After I died, they cried in the live studio

Sang Jiyue gazed at the torrential rain, letting the cool water mix with her mascara and flow down. She remembered the amnesia medication she'd slipped into Sang Shuwan's coffee cup that morning, the secret passage behind the third shelf in the cellar, and the altered blood type data on the paternity test report. Suddenly, the diamond pendant between her fingers dug into her palm, and she realized that when she was adjusting her collar, she had mistakenly taken the genuine heirloom diamond—while the real fake lay at the bottom of Sang Shuwan's makeup case, adorned with half a chestnut-colored wig torn from her hair.

The rain poured down harder, soaking the gold thread embroidery on their costumes. Sang Shuwan gazed at the faint crescent-shaped scar on Sang Jiyue's wrist and suddenly remembered when she was seventeen, bandaging her sister's wound, she had mixed chili oil into the iodine bottle. At that moment, a slight burning sensation was spreading across the back of her neck—the magnetic patch that had been secretly pressed onto her fingertips when she was held captive, the patch that could blur the surveillance footage.

“It’s time to go on stage, sister,” Sang Jiyue said softly, her voice damp with the unique scent of a rainy night. She took the other’s arm, and the two walked through the puddles toward the camera. Their reflections shattered in the puddles, then gradually merged again in the ripples. In the distance, the producer’s phone suddenly rang, and a trembling report came through the receiver: “The third row of bookshelves in the cellar of the Sang family’s old house… has been pried open.”

The spotlight in the photography studio suddenly flickered, and in that instant of light and shadow, Sang Jiyue's fingertips were already gripping her chin. Taking advantage of the "sisterly affection" of the embrace, she whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear, "Does your sister know the sound of your throat being pierced, like the 'click' sound of crushing a lip balm?"

The old wooden box brought in by the props team creaked softly at their feet. Sang Shuwan caught a glimpse of a half-faded fingerprint on the box lid—exactly the same fingerprint after the "Do not believe" note her mother had given her before her death. Sang Jiyue, however, had already squatted down, her fingertips tracing the silk inside the box, and took out the gilded dagger that was supposed to stab her in the play: "The weight of this prop knife is very similar to the paper cutter in Father's study back then, sister. Do you remember? On your thirteenth birthday, you used it to cut my wishing note."

During the brief pause when the director yelled "Ready," Sang Shuwan suddenly grabbed the other person's wrist and shoved a recording pen mixed with lipstick into the gap between the other person's cufflinks: "The miniature camera my sister hid in the dressing room was automatically formatted last night—but the encrypted email account at the Swiss bank did receive an interesting clip of surveillance footage." She ran her fingertip across Sang Jiyue's Adam's apple, where there was a very faint birthmark shaped like a curled maple leaf, "For example, a clip of someone accidentally saying the 'cellar code' while practicing a 'terrified expression' in front of the mirror."

The torrential rain pounded against the roof like a rapid drumbeat. Suddenly, Sang Jiyue grabbed the setting spray from the table and, 0.3 seconds before the camera turned to them, sprayed the cool liquid into Sang Shuwan's eye sockets: "Sister, you should get your contact lenses changed—last time you fainted on set, the instructions for antipsychotic medication fell out of the first-aid kit." She took the other's trembling arm, gave the camera a worried smile, but her fingertips gently traced circles on the old injury on Sang Shuwan's lower back—a bruise she had made seven years ago when she hit a jewelry box with a copper paperweight during a fire.

The wooden crate suddenly snapped open with a "click," revealing half a charred page lining its interior. Sang Shuwan's pupils contracted sharply—it was a fragment of her mother's diary that she had burned, bearing the inscription in gold lettering: "Adopted daughter. Birthmark present." Sang Jiyue, however, had already drawn her dagger, the blade flashing coldly between them: "The line for this scene is 'Why did my sister kill me?' right?" She suddenly staggered backward, the belt of her costume snapping in the pull, revealing a crescent-shaped red birthmark on her side. "Or should we let everyone witness who the true Sang family bloodline is?"

