Wild Stars as Their Lamps
—“It has never been He Jitong.”
After Gu Jianian finished speaking, she forced herself not to lower her head, and not to run away.
Only when the person beside her slightly furrowed his brows and asked uncertainly, “…What?”
Gu Jianian clenched her fist, slowly took a breath, then took her phone out of her pocket, opened her notes app, and handed it to him as if she were burning all her bridges.
“Before, didn’t you… accidentally see my notes?”
Gathering her courage, embarrassed yet risking everything, she said, “Then… do you want to look again?”
Chi Yan was stunned for a moment. Subconsciously, he lowered his head and followed her instruction, reading the line on the phone screen that he had once accidentally glimpsed.
—“Today, we went to the morning market together, ate wontons together, ate the same ice cream together. Later, I’m going to invite him to my coming-of-age ceremony.”
“See if…” Her voice sounded at just the right moment beside his ear, softly giving him a hint, low as a murmur. “…See if there’s another possibility.”
Chi Yan read that line as if he were back in high school doing those pointless reading comprehension questions. His usually sharp and clever brain seemed like a machine that had long been scrapped.
Went to the morning market together.
Ate wontons together.
Ate the same ice cream together.
Attended her… coming-of-age ceremony.
It was probably after a whole century had passed, when fireflies flew in from the wilderness deep in the night, buzzing noisily and restlessly, that he finally, with effort and time, extracted from that sentence the other half of the possibility—the one he had ignored from the very beginning because of certain highly misleading preconditions.
He suddenly raised his eyes to look at her.
There were patches of distinct redness on the girl’s fair face. She bit her teeth together tightly, then, while she still had the courage, stiffly opened the picture attached to the note.
Chi Yan looked over.
On the screen was the photo he had hurriedly glanced at back then: her mirror selfie in front of the ice cream shop.
He remembered that at the time, he had even teased her for being vain.
The girl’s pale fingertips, flushed red, trembled as they slid across the screen, enlarging the photo inch by inch, until—
Before the pixels blurred, another figure appeared in the upper left corner of the mirror.
He was propping up his chin, turned sideways to the camera, lazily looking at her in the mirror.
In that frozen instant, the girl’s skirt hem was lifted by the morning wind, brushing across his knee beneath the table.
Chi Yan raised his eyes in disbelief. In the dim night, he saw her lashes trembling like cicada wings.
What trembled along with them was her voice.
“So…” With difficulty, yet once again directly, she ruled out the wrong answer. “…It has never been He Jitong.”
Then, without allowing any further misunderstanding, she gave the correct answer in a faintly trembling voice.
“Chi Yan, I like you. It has always… been you.”
The heavy night wind rustled through the leaves.
Near and far, after the sun had completely set, the neighbours’ lights came on one after another. The lively yet peaceful night that belonged only to the village arrived.
Chi Yan’s gaze trembled. Some emotion in his heart arrived without warning, catching him completely off guard.
The fingers lightly pressed against the stone steps tightened again, and the rough marble surface scraped against his knuckles.
*I like you.*
This unbelievable sentence crashed clearly into his ears. It was like the time he had walked alone deep into the Greater Khingan Range, thinking he had lost his way, only to suddenly hear the wind brush through pine needles in the thick fog, soundlessly pointing him in the right direction.
Thousands of emotions surged into his chest at once, so much so that he did not know how to react for a moment.
After saying everything in one breath, Gu Jianian withdrew her phone with trembling hands. Her nerves stretched taut as she watched his silent side profile, wildly guessing his reaction.
Surprise? Being caught off guard?
Surely there would be some of that.
After listening to Grandma’s story, Gu Jianian had roughly understood why Chi Yan had taken such care of her.
She also knew he had only treated her as an insecure, lost younger sister from a relative’s family.
For her, he did not have that kind of feeling.
A child he had been taking care of out of consideration for the elders suddenly confessed to him awkwardly one day.
Anyone would be surprised. Anyone would not know how to react.
As for anything else, Gu Jianian could not yet tell, and she was afraid to guess.
But at the very least, she could be certain of one thing… she did not see the annoyance and disdain she feared most on his face.
For no reason, Gu Jianian let out a breath of relief. Her cheeks were still so hot they felt as if they might explode, but her clenched fists loosened little by little.
She had said something so difficult, yet the world had not collapsed. He was still sitting beside her and had not left in anger because of her words.
Those restless, conflicted feelings in her heart—the fear of regret and the fear of being rejected—seemed to gradually become less important after the words were spoken aloud.
She sat on the cool stone steps, hugging her knees, pressing her burning face against them, biting her lip as she spoke on her own.
“Chi Yan, actually, before I came, I had already decided I would just say goodbye to you properly and bury everything else in my heart.”
“Because I know this timing isn’t suitable. I finally managed to gather the courage to repeat the year. I don’t want to die before the campaign even begins. Besides… I don’t want to make things difficult for you either.”
She sniffed and murmured, “You’ve always taken care of me and helped me so much. I don’t want to put you in a difficult position, and I don’t want to… cause you more trouble.”
When she reached this point, she secretly glanced sideways at him.
