After I died, they cried in the live studio

The hidden compartment in the study opened automatically, revealing the dusty Sang family jewelry logbook. The latest page contained a medical report, dated three days before her mother's death: "Please give the Rose Key to Wanwan; she is the true heir to Thorns and Moonlight." Sang Shuwan touched the dried rose tucked inside the logbook, suddenly remembering the silver bracelet her mother had given her before her passing—the spiral pattern engraved on the inside was the key to unlocking the family treasure.

The first battle to rebuild the Sang family took place in Milan. Sang Shuwan walked the runway with the Thorns haute couture collection, while Sang Jiyue sat backstage with Cici in her arms, live-streaming the event on her phone: "Look, my sister's design drafts are glowing—because every stitch is sewn with Mom's moonlight." As the camera panned across the audience, Sang's father was clumsily taking photos with his DSLR camera, the lens cap still on.

When the "Twin Flowers" brooch, inlaid with the last gemstone designed by her mother, was unveiled, the show lights suddenly dimmed. Sang Jiyue pressed a remote control, and countless paper cranes descended from the dome, each wing reflecting a projection of her mother's manuscript. Amid applause, Sang Shuwan raised the brooch, and in the light refracted by the diamonds, her mother's handwriting was faintly visible: "My thorns are to protect your blossoming."

The rose garden at the Sang family's old house reopened in spring, and Sang Shuwan buried her mother's ashes under a pear tree next to the greenhouse. Sang Jiyue drew a thorny moon on the tombstone with colored pencils, while Sang's father personally carved the inscription: "Here lies a mother who wove a starry sky with thorns." Whenever a breeze blows, pear petals fall onto the automatic irrigation system designed by Sang Shuwan, turning into a mist with the scent of lavender.

The new logo of the Sang family jewelry empire was officially released on the summer solstice: twin thorns and roses supporting two moons, with "L&M" engraved in tiny font below. At the press conference, Sang Jiyue suddenly held up a pull tab from a soda can: "This is our first 'princess ring,' and now it has a new mission—for every one of these charity rings sold, a jewelry class will be provided for a girl in a rural area."

Late at night in the old Sang family house, the three sat around their mother's workbench. Sang Shuwan was testing newly developed photosensitive jewelry, Sang Jiyue was putting a necklace studded with small diamonds on Cici, and Sang's father was clumsily replicating their mother's first brooch with wax. Moonlight streamed through the glass of the greenhouse, weaving a silver net on their clasped hands, like the gentle touch of their mother when she used to stroke their hair.

“Mom said that true jewelry isn’t an ornament worn on the body,” Sang Shuwan said, touching her mother’s design sketches, her voice filled with relief, “it’s armor worn on the heart.” Sang Jiyue smiled and nodded, slipping the newly made bracelet onto her father’s wrist—the bracelet was made of silver pieces of thorns and roses, with a piece of her mother’s old watchband embedded in the center. The old man gazed at the faint light on his wrist and suddenly remembered his wife’s dying words: “Don’t let your children become roses with thorns; let them become moons that shine.”

Suddenly, the automatic sprinkler system in the rose garden activated, weaving a rainbow across the night sky. The three members of the Sang family exchanged smiles, and from afar came the voice of a car radio: "Sang Family Jewelry announces the establishment of the 'Moonlight Guardian Fund,' with an initial investment of 100 million yuan for art therapy for teenagers..." Sang Shuwan gazed at the starry sky, recalling her mother's words: "When every star falls, it blooms into a thorny flower on earth." And at this moment, the starlight of the three of them was blooming in each other's eyes, forming an inextinguishable galaxy.

On the autumnal equinox, the cellar of the Sang family's old house was reopened. Sang Shuwan, holding the silver bracelet left by her mother, typed the three of their birthdays on the combination lock. As the heavy stone door slowly opened, Sang Jiyue suddenly grabbed her sister's hand—a soft, wind-chime-like sound came from deep within the cellar; it was the music box that her mother loved most, turning, the melody mixed with the fragrance of aged rose essential oil wafting towards them.

“This is her coming-of-age gift,” the father’s voice came from behind, holding a jewelry box covered in patina. Inside lay two sets of pearl earrings, the pearls laser-engraved with tiny thorn patterns—the prototype of Sang Shuwan’s haute couture collection. Sang Jiyue touched the “M·18” engraving on the back of the earrings and suddenly remembered secretly looking through her mother’s dressing table when she was seventeen and seeing the design sketches for these earrings.