The moment the clapperboard struck, Sang Shuwan's fingernails dug into the birthmark on the other woman's side—but she froze at the instant of touch: the "birthmark" could be easily scraped off, revealing smooth skin underneath. Taking advantage of the moment, Sang Jiyue plunged a dagger into her own shoulder, blood splattering onto Sang Shuwan's collarbone chain, only to solidify into waxy particles upon hitting the ground: "Sister, look carefully—the birthmark you bribed a cosmetic surgery clinic to fake three years ago, who should you return it to now?"

In the monitoring room, the producer suddenly yelled into the walkie-talkie, "Stop filming! The cellar surveillance shows someone has broken in!" Sang Shuwan's ears twitched slightly as she heard police sirens in the distance. At that moment, Sang Jiyue grabbed her wrist and pressed the blood-stained dagger into her palm: "Remember the secret compartment in the old house's study? There's a 'Sang Shuwan's Voluntary Renunciation of Inheritance' document inside. The fingerprint in the signature column was taken by me with a hot towel when you had a stiff neck last year."

The moment the torrential rain shattered the skylight, Sang Shuwan finally saw the dark glint in Sang Jiyue's eyes—the amber pupils she had seen in the real family genealogy the night before, belonging to the eldest daughter of the Sang family. What she had always thought was "congenital iris pigmentation" was nothing more than a result of chronic toxins mixed into her face cream. "My mother's dying words, 'Don't go near the bookshelf,'" she suddenly laughed, letting the rain mixed with mascara stream down, "were she afraid I'd discover that the real heir had already been switched?"

Sang Jiyue's fingertips suddenly touched the other person's nape, where there was a light-colored birthmark shaped like a butterfly flapping its wings—a perfect match to the description on her birth mother's prenatal checkup report hidden in the safe: "The true heiress's cinnabar birthmark on the back of her neck." The sound of police sirens grew louder, but she chuckled lightly amidst the noise: "Do you know why your bank transfer records stopped in 2018? Because on that day, your 'adopted daughter' proved herself to be the one whose bloodline had been lost through bone marrow matching."

Suddenly, a swaying figure appeared in the mirror of the dressing room. As Sang Shuwan turned around, she saw her assistant holding a pair of bloodstained tweezers, the tip of which held half a diamond—the very same decoration from the hair removal cream container she had stuffed into Sang Jiyue's face cream that morning. Meanwhile, Sang Jiyue took out a velvet box from deep within a drawer. Inside lay a jade thumb ring with a warm, lustrous sheen, the inscription "Sang Family's Eldest Daughter" in small seal script on the inside perfectly matching the engraving she had just found on the prop sword tassel.

“It’s time to go, sister.” Sang Jiyue draped a cashmere shawl over her shoulders, the rose essential oil from her hair mingling with raindrops dripping onto Sang Shuwan’s hand. “The police are already retrieving the surveillance footage of that ‘accident’ three years ago—guess, will they first find the money transfer records of you bribing extras to set the fire, or will they first find the recording pen I hid in the ventilation duct that recorded your threats against your birth mother?”

In the rain, the two were taken away by security personnel at the same time. As Sang Shuwan passed the prop sword rack, she suddenly said in a voice only the other person could hear, "There's a confession letter from your 'birth mother' in the hidden compartment of the third row of bookshelves in the cellar—she received 500,000 yuan from the Sang family back then to fake that 'baby swap' scene." Sang Jiyue paused, but before being pushed into the police car, she quietly slipped something into the other person's pocket.

Under the incandescent light of the interrogation room, Sang Shuwan opened her palm, revealing a blood-stained diamond pendant. The back of the pendant was engraved with tiny numbers: 0617—her long-held belief, her true birthday. At that moment, news came from the forensic department: two infant skeletons had been found in the cellar of the Sang family's old house. One had a butterfly-shaped birthmark on the back of its neck, and the other had a crescent-shaped burn scar on its side.

