Wild Stars as Their Lamps
The mountain road wound and twisted, as if it had no end.
On the entire road, there were only the two of them.
After walking for a few minutes, Chi Yan seemed to suddenly remember something. He turned back to look at Gu Jianian, the corner of his mouth lifting as he teased, “You’re just following me out like this? Aren’t you afraid I’ll abduct you and sell you off?”
Gu Jianian sniffed. “Then you’d definitely make a loss. I’ve been annoying since I was little. You probably wouldn’t even earn back the travel expenses.”
Hearing this, Chi Yan raised his brows and stared at her, as if trying to figure out whether she was joking or serious.
A moment later, he said again, “It’ll probably take about an hour to walk. You ran for so long and cried all night. Can you still walk? You don’t need me to carry you, do you?”
As he spoke, he even looked her up and down seriously for a moment. “You don’t look heavy.”
Gu Jianian burst out laughing with a *pfft*. Even she had not expected that she would still be able to laugh.
It was just that her face felt stiff from crying, so even her smile was difficult.
She waved her hand and muttered unwillingly, “Who wants you to carry me?”
“Besides, I just ate a huge piece of cake and drank coffee. I’m so energetic I could run two eight-hundreds.”
As she spoke, she suddenly stopped and looked at him, belatedly realising something.
Chi Yan probably had not had time to eat dinner either, and he had not eaten any of her birthday cake.
Gu Jianian suddenly felt a little guilty.
He had clearly come in He Jitong’s place to attend her birthday, yet for no reason at all, he had been dragged into such a huge mess. Not only had he listened to her pour out her bitterness all night, now he had to take her across mountains and rivers on an empty stomach.
Feeling apologetic, Gu Jianian asked awkwardly, “You didn’t eat dinner. Are you hungry? Are you sleepy?”
“At least you have some conscience,” Chi Yan said slowly without turning back. “I’m a little hungry, but not sleepy. Do I look like someone who sleeps early?”
Gu Jianian thought for a while, then shook her head. “You really don’t. Vampires usually move around at night.”
Hearing this, Chi Yan turned back to glance at her and laughed. “You’re even able to talk back now. Looks like I really don’t need to carry you.”
They walked quickly.
An hour later, the small town’s coach station was right in front of them.
Gu Jianian followed Chi Yan into the empty waiting hall. Looking at the few scattered passengers, she felt a very strange feeling in her heart.
More than a month ago, she had stood alone in Beilin’s crowded high-speed railway station. Although she had been surrounded by bustling crowds, her heart had been full of loneliness, unable to see the road ahead.
Now, in this sparsely populated small-town coach station, everything around her was empty. There was not even anyone queuing at the ticket gate.
But she was not alone.
Gu Jianian looked at her reflection in the coach station’s glass window.
The wounds on her face were still somewhat swollen, her hair had been blown messy by the night wind, and the hem of her dress had been torn by flower branches.
She was in an indescribably sorry state, yet her heart slowly steadied on this night she had thought she might not be able to survive.
Chi Yan went to buy two night-bus tickets to Zhoushan. When he came back, he also bought a few pieces of bread and some water.
He handed the bread to her.
Gu Jianian took it and placed it aside. “I’m not hungry yet. I’ll save it for the bus. You eat first.”
Chi Yan nodded and sat down beside her, biting into the bread cleanly and efficiently, occasionally taking a sip of water.
He finished the bread in only a few bites.
Gu Jianian secretly watched him from the side.
From the few things Grandma had revealed before, and from the discussions she had seen on Xihu Middle School’s forum, Chi Yan’s family background was very wealthy. He should have been the kind of proud young master who had grown up pampered and privileged.
But he did not seem delicate at all.
His eating manners had always been good, yet there was never any sense of fussiness.
Whether it was the plum blossom pastries she made, the cold mixed-vegetable congee, or this stale, soft, collapsed bread now, he was very genuinely filling his stomach.
The coach departed sometime after three. The driver sat at the entrance of the station smoking.
Only at three o’clock did the ticket inspector begin checking tickets one after another.
There were two or three other people on the same bus as them, all carrying large and small bags, covered in luggage.
Most of the people heading to Zhoushan at this hour were migrant workers from the countryside entering the city. They chose the night bus because the fare was cheaper, preferring to sacrifice a good night’s sleep.
