After I died, they cried in the live studio

The sound of something heavy falling over came from the rehearsal room. When she rushed in, the costume rack in front of the full-length mirror was crooked on the floor, and the blue snowflake embroidery on the water sleeves was stained with the tear stains she had shed the night before. As she squatted down to tidy it up, she found a note tucked into the embroidery thread—it was the one Sang Shuwan had slipped into her wristband twelve years ago. The yellowed paper read: "Every role is an unfinished version of yourself, waiting for you to come and meet me with your own flaws."

At 10 a.m., the sunlight finally pierced through the snow and mist. Sang Jiyue applied lip balm in front of the mirror, deliberately letting the natural pink hue show through the cracks in her lips. On the event schedule sent by her agent, she crossed out the "concealing and touch-up makeup" segment with a red pen and changed it to "sharing the story of the wristband with the audience."

Scattered on the rehearsal room floor were her "failures" from the past six months: a ruined blue snowflake embroidery, a concealer pen broken in two, and a rhinestone that had fallen from her diamond bracelet. She suddenly picked up a rhinestone and stuck it to the gap in the wristband—not to cover it up, but to let the light refract through the gap between the diamond and the fabric, creating more facets.

A message from Sang Shuwan popped up on my phone, along with a video: Pojian was in a classroom at a primary school in the mountains, holding up a photo of Sang Jiyue's rehearsal room and asking the children, "What does the gap in the moon look like?" A little girl wearing a hearing aid said, "It looks like my mother's bent arm when she hugs me." The left-behind children filled their "scar" drawing paper with crayons.

"Come to the old audition room this afternoon." Sang Shuwan's message made Sang Jiyue's fingertips tremble. That place, which had been shrouded in torrential rain for twelve years in her memory, was about to be transformed into a public theater. She looked at the wristband on her wrist, where the blue snowflake ribbon had somehow gotten caught on a thread of her costume, swaying in the breeze like the rhythm of the leaky audition room from back then.

While tidying up the rehearsal room, Sang Jiyue put the diamond bracelet into the locker—in the exact same spot where she had hidden the wristband twelve years ago. Looking in the mirror, she saw herself wearing the old wristband, her cleft lip clearly visible in the sunlight, yet more than ever, she resembled the makeup artist in "The Inheritance" who embroidered stars through the tear in her costume.

Before leaving, she pasted a Polaroid photo onto the full-length mirror in the rehearsal room: her hands were intertwined with Sang Shuwan's, and between the two scars was a small moon drawn on a cocoon, with the words "The light is here" written in the gap. The snow had stopped sometime earlier, and warm light seeped in through the gaps in the blinds, flowing like a river on the mirror, carrying all the gaps and regrets, and spreading towards a brighter place.

The overhead lights in the rehearsal hall of the public theater came on promptly at nine o'clock in the morning. Sang Jiyue checked the blocking for Act Two of "Inheriting the Deprivation" against the script. The blue snowflake rhinestones on her water sleeves shattered into starlight in the full-length mirror. The sound of high heels stomping came from the back row. Chen Yuxin, a minor supporting actress playing the "young makeup artist," pointed at Sang Jiyue's wristband and sneered: "Teacher Sang, are you wearing such expensive wristbands to rehearsal because you're afraid we little actors will dirty your 'symbol of courage'?"

The script paper crumpled in her palm, and Sang Jiyue recognized the girl as the one who had knocked over her thermos in the break room yesterday. At the time, she was busy picking up the fallen blue plumbago seeds, but Chen Yuxin had hurriedly left, uttering a curt "What are you pretending to be so approachable for?" Now, the girl's makeup was exquisite, a far cry from the "simple, newly-minted apprentice" image in the script.

“Teacher Chen, in the second act you need to spill the palette.” Sang Jiyue pointed to the annotation in the script, “The panic here is because the costume is stained, not…”

"What do you mean, 'not'?" Chen Yuxin suddenly raised her voice, the powder compact slamming against the vanity with a crisp sound. "Are you afraid that I, a nobody actress with no connections, will steal your public welfare persona? Your 'no-makeup rehearsal' that trended on social media yesterday was really touching. Anyone who didn't know better would think you couldn't even afford concealer."

The air in the rehearsal hall suddenly froze. The stage manager stepped back with the camera, the lens pointing precisely at Sang Jiyue's wristband—the old scar from the scissors cut gleamed pale pink under the overhead light, creating a jarring contrast with the brand-new diamond bracelet on Chen Yuxin's wrist.

