After I died, they cried in the live studio

Chapter 185 Warmth
At four in the morning, the torrential rain pounded against the studio's French windows. Sang Shuwan stared at the thorny pattern on the design draft, which she had been revising repeatedly. Suddenly, she grabbed her silver bracelet and rushed into the rain. Beneath the rose wall in the castle garden, she used the tip of the bracelet to carve a new pattern into the soft, damp soil—a spiral pattern that Sang Jiyue would draw on her palm whenever she was nervous. The soil mixed with rainwater seeped into the rough thorns of the bracelet, unexpectedly forming a budding flower shape.

My phone vibrated in my pocket; it was an update on Sang Jiyue's social media account. In the newly released video, a girl stood in front of an African children's charity library, a fresh scratch peeking out from the cuff of her faded denim jacket—the shape of which resembled the thorny flower bud that Sang Shuwan had designed that morning. She held up a picture book to the camera, the title page bearing the words "A gift for my sister" written in crayon. In the background, I could hear children shouting "thank you" in various languages, interspersed with a very soft "I'm sorry," trembling under the sound of rain.

When the laser engraving machine in the design studio started up again, Sang Shuwan engraved two lines of small characters on the inside of the newly completed brooch: "The thorns that pierce the moon will eventually bloom in the morning mist." As the first rays of dawn pierced through the clouds, she pinned the brooch to the origami crane sent by Sang Jiyue, watching the gilded thorns gently hook onto the pink paper—just like that stormy night many years ago, when she used a broken ruler to pry open the car door, her fingertips caught a strand of her sister's hair.

The car radio suddenly broadcast breaking news: "The International Anti-Plagiarism Alliance has today busted a major piracy ring; the ringleader confessed to being employed by..." Sang Shuwan turned off the radio and looked out the window at the gardener pruning roses. The tattoo on the back of his neck, revealed as he bent over, was a mirror image of the thorny pattern Sang Jiyue had recently gotten. She took out her phone and messaged her lawyer: "Anonymously donate the original pirated design drafts from the warehouse to Sang Jiyue's charity fund."

As dusk settled, an assistant rushed into the studio carrying the latest runway report. The front-page photo of Paris Haute Couture Week showed a model wearing a thorn necklace that refracted iridescent light under the spotlight, while a blurry profile suddenly flashed across the background screen—it was Sang Jiyue in the back row of the audience, taking photos of the runway with her phone. The watermark in the lower right corner of the photo indicated that it came from her private account, which hadn't been updated in three years.

Sang Shuwan's fingertips traced the image on the screen, and she suddenly noticed that the light emanating from the other person's earring cast a complete rose shape on the ground. She opened the safe, took out the car accident investigation report that had never been shown to anyone before, and added a note next to the conclusion of "abnormal brake lines" with the pen Sang Jiyue had given her: "Perhaps some thorns are born to protect the blooming of another flower." Outside the window, wild rose vines had climbed all over the wall along the crack from three years ago, swaying gently in the night breeze, much like the secret hand signals the two girls had exchanged under the moon.

As Sang Shuwan inserted her pen into the cover of the report, the nib pierced the rough edge of the paper, perfectly matching the jagged edges of the origami cranes Sang Jiyue had sent. When her assistant brought in the show's feedback data, she saw Sang Shuwan turning the silver bracelet engraved with a spiral pattern in the moonlight—a layer of water droplets had condensed on the inner metal surface, resembling the tear that hadn't fallen from her sister's eye at the scene of the car accident three years ago.

At 3 a.m., the power went out in the studio. In the instant the emergency lights came on, Sang Shuwan saw a blurry figure in the full-length mirror. As she turned around, she only caught a glimpse of a lavender-scented hem of clothing—the smell of Sang Jiyue's usual laundry detergent. The tablet on the design table lit up automatically, and an untitled video popped up in the photo album: in a shaky underground passage, a girl in a hoodie was distributing pirated LATE scarves to homeless people, and the earring that flashed in the shadow of the hood brim was the design draft that Sang Shuwan had casually thrown into the trash can three years ago.

"The stitches on these scarves..." Alice exclaimed, holding up a magnifying glass, "are just like the pattern on the first scarf you taught Sang Jiyue to knit!" At the end of the video, the girl took off her hat and waved at the monitor, her newly cut short hair revealing an unhealed tattoo on the back of her neck—thorns piercing through spiral patterns, with tiny roses blooming at the ends. Only one anonymous comment remained: "The warmth of the thorn scarf is warmer than the spotlight."

