Wild Stars as Their Lamps
Compared to the library in your heart, how is it?
His expression was still as lazy and careless as it had been when they first met. Even the curve of one corner of his mouth carried a hint of cynical nonchalance.
In her memory, he had never been a man of many words, and he rarely said anything solemn or serious. Yet these light, almost joking words carved themselves into her heart one by one, as heavy as a thousand pieces of gold.
Gu Jianian blinked away the tears in her eyes and smiled as she nodded at Chi Yan.
“It’s even better than I imagined. Thousands, tens of thousands of times better.”
So good that she only worried she would never be able to reach it.
For the rest of the morning, Chi Yan took her through all six floors of the library.
From literature to art, from basic sciences to the latest research journals.
Every field, every major, was filled with the weight of words and books.
He did not ask her any more questions, nor did he talk to her. It seemed as if he wanted to leave all of this time for her to feel it herself.
Gu Jianian quietly looked around, touching things with her fingertips, breathing in the smell of wood pulp and ink from the books and paper. She did not say a single word.
Yet some of the chaotic, muddled thoughts that had begun in adolescence were gradually split open by a clear crack.
She felt as if the seven-year-old Gu Jianian had come back to life.
That child whose eyes had been filled with longing and innocence opened her eyes again from the depths of Gu Jianian’s rotten soul.
For the first time, she felt her heartbeat revive because of something that could be called a dream. Her breathing became urgent because of longing.
For the first time, she actively began to think.
The meaning of reading.
The meaning of exams.
The meaning of effort.
“If you don’t do well in exams, you’ll only be able to live in a basement and eat instant noodles in the future. You won’t even be able to support yourself.”
“You need to study hard, get into a good high school, then a good university. Only then can you find a stable job and live the rest of your life peacefully.”
“Only by studying well can you survive.”
It was not like that.
Her thoughts were like the morning sun parting the night. In that instant, Gu Jianian remembered what Chi Yan had said.
“Being alive is not our purpose. How we want to spend this life—that is the purpose.”
She did not want to study for the sake of merely staying alive, nor for their expectations and restrictions.
She wanted to study so that one day, she could hold her own campus card, swipe through this gate, and sit here properly and openly like them, reading the books she wanted to read and learning the knowledge she wanted to learn.
She wanted to spend every day of the rest of her life doing work she approved of, freely doing what she loved.
Studying should never have been such a passive and painful thing.
By the time they came out of the library, it was already noon.
The clock tower struck twelve, its sound clear to the ear, ringing twelve full times.
Students whose classes had ended streamed out from the teaching buildings of different departments. Some walked, some rode bicycles, and groups of friends rushed toward the cafeteria on the other side of the vast campus.
The quiet campus began to boil with life.
Chi Yan walked down the library steps and looked back at the little girl following behind him with a tightly tense face.
In her eyes were emotion, struggle, and thought, like turbulent undercurrents.
He slowly stretched out his hand and waved it in front of her eyes, teasing, “Let’s go. I’m about to starve to death. You called me a vampire, but I think you’re not much better.”
“When you look at books, your eyes shine. You don’t even feel hungry.”
He had an impression of it. Every time Gu Jianian read at his house, once she became absorbed, she could go an entire morning without drinking a drop of water.
Only after finishing some particularly climactic plot would she put the book down in satisfaction, then belatedly realise she was thirsty and go to the water dispenser to pour herself a large glass of water, gulping it all down in one breath.
At times like that, he could see, beneath her restrained shell, the shadow of the child who used to smile before all her teeth had even grown in.
He suddenly felt somewhat grateful that through all these years, she had still had this one hobby that allowed her to breathe, so that not all the light in her eyes had gone out.
So that he could see this tiny chance and pull her up.
Gu Jianian finally came back to her senses. Hearing him, she touched her empty stomach and smiled sheepishly.
“I think I am a little hungry. We had breakfast too early. Where should we eat? How about you choose a place? I’ll treat you.”
She was a little embarrassed. The long-distance bus tickets to Zhoushan, the subway fares, even the bread and instant noodles in the morning had all been paid for by Chi Yan.