In the surveillance footage, Sang Jiyue was playing with a platinum earring in the police car. The character "Shu" engraved on the inside of the earring was cast with Sang Shuwan's real umbilical cord blood. As a distant thunderclap rang out, she suddenly curled the corners of her lips at the camera, revealing a sharp look in her eyes that was exactly the same as the real eldest daughter in the portrait in the old Sang family mansion, whom she had never met.

Water droplets condensed on the one-way glass of the interrogation room. Sang Shuwan stared at the red light of the surveillance camera opposite, suddenly remembering the rose tattoo behind Sang Jiyue's ear—the pattern perfectly matched the dried flower specimen tucked in her mother's diary. Her fingertips unconsciously caressed the diamond pendant in her pocket, and she suddenly felt the raised engravings on the back of the pendant. They weren't numbers, but a string of Morse codes.

"Beep-beep-beep. Tap-tap" - that's SOS.

When Sang Jiyue was led into the adjacent interrogation room, the forensic doctor was examining the "knife wound" on her shoulder. The pale blue liquid seeping from beneath the waxy blood droplets was the drug that Sang Shuwan had asked someone to buy from overseas three months ago—a drug that could cause temporary clotting disorders. Watching the police officer frown as he reviewed her medical records, she suddenly chuckled: "Officer, do you know about 'placental blood certificates'? There are umbilical cord blood samples labeled 'Sang Shuwan' stored in the refrigerator in the basement of the Sang family's old house."

New information came from the forensic department: melatonin was detected in the bird's nest soup in the dressing room drawer, and half a piece of sugar coating for an antipsychotic drug was hidden in the crevices of the jewelry box that Sang Shuwan had smashed. Sang Shuwan stared at the words "suspected of intentional injury" on the record, and suddenly used the nib of her pen to prick her fingertip, drawing a rose at the end of her statement—exactly the same as the tattoo below Sang Jiyue's collarbone.

The downpour peaked at four in the morning. When Sang Shuwan was allowed to call her lawyer, she heard static on the receiver, followed by a familiar cough—the sound she'd heard through the door when she was ten years old, locking Sang Jiyue in the attic. "Sister, guess where I am?" Sang Jiyue's voice mingled with the wind and snow. "At the end of the secret passage behind the third row of bookshelves in the old house's cellar, there's an iron box with a combination lock—do you think it might contain the real birth certificate?"

Meanwhile, surveillance footage from the Sang family's old house showed a hooded figure frantically banging on a combination lock in the cellar. Sang Shuwan's pupils constricted—the numbers were the combination to her safe, and at that moment, the magnetic patch on the back of her neck cast an eerie shadow on the interrogation chair. She suddenly remembered her mother's dying warning: "Don't let her near the cellar." It wasn't that she was afraid her mother would discover the secret, but rather that she would destroy the evidence.

Sang Jiyue's lawyer suddenly burst into the interrogation room, presenting a paternity test report. The signature in the witness section was smudged with ink, but "Lin Zhixia" was still faintly discernible—the woman who had worked as a maid in the Sang family for twenty years, the very same maternity nurse from the hospital back then. "Look," the lawyer adjusted his glasses, "the record of the baby being switched at birth on June 17, 2001, matches the time recorded on the Sang family driver's dashcam."

Sang Shuwan's fountain pen suddenly broke, the dark blue ink spreading out in jagged lines on the confession. She remembered when she was seventeen, bandaging Sang Jiyue's wound, and the butterfly-shaped birthmark that had appeared on the back of the other's neck—she had pressed it hard with an iodine swab, watching the red smudge slowly spread, much like the carnations at her mother's funeral. It wasn't a birthmark after all, just an illusion created by the iodine.

The forensic department reported again: two sets of DNA were extracted from the diamond pendant; one set belonged to Sang Shuwan, and the other perfectly matched the skeletal remains buried in the Sang family's old house. While Sang Jiyue was allowed a short rest, she pulled a yellowed train ticket from the lining of her bra—June 17, 1998, was Sang Shuwan's true birth date, while the "adopted daughter's" birth certificate was merely a PDF file altered by a scanner.