Sang Shuwan pulled out the fragments of the dashcam memory card from the safe and suddenly remembered the package she received that morning—it contained a box of rare lavender diffuser tablets. Inside the box, written in pencil, was the message: "Smelling this will prevent nightmares." It was something Sang Jiyue had bought in the middle of the night after her car accident, when she suffered from severe insomnia, searching through pharmacies all over the city. Later, however, the paparazzi misinterpreted it as "a fake show."

The thorns on the design draft suddenly reflected a blood-red light under the desk lamp. She then realized that the rough edge of the silver bracelet had scratched her fingertip. The blood seeped into the engraving of "LATE," miraculously spreading into a rose-like shape on the paper. Her phone vibrated at that moment. Sang Jiyue's social media account had updated with a story: holding a newly sprouted green plant in her hands, soil embedded in the spiral lines of her palms, captioned "Planting a thorny spring." In the background, a child's voice asked, "Why does your hand have a scar, sister?" The answer was as light as a feather: "Because you have to learn to embrace the thorny stars."

As morning light streamed into the studio, Sang Shuwan folded her blood-stained design draft into a paper boat and placed it in the castle fountain. As the ripples spread, a silver pendant was faintly visible at the bottom of the pool—the thorn necklace Sang Jiyue had given her for her coming-of-age ceremony. The chain had broken in a car accident three years ago, and now it was being carried by a koi carp among the water plants. Her assistant rushed in, holding a new email from the International Anti-Plagiarism Alliance, exclaiming, "They want to include Sang Jiyue's public service case in their anti-plagiarism textbook!"

Sang Shuwan smiled and shook her head, her fingertips tracing the newly carved spiral patterns on the edge of the fountain—patterns she had chiseled out with her silver bracelet the night before. From afar came the voice of a car radio: "Former top influencer Sang is volunteering at an animal shelter today. It's reported she personally funded the implantation of microchips in two hundred stray cats..." Before the voice finished, a flock of white doves swept past the fountain, and a slip of paper fell with each flutter of their wings. On it was a thorny rose drawn in lipstick, and between the petals was written: "Sister, the thorns of the stars prick your hand, but those who pluck the stars will always wait for dawn."

She watched the paper boat drift towards the center of the pond, suddenly noticing that the bloodstains on its hull had been diluted by the dew, revealing the word "MOON" in the morning light. The laser engraving machine on the design table started automatically, etching intertwined thorns and roses onto a new silver plate—this time, the thorns' tips pointed outwards, while the rose petals gently embraced a tiny moon in the center. As the first rays of sunlight pierced through the leaves, the entire castle's rose wall bloomed simultaneously, the thorny branches swaying gently in the wind, like two girls finally daring to touch each other's fingertips, planting a wounded yet still warm spring in the morning mist of time.

Sang Shuwan removed her silver bracelet and dipped it into the fountain. The blood trickled down the spiral pattern, weaving a translucent halo in the water. Her assistant rushed over with a tablet, the screen displaying Sang Jiyue's newly updated volunteer log: "I named the third lame cat 'Cici.' It always rubs against the scar on my palm, as if it's licking away my past wounds." The accompanying picture showed a girl crouching in front of the cat's bed, wearing a silver ring on her ring finger—the very "princess ring" that Sang Shuwan had made for her when she was twelve from a pull tab on a soda can.

A faint scent of lavender wafted into the studio late at night. Sang Shuwan turned her head and saw a brown paper bag on the windowsill. Inside were neatly folded medical records; the latest page's diagnosis read "Post-traumatic stress disorder in remission," and next to the attending physician's signature was a small rose—a habit Sang Jiyue had maintained since childhood. At the bottom of the bag was a concert ticket stub, frozen three years ago on the night of her car accident; seat number "Row 12, Seat 7" was their childhood "secret stargazing spot."

The laser engraving machine suddenly played a recording automatically; it was Sang Jiyue's audition when she was fifteen: "I want to become a light like my sister..." Her voice trembled with nervousness at the end, but it couldn't hide the joy hidden in her tone. Sang Shuwan touched the bite marks on the edge of the engraving machine—marks left by Sang Jiyue when she was crying in her early design studies. The thorns on the design draft had somehow become entwined with roses, and in the buds at the tips, the word "thank you" could be faintly seen embroidered with extremely fine silver thread.