Only the two of them had empty hands, as if they were going on an outing together.
Not long after they got on, the bus started moving.
The driver drove in silence and had no interaction with the passengers. Only the cold female voice from the broadcast at the front of the bus announced the next stop and arrival time.
The two of them chose seats in the back row.
After rushing around in the middle of the night, Chi Yan’s face could no longer hide his exhaustion. He put in his earphones and began to sleep.
But Gu Jianian could not sleep at all. The strong coffee she had drunk earlier began to take effect, giving her an abnormal sense of excitement and clarity.
Her gaze shifted outside the window.
The bus soon entered the motorway. Just like when she had come from Beilin, there were many fields and distant mountains on both sides of the road. It was just that the night was too deep to see the details clearly.
She turned her head again to look at Chi Yan.
He was leaning against the glass window with his head tilted, seeming to have fallen deeply asleep.
Gu Jianian suddenly felt that his temper was not actually as bad as He Jitong had said.
She was thinking in a daze when she suddenly felt the sound of a phone vibrating on the seat. Lowering her head, she realised it was Chi Yan’s phone.
The vibration rang again and again several times, but he did not wake up.
Worried that it might be something urgent, Gu Jianian leaned over to glance at the screen.
The caller ID showed “Chi Yanzhi.”
The surname Chi… Was it someone from his family?
Just as Gu Jianian was hesitating over whether to wake Chi Yan, he slowly opened his eyes with a frown. He had probably been woken by the noise.
He lazily lifted his eyelids and picked up the phone to look at the screen, his face full of impatience at being woken up.
But once he clearly saw the name on the screen, the tight frown began to loosen, his eyelids drooped, and the corner of his mouth stiffly flattened.
Suddenly, there was no expression on his face.
Yet Gu Jianian sensitively sensed that his mood had abruptly worsened.
Sure enough, a moment later, Chi Yan cut off the call and neatly pressed the power button.
This scene felt familiar. Gu Jianian remembered the day of his grandfather’s death anniversary. Back then, after seeing a certain message, he had also bad-temperedly switched off his phone just like this.
Could the message that day have been from this person too?
Was there some conflict between them?
Gu Jianian was still thinking when she heard him speak first in a low voice. His voice was hoarse from just waking up.
“Do you have any songs on your phone?”
She froze. “Yes.”
As she spoke, she took her phone out of her pocket, opened the music app, and handed it to him.
Chi Yan took her phone without saying a word, connected it to his earphones, paused for a moment, then gave one side of the earphones to her.
Because of the length of the earphone cable, they naturally leaned very close to each other.
Chi Yan closed his eyes again.
Gu Jianian paused for a moment, then turned her head to look at the side of his face.
He was so close to her.
His skin was pale, his black hair messy as it covered his long brows, his eyelashes like feathered fans.
In the long night, one streetlamp after another flashed past outside the window, casting alternating light and shadow on the clear lines of his face like a close-up shot in a film.
Her breathing rose and fell with that light and shadow, difficult to suppress.
He simply closed his eyes quietly, as if he had already fallen asleep again while listening to music.
But Gu Jianian knew he had not.
She was silent for a while, then quietly reminded him, “…Chi Yan, you haven’t pressed play.”
There was no sound at all in the earphones, yet he seemed not to have realised.
“…”
Chi Yan opened his eyes and looked at her. He did not respond, but suddenly curved the corner of his mouth. “Kid, do me a favour.”
“What?”
“For the sake of me going out with you on an empty stomach,” Chi Yan blinked at her, “talk with me for a while. Anything is fine.”
Gu Jianian realised once again that his mood was very bad, probably because of that phone call.
But at least right now, he did not want to confide in her.
She pursed her lips and racked her brain to find a topic. “Chi Yan, do you remember last time I told you my grandma’s family has a cat called Gulu?”
“Mm.” Chi Yan leaned his head against the window and slowly yawned. After thinking for a moment, he smiled. “The cat whose ice cream you stole?”
“…You saw that?”
“Mm.” Chi Yan lifted his eyes and glanced at her. “You said you bought it for the cat, but before you even brought it home, you secretly ate several bites.”
Gu Jianian coughed, feeling a little guilty, and mumbled vaguely, “Anyway… anyway, it has nothing to do with the ice cream…”
“…A week ago, Grandma said Gulu would probably give birth in the next few days. She wanted me to ask you whether you wanted to adopt a kitten.”
