Chapter 57: I'm Hungry. I Want to Eat Peaches
The drumbeats fell as densely as raindrops. With such a breathtaking entrance, the bassist, guitarist, and keyboardist joined in at the same moment, unleashing a storm-like surge of power.
Killing intent! Pure killing intent!
The impact left everyone in the venue—including the judges—momentarily stunned.
Perched on Qiao Nan's shoulders, Mu Xiangxiang stared blankly at the center of the stage. Just a few minutes ago, she had been filled with worry over the harsh competition her younger brother was about to face. A few dozen seconds ago, that worry had been transformed into pride by his confident entrance. But that pride had come solely from a family's unconditional support. This was different. This time, she was genuinely amazed by something she had never expected.
What kind of person was her brother?
After living with him for more than a decade, Mu Xiangxiang knew him better than anyone. This rebellious boy had always been more than his bad temper. Sometimes he was irritable. Sometimes joyful. Sometimes silent. Sometimes so arrogant that he seemed to disdain everything around him. Yet beneath that hedgehog-like armor, as another child raised in the Mu family, Mu Xiangxiang had always been able to sense the subtle insecurity and vulnerability buried deep beneath his aggression. He was simply less mature than she was. Rather than hiding behind calmness and pretending nothing was wrong, he had chosen a more extreme—and harder to expose—method of making himself appear fearless.
But appearances were still appearances. No matter how convincing they seemed, flaws would inevitably reveal themselves.
Never before had he seemed as genuinely flawless as he did at this moment.
The young man standing center stage wore a loose, slightly worn black tank top, paired only with simple combat boots and jeans. His clothing was so plain that it felt completely out of place amid the extravagance of a music festival. Yet under the spotlight, his lean frame seemed to radiate brilliance.
His long fingers moved deftly across the strings. His handsome face was slightly lowered. The bridge of his nose and the gray bangs falling across his forehead became the most captivating sight on the stage.
His guitar. His bandmates. His stage. His music.
He had truly found something that made him strong. Something that made him confident.
The music had arrived with such sudden violence that the audience remained dazed throughout the opening instrumental passage. The explosive melody swept through the venue like a hurricane, carrying an irresistible force. Then, after raging through the crowd, it abruptly stopped.
The gray-haired lead singer lifted his long fingers from the guitar strings and wrapped a hand around the microphone. His gaze shifted away from the guitar before him and swept expressionlessly across the audience.
The whispers that had filled the venue before the performance had long since vanished. With the sudden pause, everyone's breathing unconsciously halted as well.
The silence lasted until the lead singer's smooth voice finally flowed from the speakers.
At the same moment, the music—which had vanished for a few beats—came crashing back in with explosive force.
The heart in Mu Xiangxiang's chest beat faster and faster. Caught up in a surge of inexplicable excitement, she instinctively tightened her grip on Qiao Nan's hand. All around her, the audience members who had come specifically to support various bands—people who had spent the earlier performances openly expressing their disdain for the competitors—had fallen astonishingly silent. She could hear almost nothing except the music. The atmosphere in the venue was so quiet that it almost felt like an awkward dead silence.
Then, after a long pause, the first audience member came back to his senses. A fierce spark ignited in his eyes.
Then a second. A third. A fourth. Then countless more.
No one knew who started it. The crowd began to stir. People pressed closer together. Some began jumping. Others began screaming.
It was as if innumerable souls had risen from the depths of the sea. They surged toward the barriers nearest the stage, throwing their arms into the air and surrendering themselves to the music as the lead singer's vocals built layer upon layer in intensity.
Yet Mu Song seemed completely immersed in his own world. Faced with the audience's increasingly frenzied reaction, he stood before the microphone, his expression as cold and unmoved as ever. His voice accelerated alongside the bassline, faster and faster, like a roller coaster slowly climbing higher and higher from its starting point— Until at last everything came crashing down together with an explosive drumbeat.
The low, husky singing abruptly transformed into a hoarse roar. In an instant, the young gray-haired lead singer became so sharp and intense that he seemed unstoppable. As the performance raged on, sweat silently trickled from his hairline, soaking his tousled hair and tracing across the taut lines of his body.
The rasping vocals. The hypnotic lighting. The flashes of muscle revealed beneath the swaying hem of his loose tank top. Together they ignited the fiercest flames.
The audience. The stage. Everything was firmly under the control of the overwhelming energy radiating from him.
The entire world seemed to come alive. The audience had practically gone insane. Caught up in the feverish atmosphere, some people even started waving flags and banners they'd brought for completely different bands. The photographers and reporters who had been lounging around suddenly sprang into action, hauling heavy equipment as they rushed around the perimeter. Backstage, the stage director's sharp shouts echoed continuously. Every part of the scene felt unbelievable.