At four in the morning, Sang Shuwan was awakened by a sudden downpour. Rushing into her studio, she found all her design drafts carefully covered with plastic sheets, and a pair of soaking wet sneakers on the floor—the exact size of Sang Jiyue's. Next to the unfinished rose brooch lay a tube of healing ointment, the instructions circled in red: "Suitable for old scars," signed with a crooked moon pattern. Lightning flashed outside the window, and she saw a soaking wet hoodie hanging on the rose wall, with tiny "L&S" embroidered on the back collar—their childhood secret nickname.

The car radio broadcast a strange story before dawn: "A paper boat that 'blooms' has appeared in the city center fountain. Analysis shows that the paint on the boat contains photosensitive components..." Sang Shuwan looked at the white paper boat floating in the pool and suddenly remembered what Sang Jiyue had said when she was seven years old: "The stars my sister draws will glow in the night because every stroke is mixed with the tears of the Milky Way." The assistant came in holding a package: "It's from the International Anti-Plagiarism Alliance. It says that the piracy revenue derivative fund donated by Sang Jiyue has helped three thousand children."

At the bottom of the box lay a voice recorder. When turned on, there was a burst of static, followed by a muffled sob: "Actually, every time I wear a knock-off dress, I deliberately let the thorns prick my skin, so it's like my sister is pulling my ear and saying, 'Little Moon, don't be lazy'..." There was the sound of turning pages in the background, followed by a crisp sound of clearing her throat: "Today I read my sister's 'The Aesthetics of Thorns.' It turns out that flowers with thorns are not meant to hurt, but to prevent their gentleness from being stolen."

Sang Shuwan placed the voice recorder in the safe, alongside fragments of the dashcam and lavender diffuser tablets. Her new creation on the design table was complete: a basket woven from thorns, in which roses cradled a rotating moon, the base engraved with "LATE&MOON." As the first rays of sunlight kissed the petals, a wisp of smoke rose from the center of the basket—the scent of lavender sent by Sang Jiyue, weaving along the veins of the thorns to create their own unique morning mist.

Suddenly, children's laughter echoed outside the castle. Looking through the French windows, Sang Jiyue was leading a group of children in drawing beneath the rose-covered wall. She wore a denim jacket stained with grass, and the thorn tattoo on the back of her neck was half-hidden by ivy leaves, making it look like a blooming flower. A little girl ran over holding a drawing; the paper depicted two tiny figures holding hands, surrounded by thorny stars and a glowing moon.

Sang Shuwan took out a silver bracelet and put it on, this time not avoiding the scabbed scars. In the distance, thunder rumbled faintly, yet sunlight pierced through the clouds, casting two overlapping shadows on the rose-covered wall—one sharp and thorny, the other gentle and moonlit. She knew that some wounds would never heal, but those pierced wounds would eventually grow into flowers more radiant than starlight, becoming an everlasting moon and thorns in each other's universes.

Sang Shuwan pushed open the French windows, and a damp breeze carrying the scent of roses wafted in, mingled with children's laughter. Sang Jiyue looked up, her fingertips still stained with blue paint, frantically wiping her hands as she had when she was caught stealing Sang Shuwan's acrylic paint as a child. The two looked at each other across the flower wall, and Sang Jiyue suddenly held up her art supply bag and shook it, revealing half a silver pull tab from a soda can inside—her "princess ring," which she never parted with.

An assistant brought in the latest charity auction list. Sang Shuwan glanced at the list and her gaze fell on "Sang Jiyue's Hand-painted Thorn and Rose Painting." The starting price was marked "37 yuan," the same price she paid three years ago for her sister's first box of crayons. A video link was attached at the end of the list; clicking it showed Sang Jiyue mixing colors in front of a canvas, with a worn-out eraser—a childhood stationery item they had shared—on the edge of the palette.

"Sis, look at this!" Alice rushed in, holding a tablet. Sang Jiyue's social media account had just posted a new update: a short video she made with a stray cat named "Cici." In the background, a bookshelf displayed photocopies of all of Sang Shuwan's design manuscripts, with "Twelve Ways of Thorns Blooming" turned to the page with dried rose petals. The top-rated comment read: "The stories of my sisters taught me that a thorny embrace is warmer."