The cellar walls were covered with her mother's unpublished manuscripts, one of which, "The Restoration of Broken Moonlight," stood out: thorns entwined a shattered moon, fluorescent moss growing from the cracks. Sang Shuwan's fingertips traced the annotations along the edge of the paper: "A reminder for Wanwan—the cracks are where the light gets in." She turned to look at her father and found him staring blankly at her mother's self-portrait, a yellowed movie ticket stub tucked into the frame—their token of love from years ago.

The revitalized Sang Family Jewelry launched its "Time Restoration" series, with the first product being a thorn bracelet that changes color according to body temperature. At the launch event, Sang Jiyue showcased a sample; when heated, the silver thorns gradually revealed pink rose patterns: "This is my mother's secret recipe, made with the colors of the playdough we used as children." As the audience erupted in applause, Sang Shuwan noticed her father discreetly wiping the corner of his eye—that pink hue was the color of the scarf her mother had knitted for him years ago.

On the anniversary of their mother's death, the three planted bioluminescent genetically modified roses in the rose garden. Sang Jiyue was in charge of mixing the colors, Sang Shuwan adjusted the lighting system, and Sang's father clumsily built a trellis with wooden stakes. When the first bioluminescent rose bloomed, the halo of light flowing on its petals was exactly the same as the warm glow of the lamp in their mother's studio. Sang Shuwan buried her mother's design notes beside the base of the rose, the handwriting on the title page faintly visible in the moonlight: "My children, may you always know—a thorny embrace is more precious than honey."

Sang Family Jewelry's global flagship store opened on Christmas Eve, with a holographic projection in the window continuously playing the mother's design philosophy: "Jewelry should not be a cage, but wings." Sang Jiyue set up a "Moonlight Mailbox" on the top floor of the flagship store, where children could mail letters drawn with thorns. The first letter received came from an African girl, depicting a mother and daughter wearing thorn crowns, with the words: "Thank you for letting me know that my mother's departure was not my fault."

Late at night in the office, Sang Shuwan stared intently at her mother's genetic map. The genetic test report showed that she and her sister had both inherited their mother's "synesthetic gene"—the ability to translate color into tactile sensation. She suddenly grabbed a colored pencil and marked special symbols on the design draft: "For M: lavender corresponds to the feel of cashmere, and starry blue corresponds to the coolness of seawater." When Sang Jiyue pushed open the door, she saw her sister drawing a small moon in the corner of the drawing, with a note next to it: "Mom said that my synesthesia is a palette given by God, while yours is a collection of stories."

Sang's father started learning video editing and posts "The Daily Life of a Jewelry Craftsman" on social media every day. In his latest video, he is wearing reading glasses and repairing a broken diamond on Cici's necklace, with the background sound of Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue bickering: "This diamond should be set on the tip of a thorn!" "A rose petal would be more suitable!" At the end of the video, the old man holds up the repaired necklace and laughs with wrinkles: "Back in the day, your mother would always argue with me until we were red in the face over the design drafts."

On the Spring Equinox, the Sang family received a special letter. The sender was their mother's former apprentice, and enclosed with it was the last manuscript their mother had salvaged from the fire. The last page of the manuscript depicted unfinished twin flowers, with the words: "If one day my stars fall, remember to help them find each other's light." Sang Shuwan touched the yellowed pages and suddenly remembered the note Sang Jiyue had secretly slipped to her on the day of their mother's funeral: "Sister, your eyes are like Mother's jewelry box, containing the entire Milky Way."

The automatic weather system in the rose garden suddenly sounded an alarm, signaling an impending once-in-a-decade rainstorm. The three members of the Sang family rushed to the greenhouse in perfect unison, working together to move the glowing roses inside. As the first raindrop struck the glass, Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed out the window and laughed—countless glowing origami cranes flew up from all around the old house, piecing together the outline of her mother's face in the rain. Sang Shuwan held her father's and sister's hands, feeling the warmth of their palms, and finally understood what her mother meant by "eternity": not flowers that never fade, but people who have weathered storms together.

