Wild Stars as Their Lamps
Chi Yan lowered his head and looked at the fingers with which the little girl was clutching his sleeve. Hearing her words begin tentatively and gradually grow firm, he, rare for him, reacted half a beat late before raising his head and meeting her eyes.
She was very close. Each of her lashes was distinct, and her round eyes were filled with tears, like two gemstones.
Chi Yan’s gaze subconsciously darkened. Suddenly, he felt a little like a bastard.
What messy nonsense had he been thinking just now?
She was stronger than he had imagined, and far more resilient. If it had not been for her parents’ wrong methods of education and all those years of oppression and coercion, she should have been a very outstanding, confident girl.
His throat moved. He wanted to say something, but then he heard her continue murmuring.
“When eleventh grade started, we had just been separated into arts and science classes. Our homeroom teacher asked each of us to write down the university we wanted to go to and stick it on the corner of our desk to motivate ourselves. I never wrote anything. I didn’t even seriously learn what universities there were in the country.”
“I just felt that every day was very hard. Endless maths problems, endless exams. Every day when I opened my eyes, my only wish was to get through that day smoothly. Not to be scolded, not to cry, not to have insomnia,” Gu Jianian said slowly. “Where would I have had the time to think about what university I wanted to go to in the future? But—”
When she reached this point, she abruptly stopped. She looked at him cautiously, as if hesitating over whether what she was about to say would be too ignorant of the immensity of heaven and earth, too much of a foolish fantasy.
Chi Yan gently pulled her wrist and let her sit beside him, following her words. “Mm. But what?”
Gu Jianian was still holding onto his sleeve, while her other hand clutched the pillow tightly.
Her lips opened and closed several times. She did not dare look directly into his eyes and lowered her head in embarrassment.
Her voice seemed to be squeezed bit by bit from between her teeth.
“Maybe you’ll think I’m daydreaming, but right now…”
She forced herself to say it all in one breath.
“I want to get into Zhoushan University.”
“I want to transfer to an arts class. I want to go to Zhoushan University’s Chinese department.”
“I want it very, very much.”
After Gu Jianian struggled to finish those few sentences, she suddenly felt as if the shackles on her body had opened with a *click*.
She raised her head again and looked at him anxiously.
But in his eyes, she did not find any contempt or surprise. Instead, there was only a sense of relief, as if this was how it should have been all along.
Gu Jianian let out a breath, feeling warmth spread through her entire body. She continued rambling.
“This afternoon, on the subway to the studio, I secretly searched on my phone and saw a video from Zhoushan University’s 140th anniversary celebration some time ago.”
“A lot of alumni came. Some are now famous hosts and artists. Some are scientists and researchers who work tirelessly day and night, pushing forward the progress of human technology. There are also well-known entrepreneurs and politicians from various fields.”
“I looked at them and felt that someone like me was probably several galaxies away from them.”
“But…” she said incoherently, “but I also felt that not everyone’s success is something they’re born with. Maybe when these people were young, they also went through many setbacks. It might not have been smooth sailing for them either. Maybe I don’t have that much talent, but if I start working with all my strength from now on, then maybe… maybe there’s still time for me too?”
She stopped, then suddenly leaned a little closer, looking at him seriously, her breath so soft it was almost imperceptible.
“Chi Yan, do you think I can?”
Chi Yan did not speak.
During those few seconds of pause, he was not hesitating. He was only thinking about what he could say that would be worthy of this confession of hers.
Outside, the rain fell steadily. Her breathing intertwined with his.
Chi Yan said in a low voice, “Jianian, this decision you’ve made is very brave, and it is absolutely possible. It’s just that this road may be very long and very difficult. In the year ahead, you may encounter enormous challenges. You may suffer setbacks, disappointment, and perhaps at some point, you may even forget the determination and confidence you have right now. You may even feel regret and want to give up.”
She lowered her breathing and listened to him seriously.
“But you can remember my words at every moment.”
“I don’t know about anyone else, but you will definitely be fine.”
After saying this, he lowered his head, his calm gaze looking straight at her.
Devout and solemn.
“I promise you.”