In the studio late at night, Sang Shuwan stared blankly at the thorny wedding dress from the new season's haute couture collection. Suddenly, a silver thread at the edge of the veil caught on a strand of her hair, and in the mirror's reflection, the hair and the dress's subtle pattern formed the arc of Sang Jiyue's signature. She took out lavender diffuser tablets from the safe and discovered that a line of small print had appeared on the back: "Each thorn is a fragment of the moon; pieced together, they form my sister's starry sky."

At three in the morning, the downpour began again, pounding against the glass. Sang Shuwan instinctively reached to close the window, only to see Sang Jiyue running towards her in the rain, clutching a waterproof box tightly in her arms. "I was afraid your design drafts would get wet!" Her sister's hair was dripping wet, and raindrops clung to her eyelashes, reminding her of the disheveled look she had when she sneaked out to see Sang Shuwan's fashion show and was caught backstage. Inside the waterproof box, besides the design drafts, lay a copy of "Sang Shuwan's Complete Design Collection," with a Polaroid photo of all their pictures taken together pasted on the title page—including the "fake breakup" photo whose date had been altered by paparazzi.

“Actually, I went to deliver your birthday present that day…” Sang Jiyue looked down at the water stains on the floor, her voice as soft as raindrops, “I was afraid you would find me annoying, so I hid in the fire escape to wait for you.” She rolled up her sleeves, revealing the same abrasion scar on her forearm as Sang Shuwan’s from the car accident—it was from three years ago when she deliberately rubbed it against the railing to imitate her sister’s “work injury look.”

Sang Shuwan suddenly smiled and took out a brocade box from the drawer. Inside were earrings shaped like thorns and roses. The rose petals could be opened to reveal a miniature recorder. "This is a thank-you gift for you." She placed the earrings in her sister's palm. "Thank you for rescuing my first manuscript from the fire back then, and thank you for always buying and destroying the most expensive pirated merchandise."

As dawn broke, Sang Jiyue chuckled softly, touching the recorder in her earring. The recorder played Sang Shuwan's monologue: "Actually, I knew all along that you deliberately left mistakes every time you 'plagiarized.' Those crooked lines were your SOS signals to me." Outside the castle, the rose wall was in full bloom in the morning mist, its thorny branches intertwining to form a translucent screen. Two figures overlapped beneath the flower wall. Sang Shuwan straightened her sister's crooked collar, while Sang Jiyue reached out to brush petals from her sister's shoulder, their movements as natural as if the rift of the past ten years was merely a fog.

The car radio crackled with good news: "The 'Thorn Guardian Project,' jointly launched by LATE and the Sang Jiyue Charity Foundation, begins today. The first batch of 300 rural girls will study jewelry design..." Sang Shuwan gazed at the rose fields flashing past the window, then suddenly grasped her sister's hand. The spiral lines and thorn marks on their palms overlapped, forming a complete crescent shape in the sunlight. In the distance, church bells rang, this time three octaves deeper than the evening bells of Milan—like the "I'm sorry" and "Thank you" they finally dared to say, carrying the weight of pain, yet more radiant than any jewel.

The laser engraving machine in the design studio started up again, this time engraving a pair of twin bracelets: thorns entwined with roses, with "L" and "M" engraved on the inside respectively. As the first rays of sunlight kissed the bracelets, Sang Shuwan put one of them on Sang Jiyue's wrist. Watching her sister's eyes redden as her fingertips traced the engraving, she suddenly remembered their promise when they were seven years old: "If we ever get separated, we'll follow the thorny stars to find each other."

As the morning mist dissipated, raindrops on the rose-covered wall refracted a rainbow of light. Two sisters, once misunderstood as "natural enemies," stood beneath the flower wall, with intertwined thorns and blooming roses behind them. The wind rustled through the branches, carrying the distant song of children: "The moon hides in the thorns, the stars live in the wounds, the sweetest icing grows on the sharpest thorns." Sang Shuwan gazed at the newly sprouted rose tattoo behind her sister's ear and suddenly understood that some bonds are meant to have thorns, because only in this way can they hold each other firmly through wind and rain, allowing pain to bloom into the most tenacious flowers.

