Lu Zhixian was woken up by the clanging sounds in the kitchen.

He rubbed his eyes and walked out of the bedroom.

Song Min, wearing an apron, was just taking the last fried dough stick out of the pot. When she saw him, her face immediately lit up with a smile.

"Awake? Go wash up and eat while it's hot."

Lu Zhixian glanced at the wall clock; the hands had just passed seven.

He sat down, and just as he took a sip of millet porridge, Song Min pulled up a stool and sat opposite him, resting her elbows on the table and her chin on the back of her hands, just watching him eat without moving.

Lu Zhixian felt a bit embarrassed by the gaze and sped up his eating.

"Mom, stop looking at me like that, it's creeping me out."

"Creeping you out? Can't I look at my own son?" Song Min retorted righteously.

"Eat more, look how thin you are."

Lu Jianguo had left early in the morning, saying there were some year-end matters at the company to handle.

After breakfast, Song Min changed into a jacket, grabbed her grocery basket, and excitedly pulled Lu Zhixian along.

"Come on, go to the market with Mom to buy New Year's goods!"

Lu Zhixian put on a mask and followed behind Song Min, walking through the familiar yet somewhat strange streets and alleys of the small town.

The market was buzzing with noise and crowded with people.

Red lanterns and gold-stamped "Fu" characters hung everywhere, and vendors were shouting at the top of their lungs.

Song Min was like a fish in water here.

She stopped in front of a fish stall, pointed at a lively grass carp in the basin, and began a tug-of-war with the owner.

"Boss, how much for this fish?"

"Fifteen a jin, big sister, this fish just arrived, it's super fresh!"

"Fifteen? Are you robbing me? Twelve! Are you selling or not?"

"Big sister, you're cutting the price too hard, my cost is even higher than that..."

Lu Zhixian stood to the side, watching his mother—who had been a literature teacher all her life and was usually refined and gentle—going back and forth with the fishmonger, fighting with such gusto.

He found it hilarious and tried to take out his phone to scan the QR code to pay several times, but each time Song Min slapped his hand away with lightning speed.

"Keep your own money! Can't Mom afford a bit of grocery money?"

In the end, the fish was sold for thirteen point five per jin, and Song Min carried the fish, still flopping in the bag, with a smile on her face.

The two moved on to the fruit stall.

As Lu Zhixian was helping Song Min pick oranges, someone squeezed in from the side and accidentally bumped into him, knocking his mask strap askew and revealing most of his face.

Just as he was about to straighten his mask, a girl who looked to be about eighteen or nineteen, who was preparing to pay for strawberries, glanced over and froze as if someone had pressed the pause button.

The girl stared at him intensely for several seconds, then suddenly gasped, her voice jumping an octave higher with a tremor.

"You... you you you... you are Lu Zhixian?!"

This shout had tremendous piercing power.

The entire fruit stall instantly went quiet.

The aunt selling fruit, the middle-aged woman picking apples nearby, and several young people—over a dozen gazes instantly focused on Lu Zhixian's face.

Lu Zhixian's heart skipped a beat, thinking, This is bad.

He smiled at the girl, and this smile undoubtedly confirmed his identity.

"Ahhh! It really is you!"

The girl was so excited she almost dropped the box of strawberries in her hand and scrambled to take out her phone.

Those nearby also reacted immediately, and three or four young people swarmed over.

"Holy crap! A live Lu Zhixian!"

"Can we take a photo, Brother Lu? I voted for you on New Year's Eve!"

Song Min was pushed aside by the sudden commotion, holding her grocery basket, looking bewildered.

What... is going on?

Lu Zhixian didn't put on any airs; he lowered his baseball cap, made a "shh" gesture to them, and then generously took photos with the young people and signed autographs.

But he had underestimated his popularity in his hometown.

More and more people gathered, and soon the entire stall was surrounded.

Seeing that the situation was not right, he quickly paid, grabbed Song Min, who was still in a daze, and protected her as he squeezed out of the crowd.

"Excuse me, thanks, excuse me!"

The two practically "fled in a panic."

After walking a good distance from the market, Song Min finally realized what had happened.

She looked at the groceries in her hand, then looked back at the crowd still gathered at the market entrance, then turned to her son, her tone filled with irrepressible amazement and pride.

"Are you... that famous outside now?"

Lu Zhixian smiled and took some of the groceries from her hands: "It's alright, just got famous on a small scale."

"Small scale?" Song Min's eyes widened.

"Those girls just now were so excited they almost cried, you call that a small scale? Mom has lived for over fifty years and this is the first time I've seen this happen while buying groceries."

Returning home, as soon as they opened the door, they found that Lu Jianguo had already returned.

He had changed into dark grey home loungewear and was leaning on the sofa, looking down at his phone.

While changing his shoes, Lu Zhixian vaguely heard a familiar melody coming from the phone.

He walked closer and saw that Lu Jianguo was watching the high-definition replay of his New Year's Eve performance.