"Stop!" Director Lin Mingyuan rushed out of the monitoring room, his brows furrowed as he stared at Sang Jiyue. "This public service short film isn't your personal showcase. Since you're going to play a makeup artist who 'accepts imperfections,' don't put on airs." He turned and shook Chen Yuxin's hand, his tone softening. "Yuxin, this is your first time acting in this kind of film. Please be understanding."

Sang Jiyue opened her mouth, but the blue snowflake ribbon on the edge of her wristband got tangled in the loose thread of her costume. She remembered the message Sang Shuwan had sent her last night: "The most dangerous thing about charity theater is not misunderstandings, but that we always think good intentions don't need explanations." So she swallowed back the words "she deliberately knocked over my thermos yesterday" and lowered her head to straighten her torn water sleeves.

During lunch break, Chen Yuxin's Weibo post suddenly went viral: #SangJiyueactsLikeADivaInRehearsalHall#, accompanied by a picture of Sang Jiyue with her back to the camera, while Chen Yuxin looked pitiful with red eyes and biting her lip. The comment section was quickly flooded with hashtags like "Top star bullies newcomer" and "Perfect image collapses," and her manager, Sister Chen, was constantly on the phone in her pocket.

"Sister Jiyue, I have something to show you." Pojian had somehow slipped into the dressing room with a camera. On the screen, footage from this morning's rehearsal was playing: Chen Yuxin deliberately ran over the blue snowflake seeds at Sang Jiyue's feet with her high heels as the director turned around, and as she squatted down, her fingertips quickly tugged at the loose threads of Sang Jiyue's costume, muttering, "What are you pretending to be a philanthropist for?"

Sang Jiyue stared at the camera as she bent down to pick up seeds. The two characters "Cheng Que" on her wristband were facing the camera, like a silent light. Breaking out of the cocoon pressed the pause button, and the picture froze on the moment Chen Yuxin rolled her eyes: "I filmed it with night vision mode on. The director didn't see it, but the camera remembers."

More media flooded into the rehearsal hall in the afternoon. Chen Yuxin was choking up in front of the camera, saying, "I just wanted to play the role well, but I didn't expect..." Before she could finish speaking, Pojian suddenly rushed onto the stage with a camera, and the entire surveillance video began to play on the big screen.

When Chen Yuxin deliberately spilled the color palette and then blamed it on Sang Jiyue, director Lin Mingyuan's face was colder than the blue snowflakes on the costume. Sang Jiyue stood in the wings, watching as Chen Yuxin's diamond bracelet suddenly broke when the truth was revealed, the broken diamonds rolling down to the spot where she had picked seeds—where faint blue snowflake marks still remained.

“I also broke a bracelet like this twelve years ago.” Sang Jiyue walked onto the stage and picked up a broken diamond that had rolled to her feet. “Back then, I thought that only by wearing a perfect mask could one survive in the entertainment industry.” She raised her hand, and the old scars on her wristband overlapped with the tears in her costume under the spotlight. “But later I realized that a true actor does not cover up the cracks, but allows the soul of each character to grow out of the cracks.”

Scattered applause rose from the audience, gradually gathering into a wave. Chen Yuxin stood frozen in place, then suddenly pointed at Sang Jiyue's cleft lip and screamed, "You think showing a flaw makes you a saint? That scar is clearly evidence that you ruined it!"

A collective gasp filled the room. Sang Jiyue smiled, pulling a yellowed medical record from her makeup bag—the surgical consent form she had torn up at the hospital entrance twelve years ago after failing an audition. The diagnosis of "congenital cleft lip" was clearly visible under the lights. "This scar isn't a defect," she said, touching the curve of her cleft lip. "It was the first gap that opened up between me and the world, and also the entrance that led me to Sang Shuwan, to breaking free from my shell, and to all true souls."

The camera shutters clicked incessantly, the lens deliberately focusing on the wristband on Sang Jiyue's wrist, where a small diamond that had fallen from Chen Yuxin's bracelet was stuck, reflecting a soft light next to the words "Cheng Que" (承缺, meaning "inheriting the void"). Director Lin Mingyuan suddenly bowed: "I'm sorry, I misunderstood the meaning of 'Cheng Que'—true inclusiveness is giving every soul an equal listening ear."