Sang Jiyue ran her fingertips along the "M" engraving on the inside of the bracelet, then suddenly pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her denim pocket. "This is a library card I found at the public library." She unfolded the yellowed paper, and the three characters "Sang Shuwan" in the borrower's signature section were clearly visible. The borrowing date was three days before the car accident. "You borrowed 'Child Psychology' and 'Case Studies of Adolescent Trauma Intervention'..." Her voice trembled at the end, like a dandelion wet with dew.

Sang Shuwan stared at her own scribbled notes on the slip of paper: "Building a sense of security for children from single-parent families," "How to use art therapy to heal trauma," and her throat suddenly tightened. She recalled those nights she stayed up late researching, originally intending to wait until Sang Jiyue was an adult before slowly discussing those childhoods distorted by paparazzi—she still clearly remembered the way her younger sister trembled in the closet when their parents divorced.

“So you knew all along…” Sang Jiyue’s voice caught in her throat as her gaze fell on the silver bracelet on her sister’s wrist. Engraved there was a tiny date—the night their mother left home. Sang Shuwan gently took her hand, the touch like holding a thorny feather: “I’ve read all your counseling records. Every time you said, ‘My sister’s designs seem to speak,’ the doctor wrote ‘typical projective identification’ in the notes.”

A rumble of thunder rolled across the horizon, and Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed to the shadows on the rose wall and laughed. Sunlight pierced through the gaps in the clouds, casting two overlapping shadows on the flower wall: the larger one held a paintbrush, the smaller one held a cat, surrounded by the outlines of thorns and stars. "It's like the shadow puppet game we played when we were kids," she said, tracing the edges of the shadows with her fingertips on tiptoe. "Back then, you always said my shadow was a little moon, able to illuminate the dark corners of your drawings." When the assistant rushed into the garden with a first-aid kit, she saw Sang Shuwan squatting on the ground bandaging Sang Jiyue's knee—she had scraped it while climbing the flower wall to retrieve a kite. "Still as clumsy as when we were kids," Sang Shuwan said with a smile, shaking her head. As the iodine swab cleaned the wound, she noticed faint traces of an old tattoo beneath the scar tissue. It was a moon entwined with thorns, "evidence of rebellion" taken by paparazzi three years ago, now resembling a healing flower in the reflection of the iodine.

“Actually, I secretly modified your design.” Sang Jiyue suddenly spoke, as her sister put a cartoon band-aid on her. “That year when you were hospitalized, I used your drawing tablet to add star patterns to the children’s clothing line, thinking that the children would dream of the Milky Way when they wore it…” She looked down at the little hedgehog on the band-aid. “Later, the counterfeiters copied this design, so I deliberately said the wrong fabric composition at the press conference, causing them to have allergic reactions and rashes when they made the clothes.”

Sang Shuwan paused, recalling the infamous "children's clothing quality scandal" of that year, in which the final test report revealed that "the design drafts had been altered." She had initially assumed it was the work of competitors, never imagining the mastermind was her younger sister, who had been crying in the dressing room. "So that's why you deliberately said in the interview that 'wearing pirated clothes will make you ugly,' you actually wanted to..."

“I want Mom to stop selling your designs for jewelry.” Sang Jiyue smiled bitterly, her fingertips tracing the thorny cufflinks on her sister’s sleeve. “Every time she takes your designs to make money, I steal diamonds from her safe, sell them, and transfer the money to your anonymous account.” She suddenly pulled a thin chain from her collar, the pendant a thorn made of small diamonds—bought with the proceeds from her mother’s first design.

As the rain poured down in the twilight, the two took shelter in the greenhouse. Sang Shuwan caught a glimpse of the seedlings in the incubator. "These are the wild rose seeds you sent?" She touched the crooked handwriting on the label, "An apology to my sister," and noticed that each seedling was accompanied by a paper crane with "I'm sorry" written on its wings in various languages.

“Actually, what I fear most is not being accused of plagiarism.” Sang Jiyue looked at the rain streaks on the glass, her voice made even softer by the thunder. “It’s that I’m afraid you really think that I’m like Mom, only good at sucking your blood.” As she turned around, Sang Shuwan saw that there were raindrops or tears clinging to her eyelashes. “It wasn’t until you added that clause ‘retaining the right to use images of public welfare activities’ to the settlement agreement that I dared to think… you may have never known.”

Sang Shuwan reached out to wipe the water droplets from her eyelashes, her fingertips touching the beauty mark that resembled her own tattoo. This time, she didn't pull away, but instead gently pressed it: "Do you know why I made you use your real voice in the apology video? Because the audience should hear how bright the voice of that little girl who shouted 'Sister, be careful!' in the fire was."