At five in the morning, the torrential rain gradually subsided. When Sang Shuwan was taken to the crime scene for identification, she saw the concealer under her eyes in the mirror of the dressing room—it had been replaced with fluorescent agent at some point, gleaming with a ghostly blue light under the police lights. It was a brand that Sang Jiyue often used, and she suddenly remembered that the other party had said: "This kind of concealer will develop when it comes into contact with water, just like the secret we're hiding."

Police dogs unearthed an iron box at the end of a secret passage in the old house's cellar. Inside, besides the genuine birth certificate, was a videotape. In the video, the young Mrs. Sang held a crying baby and said to the nurse, "Send this child away, as if she never existed." As the camera swayed, the nurse's name tag was revealed: Lin Zhixia. And on the back of the baby's neck was a butterfly-shaped birthmark.

The moment Sang Jiyue was handcuffed, she suddenly leaned close to Sang Shuwan's ear: "Do you know why your anti-aging injections are counterfeit products? Because I cultured them using your hair follicle cells—just like you forged a certificate using my placental blood." As she was being led into the police car, the scent of rose essential oil from her hair mingled with the rain and hit Sang Shuwan's face. Sang Shuwan suddenly remembered the note her mother had left before her death, on the back of which was a line of almost invisible pencil writing: "The birthmark is hot, be careful of fire."

As the morning sun pierced the clouds, the cellar of the Sang family's old house was cordoned off. Sang Shuwan gazed at the skeleton being carried out by the forensic doctor and suddenly remembered the large waves on Sang Jiyue's head—the curls were exactly the same as those at the salon her mother used to frequent. It turned out that from the age of sixteen, the other girl had secretly imitated her mother's preferences, from perfume to hairstyle, from jewelry to handwriting, until she had molded herself into the "real heiress" mold.

On the day of the trial, Sang Jiyue appeared in court wearing the gown Sang Shuwan wore three years earlier when she won the Best Actress award. As the hem of her skirt swept across the defendant's dock, a crescent-shaped scar was revealed on the inside of her ankle—a mark Sang Shuwan had made with a diamond earring, which she said was "a mark for the fake heiress." At that moment, the scar shimmered with a pale pink hue in the sunlight, much like the rose that the nurse had mistakenly pinned to the swaddling clothes of the real Sang family daughter when she was born.

Before the final verdict, Sang Jiyue suddenly presented a recording in court. In the background, there were crackling sounds of flames and a familiar female voice shouting, "Take the jewelry box first! Don't worry about that girl!" Sang Shuwan's blood froze—it was a surveillance recording from the fire scene seven years ago, and that voice belonged to her deceased mother.

On a night when the torrential rain washed away all sins, Sang Shuwan sat in the detention center, gazing at the waning moon outside the window. Suddenly, the diamond pendant in her pocket pressed against her palm. She had finally deciphered the Morse code: "Help me." As tears fell onto the pendant, she suddenly remembered the slight tremor in Sang Jiyue's voice when she called her "sister"—the same as her real sister when they were children.

Outside the high walls, Sang Jiyue stood at the entrance of the old house, gazing at the white smoke rising from the direction of the cellar. She pulled out a USB drive hidden in her dentures, containing the bank transfer records of Madam Sang's years ago when she hired someone to switch babies. The rose essential oil in her hair had long been washed away by the rain, and now she only smelled of disinfectant—the smell of the orphanage clinic, the place where her real life began.

At dawn, strange noises emanated from the Sang family ancestral graves. The gravedigger discovered that an unmarked tombstone had appeared beside the original tombstone of Sang Shuwan's mother. Before it lay half a tube of lip balm, with the tiny letters "SOS" engraved on it. In the distance, inside the empty coffin carried by the funeral procession, lay two unopened letters, addressed to "Sister" and "Mother," respectively.