As the show ended, Chen Yuxin hid in the dressing room wiping away tears. Sang Jiyue handed her a band-aid—the same one Sang Shuwan had given her twelve years ago, the blue snowflake pattern shimmering slightly in the moonlight. "When I first entered the industry, I also thought I had to step on other people's shadows to shine." She looked at the red mark on the other woman's wrist, a cut from picking up broken diamonds. "But look," she shook the wristband, "the light at the edge is never lit by stepping on other people's lights."

In the rehearsal hall late at night, only the faint light from the floor-length mirror remained. Sang Jiyue wrote a new annotation on the script: "When the cracks are seen, misunderstandings will become the light that illuminates each other." A trending topic popped up on her phone, and a highly-rated comment under #SangJiyueMedicalCasePhotos# read: "It turns out that true courage is to let the wound become the entrance to the story, rather than a fig leaf to cover up a persona."

Suddenly, the camera, seemingly emerging from its cocoon, lit up. In the lens, Sang Jiyue was demonstrating to Chen Yuxin how to embroider blue snowflakes through a tear in her costume. Their wrists touched, and old and new scars intertwined in the mirror, forming a unique star pattern. Just as the first rhinestone was sewn into the crack, moonlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the forgotten stitches on the wristband—traces of Sang Shuwan's overnight repairs twelve years ago. Each stitch was crooked, yet warmer than any perfect embroidery.

This storm, which began with a misunderstanding, eventually allowed the light of truth to shine through the cracks. Sang Jiyue knew that under the spotlight of the entertainment industry, there would always be new gaps and new stories, but at this moment, the wristband on her wrist was no longer a cover for her scars, but had become a shared guiding light for all souls who dared to face the truth.

The revolving door of the upscale residential complex was flung open by the wind and snow at 8 p.m. Sang Jiyue's cashmere coat brushed against the automatic door sensor, and the blue snowflake ribbon on her wristband was still covered in gold dust from the rehearsal hall. Suddenly, the crystal chandelier in the entrance hall was illuminated by countless flashes of light, and more than twenty reporters rushed forward with microphones in hand, snowflakes on her down jacket scattering like shattered diamonds in the spotlight.

"Ms. Sang, there are rumors circulating online that you deliberately exposed the privacy of the child actors. Is this a publicity stunt for the public service announcement?"

"Were the medical record photos a pre-prepared plot twist?"

"Did Mr. Qi say at the film festival today that 'the entertainment industry doesn't need perfect victims' in relation to your case?"

Sang Jiyue's fingertips dug into the edge of her wristband when she suddenly heard the sound of high heels crushing snowflakes above her. President Qi, draped in a burgundy cashmere shawl, stepped out of the elevator, the sapphire earrings on her earlobes flashing coldly in the darkness: "Dear reporters, while Jiyue was cooperating with the police to retrieve the rehearsal hall's surveillance footage today, weren't you editing out-of-context videos?"

Microphones were all turned towards the stairs. President Qi pressed play on his phone, and the surveillance footage of Chen Yuxin tearing Sang Jiyue's costume cast a huge shadow on the marble wall. When a reporter saw the girl deliberately crushing the blue plumbago seeds, one of them exclaimed quietly, "This is completely opposite to the 'warm-hearted older sister' persona she portrays on Weibo..."

“What the entertainment industry lacks most is not perfection, but the courage to allow imperfection.” Sang Jiyue suddenly spoke, her wristband casting a butterfly-shaped shadow on her chest. “I’m showing my medical records today not to prove that ‘congenital defects’ are more deserving of sympathy, but to tell everyone with flaws—” She looked at the elevator mirror, which reflected her unmasked cleft lip, “Our cracks are the direction from which the light should come.”

Ms. Qi's phone vibrated in her palm. The film festival organizers had sent a message: Chen Yuxin's team was buying trending searches to smear "Chengque Theater". She sneered and handed the tablet to the entertainment reporter in the front row: "This is footage taken by the children who broke out of their cocoons. The words written by each left-behind child on their 'scarred drawing paper' are more powerful than any press release."

On the screen, a little girl wearing a hearing aid held up a crescent moon covered in stars and used sign language to say "The light is here." Sang Jiyue noticed that several reporters' eyes were quietly reddening. When the camera turned to her, a blue paper snowflake, a gift from a mother who had broken out of her cocoon, was pinned to her wristband, trembling gently in the wind and snow.