Chi Yan instead asked her, “Your grandma asked you to ask me a week ago, so why are you only asking now? Couldn’t bear to?”
“No.” Gu Jianian gave him an annoyed look. “I just couldn’t find the chance to ask.”
Who told him that from that day onward, he had always acted so tolerant, as if afraid that she would emotionally lose control because of her “heartbreak”?
“And I thought you wouldn’t want to keep a cat.”
Chi Yan and cats were two creatures that were difficult to connect together. Gu Jianian truly could not imagine him frowning while holding a cat in his arms.
“You’re prejudiced against me.” Hearing this, Chi Yan looked at her in amusement and exasperation. “It’s not like I’ve never kept one.”
Gu Jianian was somewhat surprised. “You kept a cat? When?”
“Before I moved to Yunmo,” Chi Yan turned his head away and said lazily. “It was my grandfather’s cat. He was hospitalised for the two years before he passed away, and cats weren’t allowed in the ward, so he threw it to me to raise.”
“Then where is it now? Why isn’t it with you?”
Chi Yan was silent for a while. Then he lazily gave a “hmph” and said in a drawn-out tone, “The little heartless thing went to reunite with its owner. I raised it for nothing for two years.”
“Ah, how could that happen? How did it die…”
“…Let’s not talk about the cat first.” Chi Yan suddenly interrupted her, turning the topic back with a faint smile that was not quite a smile. “Let’s talk about how you’re prejudiced against me. What do you have to say about that?”
“How am I prejudiced against you?”
“For example,” Chi Yan raised his brows slightly and stared at her for a moment, his tone somewhat unserious, “you think I’m uglier than He Jitong.”
“…”
Gu Jianian could not tell whether he was joking or truly cared. She coughed and muttered, “Let’s talk about the cat instead.”
She probably would never be able to explain that clearly in this lifetime.
The bus drove steadily along the motorway.
The two of them chatted quietly on and off, from cats to books, then from books back to cats.
They guessed how many kittens Gulu would have in this litter. Chi Yan guessed three, while Gu Jianian guessed four.
Then they boredly gossiped about who the father of Gulu’s babies was. Was it Uncle Liu’s lively black cat, or the tabby cat raised by Grandpa Zhou on the riverbank?
Neither of them remembered to take off the silent earphones. Their emotions seemed able to travel through that thin earphone cable.
Just like that, they carried and shared each other’s feelings, temporarily forgetting all the troubles of tonight.
That night, Gu Jianian felt that the distance between her and Chi Yan had drawn much closer.
It seemed to be one step closer than “the neighbour’s child” and “the strange man next door.”
At one instant, she even felt as if they were eloping.
Hiding it from everyone else, taking a night bus, running away together to another city.
She rambled on like that, letting her thoughts wander wildly, until they arrived at Zhoushan City Coach Station at half past six in the morning.
When they pushed open the station doors, outside were roads and overpasses stretching in every direction. Countless vehicles sped through the morning wind, and travellers came and went in a hurry, crowded and bustling.
This was Gu Jianian’s first impression of Zhoushan.
Another vast, cold metropolis.
Just like Beilin.
But for some reason, she felt a subtle connection in her heart to this unfamiliar place.
This was where he had grown up, and also the place he had brought her to.
Chi Yan led her familiarly to a nearby twenty-four-hour convenience store. The two of them sat in a window booth and ate instant noodles.
Gu Jianian’s portion had chicken skewers and a marinated egg added.
As she bit into the chicken skewer, she looked through the glass window at the rows of tall buildings outside.
It was the same as Beilin, which she had seen countless times when she got up early to catch the morning bus.
Only because this was a southern city, the temperature was a little higher, and the air a little more humid.
Several high school students in uniforms pushed open the convenience store door in groups of two or three, hurriedly bought breakfast, then hurried toward the subway station.
Like a pre-set program.
Gu Jianian swallowed the last mouthful of instant noodles, followed Chi Yan to her feet, and also walked toward the subway station.
Zhoushan’s subway station was newer than Beilin’s, very spacious, with cafés and convenience stores inside. It was just that the prices were more expensive than outside.
The people who bought breakfast here were probably only office workers with decent salaries but no spare time.