The rain stopped, and the first rays of sunlight swept across the carved eaves of the Sang family's old house. Sang Jiyue touched up her makeup in the rearview mirror, her fingertips brushing against the pearl earring on her earlobe—the one she had "accidentally" taken from the evidence room yesterday, with the tiny character "疏" (shu, meaning sparse) engraved on the back. She smiled at the camera, the beauty mark at the corner of her eye gleaming like mother-of-pearl in the morning light, much like the life-saving ray of light that had pierced through the crack in the door when she was locked in the storage room years ago.

In the morning light of the Sang family's old mansion, Sang Jiyue's fingertips caressed the stolen pearl earring when she suddenly heard the sound of leather shoes crunching on gravel behind her. The newcomer was a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses, a red cover peeking out of his suit pocket—the copy of the will that the Sang family's legal advisor always carried. "Miss Sang," the man said, handing her a brown paper bag, his tone perfectly respectful, "the secret passage in the old mansion's cellar connects to an overseas account; the password is the anniversary of your mother's death."

The USB drive in the paper bag was burning hot in her palm. Sang Jiyue looked at her newly tattooed butterfly birthmark in the mirror and recalled the top-secret file she had seen in Sang Shuwan's case file when she sneaked into the evidence room last night: it turned out that the real Sang family's daughter was born with congenital heart disease, and the so-called "switching at birth" was just a cover-up by Madam Sang to get a heart transplant for her biological daughter.

On the day of the final trial, Sang Jiyue wore a haute couture gown adorned with rhinestones, her earrings perfectly concealing the concealer on the back of her neck. As she slowly walked to the witness stand, she noticed Sang Shuwan in the defendant's dock biting her nails—a habit she had when extremely anxious, exactly the same one she had when she was locked in the attic at the age of seven. "I have a recording," she chuckled into the microphone, pressing play with her fingertip, "a record of the CCTV maintenance at the Sang family's old house on March 12, 2008."

Amidst the crackling of electricity, Madam Sang's shrill shouts rang out: "Lock that bastard in the storage room! Her crying will disturb Shuwan's cardiac rehabilitation!" In the background, the faint sobbing of a child mingled with the sound of chains dragging on the floor. Sang Shuwan abruptly looked up, and in the instant her eyes met Sang Jiyue's, she suddenly remembered that every time she had an attack, she would find a piece of fruit candy on her bedside table—it turned out that her "little sister," locked in a dark corner, would secretly slip it in through the crack in the door. The forensic department presented their latest findings: the butterfly-shaped birthmark on the back of the neck of the skeleton in the old house's cellar was actually a scar from an acquired burn. Sang Jiyue unbuttoned her sleeve, revealing a crescent-shaped old scar that matched the inside of the skeleton's wrist: "This was burned by Miss Sang Shuwan with a curling iron on November 7, 2005. At the time, she cried and said, 'Little sister, don't be afraid, big sister will disinfect it for you,' but actually she was rubbing salt into the wound."

Sang Shuwan suddenly laughed, her laughter trembling with brokenness: "You think these are enough to convict me?" She broke her collarbone chain, the diamond pendant rolling to the ground, revealing a miniature memory card hidden in the compartment. "Inside are the Sang family's tax evasion records for nearly ten years, and the 'abandonment agreement' your birth mother signed back then—she received two million and personally sent you to an orphanage."

Suddenly, police sirens blared outside the courtroom. Sang Jiyue's lawyer rushed in and whispered in her ear, "The anonymous account at the Swiss bank has been frozen, and... the 'psychiatric evaluation report' you kept in the study of the old house is gone." The powder compact she was holding suddenly fell to the ground, revealing a yellowed photograph tucked inside—a three-year-old version of herself being held in Mrs. Sang's arms, while not far behind, the real Sang Shuwan was being carried into an ambulance by her nanny.