"President Qi! President Qi!" Assistant Xiao Wu rushed up from the underground parking garage, his down jacket soaked with snow. "Chen Yuxin's team released a statement saying you're suppressing newcomers, and they even dug up old news from five years ago about you making Sister Jiyue get concealer surgery—"

Qi Zong's sapphire earring flashed coldly as she suddenly grasped Sang Jiyue's hand, holding her wristband up to the camera: "That's right, five years ago I forced her to wear three masks, I let Shiseido's concealer obscure her light." Her voice suddenly lowered as her thumb caressed the "Chengque" embroidery on the wristband, "But today I want to apologize—a true manager shouldn't be someone who obscures the stars, but rather a guide who helps them find their way out."

The sound of the reporters' camera shutters suddenly softened, like the soft patter of snowflakes falling on a cashmere coat. Sang Jiyue looked at President Qi's reddened eyes and recalled how, twelve years ago, after failing her audition, this woman with a stern face squatted in front of the locker and wrapped her trembling shoulders with her scarf: "Why are you crying? Scars are an actor's best script."

The wind and snow howled outside the glass curtain wall, but the warm light in the elevator lobby grew brighter and brighter. Suddenly, President Qi pulled out a check: "This is the money from selling my diamond bracelet, as start-up capital for 'Chengque Theater'." She looked at the wristband on Sang Jiyue's wrist, "Back when you stole Shu Wan's wristband, I knew that some light can only be caught by those who dare to break through."

The reporters' questions gradually turned into "When will the public service short film be released?" and "What kind of help do primary schools in mountainous areas need?" Suddenly, Sang Jiyue saw in the elevator mirror that her cleft lip and President Qi's earring formed a strange angle under the light—like an open door, allowing the wind and snow outside and the warmth inside to reach a subtle reconciliation at the crack.

As the event ended, President Qi suddenly pointed to the blue paper snowflake on Sang Jiyue's wristband: "Pojian, this child, has sewn our story into the gap." She took out her phone, and the screen saver was a photo of the three of them at a primary school in the mountains. Sang Jiyue's cleft lip, President Qi's earring, and Pojian's birthmark were pieced together into a complete star pattern in the sunlight.

The snow fell heavier and heavier, and the streetlights of the upscale residential area became soft spots of light in the snow curtain. Sang Jiyue touched the new stitches on her wristband—they were secretly sewn on by President Qi just now, crooked but full of strength. She suddenly realized that this woman, who was always misunderstood as a "ruthless agent," had actually been planting the first seed of blue snowflakes in their shared rift in her own way every late night in the rehearsal room.

The moment the elevator doors closed, a message from Sang Shuwan popped up on President Qi's phone: "The old floor of the audition room has been renovated with blue snowflake patterns, and every crevice is inlaid with the children's starlight." Sang Jiyue gazed at the overlapping shadows of the two in the mirror. The light from her wristband and earrings gradually merged as the elevator ascended, much like the words spoken by the character "破灻" (Po Jiyue)—when two gaps reflect each other, they become starlight illuminating the world. Reporters' microphones formed a dense net in the snowstorm. The hem of Sang Jiyue's cashmere coat was stepped on, and the blue snowflake ribbon at the edge of her wristband nearly snapped. President Qi suddenly stepped forward, his burgundy shawl sweeping across the cameras of the front row of reporters. The sapphire earring on his earlobe shattered into icicles under the flashing lights: "Ladies and gentlemen, instead of dwelling on the collapse of the 'perfect persona,' let's look at what the true 'inheritance' is—"

She turned and tapped on her tablet, and the documentary filmed in the mountain primary school began to play. The camera panned across the "scarred drawing paper" pasted on the earthen wall, and a little girl wearing a hearing aid wrote with crayons next to the crescent moon: "My ears can't hear, but my eyes can see the sound of stars falling." Sang Jiyue saw the Adam's apples bobbing as she watched several reporters holding microphones, and on one of their notebooks, the word "hype" was blurred out.

“Five years ago, I did make Jiyue wear three masks.” President Qi’s voice suddenly softened as his fingers traced the wristband on Sang Jiyue’s wrist. “Back then, I thought the entertainment industry could only tolerate a flawless moon. Until one late night, I saw her practicing a crying scene in front of the mirror in the rehearsal room. Concealer mixed with tears stained her wristband white.”