After the torrential rain, moss grew on the roof of the Sang family's old house, its shape strikingly resembling the thorn totem in her mother's manuscript. At the launch of her new collection, Sang Shuwan showcased the "Space Rose," a collaboration with NASA—its petals capable of absorbing cosmic rays and converting them into a faint glow. As models walked the runway wearing necklaces inlaid with specimens of the Space Rose, Sang Jiyue received a new private message backstage: "Sisters, I used the colored pencils you sent to draw myself smiling for the first time after being bullied."

The father of the Sang family transformed his mother's old workbench into a wishing table, its surface inlaid with thorn specimens sent from all over the world. One morning, he found a dried rose on the table, next to a children's drawing: two girls leading a cat wearing a crown, with the words "Thank you for letting Mom's stars go home" written above. The old man looked at the drawing and suddenly remembered his wife's favorite poem: "When we learn to embrace the pain, the universe will rain down candy."

In the dead of night at the Sang family's old house, Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue lay on their mother's bed, watching the starry sky projected onto the ceiling. Cici nestled between them, the rhinestones on her necklace flickering with her breath. "Sister," Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed to the Gemini constellation in the projection, "Mother must be watching us from within that largest thorn flower." Sang Shuwan smiled and nodded, pulling out a voice recorder from under her pillow—containing her mother's last voice message: "My little moon and stars, remember to always grow with thorns, because the brightest light always shines from the sharpest point."

As dawn broke above the bedside, the Sang family father gently pushed open the door, carrying three cups of hot cocoa. The three of them huddled together, watching the luminous roses outside the window sway softly in the morning dew, their thorny branches intertwining to form a net more dazzling than any jewel. In the distance, church bells rang out, this time playing the lullaby their mother had composed for them years ago. And in this gentle morning light, the Sang family's story, tinged with thorns and moonlight, continued to unfold in the world.

When the collaboration between Sangjia Jewelry and NASA was launched at the Kennedy Space Center, Sang Shuwan was adjusting the "Starlight Thorns" brooch, inlaid with lunar soil. As the spotlight swept across the display stand, her mother's handwriting suddenly appeared on the brooch's surface—a fragment of a manuscript reconstructed using lunar dust particles: "Every wound is an entrance to the stars." Sang Jiyue, holding a live-streaming device, circled the venue, the camera panning across the audience of astronauts wiping away tears; pinned to their chests were the "Gravity Rose" badges customized by Sangjia for space missions.

"Sister, look at this!" Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed to the star map in the holographic projection. The constellation lines connecting her mother's constellations were resonating with the Earth's magnetic field, forming a flowing band of thorny light. Sang Shuwan's bracelet suddenly vibrated, receiving an email from the International Astronomical Union: asteroid number 4023 had been officially named "LATE·MOON," and its orbital parameters were exactly the same as the "moon trajectory" they had drawn on their bedroom wall as children.

On the day of the Awakening of Insects, the underground laboratory of the old house welcomed its first visitors—a "Little Moon Apprentice Group" composed of twenty rural girls. Sang Jiyue squatted in front of the experimental table, teaching them how to extract natural pigments from rose thorns: "Look, this red comes from the century-old roses in the old house. My mother used it to dye our first pair of ballet shoes." The girls exclaimed in amazement as they watched the dye shine under the ultraviolet light, while Sang Shuwan recorded their color schemes beside them, her notebook containing her mother's old manuscript of "Children's Color Psychology".

The father of the Sang family has recently become obsessed with restoring his mother's old belongings, and at this moment he is wearing a magnifying glass and studying a film camera from the 1980s. Suddenly, an undeveloped negative slips out of the lens, and after development, it reveals a picture of his mother holding an infant Sang Shuwan, standing in front of the newly built rose garden. "Back then, she always said that she wanted you to grow up amidst the fragrance of thorny flowers." The old man carefully scans the negative into the computer, and in the image, his mother suddenly turns her head, her gaze seemingly piercing through time, landing on Sang Jiyue, who is teaching the girls to fold origami cranes.

One rainy night, Sang Shuwan was awakened by a laboratory alarm. When she arrived, she found Sang Jiyue weeping over a petri dish, where all the luminous rose seedlings had withered due to a power failure. "Just like the night Mom left..." Her sister's voice echoed in the empty laboratory. Suddenly, Sang Shuwan grasped her hand and pressed her fingertips against the condensation in the petri dish—the water stains naturally formed the outlines of twin flowers.

