The man who always had a cigar in his hand, from the moment he greeted her to the present. She didn't know when he had left her doorstep, she was often unaware of what was going on around her when she was lost in her own world of reverie. The thought of calling him Cigar Man came to her mind. Not a bad name, she said to herself.
When she looked downstairs, the cigar man was looking up at her, his eyes telling her that everything was ready for her to go down. It was a feeling that drove her crazy, the blood of excitement rushing through her veins. She was going out to sea, with a man she didn't know, but it didn't matter anymore, she felt like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, she was about to fly on wings to unknown blue shores.
Bai Yun ran down the ladder, feeling a little shy about her impatience. She glanced uneasily at the strange man who was waiting for her. He said nothing, his wolf-like eyes sweeping over her as if searching for a shadow, a ghostly shadow. It made her feel afraid, but it didn't mean anything to her, she just wanted to embrace the sea, the sea that she had always seen as a dream.
It was a small boat, shaped like a shark, with a cover, and she knew it was a diving boat, and she was thrilled that it was the first time she had ever been on a boat like this, unlike the hand-cranked or pedal boats she remembered.
Bai Yun followed him into the boat and to her surprise it was like a living room inside. It was beautifully decorated. The chandelier shone so brightly with pearls that she wondered if it was made of pearls. The curtains were white, the colour of the waves, and she felt the whiteness coming from the light of the chandelier and the white curtains, the beige chairs were so harmonious, giving a soft and warm feeling, and to her delight, she even found a piano in the corner. It was a traditional black one, and there was something strikingly elegant about the way it was placed here.
Unknowingly Bai Yun felt the boat move, not from the lurching of the hull, but from the wandering of the scenery outside the large curtains. She wandered and wandered inside alone. Finally, she sat down in front of the piano. Raising her head a little, she found the most beautiful shore she had ever seen in her life, blue, deep blue, in the distance, as if it were an indefinable mystery, bare of its tenderness. She was so stunned by this tenderness that she closed her eyes. But her fingers rested unconsciously on the keys. She remembered the times when they had played together in Richard's villa, when Richard had taught her to play, and the countless nights when they had played countless impromptu movements of joy together, memories flooding back, notes flowing slowly, and she imagined that this was an unknown world, where colourful sunlight streamed in through the screened windows, forming a golden surface. The notes danced in the air, sometimes soothingly, sometimes wildly, and sometimes uncharacteristically.
The memory of Richard filled Baiyun's heart with infinite tenderness. Baiyun placed her slender hands on the piano and began her piano dream in the flow of notes ...
In the distant sky, where the puffy clouds cruise gently, free and happy are their footsteps.
Gently scattering the afterglow of the setting sun, at the end of the stream, golden footsteps ripple through the air, making me reach out to grab something, but it disappears in an instant. I am lost.
In the distance, a gorgeous rainbow dances across the sky, like happy butterflies chasing and playing, or maybe it is nothing but light, just a colourful spectrum of colours tossed and flown in the darkness. There is the crispness of a silver bell, but it opens up in a soothing way, there, on a distant shore. Waves, white waves, and golden, orchid and red fish, silent.