During a recess, Sang Jiyue bumped into Sang Shuwan, who was touching up her makeup, in the restroom. As their reflections overlapped in the mirror, she suddenly noticed that the mole behind Sang's ear was in the exact same spot as her own—it had been laser-done, exactly the same as the disguise Madam Sang had made on the two children to cover up the truth of the baby swap. "Do you know why Mother burned the family genealogy before she died?" Sang Shuwan spread out her concealer. "Because it said that Sang family daughters wouldn't live past twenty-five—and we're almost there."

In the detention center late at night, Sang Jiyue received an anonymous letter. The yellowed letter was written in Mrs. Sang's handwriting: "The doctor said you wouldn't live past your first birthday, so I brought Shuwan here. Her heart was originally yours." As the letter fluttered down, it revealed a rubbing of the baby's footprints tucked inside. Next to the two footprints were written "Jiyue" and "Shuwan" respectively, both dated June 17, 1998.

The DNA comparison results shocked the entire city: the two were identical twins. Looking at the beauty mark at the corner of her eye in the mirror, Sang Jiyue finally remembered the fire when she was seven years old—Sang Shuwan risked her life to rush into the fire to save her, not for show, but because the "sister" she called out in the thick smoke was exactly the same as the tone of her mother's voice when she was lulling her to sleep in her memory.

During the final court hearing, Sang Shuwan suddenly recanted her testimony in court. She removed all her jewelry, revealing an old scar on her wrist that matched Sang Jiyue's: "Those 'abuses' were all staged by me asking her to cooperate." She pointed to the legal advisor in the audience, "The real mastermind is him, who wanted to seize the Sang family's assets—the baby swapping, arson, and forging the birthmark were all his conspiracies."

As the torrential rain swept through the city again, the two were allowed to identify the crime scene together in the cellar of the old house. Sang Jiyue touched the combination lock behind the third row of bookshelves, but instead entered Sang Shuwan's birthday. The moment the hidden compartment opened, two yellowed diaries fell out, their covers marked "To Little Moon" and "To Wanwan"—these were the growth manuals their mother had prepared for them before her death, but which were never given out due to a conspiracy.

Deep in the cellar, beside the skeletons of two infants lay a tin box containing two overlapping birth certificates. Sang Jiyue's fingertips traced her own "premature death" record when Sang Shuwan suddenly grasped her wrist: "Back in the fire, I wasn't trying to steal the jewelry box, but rather your emergency medicine." Tears glistened in the other's eyes. "And... every time I added something to your face cream, I secretly replaced it with moisturizing essence."

In the darkest hour before dawn, the two parted ways at the gate of the old house. Sang Jiyue placed a pearl earring into Sang Shuwan's palm, and the latter took off her collarbone necklace and put it on her: "This is recast with real diamonds. My mother said before she passed away that she wanted to leave it to the real daughter of the Sang family." The siren of an ambulance could be heard in the distance, and Sang Jiyue suddenly remembered the "psychiatric evaluation report"—it stated that both she and Sang Shuwan suffered from hereditary cardiomyopathy, and the onset of the disease was imminent.

As the torrential rain washed away the last trace of blood, an unnamed fire broke out in the cellar of the Sang family's old house. Surveillance footage showed two figures supporting each other as they walked towards the exit, the flames behind them engulfing all secrets. Amidst the news broadcast, passersby saw two women wearing sunglasses board a private jet; the diamond pendants around their necks collided, reflecting a light more dazzling than the rainstorm.

Three months later, the Antarctic research station received an anonymous recording. The background was howling snow, and two overlapping female voices softly hummed a nursery rhyme: "Sister Moon shines on every night, every night I hold the moon's hand." At the end of the recording, there was the ticking of medical equipment and the rustling of papers turning over—like two organ donation agreements being solemnly stamped on the snow.

At this moment, beside the nameless tombstone of the Sang family ancestral graves, two new twin roses have bloomed. The gravedigger discovered that a line of small characters had appeared on the tombstone at some point: "Those who rest here are of one flesh and blood, one light for one another." In the distance, the aurora borealis swept across the sky, much like the starlight reflected in the eyes of the two sisters in the fire on that rainy night many years ago.