“Do you remember our first collaborative design?” Sang Shuwan opened her phone and found their doodles from when they were sixteen: two little figures holding hands, surrounded by the pinyin doodle of “failure is the mother of success.” She took out her mother’s silver bracelet and engraved a new genetic sequence on the edge of the petri dish: “This time, we’re letting roses grow in the dark.” When the recombined fluorescent gene was injected into the seedling, and the first new leaf unfurled, the veins of the leaf even resembled the distorted moon drawn by Sang Jiyue in her childhood.

Sang Family Jewelry's charity documentary was released on the Autumn Equinox, with the camera following Sang Jiyue into an African refugee camp. She squatted on the sand, teaching children to draw protective symbols with thorny branches: "The thorns are not for harming, but to tell the world that we deserve to be treated gently." The scene then switched to Sang Shuwan in her Milan workshop, transforming the refugee girls' sand paintings into 3D-printed silver jewelry, with each pattern inlaid with their initials.

The father's "Daily Life of a Jewelry Craftsman" account suddenly went viral. In his latest video, he was explaining the tactile design of jewelry to a visually impaired girl: "The thorns on this necklace are made of polymer clay, the dewdrops on the rose petals are raised dots, and if you touch here... they are the handprints of the little moon and stars." The girl suddenly laughed out loud: "It feels like my mom hugging me!" At the end of the video, the old man winked at the camera: "The children have taught me far more than I have taught them."

On the night the first snow fell, the three members of the Sang family sat around their mother's workbench, preparing for the final chapter of the "Time Restoration" series. Sang Shuwan incorporated parts from her mother's old watch into the new design; the hands on the dial were miniature thorns, each rotation triggering a hidden rose fragrance. Sang Jiyue engraved tiny words on the back of the watch: "Mom, we've learned to embrace the world with your thorns."

As the clock struck midnight, thousands of tiny lights suddenly illuminated the rose wall of the Sang family's old house, forming the outline of the mother's smiling face. Sang Shuwan received a letter from an international organization against domestic violence, with an attachment of a giant portrait created by the women they were helping—a design of twin flowers—made from thorn temporary tattoos. Sang Jiyue pointed out the window and smiled, seeing Cici wearing a newly made LED collar, leaving glowing plum blossom footprints in the snow, each step like a lullaby played by her mother.

“It’s time to think of a name for the new series.” Sang Shuwan looked at the rose garden in the snow and suddenly remembered the words in her mother’s diary: “When my children learn to plant the moon in the thorns, the world will light up with millions of lights.” Sang Jiyue picked up her pen and wrote the title on the design draft: “Concerto of Thorns and Light”. Next to it, she drew three overlapping palms, with twin flowers that never fade blooming on the lines of the palms.

The snow fell heavier and heavier, and Father secretly added marshmallows to their cocoa. Sang Shuwan took a bite; the strawberry flavor mixed with the scent of lavender exploded on her tongue—it was exactly the recipe her mother used to love. Outside the window, an automatic snowplow began to work, piling the snow into thorny crescent shapes, while inside the greenhouse, the reconstituted luminous roses were sprouting new branches, each leaf tipped with ice crystals, as if they had collected the starlight of the entire universe.

That night, the Sang family's story continued. In that thorny tenderness, under the broken yet healed moonlight, three people who had been wounded by fate finally learned to weave starlight from their scars. And what their mother left behind was never a cold jewelry empire, but the courage to let every soul bloom with thorns—like the roses stubbornly growing in the snow, the more severe the cold, the more breathtakingly beautiful they become.

The Sang Family Jewelry's "Thorns and Light" global tour arrived at Kyoto Station on the Spring Equinox. Sang Shuwan stood in front of the Ema Hall at Heian Shrine, watching her own design, the Thorn Cherry Blossom series, appear and disappear in the morning mist. Silver-plated thorns entwined double-flowered cherry blossoms, with thermosensitive stones embedded in the stamens that changed color with body temperature. When visitors touched them, the petals would gradually change from snow-white to the lavender color her mother loved most—an element of "Oriental gentleness" that Sang Jiyue insisted on adding. "Sister, look!" Sang Jiyue rushed over, holding up her phone. On the screen was a video sent by children from the Kyoto School for the Deaf. They were wearing vibration-sensitive jewelry donated by the Sang Family, dancing under the cherry blossom trees. The light from the jewelry, flashing in rhythm with the music, was perfectly synchronized with their sign language "thank you." Sang Shuwan's eyes suddenly welled up with tears. She remembered the "silent embrace" her mother taught them with gestures on her deathbed—a thorn gesture with her left hand and a rose gesture with her right, which together meant "I love you."