His words entered her ears one by one. The indoor light fell across his face, and his entire person seemed to be glowing.
Gu Jianian worked hard to engrave this scene into her heart. A long while later, her nose reddened and she smiled.
“Okay. I’ll remember.”
She sniffed, her eyes bright, the corners of her lips lifting uncontrollably. “When we go back, I’ll call my parents and discuss it with them. This time, no matter how they oppose me or scold me, I won’t be afraid.”
“Mm. Very brave.”
Chi Yan seemed to be infected by her too, and smiled along with her.
After discussing it with Chi Yan, Gu Jianian seemed to put down a heavy matter weighing on her heart. Her whole body relaxed.
Only then did she realise that they seemed to be a little too close.
And just now, she had unconsciously tugged at his clothes again.
She froze for a moment, then casually shifted backward a little, at the same time letting go of his sleeve.
Chi Yan lowered his head and glanced at it.
Gu Jianian felt embarrassed, thinking he was about to mention her habit of tugging at people’s clothes again.
Unexpectedly, he only gently smoothed his sleeve, then reached toward the coffee table, picked up a cup, and poured her some water.
Gu Jianian took the cup and slowly drank, sitting cross-legged. Embarrassed, she stuck out her tongue.
“Then are we going back to Yunmo later? I’m a little scared to face Grandma. I ran away from home without saying anything. I don’t know if she’ll blame me.”
“Don’t worry. I called her this afternoon. But… we probably can’t go back tonight. With you in the car, I can’t drive while exhausted.”
As Chi Yan spoke, he slowly leaned back and raised the back of his hand to cover his eyes.
“Can we stay here another night? I’ll take you back tomorrow. I need to sleep.”
Only then did Gu Jianian hear that his voice sounded very wrong.
Not only was his voice dry and hoarse, but the ends of his words also dragged out lazily, without much strength.
Looking at him again, his hair was half-wet, and he had changed into another T-shirt. He had probably taken a shower.
His shoulders drooped, and his posture was loose and heavy. It was not the laziness of someone who had just woken up, but rather the appearance of someone forcing himself to hold on after being utterly exhausted.
Gu Jianian’s heart tightened, and she could not help asking him, “Chi Yan, you didn’t sleep this afternoon?”
Chi Yan thought about it and told the truth. “Mm. Couldn’t sleep.”
“How could you not sleep? Are you unwell?”
He had accompanied her all night, travelling everywhere. She had been so sleepy that she had fallen asleep the moment she touched the bed, yet he had remained awake the whole time.
Was he sick?
Thinking this, Gu Jianian quickly placed the cup on the coffee table and wanted to reach out to measure his forehead temperature. But then she suddenly caught sight of the phone on the coffee table.
The screen lit up, and two unimportant push notifications popped up.
He had turned his phone back on.
She immediately remembered something. After hesitating for a while, she guessed carefully, “Um… did Chi Yanzhi call you again?”
Chi Yan was quiet for a moment. He moved the back of his hand away and opened his eyes to look at her. A flicker of surprise flashed through his eyes.
“Your memory’s pretty good.”
Gu Jianian did not explain.
Her memory was average, but when it came to things about him, she always paid attention.
She asked tentatively, “Who is he? Is there bad blood between you?”
This time, Chi Yan was silent for even longer, as if considering whether to brush it off as usual, or tell the truth.
Brushing things off had always been the easy method.
But this time, as if possessed, he chose the latter.
“He’s my dad.”
Gu Jianian’s breath stopped for an instant.
That phone call which had made him lose sleep again and again was actually from his father.
Her own relationship with her parents belonged to the worst kind.
So she could completely understand this absurd situation. A message from the people closest to you could actually leave someone tossing and turning, suffocated to this extent.
Gu Jianian could not help asking awkwardly, “Then did you two… argue?”
“No.” This time, Chi Yan answered quickly. “We didn’t argue.”
“He doesn’t dare argue with me.”
“After all,” he tugged at the corner of his mouth absurdly, “he still has to ask me for money.”
“What would he do if he completely offended me one day?”