Gu Jianian followed closely behind Chi Yan, restrained, squeezing into the crowded flow of people.
The subway past seven o’clock was already packed with students going to early classes and office workers with long commutes.
People stood sleepily while holding onto the hanging straps, not hoping for seats, long accustomed to this kind of crowding.
Gu Jianian, however, was somewhat unused to it.
It had only been a little more than a month in the countryside, yet now she was somehow no longer used to life in a big city.
Behind her, a young man’s backpack was huge, probably packed with a heavy computer.
When the subway started moving, the young man lost his balance and fell toward her. The corner of the computer struck her waist hard.
Gu Jianian frowned and hissed.
A moment later, she felt an irresistible force on her shoulders.
It was Chi Yan. He reached out with both hands and held her shoulders, almost lifting her as he switched positions with her.
Gu Jianian’s back immediately pressed against the carriage wall, and he was in front of her.
Amid the crowding, his coat and her hair brushed against each other with a faint rustling sound.
Gu Jianian looked straight ahead, but all she could see was his collarbone.
That pair of collarbones again.
Shaped like white wings.
She suddenly shifted her gaze away, trying her best not to let her breathing disturb him.
About half an hour later, Chi Yan took her to transfer to another line.
At eight o’clock, they got off at Qingyue Harbour Station. Passing through the scattered breakfast shops on both sides of the asphalt road and the plane trees that blotted out the sky, they finally stood before an old, antique-looking school gate.
The night of crossing mountains and rivers, travel-worn and dusty, had not been in vain.
Gu Jianian had once seen a picture of this school gate on Lin High School’s gaokao motivation bulletin board. It had been placed in the first tier of famous universities alongside Beilin University and Nanli University.
Now that it truly appeared before her eyes, it was even more magnificent than the photograph in the brochure.
It felt like a dream.
White walls, green tiles, and a carved plaque.
Gu Jianian subconsciously held her breath and tried hard to raise her head to look at the plaque.
The morning sun was already scorching. She endured the burning sting and opened her eyes wide.
Around the huge bluestone plaque were exquisite relief carvings. In the centre were four large characters, still vigorous and majestic after being polished by more than a century of time.
Zhoushan University.
Below were two lines of smaller words.
Pursue learning to clarify one’s aspirations; carry virtue to nurture brilliance.
Founded in Zhoushan City in 1879.
Gu Jianian seemed able to see it standing here unmoving for more than a century, calmly welcoming every passionate student.
They came from all corners of the country, from different majors, different genders.
They had different ideals and ambitions, and futures bright as brocade.
At the school gate, Zhoushan University students constantly came and went. Some carried backpacks and professional textbooks. Some walked in groups of two or three, laughing and playing. Some rode bicycles one-handed, speeding past like the free wind of morning.
Gu Jianian felt as if that flying wind had blown into her eyes. She blinked and murmured, “Chi Yan, your school is really beautiful.”
“Mm.” Chi Yan slowly lifted one side of his mouth. “I’ll take you inside.”
“Okay.”
Chi Yan led her through the school gate and onto a straight asphalt road. On both sides of the road were colourful tulips and lush camphor trees.
The old campus in the morning was peaceful and serene.
They strolled through the campus, their steps carrying them past a tall clock tower, clusters of brick-red teaching buildings covered in ivy, a school history museum built in the style of a Jiangnan villa, and a vast, fully equipped sports field.
Gu Jianian seemed like a new-born to this unfamiliar world, her eyes wide open, restrained yet yearning as she reached out with her gaze to touch everything around her.
Until he stopped in front of a six-storey building at the centre of the university.
The building was extremely large, and its architectural style was also ancient and elegant. Below were dozens of bluestone steps, and above were high, upturned eaves.
They climbed the steps. Chi Yan slowly introduced it to her.
“Zhoushan University Library has one main library and twenty-three branch libraries, spread across different campuses and different department buildings. The one in front of you is the main Zhoushan Library.”
“The twenty-four libraries together contain over seven million books. If you include all printed documents and newspapers, the total comes to more than thirteen million volumes.”
Gu Jianian clicked her tongue in awe. That number was so enormous it was difficult to imagine.
She suddenly felt very small.
More than thirteen million volumes.
Countless people before her had recorded what they had learned throughout their lives in words, carrying it on paper and leaving it all without reservation to those who came after.