He was quietly listening to her confession, his eyes casually drifting over the ground beneath the stone steps, though his back was faintly tense.
Gu Jianian suddenly sensed it.
Chi Yan was also a little nervous.
The person being confessed to was nervous. Whether he intended to reject her or accept her, at the very least, it meant the person confessing was not insignificant to him.
Gu Jianian’s heart felt sour, yet also impossibly soft.
He was the person who had taken her over mountains and rivers to Zhoushan late at night.
He had wished her happy birthday, hoped she would bravely move forward, hoped she would live the way she wanted to live.
Even if it was not love, he had already been more than good enough to her.
Gu Jianian’s eyes suddenly reddened. She forced herself to slowly calm down and bravely told him the reason she had suddenly decided to confess today.
“I didn’t want to make things difficult for you, but earlier on the phone, Brother Jitong joked that he was worried after I, this trouble, left, you would turn back into your old self again. Not seeing the sun, not communicating with people, shutting yourself away in this house, spending every day with cigarettes and alcohol.”
At this point, Gu Jianian stuck out her tongue. Recalling her reckless appearance just now, carrying the hoe, she laughed. “Then I suddenly got a little scared. I just… suddenly wanted you to know.”
“No matter what you went through these past few years, no matter why you became so world-weary and decadent, no matter how other people in this world treated you, there will still always be someone who needs you very much, who likes you very much. Very, very much.”
“For example, me.”
Gu Jianian’s heartbeat pounded violently as she continued, “Grandma taught me the ability to survive, and you taught me how to live my life well after learning how to survive.”
“If it weren’t for you, I probably would never have been able to pull myself together, never been able to see clearly what I wanted, never been able to gain courage.”
“So… I need you very much, and also…”
“I like you very, very much.”
The girl’s soft voice slipped into his ears with the evening wind, faintly ticklish.
It also seemed to follow the blood vessels by his ear and enter his heart.
“Brother Jitong said that even if it’s trouble, it’s still better than having no one disturb you.”
“So, Chi Yan, don’t respond to my confession right away. Just treat it as a trouble, an unresolved trouble, okay? In the future, when I’m not here, if you feel everything in the world is dull and boring, you can distract yourself by thinking about how you should resolve this trouble.”
The garden was silent.
When Gu Jianian reached this point, she supported herself on her knees and stood up, pretending to smooth her hair while wiping away the heat at the corner of her eyes.
She half-joked, “I’ve said everything I should and shouldn’t say. I have to go. Anyway, you know I’m fragile, sensitive, and love crying, so even if you want to reject me, please spend a year wording it nicely.”
“I’ll also remember what you said. No matter how difficult it gets, I’ll bravely move forward. After a year, when I can sit properly and openly in Zhoushan University’s library and write ‘Zhoushan University, Department of Chinese, Gu Jianian’ on my library card, I’ll come listen to your response then. Is that okay?”
Gu Jianian said all of this in one breath.
She suddenly realised her speaking speed was unbelievably fast. She had not even given him any chance to interrupt.
She was afraid that if she slowed down, she would not be able to continue.
She tried hard to pretend her expression was relaxed, but her heart felt as if it were about to burst out of her chest.
Her blood was burning.
Waiting for his judgment.
The sound of cicadas rose in the summer night. A few tactless crickets scurried across the stone steps.
Gu Jianian anxiously and nervously lowered her eyes and saw Chi Yan reach out his hand toward her.
Just like the night of her birthday.
The same night and garden, only this time, she was standing, and he was sitting.
Gu Jianian froze. Then she heard him say slowly, “After listening to you ramble on so much, you didn’t even think to pull me up before leaving. My legs have gone numb from sitting.”
He even added, “Heartless little kid.”
Gu Jianian gave a dazed “oh” and reached out to pull him up, only to unexpectedly find that it did not take much effort.
His hand was still very cold, touching hers briefly before separating.
Then that hand gently landed on the top of her head, casually ruffling her hair.
Chi Yan’s eyes darkened almost imperceptibly.
His palm remained on the top of her head, and her warm, soft hair seemed to brush across the tip of his heart.
This kid.
One second, she was saying she liked him very, very much. The next, she was deciding on her own that it would be a year.
She even wanted him to wait until she got into university, until she had a bright future.
Even though the little reason he had left told him that the kid was right, that she was more sensible than him, was this how people confessed?
Chi Yan struggled to regain his reason, restraining all impulsive thoughts. Slowly, he withdrew his hand, but his fingertips seemed reluctant to part from that feeling, curling up with difficulty.
Suddenly, he could not tell whether he was the hunter or the prey.
After a long while, he sighed and finally agreed good-temperedly.
“Then we’ll wait until you properly and openly get into university, and talk about it then.”
Gu Jianian finally wiped away her tears and smiled.
At least he had not directly rejected her.
“Mm!”
After a while, she heard his muffled voice ask, “When are you leaving tomorrow?”
“Ten o’clock. My second uncle will take me to the high-speed rail station.”
Chi Yan’s voice was somewhat forced.
“…Mm.”