She added, “Anyway, you can’t spend any more money.”
Chi Yan clicked his tongue and raised his brows. “So polite? Drawing such clear boundaries. What an ungrateful little ghost.”
But Gu Jianian insisted, her tone serious. “I have to treat you to a meal. You choose a place.”
He did not know that what he had helped her with could not possibly be repaid with one meal.
Chi Yan paused for a moment, then said playfully, “You really want me to choose? This big brother grew up eating delicacies from land and sea. I’m afraid you won’t be able to afford it.”
That was true.
Gu Jianian thought about the pitiful balance in her phone and had just slumped her shoulders when she suddenly remembered something. Her eyes lit up, and she took out a bulging wallet from her pocket.
She shook the wallet and grinned so widely her eyes narrowed. “I almost forgot. This is the money we earned yesterday. More than five hundred in total. Is that enough?”
And almost all of it had been won from First Uncle, so she had no burden spending it.
Chi Yan’s gaze slowly moved from the wallet to her sparkling eyes and smiling face. For some reason, he felt that smile was a little dazzling.
Or perhaps the noon sunlight was simply too bright.
He abruptly looked away. His Adam’s apple slowly moved up and down once. He began walking forward on his own, his tone unclear.
“Fine. Then you’re treating.”
Gu Jianian answered and quickly followed.
Chi Yan led her almost straight across the entire campus, exiting through the west gate on the other side.
Near the west gate was the university’s great auditorium.
When they passed the entrance of the auditorium, Gu Jianian immediately saw the large poster pasted on the wall. It was for a lecture by a famous writer who would be coming to Zhoushan University next week.
Gu Jianian’s eyes lit up, and she said in surprise, “It’s Cheng Yushang.”
Cheng Yushang was one of the fastest-rising young writers in recent years. Now not even forty, he had already won most of the major literary prizes at home and abroad.
His works had depth and a sense of reality, but his writing was also witty and humorous. He always seemed able to find tiny hopes and passions in the lives of people at the bottom.
Readers praised him as the sunflower of the end times.
Gu Jianian had actually only read two or three of his books, secretly hiding at school to read them during high school, but that had already been enough to amaze her.
Thinking of this, she drooped her shoulders and said, “He’s coming to Zhoushan University for a lecture next week. Why couldn’t it be this week? Otherwise, I could also…”
Chi Yan suddenly interrupted her, his meaning unclear. “You like him a lot?”
Gu Jianian looked at his faint expression and nodded. Like she was listing treasured possessions, she said, “I haven’t read his early books, but I really like his style in recent years. My favourite is *The Wastel—*”
Unfortunately, Chi Yan did not seem to have any desire to listen.
He nodded indifferently, not even bothering to glance at the poster, and walked straight ahead.
Gu Jianian stopped speaking, guessing that perhaps he did not like Cheng Yushang’s style. She stuck out her tongue and did not say anything else.
This was the first time the two of them had disagreed on reading taste, but that was normal too.
Gu Jianian did not think much of it and followed Chi Yan out of the school gate and into a homestyle restaurant near the entrance.
Its name was ‘Come Often’.
Chi Yan led her familiarly to a corner seat by the window. Looking at the restaurant’s simple decor and the very down-to-earth menu pasted on the wall, Gu Jianian finally realised that all his talk about delicacies from land and sea had only been to scare her.
As if guessing what she was thinking, Chi Yan took out a napkin and wiped the table, then explained, “When I was in university, I often came here with my roommates. Although the ingredients aren’t anything expensive, the taste is really good. The owner is an old grandmother. I heard this place was passed down through her family, and it’s been here since Zhoushan University was founded. Business has always been good all these years.”
Gu Jianian looked around. Business really was very good.
When they came in, only this seat had been empty. Everywhere else was full of customers, most of them students from Zhoushan University.
A few tables were probably student club gatherings. Two or three tables had been pushed together into long rows, surrounded by a noisy crowd of more than ten people.
Gu Jianian turned back just as Chi Yan spread a paper menu in front of her.