The father lingered in front of the display case for a long time. Inside the glass case were works made by his mother when she was young, from her apprenticeship: a ring made from a pull tab from a soda can, with "L+M=∞" engraved on the inside. The old man took out his notebook, which was filled with design notes he had learned from Sang Jiyue. The latest page showed a modified pull tab ring, with the note: "A ring of courage for a country boy, the spikes are removable, and the core is a steel core that will never bend."

At the celebratory banquet for the traveling exhibition, Sang Shuwan received an urgent email from an international environmental organization. A partner tribe in the Amazon rainforest sent a video showing how they used natural dyeing techniques funded by the Sang family to dye thorn patterns onto warning flags protecting trees. Now, these flags flutter in the rainforest winds, forming a moving "green thorn map." Sang Jiyue suddenly raised her glass, the bubbles refracting rainbows under the light: "Doesn't this look like what Mom said about 'turning thorns into star navigation'?"

The old house was always damp during the rainy season. While sorting through her mother's belongings, Sang Shuwan found a encrypted photo album. The password was the birthdays of the three of them. Opening it revealed countless candid photos her mother had taken of their daily lives: Sang Shuwan secretly practicing her penmanship during her recovery from a car accident; Sang Jiyue letting her tears fall into a rose bush at the funeral; her father secretly wiping away tears as he stared at her mother's design drafts late at night—the traces of tears clearly visible under the scanner. The last page of the album contained her mother's confession: "My thorns have long since grown into your wings, and my moonlight will forever fall on your shoulders."

When the Sang Family Charity Foundation's first "Moonlight Workshop" was completed in Dunhuang, Sang Jiyue, accompanied by Cici, went to the ribbon-cutting ceremony and discovered that the workshop's exterior walls were adorned with luminous glass depicting their twin flowers. Local girls surrounded her, showing off jewelry woven from camel thorns. One girl named Ayi held up a silver bracelet: "Your name is engraved here, along with the Uyghur phrase 'Don't be afraid.'" On the inside of the bracelet, Sang Shuwan's design draft number overlapped with Ayi's birthday, like a knot woven by fate.

Recently, her father had been studying the fragrance formula left by her mother. One morning, he knocked on the sisters' door and brought out a bottle of newly made perfume: "The top note is the rose from the old house, the middle note is the orange soda you used to sneak drinks when you were little, and the base note..." He suddenly teared up, "...is the lavender scent from your mother's hospital room before she passed away." Sang Jiyue sprayed the perfume on her wrist and found that the patterns left after evaporation were exactly the same as the thorn totem on her mother's manuscript.

On the autumnal equinox, the Sang family received a special gift—an ice core sample from an Arctic expedition team, containing DNA from a Rosaceae plant dating back 100,000 years. Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue worked tirelessly in the laboratory for three days, finally fusing it with the genes of a luminous rose, cultivating the "Polar Moonlight" rose that could bloom at minus fifty degrees Celsius. When the first ice crystal rose bloomed, the frost on its petals automatically arranged to form the initials of the mother's English name, as if a response transcending time.

The Sang Family Jewelry's year-end gala was held in the old family home's rose garden. The invitations were thorn cards inlaid with glowing moss. As guests walked along the moonlit path into the venue, a drone shaped like a thousand paper cranes used lights to write in the night sky, "Tenderness with thorns is the universe's love letter to the brave." Sang Shuwan walked onto the stage hand in hand with her father and sister. Under the spotlight, the thorny rings on their wrists touched each other, illuminating the giant twin flower installation in the center of the stage—the petals unfolded layer by layer, revealing a holographic projection of her mother smiling.

“My mother once said that true inheritance is not about keeping the jewelry, but about keeping the courage to make it shine.” Sang Shuwan’s voice cut through the applause. “Today, we are transferring 90% of the Sang family’s shares to a charity foundation, leaving only 1% for Cici—after all, she is the first ‘Jewelry Queen’ to wear the thorn collar.” Laughter erupted from the audience, and Cici flicked her tail at the right moment, the diamonds on the collar scattering tiny sparkles among the rose petals.