Gu Jianian opened her mouth and looked at his tired yet emotionally flat side profile. Suddenly, she thought of the things she had seen on the forum before.
Everyone said that his family background was noble and superior, that he was a carefree young master.
Grandma had also mentioned that when his grandfather was alive, he had been in the food business, and the family fortune was very rich.
Then why would his father be like this?
A sentence flashed quickly through Gu Jianian’s mind.
It was Zheng Qiyue, his roommate, teasing him: “You were weird during that period too. Did your family cut you off? You were always hiding in the dorm and using chilli sauce to get through dinner.”
That seemed to be during his sophomore year. He had even accidentally eaten shrimp paste from a Lao Gan Ma jar because of that.
At the time, she had thought it was just teasing.
But now, thinking back, it seemed very unusual.
Could something have happened to his family in his sophomore year?
Did it have something to do with his grandfather falling ill?
After Chi Yan finished speaking, the corner of his eye caught Gu Jianian frowning, her face scrunched up, obvious restrained worry on her expression.
Even while thinking, she carefully controlled her breathing, as if afraid of offending him, or saying the wrong thing and stirring up his sadness.
Emotions could be contagious.
He suddenly felt that he should not let himself wilfully drag the topic in such a heavy direction.
Originally, he had never been willing to mention these things, even in front of He Jitong.
Maybe he was too exhausted today. With her, without realising it, he had lowered his guard.
Thinking of this, Chi Yan tilted his body, good-naturedly gathering his energy, and half-joked, “Not talking about money. Is there anything else you want to ask? I can’t sleep anyway. Chat with me. I’ll answer any question.”
Gu Jianian came back to herself and repeated with a strange expression, “Any question? I can ask anything?”
“Mm.”
Gu Jianian took a deep breath, trying to keep her voice calm. “That thing… When your roommate misunderstood us earlier, didn’t he say the other two people in your dorm had both gotten into relationships?”
“Mm. What about it?”
Gu Jianian looked away, pretending nothing was wrong as she tucked her hair behind her ear.
“Just… is dating in university fun?”
“…”
Chi Yan looked at her.
She had not even gone to university yet, and she already wanted to know whether dating was fun?
“Not fun. You’ll get deceived. Deceived for money, body, and feelings.”
Gu Jianian’s heart rose into her throat. “How do you know… Have you been deceived too?”
As she spoke, she could not help looking sideways at him.
Her heart felt a little sour and swollen.
Chi Yan leaned lazily against the sofa, one elbow propped on the armrest, the knuckles of his other hand supporting his temple.
But his words carried an arrogant sharpness.
“How is that possible? At most, I’d be the one deceiving others. But I’m too lazy, and I don’t want to.”
Gu Jianian thought about it and felt that was true.
Zheng Qiyue had also said that he had been outrageously arrogant back then.
The corners of her lips lifted, and then she heard him say, “But my roommates were all deceived. Miserably.”
Chi Yan paused, half-truthfully scaring her. “Boys are like that, let alone girls… tsk.”
He did not say specifically how miserable it was, but that faint “tsk” made Gu Jianian vividly imagine the tragedy.
She shivered for no reason and did not dare continue talking about dating.
The air fell silent.
There were clearly many questions in her heart, yet for some reason, she could not think of a single one.
As Gu Jianian was troubled, her gaze suddenly caught sight of the hand he was using to support his temple.
His fingers were long and straight, delicate and very beautiful. Unlike her hands, whose index and middle fingers had become bent and deformed from years of writing, with an ugly callus protruding.
She had once seen those hands effortlessly typing on a keyboard, carelessly spinning a pen, and shaking a wine glass.
Gu Jianian subconsciously pinched the pillow and suddenly thought of a question she had always been curious about.
“Then can I ask what your pen name is? I wanted to ask before, but I never found the chance.”
Actually, it was that she had never dared ask, afraid he would be impatient.
After asking, Gu Jianian felt that her relationship with Chi Yan had indeed become much closer.
A few days ago, they had still been clearly separated, unrelated to each other. One read books, the other worked. Even when they were alone in the same space, they rarely interacted.