Five years later, the Sang family's old house was transformed into a public welfare children's center. Spring sunlight streamed through the carved window frames, casting dappled shadows on the carpet in the counseling room. Sang Jiyue flipped through the latest patient files, her fingertips lingering on the photo of "Lin Xiaowan"—the girl who always used concealer to cover the scars on her wrists, her pupils reflecting the same wariness as her own back then.

"Want to try this?" Sang Shuwan pushed open the door and entered, half a rainbow lollipop sticking out of her white coat pocket. She shook the sand table in her hand, inside which lay a miniature model of the old house, with a glowing diamond embedded in the cellar. "Last week, a child said that this place holds 'magic that can make people brave'."

Inside the glass cabinet, the broken curling iron from years ago had been transformed into a plant stand, with ivy winding its way along the metal casing, concealing the dent from where sparks had once shattered. Sang Jiyue pulled out a voice recorder locked deep in the drawer, containing recordings of their argument from that rainy night seven years ago—now, the background seemed to carry Sang Shuwan's suppressed gasps and the clattering of milk cartons that had been secretly slipped into her storage room while she was locked there.

“We have a pair of twins here for a consultation today.” Sang Shuwan unwrapped a lollipop, the pink candy reflecting iridescent light in the sunlight. “Sister, guess what they’re arguing about? The brother says his sister stole his life, and the sister says her brother stole her birthmark.” She suddenly stuffed the candy into Sang Jiyue’s mouth, her fingertips tracing the pale butterfly tattoo on the back of the other’s neck. “Just as ridiculous as when we were fighting to be ‘fake heiresses’ back then.”

Laughter from the children echoed in the courtyard. Sang Jiyue gazed at the figures chasing each other outside the French windows, recalling last month at the Swiss hospital when the doctor said, "Your hearts can actually compensate for each other." Sang Shuwan hooked her finger around his and shook it: "Of course, after all, we shared the same placenta—maybe back in the womb, I even helped you avoid the umbilical cord from getting wrapped around your neck."

The secret passageway in the counseling room is no longer the hidden compartment filled with documents it once was, but has been transformed into a "secret confessional." Children can write their secrets on slips of paper and put them in the mailbox, which is a simulated cellar bookshelf. Today, Sang Jiyue received a crumpled note: "Sister, Mom said I was found, is that true?" She picked up a pen and drew two overlapping stars on the back: "You are a gift from the Milky Way to humankind, just like how my sister and I met."

Sang Shuwan suddenly raised her phone, the screen showing surveillance footage from the renovation of the old house. On a rainy night in 2025, two girls covered in blood helped each other out of the cellar, one of them secretly throwing something into the fire—now she realized it was two diaries that were half-burnt.

“It’s time to tell the children a story.” Sang Jiyue took off her white coat, revealing a T-shirt underneath with a cartoon moon printed on it—a birthday gift from Sang Shuwan last year, with “Wanwan’s moon never sets” written on the back in fluorescent paint. As they walked down the corridor, photos on the wall flashed by one by one: the moment they passed each other tissues in court, the days they held hands in the hospital ward fighting chemotherapy, and the night they exchanged organ donation agreements under the aurora borealis in Antarctica.

The theme of the story is "The Secret of Scars". Sang Shuwan rolled up her sleeve, revealing a crescent-shaped old scar: "This is the first thing my sister taught me - pain will scab over, but love is a tender wound that never heals." Sang Jiyue then raised her wrist, and the two scars pieced together into a complete moon in the sunlight: "Later we discovered that all wounds will become stars, guiding us to find each other."

As dusk settled over the courtyard, the girl named Lin Xiaowan suddenly ran over and slipped a fruit candy into their hands. When the candy wrapper was unfolded, a crooked drawing fell out: two girls with braids were sitting on the moon, one with a butterfly drawn on the back of her neck, and the other with a star-shaped band-aid on her side.