The warm lights in the greenhouse suddenly switched on, illuminating Sang Jiyue's shocked face. Sang Shuwan pulled a voice recorder from her pocket and pressed play—it contained audio from the fire scene's surveillance cameras, with the sound of shattering glass in the background, and a clear, tearful voice saying, "Sister." "This is what I had the hacker recover from the fire department's files," she said, looking at her sister's trembling lips. "So I've never blamed you, Little Moon. Never."

As the thunder faded into the distance, Sang Jiyue suddenly smiled, tears falling onto the little hedgehog pattern on the band-aid. She took a candy from her pocket and gave it to her sister: "Strawberry flavored, you always said eating it could defeat bad moods." When the candy wrapper was unfolded, a note fell out, a wish card she had written when she was thirteen: "I hope my sister's design drafts will never be stolen, and I hope her smile will always be like sunshine."

Sang Shuwan smiled, a hint of candy in her mouth. The sweet and sour taste of strawberries mingled with the saltiness of tears, a familiar flavor blooming on her tongue. Outside the greenhouse, a downpour washed over the rose wall, thorny branches gently brushing against each other in the wind, like playing a secret melody of their childhood. In the distance, the sound of a car radio drifted over, this time playing a nursery rhyme: "The moon fell into a thicket of thorns, the stars are busy weaving rainbows, when the wind blows away the mist, you'll see two hearts, hand in hand, counting stars among the flowers."

Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed to the watermarks on the greenhouse glass and laughed out loud—the rainwater flowed down the glass, drawing a thorny bridge between their reflections. Sang Shuwan followed her gaze and found that her shadow and her sister's shadow had somehow overlapped, the outlines of thorns and moonlight merging to form a twin flower in bloom.

In the design studio, the laser engraving machine started automatically in the distance, this time engraving a double-sided silver plate: one side was entwined with thorns and roses, the other side depicted two tiny figures holding hands, with thorny stars floating behind them. As the first drop of dew fell on the silver plate, Sang Shuwan gently held her sister's hand, feeling the warmth and lines of their palms. She knew that some stories were destined to be thorny, but as long as there was light, these thorns would eventually become armor protecting tenderness, allowing the once broken moon and stars to shine their most brilliant light anew in each other's universes.

Sang Shuwan gently placed the double-sided silver coins into the brocade box, the bottom of which was Sang Jiyue's thirteenth birthday wish card. The downpour outside the greenhouse gradually subsided, and moonlight pierced through the clouds, weaving a silver net on the glass. Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed out the window and chuckled. Among the branches of the rose wall, a stray cat wearing a pearl necklace had stopped sometime earlier—it was the "Jewel Queen" they used to feed at the alley entrance when they were children, the bell on its collar engraved with a tiny "M".

"It seems to have gained weight." Sang Jiyue crouched down, her fingertips just touching the ground when the cat suddenly jumped onto the flower stand, knocking over a bottle of lavender essential oil. The amber liquid flowed in the moonlight, reflecting on the ground the surveillance footage of Sang Shuwan's car accident: the moment the truck went out of control, Sang Jiyue, in the passenger seat, suddenly lunged forward, shielding her sister in the driver's seat with her body. As her hair swept across the dashboard, it knocked over the fountain pen engraved with her birthday.

“So that’s the code you used that day…” Sang Shuwan’s voice choked with emotion as she finally deciphered the lip reading behind the “I’m sorry”—it was the “emergency code” they had invented when they were eight years old, meaning “Danger, get out of the way.” Sang Jiyue hurriedly wiped the essential oil off the screen, but in the reflection, she met her sister’s gaze, their eyes reflecting the same starlight.

The assistant's footsteps broke the silence as she rushed into the greenhouse, phone flashing in the background: "The International Anti-Plagiarism Alliance website has been hacked! The homepage has been replaced with your childhood photos, and there's an encrypted video..." Sang Shu opened the link late at night. The video showed her at twelve years old teaching her younger sister to draw thorns, with background sounds of crayons scratching across paper and the soft slurping of soda. At the end of the video, the two girls made "L&M" gestures to the camera, and on the drawing board behind them, an unfinished rosebud concealed a sentence written in crayon: "Forever each other's moon."