Human civilisation, knowledge, and science were passed down generation after generation through these books, endlessly continuing.
This society had never lacked suffering and sorrow, but neither did it lack greatness and strength.
Then, looking back from the far end of time, perhaps her rotten past was not as towering and impossible to cross as she had imagined.
Gu Jianian’s heart began to crash against her chest.
She turned her head to look at Chi Yan. “Can we go straight in?”
“You need a campus card.” Chi Yan blinked. “Mine has already expired.”
“Then what do we do?”
Chi Yan looked at her. “Do you really want to go in?”
Gu Jianian paused for a moment. Looking into his eyes, she nodded firmly. “I do. I really do.”
He looked at her too. Hearing this, he suddenly reached out and rubbed her head.
He smiled. “Then your big brother will go borrow a card for you.”
“Mm.” Gu Jianian sniffed and thanked him silently in her heart.
As Chi Yan spoke, he walked over to two students who had just come out of the library entrance.
They were two girls, and they did not look many years older than Gu Jianian.
One of them had a quiet, gentle appearance and long black curly hair.
The other had short pinkish-purple hair and was dressed very fashionably, with pretty smoky makeup on her face.
They both held several books in their arms and smiled as they talked with him.
Gu Jianian suddenly realised that every student here had successfully passed through all the trials of advancement, standing out from countless competitors, top students with boundless futures.
The most outstanding group of students in the whole country.
Her heart suddenly became uneasy and cramped, utterly lacking in confidence.
When Chi Yan had been standing beside her earlier, she had not felt it. But now, standing alone at the library entrance, with Zhoushan University students coming and going around her, she suddenly felt like an unqualified product that had slipped into a high-quality production line.
A moment later, the two girls helped them swipe through the gate in the library hall using their campus cards.
Before leaving, the curly-haired girl hesitated for a moment, then said to Chi Yan with a flushed face, “Um, I wanted to say it just now. Senior Chi, long time no see. You might not remember me. When you were in your fourth year, you were the teaching assistant for Modern Chinese. I was one of the students in that year.”
Chi Yan looked at her in some surprise and did not speak.
“Anyway, Senior Chi, your TA classes were really well taught.”
The girl finished in one breath. Without waiting for his answer, she hurriedly pushed the short-haired girl and ran outside.
Gu Jianian was close enough. She turned back to look at their figures and heard them excitedly whispering behind her.
“Senior Chi is seriously so handsome. After he graduated last year, I never saw him again. I can’t believe he came back today.”
“Right? Why didn’t you ask for his WeChat just now? He even borrowed our campus cards. Such a good opportunity.”
“He brought a girl with him. Would you have the nerve?”
When she heard this, Gu Jianian suddenly curved her lips. Her tense, awkward shoulders loosened slightly.
So Zhoushan University students also gossiped and fangirled.
She quickly turned around and followed Chi Yan with lighter steps, entering the library hall.
The first thing that entered her eyes was the high dome and huge, bright floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
In the centre of the building were two rows of escalators. Looking upward, around the escalators were book rooms separated by transparent glass walls, and the packed bookshelves inside could be faintly seen.
Chi Yan took her into the literature collection on the first floor.
Gu Jianian subconsciously softened her breathing, as if she did not want to disturb a dream.
The rows upon rows of dark bookshelves truly stretched beyond sight.
Although it was only eight thirty in the morning, many students were already seated at the rows of neat desks in the reading area.
They sat in comfortable, spacious chairs, quietly reading books, undisturbed and unrestrained.
Chi Yan lowered his voice and slowly repeated the incoherent description she had once given him.
“High dome, floor-to-ceiling windows, sunlight through all four seasons, and solid wood bookshelves. Every desk has the warm yellow reading lamp you mentioned. The self-study area is open twenty-four hours.”
“There is drinking water available day and night, and if you get hungry, there are vending machines nearby. As long as you want, forget going home under the moonlight—even staying to bask in the sunrise would be no problem.”
At that moment, Gu Jianian’s heart began to race wildly.
Tears gathered in her eyes. Her fingertips brushed over the cold spines of the books on the shelves. Suddenly, she turned back and saw him smiling lazily, his lashes like feathers.
“Jianian,” he asked, “compared to the library in your heart, how is it?”
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