The hands of the clock tower froze at 3:17, and the stars in the sky suddenly began to shift out of place, as if chess pieces were rearranged by an invisible hand. They are no longer silent but flicker and flicker in some ancient rhythm. Each time they light up, they cast a fleeting symbol - like fragments of star trails, or like torn prophecies.
Song Wanqing stood on the stone steps in front of the shrine, looking up at the night sky tinted with a silver-purple glow. Her heartbeat was in sync with the twinkling stars, and her fingertips involuntarily touched the cover of the sketchbook. The picture album, which carried mother's memories and star maps, was now slightly warm. The star-painted badges on the cover were flickering faintly in the dark, as if responding to some distant call.
"Xiao Qing," Lu Jinnian walked up to her side, his voice low and tense, "Look - the stars are writing."
Song Wanqing held her breath. She saw - those symbols leaping between the stars, flashing intermittently, like torn pages by the wind, scattered above the sky. She quickly opened the sketchbook. The charcoal pen had automatically suspended in the air, and the tip of the pen trembled slightly, as if being pulled by some force.
The first symbol - emerges among the three stars of Orion's belt, resembling a broken chain.
Song Wanqing quickly copied, and the tip of his pen drew a sharp arc on the paper.
The second line - appears at the end of the spoon handle of the Big Dipper, resembling an inverted "drawn" character.
Her pupils shrank slightly and her fingertips trembled: "This is..." The mark of the Star Painter!"
The third one - between Sirius and Procellarum, it interweaves into a tangled silver chain, with a note embedded in the link.
"Star Guardian..." Lu Jinnian murmured softly, his hand already resting on the violin case.
The symbols are getting more and more numerous and denser, but they are always intermittent and incomplete, like a song that has been cut off. Song Wanqing's charcoal pen moved rapidly across the paper, recording and piecing together each flashing symbol one by one. Her wrists were sore and her fingertips were blackened by charcoal powder, but she dared not stop. She knew that it was the stars speaking, and she was the only one who could hear them and write them down.
Finally, after the seventh flash, all the symbols briefly converged in the night sky, forming a complete star map - seven light streaks interwoven into a ring, with a broken star core in the center, being slowly closed by an invisible hand.
Immediately, the star map disintegrated and the symbols dissipated.
Song Wanqing stared at the patterns pieced together in the sketchbook, her breathing almost stopping. She reorganized the scattered symbols, connected them with red lines, and finally unraveled the prophecy hidden in the star language:
"The star core is not the end, and the seal is not the end." **
The painter holds the brush, and the keeper plays the zither
"Seven lifetimes of reincarnation, the chain of fate,
It will eventually be recast, and the starry river will return once again. **
"This isn't the first time it's been sealed..." " Her voice was as soft as the wind. "The star core has been sealed six times. Each time, it was the star painter and the star guardian who sacrificed their memories."
Lu Jinnian's face turned pale: "Seven times..." Are we the seventh generation?
"No." Song Wanqing opened the sketchbook, her fingertips resting on the portrait of her mother and her father standing side by side. In the portrait, the mother holds a paintbrush while the father's fingertips lightly touch the piano keys. Where their eyes meet, there is a star trail exactly like tonight. They are the sixth generation. And we - "she raised her eyes, her gaze like sparks," are the keys to rekindling the chain of fate."
She suddenly turned around and rushed into the inner room of the shrine.
The music box still lay quietly on the low table. The star map badge on the lid was rotating in sync with the star trails in the night sky, as if waiting for some kind of response. Song Wanqing placed her palm on the surface of the box and murmured softly, "Mother said that the star core devours memories, but love will remain in another form." Then what if... "Are we not fighting against fate, but accomplishing it?"
Lu Jinnian followed closely in and said, "So you mean - we are destined to follow in their footsteps?" "
It's not predestined; it's a choice. She raised her head, her gaze as resolute as a star. "Mother chose to seal, father chose to forget, and we..." You can choose to remember."
She took out the sketchbook, tore off the last page and spread it on the music box. That was the star map she had just drawn - a blend of her mother's star paintings, the Lu family's musical scores, and her own understanding. She wrote two characters in the center of the star chart with a charcoal pen:
"Never give up." " **
In an instant, the music box opened automatically.
The melody of "Whispers of Spring" rings out again, but no longer in a backward manner. Instead, it flows in a brand-new rhythm - slow, profound, with the cadence of a surging starry river. The notes transformed into filaments of light, entwining around the wrists of Song Wanqing and Lu Jinnian, forming an interwoven silver chain, like twin stars entwined by star trails.
This is... The chain of destiny." Lu Jinnian gazed at the light chain on his wrist, his voice as soft as a whisper in a dream.
"It's not restraint, but resonance." " Song Wanqing held his hand and said, "The star core is about to devour memories, so let's fill it with love." If it wants to erase existence, we will use the brush and the sound of the piano to engrave each other into the stars.
Just then, a soft sound came from outside the shrine.
The two turned around and saw a white porcelain music box slowly descending from the sky. It was exactly the same as the box in Lu Jinnian's hand, except that the star map badge inlaid on the box surface had shattered into two halves.
Song Wanqing recognized it - it was the only other music box among her mother's belongings that had not been burned.
She reached out and took it. At the bottom of the box was engraved a line of small characters:
When the two boxes overlap, fate forms a closed loop. **
The seventh seal shall be opened in your names. **
The wind has stopped.
The murmur of the stars gradually subsided.
And the hands of the clock tower finally began to move.
Three seventeen passed, and time flowed again.
Song Wanqing placed the two music boxes side by side and gently closed them. The crack in the star map badge healed instantly upon touch, emitting a soft silver light that shot straight into the sky.
In the night sky, the seventh star slowly lit up.
It no longer falls. **
It began to guard. **
"What's next?" " Lu Jinnian asked.
Song Wanqing looked up at the sky and said softly, "Let's draw a new star map and write a new song." Tell Star Core -
This time, we won't seal you. We coexist with you." **