Mu Xiangxiang had never been involved with music. She had never been involved with rock. When she first arrived at the festival, she genuinely couldn't understand why these people could become so passionate over a single song.
But at this moment— Sitting on Qiao Nan's shoulders and watching her younger brother leap across the stage, drenched in sweat, clutching his guitar as he shouted into the microphone— She finally understood. She understood what it felt like to have your blood boil with excitement.
It was a freedom on the verge of bursting forth. As though the melody had given wings to her back. A surging power flowed into every pore of her body. Fear. Restraint. Suppression. Pain. All of it vanished without a trace. Even someone as reserved as Mu Xiangxiang found herself unable to resist the urge to move with the rhythm like the uninhibited young people around her.
When she swayed a little too much, Qiao Nan immediately grabbed her arm tightly. “Be careful, damn it!!!”
“Qiao Nan!!!!”
“Qiao Nan!!!!”
“Qiao Nan!!!!”
In the midst of the raging music, Mu Xiangxiang's nerves were stretched taut like a single thread. Every muscle in her body trembled, filled with an overwhelming need to release the emotions surging inside her.
The surroundings were simply too noisy, and there seemed to be something a little unusual about her state. Hearing her repeatedly shout his name, Qiao Nan felt both helpless and slightly worried. The crowd around them was showing signs of losing control under the influence of Mu Song's music. Afraid that something might happen if they remained in the middle of the crush of people, Qiao Nan glanced around and began moving with the shifting crowd toward the edge of the venue. Only when he felt his back touch a wall did he finally relax. Grabbing her hands—whose fingertips had gone cold from excitement—he shouted at the top of his lungs: “I'm here!!!!”
His voice was swallowed instantly by the boiling roar of the crowd. Yet Mu Xiangxiang caught his response with ease. Her eyes remained fixed on the stage. “I understand now!!!!”
“Understand what?!”
“Mu Song was never wasting his time!!!!” Mu Xiangxiang placed a hand against his face and leaned down slightly, using the wall behind him for support. At the same moment, Qiao Nan lifted his head at her sudden declaration. Their eyes met in the flickering light.
Ahead of them, the music was entering its finale. The rhythm grew faster and faster. The melody climbed higher and higher. The hoarse shouting became increasingly intense. With the stage as its center, the entire venue had become an ocean of celebration. As if intoxicated by some powerful drug, wildness and frenzy transformed the music festival into a dazzling, surreal world. In the scorching air, Mu Xiangxiang stared blankly into those eyes. “...His dream...”
Her voice gradually softened, disappearing into Qiao Nan's increasingly intent gaze.
Beside them, Mu Song's singing had become nearly hoarse. Then, without warning, a burst of brilliance erupted from the stage.
Pyrotechnic sparks exploded around its perimeter. Since the festival began, this had been a privilege reserved only for the most famous bands. The atmosphere, already astonishing, was finally pushed to its absolute peak.
The world was filled with ecstatic screams. The lights overhead spun faster and faster. It became impossible to tell whether this was reality or a dream. The hands gripping the backs of hers tightened. Tighter and tighter.
The melody of Killing Intent seemed capable of stirring the soul itself, tearing away every disguise and false facade.
Driven by an impulse she couldn't even name, Mu Xiangxiang felt the pounding of her heart inside her chest. Suddenly, she cupped Qiao Nan's cheeks firmly in her hands and bent down with effort—
A faint, sweet scent of peaches drifted through the air. Then a soft warmth touched his forehead.
Qiao Nan blanked out for a moment. His legs nearly gave way beneath him.
For that instant, it felt as though the entire world had been enclosed inside a giant bubble.
For that instant, all the noise around them faded into silence.
In that moment, he forgot how to blink.
In that moment, he forgot that he needed to breathe.
The music onstage, which had reached its furious climax, finally came to an abrupt stop after one last earth-shaking strike. The brilliant fireworks died away. The dim amber stage lighting vanished. After a few brief seconds of silence, the venue erupted—
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”
“WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
“Encore! Encore! Encore!”
“Liberty——”
Then, led by someone unknown, the chaotic mixture of shouts throughout the crowd was gradually overwhelmed by a single unified chant—
“Liberty! Liberty! Liberty——”
“Liberty! Liberty! Liberty——”
The five band members stood where they were, breathing heavily after the performance, momentarily blanking as they faced the sea of cheering and screaming fans. Mu Song stood at the center of everyone's attention. Sweat drenched him. He was still gripping the microphone stand he had accidentally knocked over during the final moments of the performance when excitement had gotten the better of him.
His heart churned with indescribable emotions. Yet the more intense those feelings became, the less capable he seemed of showing them on his face. He lifted his chin with a cool, detached expression, letting sweat run down his cheeks and trail along his neck to his chest. A moment later, he raised one arm and pulled his tank top back into place after it had slipped off his shoulder during all the jumping and movement.