“Order. I chose the restaurant, you choose the dishes. Fair, right?”
She said “oh” and was just about to ask if he had any dietary restrictions when an uncertain voice came from behind her.
“…Chi Yan?”
Gu Jianian turned toward the sound.
A tall, sturdy boy had walked in through the entrance. He wore a pair of round glasses and looked a little like an adult version of Gian from ‘Doraemon’.
The boy looked hesitantly in their direction, adjusted the glasses on his nose, and after carefully identifying him for a moment, walked over in surprise.
He punched Chi Yan on the shoulder and grinned with a mouthful of white teeth.
“You actually came back? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Gu Jianian looked at his fist, which still had four little dimples in the flesh when clenched, and felt that punch really was not light.
Sure enough, Chi Yan hissed and frowned at him. “Tell you what? So you could greet me with your fist?”
But there was laughter in his tone. “Why are you still so violent? Has no one beaten you up since I left?”
The boy gave a snorting laugh. “Other than you, no one can beat me.”
Only then did he belatedly notice Gu Jianian. His eyes filled with surprise and teasing. “Your girl?”
Gu Jianian knew that “girl” here meant girlfriend.
She nervously tightened her grip on the menu and lowered her head without speaking, only to hear Chi Yan say slowly, “What? You have a problem with that?”
Hearing this, the boy paused for a while, then sighed. “It was only a matter of time before you got a girlfriend. So many people chased you. But now I’m the only single dog left in our dorm. Tsk. This face-judging world.”
Gu Jianian abruptly raised her head and looked across the table.
He actually had not denied it?
Instead, he had responded with such an ambiguous attitude.
Her gaze collided with Chi Yan’s.
He was slowly pouring a pot of hot tea into a rice bowl, turning it in circles to scald the bottom before pouring it away.
But his eyes remained locked with hers the whole time, their meaning unclear.
After a long few seconds, he looked away and lifted one corner of his mouth at the boy.
“I’m joking with you. She’s a kid from my relatives’ family. I brought her to see our university.”
As he spoke, he switched the scalded bowl with hers and began leisurely scalding another set of bowl and chopsticks. At the same time, he introduced them.
“This is my roommate, Zheng Qiyue. He’s now been recommended for postgraduate study here. This is Gu Jianian.”
Gu Jianian slowly let out a breath, unsure whether what she felt was disappointment or relief.
Only then did she realise that she had been gripping the menu too tightly. The edge of the laminated paper had wrinkled.
That was right. Chi Yan had always treated her like a younger sister from a relative’s family. That was already very good.
She felt that always being so anxious about gains and losses was not good either. It had clearly only been a teasing joke between him and his roommate, yet she had been so nervous she almost lost composure.
She raised her head again and looked at Chi Yan as if nothing had happened.
But he was no longer looking at her.
“So that’s it. Hello, little sister. You can just call me Brother Xiao Zheng.”
After understanding the situation, Zheng Qiyue unceremoniously took an unused chair from the neighbouring table and sat on the outer side of theirs.
“Let’s eat together then. It just so happens I got paid recently. I’ll treat.”
Chi Yan raised his brows and joked, “What kind of luck am I having today? One after another, everyone wants to treat me to a meal.”
“Of course. Besides, I can still afford ‘Come Often’.” Zheng Qiyue turned to Gu Jianian. “You don’t mind if I join you, right?”
Chi Yan also looked at her at the same time, asking her opinion with his eyes.
“Of course I don’t mind.” Gu Jianian quickly waved her hand and politely moved the menu in front of the new guest. “Then Brother Xiao Zheng, you order. I’m not familiar with this place.”
She did not continue insisting that she treat. She thought she could invite Chi Yan alone another time if there was a chance.
Zheng Qiyue took the menu. After asking whether she had any dietary restrictions, he ordered several dishes he recommended most.
There were plum-glazed spare ribs, dry-pot chicken, cumin lamb, and a few others. He skipped seafood.
“You’re still allergic to seafood, right?”
Chi Yan nodded. “Hard to believe you still remember.”
