Cold wind blows under the dim moonlight. Facing me, a man is coming.

He looks at me, and so do I. It seems that on two faces, both are trying to search for something that has been lost.

It is so quiet and so cold.

It’s eight in the evening, right at the time I lost my dear brother ten years ago. Shivering in the cold moonlight in front of his tomb, I begin to wonder who the man will be.

However, facing to face, all of a sudden, I notice the birthmark on his neck and the blue sweater hidden in the brown jacket— it’s undoubted that the man in front of me is the one I struggled to search for decade. But he looks quite unacquainted to my memory.

The familiar face soon drags me back to ten years ago, when I still had a happy childhood with a complete family. We were all proud of our talented boy—Jack, my elder brother. He had a gift in remembering all kinds of music notes and well performance in the Erhu. While he was playing the instrument, the tunes flowing out seems to slowly describe a covered moving story. It seems that he was born to the Erhu. Music teachers in our town always gave high praise to him. At his age of eleven, he was invited to accompany for the famous acrobatics team in biggest feast in the temple in our hometown. Ever since then, dad often held priced shows for him and invited the famous to come to enjoy his brilliant music.

However, such brilliant boy fleshed a moment in the sky just like splendid firework. My brother was lost at the age of fifteen in the Lantern Festival. I still remembered that he wore a blue sweater woven by our dear mother that day. While we were playing the riddles at the street side, he suddenly cheered up, running towards to the other side, pointing there and shouting to me, “Come here, the best acrobatics!” But soon he was soon buried by the crowd. Although almost all the people around were interviewed after that, we still could sniff him out nowhere ever since then, even father and mother crazily searched for him, with advertisements and posters everywhere. Thinking that he would be kidnapped, we even asked some of our relatives travelled to the remote villages to ask for his news. Decades later, it couldn’t be imagined that we could meet each other here.

“You must be Jack! Isn’t it? I noticed your birthmark! And your blue sweater woven by our mother! But why are you here and where have you been these years? You must have noticed the ads we searching for you, haven’t you? ” cry me, hoping to give a huge hug but being refused. Cold as it is, my words seem as faint as I am. Stuck in the air, I begin to suspect that whether he is my lost brother.

“Congratulations! You have been a real musician!”  After a moment of silence, he sneered and begins to smoke.

“It was all because dad and mom missed you so much,” I sign, “I don’t interest in music, you know that. Since you’ve got lost, mom was desperate to die. Dad begged me to take up the violin. Can you imagine my heavily frustration whenever hearing mom cried out your name senseless as the music sang every time? ”

“You’ve possessed everything I was eager. Did you get any senses of satisfaction, or guilty then?” Fire almost buried his eyes, and I could hear the heartbeats of the explosion of the volcano.

“My dear brother, please calm down, but I’m sorry that I just quite not follow you.” Curiously and innocently, I hoped to get the truth.

“You knew nothing? Ha-ha, but I got everything. And I didn’t admire your luck and opportunity. ” All of a sudden, his eyes turn blue, sobbing, “Ten years ago, do you still remember the acrobatics? I was kidnapped by a group of people. However, the old man told me that he was trying to save me. I didn’t believe him at first until I heard their conversation.

“Guess who the biggest trick in the world was? Dad, my dear dad! What a greatest father in the world! He negotiated with the leaders with 150 Pence, saying that both of us were just the orphans picked up from the street. He just made his living on our performance. If he lost me, he would lose the fame. Consequently, he would reach the agreement if they paid 100 Pence on me. When I saw the whole story, I realized that I was an Erhu to him, not his son. His best boy? Probably it was just a nickname for his instrument!” Looking into the incomplete moon, his eyes seem to be filled up with hopelessness.

“Well, it was unbelievable, isn’t it?  Poor boy, are you still going to respect to the man who might sell you as an instrument one day when you’re still available? See? I came here to congratulate you as I got the news that our best father has found another talent six-year-old boy called Brotu. It seems that he has another someone to succeed you at his rest life. Then what will be the final destiny of a useless instrument?” He stopped, looked into my eyes with a ridicule facial expression.

“It can’t be true!” Stinging cold shiver travels through my whole body. I couldn’t believe my ears with the sharp words spilled from the man in front of me. He must be jealous of my precious possession of a happy family. His words could not be true!

“You are depended on yourself. Mine is done! Good luck then!” He laughs sardonically, steps the cigarettes with all his strength and waves to me with his receding figure, which raises my memory of his last waving that night. Yet the same gesture leaves me different feelings. Is he my real lost brother or just someone wearing the mask of his face?

Hesitated for a moment, a word called “Brother” tries to slip from my lips but failed. Instead, with deep sense of loss, I turned around and packed up to take my journey back home.

Cold wind blows tightly and makes me freezing, totally, through my body.

I walk on but suddenly I stop and look back. I watch the thin body of his, with long hair on the shoulders, disappearing into the dark.