In his eyes, she had at most been the neighbour’s child who liked reading, had a somewhat stubborn temper, was self-conscious and restrained.
At that time, she probably could never have imagined that one day, on a rainy night like this, she would be curled up on the same sofa as him, chatting about random things.
Hearing this, Chi Yan lifted his eyelids, not expecting her to ask that.
It was not some secret either.
He reached out and wound the tassel on the sofa cushion around his finger in circles, saying casually, “It’s my name reversed.”
His name reversed?
Gu Jianian could not help reading it out loud. “Yan… Chi?”
After saying it, she felt that the pen name sounded incredibly familiar, as if she had heard it somewhere before.
Where exactly had she heard it?
Gu Jianian searched her memory hard, and a name sealed away for many years suddenly surged out from its depths.
“Yanchi… Yan Chi?”
Gu Jianian widened her eyes, her hands tightening around the cushion pressed against her chest, as she asked haltingly, “…Is it… Yan as in inkstone, and Chi as in pond?”
This time, it was Chi Yan’s turn to be surprised. “…You know it?”
He did not deny it.
Gu Jianian opened her mouth, too shocked to speak.
It was as if the string in her heart that had been silent for many years had been plucked without warning and began trembling violently.
He was Yanchi?
It was actually him?
Yanchi. Chi Yan.
She had actually never connected the two before.
Some long-buried memories deep in her mind were triggered, like new-born roses pushing through soil and sprouting branches.
When Gu Jianian had told He Jitong before that she used to like reading ‘Tilted Words’, she had not been lying.
It could be said that ‘Tilted Words’ was the magazine that had enlightened her in literature.
Gu Jianian first came into contact with ‘Tilted Words’ in fifth grade.
One day after school, her father had something to do at work and called her homeroom teacher to say that he would come a little later to pick her up for Olympiad maths class.
After the agreed time had passed, her father still had not come. Gu Jianian grew bored waiting, so she walked to the bookstore at the school gate, planning to read for a while to pass the time.
On the display shelf at the bookstore entrance were many of the latest magazines. From a pile of colourful, varied covers, she picked the one with the plainest cover. Its name was ‘Tilted Words’.
She flipped through it absent-mindedly, browsing quickly, occasionally raising her head to look at the clock in the bookstore, wondering when her father would arrive.
The words in the magazine, which were still very obscure and difficult for eleven-year-old Gu Jianian to understand, passed before her eyes like fleeting light and shadows, until she turned to a novella that happened to be serialised inside: *Driftwood and the Withered Sea*.
It told the story of a fifteen-year-old boy who, in order to find the withered sea that often appeared in his dreams, set out on a journey alone.
What was serialised in that issue was the ending of the story. Logically, since she had not read the previous parts, she should not have been able to get into it.
But for some inexplicable reason, Gu Jianian finished reading it. She read until tears filled her eyes and her heart surged.
For the first time, she recognised the power of words. For the first time, she learned that stories could be written like this.
It turned out that when different words were arranged together, they could possess such stirring power.
Even without knowing the beginning and end of the story, without understanding the protagonist’s background and life, she could still be moved by a fragment cut out from the whole.
After reading the ending, Gu Jianian gathered the courage to ask the bookstore owner to let her read the previous six months’ issues of the magazine. She spent two hours reading that story from beginning to end.
When her father arrived, heavy rain had already begun falling outside the shop. Gu Jianian had just finished reading the ending again. She sat on the floor hugging her knees, staring blankly as she thought about the world inside the book.
It was as if a door to a new world had opened before her eyes.
When she followed her father into the rain, Gu Jianian hesitantly asked, “Can I buy these magazines?”
Her father opened the umbrella, glanced at the magazines on the counter, and said casually, “Another day. I still have something to do later. Hurry up.”
Gu Jianian concealed her disappointment and obediently walked under the wide umbrella, but unwillingly turned back and remembered the pen name of the author printed on the open page of the magazine.
Yanchi.
Later, as a matter of course, Yanchi became her favourite author in ‘Tilted Words’.
She had once regarded the sentences in his articles as classics, copying them neatly stroke by stroke into the excerpt notebook that her mother later tore apart.