Zheng Qiyue laughed. “How could I forget? In freshman year, you accidentally ate the shrimp paste I brought from my hometown. You got a high fever in the middle of the night and went to the hospital, delirious the whole way. I really thought I’d poisoned you to death.”
“Who told you to put shrimp paste in a Lao Gan Ma jar?”
The two of them teased each other, while Gu Jianian was somewhat surprised. Chi Yan was actually allergic to seafood?
Then last time, she had even sent him crabs. So he could not eat them at all.
She did not know what he had done with those crabs in the end.
She also remembered that the wontons at the market had contained a little dried shrimp. No wonder he had barely eaten them. She had thought he simply had no appetite.
Gu Jianian suddenly realised that she did not actually know much about Chi Yan.
On the contrary, looking at it now, he understood her better. After all, all of her past and embarrassment had been laid out bloodily before him.
While waiting for the dishes, Zheng Qiyue and Chi Yan each ordered a bottle of beer and chatted casually.
Since graduating, the two of them had not seen each other again. Zheng Qiyue was inevitably very curious about Chi Yan’s current life.
“Hey, man, why did you disappear from the world the moment you graduated? Did you leave Zhoushan?”
“Mm.” Chi Yan held the beer bottle with one hand and rested his chin on the other. He glanced at the person across from him, who was obediently lowering her head and drinking tea, and answered absent-mindedly, “I went back to live in my grandfather’s hometown. Today is also the first time I’ve returned to Zhoushan since leaving.”
“So you’re planning to retire to the mountains?”
Chi Yan smiled. “Something like that. The air in the mountains is good. A change of mood.”
“But great writer, I heard that the long novels you serialised in ‘Tilted Words’ back in high school have been signing film and television contracts one after another this year. One of them even won the Muhua Award.”
Zheng Qiyue gave him a thumbs-up. “Amazing. Before, I was wondering why your grades were clearly the best in our dorm, yet you were the only one who didn’t go on to postgraduate study here. Now I understand.”
“If I had your ability, who would bother with graduate school?”
Gu Jianian slowly drank her tea, silently listening to their conversation, but she was extremely surprised inside.
The Muhua Award was a very important prize for young writers. Even a literary beginner like her had heard of it often.
She had not expected that the works he had written in high school had won the Muhua Award, and so many years later too.
Chi Yan tugged at the corner of his mouth, seeming not to want to talk about it much.
“Don’t just talk about me. Tell me about you guys. How’s postgraduate life?”
“How else could it be?” Zheng Qiyue curled his lips and sighed bitterly with a worried face. “The miserable life of the modern postgraduate student. Much busier than undergrad. Every day I’m drowning in papers and research topics. Old Shen is getting more and more perverted too. Every topic he gives is harder than the last.”
“I came to ‘Come Often’ today because I couldn’t make progress on my research topic and wanted to eat a meal. I didn’t expect to run into you.”
Chi Yan lifted his glass and clinked it against his in comfort.
Zheng Qiyue gloomily clinked back and lowered his head to drink a large mouthful of beer.
He suddenly thought of something and asked Chi Yan again, “Speaking of Old Shen, how exactly did you offend him before graduation? Even now, we guys still can’t mention you in front of him. The moment we do, he gets furious.”
“Was it just because you ditched the postgraduate recommendation he wanted for you? That shouldn’t be enough, right? You used to be his favourite student, the kind he mentioned every day.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Chi Yan abruptly fell silent for a while. Then he casually said, “Really? I don’t really remember.”
Gu Jianian was sipping hot tea. Hearing his familiar perfunctory tone, she could not help raising her head to look at him.
He leaned beside the window with his eyelids lowered, once again hiding his face in shadow, even his lashes drooping.
Zheng Qiyue also noticed his indifferent expression.
In a daze, he remembered that from a certain point in sophomore year onward, Chi Yan had become the way he was now. His face always carried a faint expression, he began speaking less, and he disliked mentioning things related to himself even more.
He was completely different from the arrogant, untouchable, noble young master who had first entered university.