The sound of snowflakes hitting the glass curtain wall suddenly became clear. Sang Jiyue recalled that summer when she developed pimples from wearing concealer. President Qi would always bring her warm honey water at three in the morning, but never said "don't force yourself." At this moment, the woman's fingertips rested on the "Chengque" embroidery on the wristband, where the crooked stitches that Sang Shuwan had mended twelve years ago still remained.

“Chen Yuxin’s team bought the trending search terms,” President Qi said, opening her phone. The screen showed the term “Sang Jiyue’s medical aesthetic scandal,” “but they don’t know that this cleft lip is Jiyue’s birth certificate, her first contract with the world.” She suddenly looked at the elevator mirror, which reflected Sang Jiyue’s unmade-up face. “The real scandal is that we once thought we had to exchange perfection for the audience’s love.”

Someone in the group of reporters raised their hand: "Mr. Qi, you used to be a representative of 'perfectionist agents,' is this change due to commercial interests?"

Ms. Qi's cold laugh startled the snow on the windowsill: "Profits? Chen Yuxin's team transferred three million to me this morning as hush money, which I exchanged for hearing aids for primary schools in mountainous areas." She took out a bank transfer slip, "Compared to the diamond bracelet, I prefer the paper blue snowflake that Pojian gave me—it has the fingerprints of twenty-three children on it, each fingerprint a gap of light."

Sang Jiyue suddenly noticed that behind the crowd, Chen Yuxin's agent was frantically tapping on her phone, probably notifying people to remove the trending topic. She touched the paper blue snowflake on her wristband and remembered that afternoon in the rehearsal hall, President Qi had secretly slipped his diamond bracelet into her palm: "Wear it. This time it's not for concealing imperfections, but to let the light leak through the gap between the diamond and the wristband."

The sound of an ambulance siren drifted through the snow, and a child from upstairs shouted, "It's snowing!" Sang Jiyue watched the reporters' expressions soften, and suddenly remembered Sang Shuwan's words: "When you turn scars into stories, misunderstandings become moonlight." So she removed her wristband, revealing the old scar from a scissor cut: "Twelve years ago, I stole someone else's wristband to cover my own wounds. Today, I want to tell everyone—"

She raised her wristband, the blue snowflake ribbon unfurling in the wind and snow: "True courage is not about having no flaws, but about making every flaw an entrance to light. Like the honey water that President Qi never spoke of back then, like the stars on the canvas after breaking free from the cocoon, like now—" She looked at President Qi, who was wiping his earring, which was wet with snow, with a tissue, "We have finally learned to grow starlight that is more dazzling than perfection in the cracks."

The reporters' cameras began to turn to the promotional poster for the public service announcement, which featured a photo of Sang Jiyue and Pojian, their scars forming star trails against a background of blue snowflakes. Suddenly, President Qi put his arm around her shoulder, his body heat radiating through her cashmere coat: "Do you remember the first time I saw you? At the audition room door, you were hiding behind a pillar, the blue snowflake embroidery on your wristband catching on your skirt."

Sang Jiyue nodded, recalling the band-aid that President Qi had handed her back then, with tiny blue snowflakes drawn on the back. Now, on the woman's ring finger, there was still the needle mark from when he helped her mend her costume back then—it turned out that all growth was because someone had quietly planted a shining seed in the cracks.

As the elevator doors opened again and warm light flooded out, Sang Jiyue saw that President Qi's phone screen saver had changed to a photo of the three of them at a primary school in the mountains: her cleft lip, President Qi's sty, and the birthmark on her wrist, all pieced together into a complete moon amidst a blanket of blue snowflakes. The snow had stopped sometime earlier, and the paper blue snowflakes on her wristband, covered in fine snowflakes, remained firmly fastened there, like an unmelting starlight medal.

This relentless pursuit on a snowy night ultimately revealed the truth within the cracks: beneath every seemingly hard exterior lay a tenderness waiting to be seen; behind every misunderstood gap, countless hands were quietly mending, allowing light to flow. As Sang Jiyue and President Qi entered the elevator, the interplay of light from their wristbands and earrings illuminated the floor marked "Theater of Flaws" on the button—a beacon they had built together for all the gaps, and on this snowy night, the first light finally shone.