At the end of the ceremony, the three members of the Sang family placed newly made jewelry before their mother's tombstone: a moonstone inlaid with fragments of their DNA for their mother, and silver rings engraved with "Eternal Thorns and Moonlight" for each other. Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed to the starry sky and laughed, only to see the asteroid "LATE·MOON" streaking across the rose garden, its trail of starlight perfectly coinciding with the fluorescent trajectory of their newly cultivated polar roses.

Late at night, Sang Shuwan was sketching a new series in her studio, while Sang Jiyue curled up on the sofa, clutching Cici. Her father was in the next room studying her mother's fragrance diary. As the clock struck twelve, all three simultaneously received a new email from the "Moonlight Mailbox," sent from "Heavenly Transfer Station." Inside was a blank sheet of paper, but Sang Shuwan's synesthetic genes allowed her to "see" colors: her mother's tenderness, a lavender embrace, thorny starlight, and the ever-present—home.

The snow had started falling sometime earlier, and the automatic snowplow in the rose garden had once again created a thorny moon. Sang Shuwan gazed out the window and suddenly understood that the most precious jewel her mother left behind was never the dazzling ornaments, but the power that allowed them to still smile and cultivate starlight even after they were broken. And this power, along with every thorny rose, every courageous "Don't be afraid," and every warm embrace, was taking root and sprouting in every corner of the world.

When the collaboration between Sangjia Jewelry and the Dunhuang Academy was launched on Grain Rain, Sang Shuwan was copying the Tang Dynasty rose-patterned ceiling design in Cave 217 of the Mogao Grottoes. As the mineral pigments spread on her fingertips, she suddenly noticed a striking resemblance between the thorny patterns on the edge of the mural and the "protective charm" pattern in her mother's manuscript—the painter from a thousand years ago had also subtly hidden a thorny protective totem beside the lotus flower. Sang Jiyue, holding a 3D scanner, circled the cave. When the lens swept across the robes of the flying apsaras, she unexpectedly captured an "L&M" shaped cloud pattern in the shadow of the folds, like a code that transcends time and space.

"Look at this!" Sang Jiyue imported the scanned data into the holographic projection. The ribbons of the Tang Dynasty flying apsaras suddenly transformed into glowing thorns, entwining with modern twin flowers as they slowly rose into the air. Sang Shuwan's bracelet vibrated, receiving an email from the Chinese Academy of Sciences: they had discovered a special gene sequence capable of resisting nuclear radiation in the rose specimen left by her mother. This plant evolution code from millions of years ago was now resonating in a wondrous way with the mineral elements in the Dunhuang murals.

The underground gene bank of the old house made a major breakthrough on the day of Lixia (the beginning of summer). Sang Shuwan combined microorganisms from Tang Dynasty mural pigments with luminescent roses to cultivate "Dunhuang Moonlight Thorns," which can automatically fix sand in the desert. When the first batch of seedlings was transplanted to Mingsha Mountain, Sang Jiyue and other public welfare students used colored pencils to draw thorns and Crescent Lake on the sand-fixing net. When night fell, the fluorescence of the seedlings and the projection of the murals overlapped, creating a flowing "Silk Road Galaxy" on the sand dunes.

My father has recently become fascinated with ancient book restoration. While organizing my mother's collection, he discovered a 1912 book titled "Jewelry Healing Notes." Tucked between the yellowed pages was an old photograph: my great-grandmother, wearing a crown of thorns, stood in a rose garden, the gemstones on the crown arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper—the very pattern on my mother's silver bracelet from before her death. The old man trembled as he dialed Sang Shuwan's video call. Suddenly, the restoration room in the video lit up, and the restored ancient jewels automatically arranged themselves into the shape of twin flowers, as if responding to a family code from a century ago.

The Sang Family Charity Foundation's "Star Guardians" program was launched on Mount Kilimanjaro. Sang Jiyue, carrying her art supplies, climbed to the snow line to teach local children to draw "thorns in the clouds" using volcanic ash. When she transformed the children's drawings into carvings on solar streetlights, she unexpectedly discovered that the melting snow patterns overlapped with the streetlight designs, forming natural water channels. "This is what Mommy meant by 'a bridge that turns thorns into water,'" she said with a smile, wiping away sweat during a live stream, while behind her, children sang a modified version of "The Thorny Moon" in Swahili.