As his lightly sweat-slicked arm flexed, the curve of muscle it revealed was breathtaking. The crowd's already deafening screams instantly rose to an even higher level.
Mu Song's sharp gaze swept across the faces below—faces filled with adoration and frenzy, looking as though they might faint at any second. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the flags waving throughout the crowd. Many bore the names of famous bands such as Quench Fire and Black Sky—the same bands that occupied the only private dressing room backstage. Just moments ago, those banners had been waving for those established bands. Now they were waving for Liberty.
His sister's voice echoed in his mind: "You can accomplish anything you truly want to do."
Mu Song turned and met the gazes of his bandmates. They looked dazed, as though trapped inside a dream, overwhelmed by a response none of them had anticipated. His breathing hitched sharply. Amid the screams that had yet to die down, he raised the microphone high and shouted with supreme confidence: “LIBERTY!!!”
The confidence blazing across the handsome young man's face was utterly unstoppable. It struck the crowd like a hormone-fueled bomb, harvesting hearts without mercy.
“AAAAAHHHHHH!!! LIBERTY!!!”
In the midst of the crowd’s hoarse, screaming cheers, at the edge of the venue, Qiao Nan leaned silently against the back wall, head tilted up. In his line of sight, the girl—who had just finished bending over with some effort—seemed to have finally broken free from the state she had been swept into by the music. A faint flush appeared on her fair face, and in his deep, burning gaze, that blush gradually deepened little by little.
Mu Xiangxiang tried hard to avoid his gaze, but to no effect. It felt as if her entire body were being roasted over a blazing fire. She couldn’t even explain why she had acted so impulsively and done something so inexplicable just now… Ahhhhh!!!!
Qiao Nan’s hand felt alarmingly hot. She struggled twice but couldn’t break free. Embarrassment washed over her completely. After holding it in for a while, she finally couldn’t endure it any longer and was about to ask Qiao Nan to put her down.
Just as she opened her mouth, before she could make a sound, the “ride” that had been quiet beneath her for a long time suddenly moved first.
Her view dropped downward. Just like last time, Qiao Nan gripped her waist and effortlessly lifted her down, setting her on the ground.
Then the next second, before she could even breathe a sigh of relief, the tall young man who had been squatting on the ground silently stood up and suddenly closed the distance without warning. He swept one arm across, pinning her between his body and the wall.
She felt the cool temperature of the wall through the fabric against her back and tensed slightly. She looked up, using the light spilling from the stage to take in his face. Qiao Nan lowered his gaze expressionlessly, his amber eyes fixed on… her lips.
After a moment, his thin lips parted slightly, and he asked in a low voice, “What were you doing just now?”
Her senses were filled with the other person’s intensely assertive presence. Mu Xiangxiang’s ears burned red as she tried hard to stay calm. “…It’s just… a lucky kiss.”
He let out a light scoff from above. The man gave a low laugh, then suddenly shifted, leaning in closer. His voice brushed almost against her ear as he said, “Don’t you understand the rules?”
Caught off guard by such a stern reprimand, Mu Xiangxiang felt a wave of confusion. “...Huh?”
Her body was suddenly pulled tightly into his embrace by his other arm.
People were coming and going all around them, and such close, intimate contact made her shift uncomfortably. “Let go of me,” she said.
Qiao Nan didn’t move at all. In a low, hoarse voice, he said, “I’m hungry.”
The sky had already darkened, and the surrounding light was dim. The earlier shouts of “Liberty” gradually faded as the next group of performers took the stage, while surreal, dazzling colored lights spilled over from the stage.
Mu Xiangxiang stared into Qiao Nan’s eyes. Those deep amber pupils drew closer and closer. The high bridge of his nose, speckled with faint reflections of light, was almost touching the tip of hers. She swallowed and leaned back slightly, shrinking her head away. “You’re hungry… then go eat something. When we came in earlier, I think I saw a pizza place near the parking entrance—”
Before she could finish speaking, her chin was suddenly pinched between two fingers, and she was almost effortlessly guided to lift her head along with the movement.
Qiao Nan brushed the tip of his nose against hers, his tone carrying a hint of coaxing. “But I don’t want pizza.”
“I want peaches.”
Peaches…
Feeling the faint, tingling brush at the tip of her nose and the scorching breath on her face, Mu Xiangxiang didn’t react at first. Then it suddenly hit her—her peach-scented lip balm—and her mind started to short-circuit. “………………No!”
“No what?”
The hand pushing against his chest was firmly caught by a warm palm. Just before her lips were captured with precise intent, a domineering voice was left lingering in her ear:
“Go reflect properly. If I’m hungry, it’s all your fault.”
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Author’s note:
Qiao Nan [righteously]: It’s all her fault. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing this, hmph.
Author’s note:
Qiao Nan [righteously]: It’s all her fault. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing this, hmph.
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