraud, thanks.”

“As for when I came…”

“…You’ve got quite a pile of books.” Her answer wandered like a kite. The musician nodded, meaning understood, like two readers sharing a margin note.

He tossed the fresh manuscript her way, casual as flicking a card.

“The Cyberpunk series. I think it’ll fetch a good price.”

“Will it?” Her eyes weighed it like a jeweler eyeing glass.

“Boy meets girl. A Hero meets a world in chaos. Thinking, exploring, awakening. Simple and clear, yet never stale.”

“‘The Writer’s Self-Cultivation,’ Chapter One, Sentence Two: The ending must hold all the thoughts you wished to express. So, in the end, does the boy choose the world or the girl?”

“Mm… all of it.” His answer was soft as dusk rain.

“Oh, that really is…”

“…worth a lot, but…”

“…but dull, and boring, right?”

“Well, as you said—as you see it.” His shrug was a passing breeze.

The musician and the literary girl raised their drinks. Together, without clinging to a drop, they drank like it was only water flowing downhill.

“Alright, I’ll buy it. Any other stories?” She slid the manuscript into her small bag like a bird tucking straw, kept only the first chapter, and nibbled the paper with sips of water.

She said “buy,” but paid no coin. She’d settle it with something else, some other weight on another scale.

That, however, belonged to another long, unimportant, side story, like a footpath into fog.

“I do. A story of the Demon King. It’s not finished yet. You’ll need to wait.”

“No rush.” Her hand waved like a reed.

She drifted from the counter.

“Leaving so soon?” His voice rang like a small bell.

“It’s time. Besides me, plenty want a word with you. ‘Placing Love,’ Chapter Two, First Line: A popular man is happy and hurting both.”

“‘Conversation moves the heart and loosens the body. But if time drives you on, or you drive time, it stops being pleasure.’”

“From ‘Placing Love,’ Chapter Two, Line Six… Ha. Give my regards to Miss ‘Swaying.’”

“No need. She’s always here.” His smile tilted like a hanging chime.

The literary girl lifted her hat in farewell. He dipped his head in return, a mirror ripple. She grabbed her small bag and walked toward the door like a last line on a page.

A man dressed in pitch black pushed in as she reached the frame. The doorway fit one body, so they passed through like shadows crossing water, leaving no ripple of each other.

He took his usual seat, and asked the server for an Ithaca Cherry Sundae and a martini, sweet and sharp as twin moons.

“Ah, time to play.” The musician’s pale smile held steady, like milk in a white bowl.

He acted as if nothing worth mention had happened. Truth be told, nothing had moved in the physics of the room.

The tavern stayed calm as a sleeping cat, and the night went on like a slow river.