The night was truly too dense. The outline of his face had almost become impossible to see.
Gu Jianian closed her eyes for a moment, then finally waved at him.
“Then… Chi Yan, goodbye.”
After saying this, she did not dare stay any longer. Holding back her tears, she turned around, picked up the hoe, straightened her back, and walked step by step out of the courtyard, out of this other world she had accidentally entered two months ago.
Like Haru in Hayao Miyazaki’s *The Cat Returns*, after finding herself again in the Cat Kingdom, climbing step by step to the highest tower of that kingdom, finally returning to the human world.
Then gathering her courage and facing again the reality she had to grit her teeth and face.
When He Jitong received the message notification, the social drinking event had just ended.
He was turning his car keys in his hand, wandering to the car park outside the bar, when he suddenly felt the phone in his pocket vibrate.
He casually opened the message and froze.
It was from that country cousin of his, who would not voluntarily send a message once in eight hundred years.
And it was a red packet. More accurately, it was a transfer.
Because it far exceeded the red packet limit.
He Jitong sucked in a breath and widened his eyes, counting. “One, two, three… Fuck, that many zeroes? What’s going on? Lost the will to live and started distributing your estate?”
He immediately made a voice call.
When the other side picked up, He Jitong asked in an infuriating tone, “Sister Jianian hasn’t even left yet, and you’re already this depressed? Wait there. Die slower. This brother can at least rush to Yunmo to collect your corpse, and maybe make another fortune while I’m at it.”
Chi Yan: “…”
After He Jitong finished speaking, he opened the car door and sat inside, quietly waiting for his cousin’s expected counterattack.
Unexpectedly, the other person did not get angry. Instead, he good-temperedly explained, “It’s just your labour fee.”
There was a strange pleasure in his voice.
He Jitong froze. “What labour fee?”
On the other end of the phone, his human-looking dog of a cousin smiled faintly.
“Thanks for working so hard and being a scumbag in my place all these days.”
“…”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Before He Jitong could react, the other side had already hung up.
He could not figure it out no matter how he thought about it. While feeling that his cousin was truly becoming more and more mentally disordered, he viciously accepted the transfer.
Early the next morning, Chi Yan held his car keys and opened the front door neatly dressed, only to see two children standing at the entrance, pushing each other and trying to make the other knock.
He recognised them as Gu Jianian’s two cousins. He had seen them at both birthday parties.
The younger one was called Chen Suo, and the older one was Chen Xi.
The two little ghosts also saw him, and their expressions both turned a little fearful.
A few seconds later, Chen Xi forcefully pushed Chen Suo’s back. The latter braced himself and walked forward, presenting the cardboard box in his arms.
Stammering, he said, “Um… well, last night, the cat at my grandma’s house gave birth to kittens. Three in total.”
“My cousin and I each get one. For the last one, Sister Tingting said to bring it to you. She said that aside from the trouble she talked about last night, this is another trouble she’s leaving you. She also said that if you think it’s really too troublesome, you don’t have to keep it.”
As soon as Chen Suo finished speaking, Chen Xi frowned. “What are you even saying? Trouble this and trouble that, it sounds like a tongue twister. Is that really what Sister Tingting said?”
Chen Suo argued back, “Yes, definitely. I memorised it word for word. That’s exactly what she said.”
The two of them argued endlessly over this. A while later, the cardboard box in Chen Suo’s hands was steadily taken away.
The vampire who had a shadow, and was in fact quite young and handsome, accepted the sleeping kitten and asked him, “Where is your sister?”
The two little ghosts answered in unison.
“She already left.”
“She left in my dad’s car.”
Their task completed, they turned and ran, the two energetic boys kicking up a cloud of dust as they went.
Only Chi Yan remained standing on the stone steps. He raised his wrist and glanced at his watch.
It was only nine in the morning.
Even after the situation last night, she had still not forgotten to scheme against him.
She did not want him to send her off.
Fine then.
Chi Yan slowly sat down and lifted the soft blue cotton cloth covering the cardboard box.
Inside, a palm-sized kitten was curled up, with black markings, its fur glossy and smooth. Its small body rose and fell faintly with its breathing.
Beside it was also a bag of cat food and goat milk powder.
He suddenly remembered that night, on the bus to Zhoushan, when she had gossiped with great curiosity.
It seemed that the father of Gulu’s kittens was not Auntie Zhang’s tabby cat, but Uncle Liu’s spirited black cat.
More than twenty hours later, more than a thousand kilometres away, in crowded and busy Beilin, on the outer ring of Dongcheng District where high-rises stood in rows, in Building B of Beilin No. 9 High School, at the corner of the staircase was the humanities Grade Twelve Class Ten, whose grades were not particularly good.
Inside the classroom, in front of the podium piled full of exam papers, amid the messy teasing and cheering of the whole class, a girl with skin so fair it seemed to glow, refined and beautiful in appearance, wrote her name on the blackboard cleanly and decisively.
The next second, she turned around and smiled, her brows like distant mountains, her eyes like a river of stars.
“My name is Gu Jianian. I’m a new repeat student.”
“Please take care of me.”
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