The old house always has a touch of the magical during the rainy season. When Sang Shuwan was testing her newly developed "emotional jewelry," she discovered that when she missed her mother and shed tears, the moonstone on the brooch would automatically project her mother's fingerprints. Even more miraculously, when her father was repairing her great-grandmother's crown, the crown emitted a buzzing sound, resonating with her mother's silver bracelet—a hidden compartment revealed a 1912 ship ticket with the destination "Moonlight Star Orbit" and the passenger's name listed as "L&S Thorn."

On the autumnal equinox, the three members of the Sang family embarked on a journey to find the "Moonlight Star Trail," a century-old ocean liner whose wreckage was discovered off the coast of Greece. The rose reliefs on the hull were found to be identical to the patterns in the old family home's cellar. In the jewelry box salvaged by divers, besides dazzling thorn ornaments, there was also a nautical logbook. The last page contained the great-grandmother's handwriting: "When my descendants meet the moonlight with thorns, the stars and the sea will make way for them."

The old house was especially warm on Christmas Eve. Sang Shuwan melted down and recast the antique jewelry from the cruise ship to create the "Guardian of Time" series. Each piece of jewelry was inlaid with rose specimens from different eras. Sang Jiyue drew silhouettes of women from the Sang family throughout the generations on the inside of the jewelry boxes, while her father engraved "thorny tenderness, a legacy that transcends time" on the bottom of each box. When the first set of jewelry was sent to Ayi in Africa, it was accompanied by a photocopy of her great-grandmother's nautical logbook—the rose on the title page was exactly the same as the pattern on the bracelet that Ayi wove with camel thorns.

On New Year's Eve, the Sang family received a pleasant surprise from the International Astronomical Union: two new companion stars had appeared around the asteroid "LATE·MOON," designated "THORN·L" and "ROSE·M." Sang Shuwan gazed at the three-star system in the telescope and suddenly remembered her mother's dying words: "The women of our family are born to be each other's satellites." Sang Jiyue smiled and hugged her sister, her fingertips tracing three overlapping stars on the condensation on the telescope lens, beside which lay a tender yet thorny embrace.

In the snow-covered rose garden, the father was painting the inscription on the newly erected family monument. The monument was made of natural rose stone, and the patterns on it were exactly the same as the mother's palm lines. Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue squatted beside him, planting "Dunhuang Moonlight Thorns" around the monument. When their bracelets touched the monument, the stone suddenly emitted a faint light, revealing the names of the women of the Sang family throughout the ages—the last line was the place for their unborn children, with the blank space next to it reading "Waiting for the thorny starlight."

Late at night, the three sat around their mother's workbench, looking at the newly received letters from all over the world. Sang Shuwan's gaze lingered on a letter from the Arctic. In it, an Inuit girl wrote that wearing the Sang family's Arctic Moonlight Necklace, she dared to dance under the aurora for the first time, "because the light from the necklace is like the North Star that my mother taught me to recognize." Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed out the window and laughed. Cici was chasing the light spot on her tail, the rhinestones on her collar drawing countless tiny moons on the snow.

“It’s time to write something for the next generation.” Sang Shuwan touched her mother’s design draft and suddenly picked up a pen. Sang Jiyue followed suit and drew the first stroke: a cradle with thorns. Her father thought for a moment and added a lamp that would never go out next to it. As the pen touched the paper, the pattern on the paper seemed to flow automatically, like starlight coming to life—this was the “Inheritance Notes” that her mother hadn’t finished years ago, and now, in their hands, they finally had the courage to continue writing it.

Outside the window, the "LATE·MOON" Samsung system streaked across the sky above the rose garden, its trailing starlight falling on the newly planted Dunhuang Moonlight Thorns. Each thorn tip was adorned with ice crystals, as if holding the stories of the entire universe. And the story of the Sang family, like these thorny roses, will eventually bloom with its own brilliance amidst the storms of time—with pain, with light, and with an unfading tenderness.