The phone volume was turned very low, but the melody of "airport 10:30" was still clearly audible.

Hearing the movement, Lu Jianguo looked up and saw his son enter, his body visibly stiffening.

The next second, with lightning speed, he turned off the phone screen, then stood up as if nothing had happened and went to the water dispenser to pour water, his movements slightly stiff.

"You're back."

Lu Zhixian made a decision within a split second: he pretended he hadn't seen anything and handed the groceries to Song Min.

"Dad, are you done with the company stuff?"

"Yeah." Lu Jianguo held his cup, back turned to him, and responded dully.

In the afternoon, Song Min went out to visit a neighbor.

Only the father and son were left at home.

The living room was awkwardly quiet.

Lu Jianguo sat on the sofa, aimlessly changing channels with the remote—news, TV dramas, variety shows—he cycled through them, and finally stopped on a nature documentary.

Lu Zhixian's gaze fell on the corner of the living room.

An acoustic guitar was leaning against the wall there; it looked old, and the strings had some rust on them.

He walked over, picked up the guitar, and plucked it casually.

"Hum—"

The tuning was way off.

He didn't look for a tuner; relying on his ear, he turned the tuning pegs while asking casually.

"Dad, is this your guitar?"

Lu Jianguo watched the TV screen, stunned for a moment, and only after a long while did he squeeze a few words from his throat.

"I played it when I was young, later... I didn't touch it anymore."

Lu Zhixian didn't press further.

He quickly tuned the strings, then sat on the sofa armrest, his fingers crawling over the strings casually.

Under his hands, the old guitar emitted a clear and warm sound.

Lu Jianguo's gaze involuntarily shifted from the cheetah on the TV to his son's hands.

As Lu Zhixian played, the melody shifted, cutting into a very old song.

It was one he had dug out from the original owner's memory fragments, a song his father loved most when he was young.

He didn't sing, just played it quietly on the guitar.

Lu Jianguo's remote control had been put down at some point.

He leaned back into the sofa, slowly closed his eyes, and tapped his fingers on his knee unconsciously in rhythm.

After the song finished, the lingering notes circled in the living room.

A few seconds later, Lu Jianguo opened his eyes, and there seemed to be some different emotions churning in his eyes.

He cleared his throat and broke the silence.

"Played well."

He paused, then added another sentence.

"Much better than your old man back in the day."

Coming from a man of few words, this sentence carried surprisingly heavy weight.

Lu Zhixian leaned the guitar back against the wall, turned around, and grinned at Lu Jianguo, revealing a bright smile.

"Of course, don't forget whose son I am."

Lu Jianguo was stunned again, and then, the corners of his mouth, which were usually set in a straight line, actually curled into a small arc.

That way of smiling was carved from the same mold as Lu Zhixian's.

In the evening, Song Min returned, followed by two neighbor ladies.

"Xiaoxian, come here, this is your Aunt Wang and Aunt Li."

As soon as the two aunts entered, their gazes stuck to Lu Zhixian, sizing him up from head to toe, clicking their tongues in wonder.

"Oh my, so this is Xiaoxian? You looked handsome enough on TV, but you're even better looking in person!"

"Sister Min, you are truly blessed to have given birth to such a big celebrity son!"

Song Min couldn't hide her pride, though she still acted modest.

"Oh, what big celebrity, he's just singing around."

In that manner, she looked like she wanted to dig out all the 'Three Good Student' awards Lu Zhixian had won since childhood and show them to everyone.

Lu Zhixian switched on his social butterfly mode, serving tea, handing out fruit, and chatting along; with a few words, he had the two aunts beaming, and when they left, they even held his hand and told him to come home often to visit.

Once the guests left, Song Min sighed while tidying up the teacups: "My son, how is his mouth so sweet? I don't know who he takes after."

Lu Jianguo, who hadn't said much, quietly interjected from the side.

"Certainly not after me."

Song Min and Lu Zhixian looked at each other, and all three of them laughed at the same time.

At night, Lu Zhixian returned to his small bedroom, lay on the bed, and finally had time to open his phone.

Just as he opened WeChat, he saw Jiang Cheng had posted a link to industry news in the work group and tagged him.

[Eight groups of artists under Xingmang Entertainment have simultaneously announced that they will intensively release new songs and albums after the Spring Festival, with all schedules concentrated in mid-to-late February!]

Below the news, Jiang Cheng sent a long string of anxious voice messages.

"Brother Lu! Did you see this? These bastards are truly shameless! This is clearly a declaration of war to surround and suppress you!"

"Eight groups of people! Traffic stars, powerful vocalists, veteran singers—they have them all. They want to use human wave tactics to completely scatter our album's heat! What are we going to do?"

Lu Zhixian opened the news and quickly scanned the list of the eight artists.

The expression on his face didn't change, but the corners of his mouth slowly curled up.

He closed the news and slowly typed a line in the group.

"Don't panic, let them queue up to release first."

He paused, then added another sentence.

"When I go back, I'll let them see what 'dimensional reduction strike' really means."