Sang Jiyue's fingertips suddenly touched the silver plate in the brocade box. Next to the silhouette of the little figure on the back, there was a line of small gold-embossed words: "Thorns are armor, and also the shape of an embrace." She turned to look at her sister and found that the silver bracelet on her sister's wrist had been replaced with a matching thorn bracelet. The two "L"s and "M"s shone brightly in the moonlight, just like the twin stars they had drawn on their bedroom wall with fluorescent markers when they were children.

At two in the morning, the thermometer in the greenhouse showed 25°C—exactly the "not too hot, not too cold" spring temperature that Sang Jiyue loved most. Sang Shuwan took out her sketchbook from the drawer and turned to the latest page: it depicted two girls sitting atop a rose-covered wall, with a field of brambles spreading beneath their feet, and a white dove carrying a silver bracelet perched on the spire of a distant castle. Sang Jiyue pointed to the details in the drawing and laughed: "There are prickly claw marks on my skirt, and half a paper crane is sticking out of your pocket."

“Because Cici is our first audience.” Sang Shuwan smiled as she pulled out her colored pencils and added a cluster of thorny shooting stars to the sky. “Just like the lucky charms you’ve secretly put in my studio over the years—from Swiss edelweiss to Dubai desert roses, each one hides a secret message of ‘good luck.’” She suddenly grasped her sister’s hand and placed the colored pencils in her palm. “Your turn, Little Moon. What do you want to draw this time?”

Sang Jiyue pondered for a moment, biting the pen cap. As the pen fell, she drew a glass greenhouse in the center of a field of thorns. Inside the greenhouse were two easels, each holding an unfinished canvas of thorns and roses. On the table in the center lay a completed painting: the shadows of two girls overlapped to form a full moon, surrounded by thorny stars. "This part should be painted lavender," she said, tapping the top of the greenhouse with her colored pencil. "That way, stars will fall in at night."

In the distance came the midnight chimes of a church, this time exactly the same as those of the Milan Cathedral. Sang Shuwan gazed at her sister's profile as she diligently colored, and suddenly remembered the wish they had written in their diaries: "May my thorns always be pointed at those who hurt you, and may my petals always bloom for you." At this moment, the rose wall outside the greenhouse had sprouted new branches after the storm, the thorny vines intertwining and climbing up to the starry sky, weaving their own personal galaxy.

The phone vibrated at that moment. A new private message popped up on Sang Jiyue's social media account: "The stories of the sisters made me dare to say no to school bullies. Thank you for teaching me gentleness with thorns." The sender's profile picture was of the rural girl they were sponsoring. Sang Shuwan took a screenshot of the message and saved it to an album called "Moonlight and Thorns"—there lay countless similar letters, each with a bookmark made of wildflowers by the children.

Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed out the window and exclaimed in surprise. Countless glowing origami cranes floated above the castle walls—the very same "star lanterns" they had folded in their childhood. Each crane's wings were printed with LATE's thorny logo, and they twirled gently in the night breeze like fragments of the Milky Way fallen to earth. "Did you make these?" Sang Shuwan turned her head, only to see a light reflected in her sister's eyes that shone even brighter than the cranes.

“We made it.” Sang Jiyue held her hand and pressed the engravings of the two bracelets together. “Just like the thorns and moonlight over the years, it has always been our shared story.” In the distance, the car radio began playing their favorite childhood songs. The melody, mixed with the fragrance of roses, drifted into the greenhouse. The two girls smiled at each other under the moonlight, their colored pencils falling simultaneously to add the last stroke to the edge of the drawing paper—a twin flower in full bloom, its petals a gentle thorn, its stamens an inextinguishable starlight.

Sang Shuwan's hand froze in mid-air. She recalled that year at Paris Fashion Week, when an extra stone with a sea-smelling scent had indeed appeared in her suitcase. The crooked, uneven marks on it had been studied by her assistant with a magnifying glass all day. "So it was you who secretly put it there." Her fingertips traced the pebble ornament on the flower table in the painting, and suddenly she found a small, yellowish stone in her colored pencil box—the very same one from back then, with "Left by Little Moon" written in red paint on the back.

Sang Jiyue's ears flushed red, and the tip of her pen dotted starlight on the rose petals: "And the anonymous letters you receive after each show, the dried flower specimens inside are actually stolen from botanical gardens all over the world..." She suddenly pointed to the glass jar in the corner of the flower room in the painting, "Look, this place should be filled with soil from all over the world, so that no matter where we go, we will have common roots."