After senior year, he even began spending whole days away from the dorm, disappearing from sight. Aside from a few classes where attendance was necessary, he almost did not come to school at all.
But his grades still remained very good.
Later, in the second semester of senior year, Zheng Qiyue heard that he had a huge argument with Professor Shen and even gave up his recommendation for postgraduate study.
Zheng Qiyue did not continue clinging to this topic. Suddenly, he said, “Do you still remember how the two of us fought in freshman year?”
Chi Yan laughed. “How could I not?”
“Back then, I had a crush on a senior from our department. She was even the department beauty. But who knew that only a month after school started, she actually confessed to you, and you rejected her with that stinking face of yours. At the time, I thought, who the hell do you think you are? Acting so arrogant and mighty. I couldn’t stand the sight of you… Who would’ve thought I’d end up getting beaten up by you instead?”
Chi Yan also remembered that period and scoffed. “So later you harmed me with shrimp paste?”
“That was a coincidence. Am I that vicious? You were the one acting weird back then too. Did your family cut you off? You were always hiding in the dorm and using chilli sauce to get through dinner.”
Chi Yan did not speak, listening as he continued. “I was the one who sent you into the ambulance. At the time, my head was full of panic. If I had killed you, I really wouldn’t have been able to clear my name even if I jumped into the Yellow River.”
Their relationship had actually taken a turn from that moment onward, and in the end they had somehow become good friends.
Of course, that was also thanks to Chi Yan later helping him write many assignments for their major courses.
Zheng Qiyue thought for a moment. In the end, he still did not ask what exactly had happened to Chi Yan in sophomore year. He only said, “Next time you come, let us know in advance. We’ll all treat you to a meal. Zhuang Chengtian and the others talk about you all the time too, saying they need to find a chance to thank you for the great assignment-saving grace of the past.”
Chi Yan picked up his beer bottle and clinked it against his again, smiling. “Sure. Remember to choose somewhere expensive.”
Zheng Qiyue laughed. “Typical.”
After they finished eating, Zheng Qiyue hurried back to write his paper, leaving Gu Jianian and Chi Yan alone again.
They slowly walked along the road by the west gate, which was lined with restaurants and bookstores, smelling the unique fragrance of summer camphor trees on both sides.
“Where to?”
“Where to?”
Gu Jianian laughed with a *pfft*. “This is your territory. You decide.”
Chi Yan glanced at her. “Fine.”
And so Gu Jianian followed him onto the subway again. After transferring across two lines, they turned into an old alley paved with bluestone.
Compared with the bustling commercial districts they had passed before, this place had a somewhat quiet, deserted feel.
On both sides of the alley were artsy cafés, along with a few scattered bars.
There were also colourful graffiti paintings on the old walls. Like children’s drawings, the brushstrokes were immature, casual, and vivid.
Chi Yan led her through the alley and to the corner by the street.
Under a willow tree wide enough for several people to embrace was a concept bookstore. By the window, a few people sat quietly in booths, all flipping through books.
At the entrance of the bookstore was a reclining chair. A man lay on it with a book covering his face, leisurely sunning himself.
Beside him was a big golden retriever tied up, wagging and panting at them ingratiatingly.
Chi Yan walked over and kicked him with his foot.
“Damn, who is it?”
The man immediately woke up. The book slid off his face, and he looked impatiently at the person who had come.
“…Chi Yan? Sister Jianian?”
“Why are you two here?”
For a moment, He Jitong even thought it was an illusion.
His gaze moved back and forth over the two travel-worn people. First, he sized up his country cousin who had not entered the city for almost a year. Then he caught sight of Gu Jianian’s torn and dirty dress, as well as the coat over it that clearly belonged to Chi Yan.
A place like this, at a time like this.
His muddled brain turned for a while. A moment later, he arrived at an unbelievable conclusion and spread his hands awkwardly at Chi Yan.
“Cousin, this isn’t very good of you. She only just became an adult yesterday, and you’ve already coaxed her into eloping with you? And now you’ve come to seek refuge with me?”
“I’ll say the ugly words first. I can’t take responsibility for this kind of thing.”
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