KOCM

1-5

Chapter 1

Lu Zi Wen climbed to his feet with difficulty and staggered out of the bar.

His body felt weak with exertion as if his heart had been ripped apart. The pain was intense, and his brain swam with dizziness. He could neither understand where he was, nor know what had happened.

His ears caught the sound of voices by the bar. When the door opened, a group's loud laughter interrupted Lu Zi Wen's thoughts, "Hey Qi Mu, you're not dying out here, are you? It's only eight o'clock!"

Lu Zi Wen abruptly turned and stared, with horrified eyes, at the group of punks who spoke.

They had dyed hair in shades of red and yellow and they sneered a few words in his direction before turning back to the bar. They left the pale-faced Lu Zi Wen standing by himself, his eyes wide. What they were saying, it was--

Chinese!

Shocked for quite a while, Lu Zi Wen slowly raised his hands and looked at his fingers.

As a musician, the most familiar part of his body to him was not his face, but his hands.

Even among musicians, not everyone would have beautiful hands but, no matter what they looked like, the hands were more valuable to them, even more so than their ears.

Even without ears, it was still possible to compose and play music, such as Master Beethoven. But, without hands, it was a complete farewell to the music industry and to their instrument.

Lu Zi Wen had a pair of slender, nice-looking hands with distinct joints and slim knuckles. This pair of hands was especially best when holding a brown violin. They looked good, but could not compare to the pair he currently had--

The nails were smooth and round, and the fingers--slender and pale, a white jade that people would seldom want to let out of their sight. At the root of the left index finger, about a centimeter from the knuckle, there was a red cinnabar mole shining brightly in the light of the city's street lamps.

Lu Zi Wen subconsciously turned the left hand to look at the tips of the fingers, a thin layer of hardened skin adorning each.

These calluses belonged to a violinist!

Lu Zi Wen became suddenly clear-headed. Though his reaction was initially sluggish, he swiftly moved over to a curbside display window and peered into it. When he saw the blurred reflection, he promptly froze.

The youth reflected in the glass was pale and had dark hair, but could still be described as elegant and beautiful. Lu Zi Wen had spent enough time in Europe to see many beautiful people, including models, over the years. However, this youth was still exceptionally pretty, though not in the sense of feminine beauty.

Lu Zi Wen searched his brain for quite some time, then suddenly thought of a name:

"Qi. . . Mu?"

Lu Zi Wen frowned as the remembrance of this name also brought back other memories.

Qi Mu, these two words would probably not rock the boat too much in Europe right now, though perhaps a few would recall him. However, eight years ago, this dark-haired, dark-eyed Huaxia teenager would have set off a Huaxia fever, casting Vienna into a sensational hype for a long time.

He was a genius.

He had an excellent family. His father was the chief conductor of the famous Huaxia S-Symphony Orchestra, and his mother was its concertmaster. Under the influence of such a family, he learned to play the violin at the age of 3 and was famous in the Huaxia music industry by 6. At 13 years old, he won the junior group championship of the Menuhin International Violin Competition.