The church bells startled a flock of pigeons into flight, and the array of origami cranes under the moonlight suddenly changed formation, spelling out "L&M FOREVER". Sang Shuwan took out her phone, and a selfie popped up in her album—a photo she had secretly taken backstage three years ago of Sang Jiyue, hiding behind a curtain and drawing spiral patterns on her palm with lipstick, captioned, "My star hasn't learned to shine yet, but one day it will catch up with the moon."

“Actually, I caught up a long time ago,” Sang Jiyue said softly, following her gaze. The twin flowers in the painting were now outlined with fluorescent paint, and the thorns on the petals were adorned with tiny diamonds—the first batch of raw materials they bought with proceeds from their charity fund. The phone vibrated again; this time, it was a new comment on Sang Shuwan's designer account: “Wearing a thorny hairpin to an interview, the HR said my eyes were like a thorny rose, especially powerful.”

Sang Shuwan suddenly grasped her sister's wrist, pressing her hand to the center of the drawing paper: "It's time to add a stamen to the twin flowers." Sang Jiyue was taken aback, then laughed, using gold paint to dot two overlapping spiral patterns in the center of the flower—a mark in their DNA, a bond etched into their very bones. Outside the window, the first rays of dawn climbed the rose wall, and dewdrops hanging on the thorny branches refracted rainbow-like halos.

“Do you know why we chose lavender?” Sang Jiyue inserted the colored pencils into the brush washer and looked at the gradually brightening sky. “Because its flower language is ‘waiting for love,’ but our version is ‘waiting for each other.’” As she turned her head, Sang Shuwan was placing pebbles on the windowsill of the flower room in the painting, next to which were the bite eraser and pull tab ring they had shared.

The car radio began broadcasting the morning news: "LATE and Sang Jiyue's 'Tenderness with Thorns' charity project was launched simultaneously in twenty-seven countries around the world today..." Sang Shuwan looked at the paint gradually drying on the canvas and suddenly noticed that the shadows of the twin flowers cast on the ground perfectly overlapped with their intertwined hands. Sang Jiyue's head gently rested on her shoulder, just like when they were children on stormy nights, listening to each other's heartbeats and counting the twinkling lights outside the window as they gradually went out.

“Sister,” Sang Jiyue’s voice was sleepy, “let’s go to the Sahara to paint thorns next time. The sand there will remember the thorny moon.” Sang Shuwan smiled and nodded, then took out her phone to send a message to her assistant: “Cancel the morning meeting. I’m going to plant glowing roses with Little Moon.” In the morning light, the lavender flower house on the drawing paper seemed to have stars falling, and their shadows had already grown into an everlasting spring in the thorny gentleness.

As the iron gate of the Sang family mansion slowly opened in the downpour, Sang Shuwan's grip on Sang Jiyue's hand suddenly tightened. The bronze candlesticks under the porch were covered in dust, but the moment they stepped across the threshold, they were illuminated by motion-sensor lights—as if someone had silently wiped them a thousand times, just waiting for their return.

"The chairman is in his study." The butler handed over two dry towels, his voice choked with emotion. Sang Jiyue touched the rose relief on the pillar, her fingertips brushing against a certain indentation—it was the "M" she had carved with a craft knife when she was twelve years old, next to which was the "L" that Sang Shuwan had filled in with correction fluid. After ten years of weathering, it was still as clear as yesterday.

The father of the Sang family was half a head shorter than he remembered. When he heard footsteps, the celadon cup in his hand trembled slightly. On the desk were two tea sets: one was the plain white porcelain that Sang Shuwan usually used, and the other was the starry glaze that Sang Jiyue liked. "When your mother left," he said, his voice hoarse as he looked out at the torrential rain, "I thought that protecting the Sang family business was protecting your roots... but I forgot that roots need sunlight, not steel and concrete."

Sang Shuwan noticed the old watch chain peeking out from his cuff—a gift from his mother before she passed away, with a childhood photo of them still hanging on it. Sang Jiyue suddenly took a candy out of her pocket and placed it in front of her father: "Strawberry flavored. Mom always said that eating it could defeat bad moods." The moment the candy wrapper was unfolded, the old man's eyes reddened—it was the "lucky boat" pattern that he had personally taught them to fold.