The elevator trembled slightly as it stopped at the "Chengque Theater" floor. President Qi's fingertip hovered over the button for a moment before she suddenly turned and took a velvet box from the inside pocket of her coat. Unfinished blue snowflakes were embroidered on the dark blue fabric—a loose thread from when Sang Jiyue had casually tucked it backstage that year while altering her costume. Inside the box lay a silver ring, its band etched with three shallow lines: "The curve of a cleft lip, the tiny dot of a needle prick, the constellation of a birthmark." She took Sang Jiyue's hand and slipped the ring over the old scar where she had once been cut by scissors. "Last year at the mountain primary school, Pojian said our wounds were like stars shattered on earth; let's connect them into the moon."

As the theater doors opened, warm yellow light bathed the walnut wood walls. Sang Jiyue saw a replica of the original wristband in the display case at the entrance—below the blue snowflake ribbon, a tiny band-aid pattern embroidered in silver thread, the very same one that General Qi had drawn on the back of a band-aid twelve years ago. Further away on the screen, a public service announcement was playing on a loop: Pojian, holding a paintbrush, painted glowing blue snowflakes all over a cracked wall, the gold dust seeping from the cracks gradually gathering into the outline of the characters "Cheng Que" (承缺).

"Sister Jiyue!" A voice came from backstage as the boy stumbled open the side door, his school uniform sleeves stained with gold dust. "The string lights always get stuck in the cracks, is it on purpose?" He held up the string lights in his hand, the transparent bulbs arranged along the copper wires, each bulb made into an irregular notch shape. When it got stuck in the cracks in the wall, the light just leaked out from the notch, casting tiny star-like spots on the ground.

Ms. Qi smiled as she took the string of lights, her fingertips tracing the birthmark on the boy's hand: "Remember what you taught me? When patching a tear in the drawing paper, you have to inlay gold foil along the grain." She embedded the string of lights into the most conspicuous crack in the wall, the missing bulb fitting perfectly, and warm light instantly flooded the entire wall. Those grains that were once considered flaws now became tributaries of light.

A rustling sound of fabric came from backstage. Sang Jiyue turned around and saw several dancers wearing specially made prosthetics lingering outside the dressing room, their prosthetic joints adorned with folded blue snowflakes. One of the girls' wristbands had slipped down to her elbow, revealing an old scar similar to Sang Jiyue's—she suddenly remembered the letter she had received before the press conference, the handwriting crooked and messy: "I heard there are lighthouses here for those with missing parts. I have a piece of skin missing from my wrist, can I come and plant a star?"

“Of course.” Sang Jiyue walked over and took out a spare blue snowflake ribbon from her pocket. “But our star seed is special, so we need to show the gap first.” She helped the girl tie the wristband, and the ribbon was tied into a loose bow at the scar. “Look, the wind will come in from here, and so will the light.”

Suddenly, the theater's dome lit up, hundreds upon hundreds of notched lamps illuminating simultaneously. President Qi, standing at the control panel, gave her a hand gesture—the secret code they'd used during their first collaboration on a stage play, signifying "ready." Sang Jiyue saw in the audience a boy with a hearing aid looking up in his mother's arms, an elderly person in a wheelchair examining a cracked decoration on the wall with a magnifying glass, and everyone adorned with paper-folded blue snowflakes, like stars waiting to be lit.

As the curtain rose, the easel, now unfurled, was pushed to the center of the stage. He dipped his brush in gold paint and applied it to the cracks in the canvas. The paint seeped through the seams to the back, gradually letting light shine through from behind the curtain. Sang Jiyue suddenly remembered the wristband she had stolen twelve years ago, the embroidery thread that had caught on her skirt in the audition room, and all the tenderness that had quietly grown within the cracks—it turned out that true acceptance wasn't about mending wounds, but about making every gap an entrance to a story, allowing all the starlight that had been hidden to finally shine under the same night sky.

As the first spotlight shone down, Sang Jiyue saw the needle mark on President Qi's ring finger gleaming faintly under the light; the blue snowflakes on her wristband were still covered with unmelted snowflakes; and the gold powder on the broken-cocoon painting was gathering along the cracks to form a galaxy. Outside the theater, the snow began to fall again, but each snowflake, as it passed through the glass window, was tinged with a pale gold by the indoor lights, like countless unmelting star medals, gently settling at the edge of each gap.

As the smell of disinfectant wafted into her nostrils, Sang Jiyue belatedly realized that an IV was inserted into the back of her hand. The glucose solution in the IV drip was slowly dripping into her vein through the transparent tube, like the lines she had memorized all night, shattering into irreparable fragments before her consciousness faded. The bedside clock showed 3:17 AM, but at that moment the ward door was gently pushed open, and a cashmere coat carrying the scent of snow and the familiar fragrance of cedar perfume rushed in—President Qi was still carrying a thermos, his knuckles pale from holding an ice pack for so long.