Sang Shuwan lent the first piece from her "Guardians of Time and Space" series—a thorn necklace inlaid with 19th-century rose specimens—to rising star Lin Zhiyi for her appearance on the Cannes red carpet. The necklace gleamed with a cool silver light under the cameras, its thorny chain wrapped with diamonds, perfectly complementing the thorn embroidery on Lin Zhiyi's black backless dress. That night, the hashtag "Thorn Rose" topped the global trending searches.

Lin Zhiyi's team was initially worried that the design was too sharp, but they unexpectedly received a handwritten card from the Sang family's old house: "Blooming with thorns is never an offense, but rather a starlight that is true to itself." Lin Zhiyi repeatedly mentioned this accompanying proverb as a golden quote in her interviews. Backstage, she showed the camera the miniature rose relief on the inside of the necklace: "Every woman should be like it, with both softness and sharpness."

A week later, Sang Family Studio received a mysterious order: renowned actress Xu Ruolin requested a set of "Thorn Crown" jewelry for her self-directed and starring female-themed film, "The War of Roses." Xu Ruolin personally visited the old house and, stroking the thorny branches in the rose garden, remarked, "The female politician I play in the film, before she dies, removes her crown and says, 'My thorns are more precious than jewels.' This is so similar to your design concept."

The crown designed by Sang Jiyue for Xu Ruolin contained a hidden mechanism: twelve rose petals opened and closed with the wearer's movements, revealing handwritten proverbs from women of different eras inside—from "The stars and the sea will make way" in her great-grandmother's logbook to "0 and 1 can also weave tenderness" written by a modern programmer. Xu Ruolin wore the crown while giving a speech at the opening ceremony; the metal spikes refracted rainbows in the sunlight. Suddenly, an actress in the audience raised her hand: "Could you customize a thorn brooch for every female character in our cast?"

The "thorny trend" in the entertainment industry is intensifying. Contestants on the talent show "Tomorrow's Bloom" collectively wore thorny ear clips designed by Sangjia while singing "Wings with Thorns" on stage; top actress Jiang Yanli showed off her "Time Guardian" bracelet collection during a live broadcast, with each rose specimen corresponding to an important moment in her life: "This one is from the summer I won my first Best Actress award, and the thorns still hold the tears from that time."

Controversy ensued. A fashion blogger questioned the Sang family's designs for "overemphasizing female aggression," but Sang Shuwan showed her mother's unfinished manuscripts in an interview: "These thorns are not weapons, but armor protecting gentleness. Just like pruning dead branches in a rose garden every winter, the wounds will scab over, but when spring comes, new branches will sprout from the scabs." She held up a ring modeled after the Dunhuang Moonlight Thorn, with a tiny grain of gold sealed within the icy thorn tip encased in transparent resin—starlight collected from the desert.

The most unexpected order came from veteran actress Chan Man-sheng. This artist, once known for her "gentle cheongsam goddess" image, requested that the pearl necklace her late husband had given her be transformed into a "thorny pearl" design. Sang Jiyue deliberately preserved the cracks on the pearl's surface during the casting process, using silver spikes to re-fix the broken pearls into the shape of a shattered galaxy. Chan Man-sheng wore it at an awards ceremony and gave a speech saying, "My marriage was once like a perfect pearl, but later I realized that hidden within the cracks was the starlight of our struggle against illness together."

When the "Thorn Guardian" custom section appeared on the official website of Sang Family Studio, the first person to make a reservation was male artist Lu Chen. In his message, he said, "I want to customize a thorn-shaped bracelet for my sister who has autism. She always says that her emotions are like a ball covered with thorns. Maybe wearing it on her wrist will make her feel like she is being gently caught." Sang Shuwan personally designed the adjustable thorn ring, with each silver thorn having a rounded end and the words "Your thorns are the shape of stars" engraved on the inside.

At the film festival awards ceremony in late autumn, the three members of the Sang family appeared in Chinese-style dresses incorporating rose elements. Sang Shuwan's hairpin was a half-open thorny rose, Sang Jiyue's earrings swayed gently with her steps like thorny shooting stars, and her father's brooch was two intertwined thorny vines. As the camera panned across the audience, Lin Zhiyi, Xu Ruolin, Jiang Yanli, and others raised their wrists, allowing the Sang family jewelry to connect under the spotlight into a thorny starlight—a gentleness that transcends time, finally taking its own shape amidst the waves of the entertainment industry. (End of Chapter)