From fifth grade to the second term of seventh grade, she followed several of his stories in a row: short stories, novellas, long novels. Every one of them amazed her.
After entering Zhihua Junior High, studying began to press down on her until she could barely breathe.
Many times after school, she secretly ran to the bookstore, using the excuse of buying reference books to follow his serialisations. At the same time, she also read many excellent works in ‘Tilted Words’.
It could be said that Gu Jianian’s love for literature came from those years of ‘Tilted Words’. More accurately, it came from those early ‘Tilted Words’ authors, including Yanchi.
Unfortunately, after she entered eighth grade, that author suddenly disappeared without a trace.
His final story, *Jingzhe*, stopped abruptly halfway through its serialisation.
For five months after that, Gu Jianian rushed to read the latest issue of ‘Tilted Words’ on the first day every time, but she never saw his work.
Later still, time passed, circumstances changed, and the years and heavy academic pressure buried those tiny connections layer by layer, also burying that pen name in the crevices of her memory.
Gu Jianian stared blankly at the person before her.
His brows were like dots of ink, his eyes like a river of stars. He seemed to have crossed a bridge of time, living and breathing, lazy and vivid, sitting beside her.
Her heart thumped again and again, each beat seeming to echo.
What fate had brought her seemed not only to be one mine, but a bottomless vein connected deep underground.
Outside the window, the rain continued. Inside the room, light and shadow were silent.
Gu Jianian suddenly spoke. “Wait for me.”
As she said this, she ran barefoot into the room, quickly found the phone that had fallen onto the bed when she slept, then sat back down beside him and opened an old literary forum from that year.
Back then, Gu Jianian had not had a phone. The account she had secretly registered using her mother’s phone number had long since been lost.
Gu Jianian could only rely on her thin memory and repetitive mechanical actions, searching and browsing quickly. Finally, among countless posts, she found the one she had once made.
Unexpectedly, it had not been deleted by the administrators.
She confirmed it, then with trembling hands, raised the phone screen in front of him.
“Look.”
Chi Yan followed the direction of her fair fingertip and lowered his eyes to the screen. Suddenly, he froze.
There were messages from only one person in the post. Four consecutive replies.
They spanned several months.
**[Tingting’s Jianian Carnival]: This is a search post! If Yanchi-dada can see this post, could you reply to me? I’ve waited three issues of the magazine and still haven’t seen your update. Are you okay?**
**[Tingting’s Jianian Carnival]: The fourth issue didn’t have it either. Are you okay?**
**[Tingting’s Jianian Carnival]: The fifth issue didn’t have it either. I’m about to enter ninth grade, so I can’t come anymore. I hope everything is well with you.**
He read those three messages word by word, his gaze trembling with an emotion he could barely suppress.
It was as if he could see behind time itself: a stubborn and sensitive girl, separated by the pressure of school and life, worrying about him when he was still unknown.
Chi Yan suddenly raised his eyes.
The girl who had grown up so much had eyes full of unbelievable dazedness. After meeting his gaze for a few seconds, she suddenly flattened the corners of her mouth.
“I didn’t have a phone back then. Every time, I had to wait until my mum was in the kitchen and secretly use her phone to post.”
“Because I was afraid my parents would find out, I couldn’t check replies often. Every day I hoped you would see the post, but I was also afraid that if you replied, I wouldn’t see it.”
“But you never replied to me.”
Chi Yan watched her lashes tremble and her lips open and close.
He picked up the phone on the coffee table.
Suddenly, he felt that perhaps it was not completely useless after all.
“Then wait for me too.”
He suddenly curved his mouth and said this carelessly, his long fingers swiftly opening the forum, registering, verifying, and logging in, all in one smooth sequence.
Two minutes later, he raised his head again. “Refresh it.”
Gu Jianian flattened her lips in confusion, then obediently refreshed the page.
After four or five years,
beneath that lonely post,
a new reply suddenly appeared.
**[Yanchi]: Little Jianian, thank you for your concern. I’m doing very well. I hope you are too.**
As if time itself were overlapping.
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