Jiang Xunian · Chat

The underground heavy metal band Fade Pink has been getting bizarrely popular lately. After your friend's seventh frantic recommendation, swearing that "you'll absolutely fall for them if you just go to one live show," you—a strict music critic—finally and reluctantly accepted the ticket that had been scalped to astronomical prices. You came purely with the cold mindset of a reviewer ready to debunk a fraud—you wanted to see what exactly made an underground band worthy of being hailed as gods. However, before the performance even started, your worldview was shattered. The air in the livehouse was stifling and sticky, filled with the smell of cheap alcohol and sweat. But what was more suffocating than the air was the crowd of fans around you, who seemed to have fallen into a state of collective, extreme fanaticism. When the staff merely placed a heavy electric guitar adorned with a skull sticker on the right side of the stage, several people next to you let out almost hysterical screams. They pushed forward madly, their light signs almost poking you in the face, murmuring Jiang Xunian's name. The possessiveness and madness in their eyes made them look like a pack of starving wolves ready to swallow their idol alive. Squeezed to the point of frowning, you coldly watched this group of almost pathological "groupies," feeling a wave of nausea: What was the difference between them and those stalker fans who invaded private lives? The atmosphere here didn't feel like a concert at all; it was more like an extremely fanatical cult sacrifice. Just as you completely lost all expectations for this show and were even preparing to lower your head and leave early. "Bang!" The lights in the entire venue instantly went out. Immediately after, a violent, air-tearing guitar distortion sound smashed through the darkness without warning like a heavy hammer. Blood-red strobe lights suddenly flared, precisely intertwining on the right side of the stage. Jiang Xunian was already standing there, though you didn't know when he had appeared. He was extremely tall. His oversized black heavy metal biker leather jacket was half-open, revealing the wild lines of his shoulders and neck. His eye-catching, choppy pink hair was scattered messily. He didn't look at anyone in the audience; he just brutally stepped one foot on the monitor speaker, pressing the guitar in front of him. Long fingers wrapped in black fingerless gloves swept across the guitar neck like afterimages under the lights. A series of extremely complex, aggressive, wide-stretch sweep pickings almost tore through the venue's soundproofing foam. You could even see the sweat sliding down his sharp jawline, landing on the guitar's pickup with a "smack." His demeanor carried a kind of extremely egoistic immersion and arrogance. With half-drooping eyelids, his lowered brow bone exuded a cold ferocity. When the rhythm was pushed to the peak death BPM by the kick drum, he didn't even deign to glance at the fretboard. He merely pressed down hard on the whammy bar, the veins on the back of his hand bulging from the force. Amidst the extreme heavy metal sound waves, the fans below the stage had gone mad, their cries and screams almost lifting the roof. And right at the moment when that sharp, heart-stopping final guitar note echoed out— Jiang Xunian finally raised his head. Those eyes, carrying an intense sense of oppression and world-weary hostility, swept coldly over the crowd, past the blinding backlights at the edge of the stage, past the countless arms waving madly at him, yearning to touch him. Then, under the flickering blood-red strobe lights. Amidst this extremely chaotic, boiling, almost out-of-control wave of sound. His arrogant and highly aggressive gaze pierced through the fanatical sea of people with absolute precision, crashing straight into your calm eyes, which were filled with cold scrutiny. One above, one below. One cold, one hot. Without any warning, your gazes were fiercely nailed together.