"Idiot." President Qi placed the thermos on the bedside table, his fingertips first touching her forehead, as cold as a jade pendant just picked up from the snow. "Your vocal cords are swollen to the point of having a fever of 39 degrees Celsius. Your manager said you swallowed three throat lozenges backstage to continue rehearsing your lines?" As he spoke, he had already taken a wet wipe from the bedside table and carefully wiped the stray hairs stuck to the back of her hand with cold sweat. His movements were so gentle that it was as if he were wiping a piece of porcelain that couldn't be touched.

Looking at the faint dark circles under the other person's eyes, Sang Jiyue suddenly recalled a scene she witnessed in the audition room twelve years ago. She was squatting at the end of the corridor, munching on a cold sandwich, when CEO Qi, who had just finished a heated script discussion, stopped as he passed by, pushing his thermos towards her: "Too many throat lozenges will hurt your throat. Drink this." The thermos had lines from some obscure play printed on it. Later, she learned it was a thank-you gift from the first actor CEO Qi had helped make famous as his agent—while she herself was just a nobody working as an extra in a minor film crew back then.

“If it weren’t for you…” Sang Jiyue watched President Qi open the thermos, the sweet aroma of pear soup mixed with the bitter taste of dried tangerine peel wafting out. Suddenly, her throat tightened, and her eyes burned hotter than a high fever. “When I auditioned for a minor role in ‘Blue Night,’ I was so nervous that I said ‘tears’ instead of ‘moonlight,’ and you actually dragged me to the dressing room and drew a storyboard on the mirror with an eyebrow pencil…”

"So you dare to put yourself in the hospital before the charity play even starts?" Mr. Qi scooped up a spoonful of soup and blew on it to cool it down. The edge of the porcelain spoon still had the hand-sculpted blue snowflake pattern—the result of three months of learning pottery from his teacher. "Back then, I was memorizing lines in the basement until my nose bled. You said, 'I want more people to see that scars can also shine.' Now, the scars haven't even shone yet, but the person is already glowing from the heat."

Sang Jiyue suddenly burst out laughing, her chest heaving and her throat aching: "You still remember the basement? That crumbling place where the paint could fall and hit the keyboard. You brought a thermos every day to supervise me as I memorized my lines. Once, I secretly hid half a jar of mints, and you confiscated it on the spot. The next day, you brought a jar of honey grapefruit tea, saying, 'Sweets should be paired with something to soothe your throat'..."

Ms. Qi paused, her fingertips gently stroking the blue snowflake wristband on her wrist—it was one she had embroidered herself twelve years ago, with loose threads still visible at the edges from when it was torn by scissors. "How could I not remember?" She suddenly looked down, pulling her phone from her suit pocket. A video lay quietly in her photo album: nineteen-year-old Sang Jiyue, wearing a faded white shirt, reciting a monologue under the fluorescent light in the basement, the cracks in the peeling walls clearly visible in the shot. "I secretly recorded a video of you reciting the entire script of 'Cheng Que' for the first time in the early morning. I thought then that this girl who dared to show her scars to the world would one day turn all her cracks into starlight."

Looking at her own youthful appearance in the video, Sang Jiyue suddenly recalled a time when she was replaced by the production team at the last minute and hid in the stairwell crying. It was President Qi who barged in with a copy of the contract, her high heels crushing cigarette butts on the floor: "The role can be changed, but your acting spirit can't be taken away." Later, she learned that in order to fight for her opportunity, the other party had stayed up all night in the producer's office, filling the back of the contract with storyboards with a pen, until the other party made the final decision: "Give this girl one audition opportunity."

“Actually…” She suddenly reached out and touched the needle mark on President Qi’s ring finger—it was from when he pricked himself with an embroidery needle while doing crafts with Pojian last week. “When I first entered the entertainment industry, I always felt like a piece of jade with a flaw, someone who would be rejected at any time. You always said, ‘The flaw is where the light should reside,’ and you turned every scar of mine into a story…”

"Stop." President Qi suddenly shoved the porcelain spoon into her hand, his ear tips redder than the blue snowflakes on the thermos. "If this keeps up the sentimentality, tomorrow's front page will be 'A Tragic Drama Unfolds at President Qi's Hospital.'" He said this, but then pulled a small notebook from his trench coat pocket, turning to the page with the ginkgo leaf bookmark. "Pojian drew new string light designs, saying he wants to install breathing blue snowflake lights on the theater dome; the children in the mountain primary school sent postcards, saying they used gold powder to turn the cracks in their desks and chairs into stars..."

Looking at the crooked sketches in the notebook, Sang Jiyue suddenly remembered what President Qi had said after she failed her audition: "The entertainment industry is never short of perfect vases, but the containers that can hold starlight are always cracked." At this moment, the other person was bending down to adjust her IV drip, with unmelted snowflakes still clinging to the ends of her hair. She looked nothing like the "iron-blooded agent" in the rumors—she was clearly the same person from twelve years ago who had warmed honey water in a thermos in a dilapidated basement and helped her polish every line of her lines into starlight.

“Wait for me to be discharged from the hospital…” She suddenly grasped President Qi’s hand, the IV tube shimmering between them. “I want to write all the tenderness you’ve hidden away over the years into a script. It’ll be called ‘The Inheritor’—every soul with a flaw is a star stolen from the universe.”

As President Qi looked up, moonlight streamed through the windowsill and fell on the silver ring on her ring finger. The three engraved lines flickered in the light and shadow, much like the undying light that shone in Sang Jiyue's eyes when she first looked up in the audition room.

At four in the morning, the wind whipped snowflakes against the windowpane. As President Qi's phone vibrated for the third time in her palm, Sang Jiyue caught a glimpse of the contact name flashing on the screen—"The Production Company of 'The Inheritor'". She was about to ask him to answer the phone when she saw President Qi's fingertip pause for half a second on the reject button, then immediately silence the call and stuff it into his coat pocket, the movement as fluid as if he had rehearsed it countless times.

“Last month you were teaching at a primary school in the mountains for three days, and you put your phone on vibrate. As a result, your assistant received twenty comments on storyboard revisions from you at 2 a.m..” Sang Jiyue looked at the other’s unnaturally turned profile and suddenly reached out to tug at her loose tie. “Now you’ve learned to refuse work calls?”

The blush on President Qi's ears spread down to her neck, her fingertips unconsciously tracing the lid of her thermos—a birthday gift from Sang Jiyue last year, the thermos adorned with tiny blue snowflake patterns, each petal representing an important date from their twelve-year relationship. "The doctor said you need to rest," she finally spoke, her voice a half-tone lower than usual, as if afraid of disturbing the moonlight floating in the room. "Last time you fainted backstage, I was discussing theater renovation plans with investors, and by the time I got there you had already been taken to the hospital..."

The words were abruptly swallowed, and President Qi turned and opened the window, letting the cold air rush into her chest. Sang Jiyue saw that she was holding a crumpled tissue in her fingers—the one she had clutched in the emergency room early this morning when she was delirious with fever, with a crooked blue snowflake she had unconsciously drawn on it. Twelve years ago in the audition room, she had also turned her back to calm herself down, but the mirror reflected her reddened eyes. At that time, Sang Jiyue knew that this person, who always said that "professional agents shouldn't be emotional," hid her gentleness by turning all her heartache into small details.

“Actually, I secretly looked at your schedule.” Sang Jiyue looked at the other person’s straight back, the IV tube swaying gently with each breath. “Last week you flew to three cities, and at two in the morning you were still revising the art exhibition proposal for Pojian. Yesterday you were still smiling and laughing until late at night for the sponsorship contract of the charity theater…” She suddenly remembered that once she bumped into President Qi at the airport, dozing off against his suitcase, with concealer still stuck on his eyelashes, covering up the faint bruises under his eyes—the marks of not sleeping for three consecutive days to secure an important role for her.

Ms. Qi whirled around, the thermos lid clicking shut on the bedside table. "Why are you saying all this?" Her voice held a hint of annoyance at being exposed, but softened when she saw the wristband on Sang Jiyue's wrist—it was the twentieth wristband she had embroidered herself, the edges deliberately left rough so the other could feel its familiar texture. "You just need to remember..." she suddenly leaned closer, her fingertips brushing against the pale blue under Sang Jiyue's eyes, "Back in the basement, you were reciting your lines to a crack in the wall, saying 'I want light to live in every crack,' and I decided then and there that I would be the one to bring that light into every crack for you." (End of Chapter)