"Are they twins?" Sang Jiyue squatted down and asked. The little girl nodded earnestly: "The one on the left is the older sister, and the one on the right is the younger sister! The older sister got hurt protecting the younger sister, so the younger sister shared her star with her—that way, neither of them will be afraid of the dark!"

The night breeze carried the scent of roses. Sang Shuwan gazed at the starry sky and suddenly remembered the half-burnt pages of her diary in the cellar's hidden compartment. On them, scribbled in crooked handwriting, were two lines: "If I die, give my heart to my sister." "If I die, give my eyes to my sister."

When the lights-out bell rang at the children's center, Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed to a spot in the Milky Way: "Look, those are our stars." Sang Shuwan followed her finger and saw two adjacent stars refracting light into each other, much like the tears that hadn't fallen from their eyes when they first looked at each other on set, and the glimmer of light hidden behind their sharp edges that would eventually ignite a prairie fire.

In the secret tree hollow of the secret passage, newly slipped notes fluttered gently in the evening breeze. One of them read: "Thank you, Sister Moon and Sister Wanwan, for letting me know that scars are where stars once lived." Below the note, two pearl earrings had appeared out of nowhere, with tiny letters engraved on the back: S&J, shimmering gently in the moonlight.

Sang Jiyue tucked the newly received note into her psychological counseling record book, her fingertips tracing the starlight doodles spreading across the pages. On the wall of the secret passage, a child had written "The Moon and Wanwan are the stars' parents" in fluorescent marker, flickering on and off as the motion-sensor light illuminated. Sang Shuwan leaned against the padded wall of the "secret tree hole," fiddling with the mailbox in the simulated cellar with a rainbow lollipop stick, suddenly pulling out a note folded into the shape of an origami crane.

“Sister, my scar looks like an ugly caterpillar.” The writing on the crane’s wing was smudged by water, and a shiny sticker was pasted on the back. “But you said that stars live in wounds, so I say ‘goodnight’ to it every night before I go to sleep.” Sang Shuwan’s nose tingled, and she took out a strawberry-flavored lip balm from her white coat pocket—the brand that Sang Jiyue always complained about her “childish sense of taste” but would secretly use. She drew a small sun on the edge of the origami crane’s wing.

A sudden downpour at three in the morning pounded on the roof. Sang Jiyue was awakened by the thunder to find Sang Shuwan curled up in the corner of the sofa, clutching a pillow, her fingertips tightly gripping the butterfly tattoo on the back of her neck. The thunder from that rainy night seven years ago seemed to have pierced through time, but upon touching their intertwined wrists, it shattered into the melody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" that Sang Shuwan hummed in her ear. The two breathed heavily, their backs pressed together, until the morning light streamed through the window, weaving golden threads across their intertwined scars.

“Let’s go see the sunrise.” Sang Shuwan suddenly jumped up, grabbing two hoodies printed with the words “Yuewan Psychological Counseling Center”—the cartoon pattern on the back depicted the moon and the evening star feeding each other stars. They ran through the dew to the old locust tree in the corner of the courtyard, the deep and shallow carvings on the trunk recording the change from “Sang Shuwan was here” to “Jiyue and Shuwan are forever twins.” Sang Jiyue took out a tin box hidden in a tree hollow, inside which lay two strands of baby hair tied with red string, and the unfinished pages of a diary from years ago.

At sunrise, Sang Shuwan spread the consultation records of the twins on the grass. On the brother's drawing paper, in the maze representing life, the sister's footprints always overlapped with his; in the sister's sand tray, the star representing her birthmark was divided in two, one half embedded in the location of the brother's heart. Sang Jiyue folded two paper boats and placed them on the dew, writing "Sharing Life" and "Sharing Starlight" on their hulls respectively, watching them drift with the previous night's rain towards the small pond in the center of the courtyard.

The sound of hammering came from the woodworking class at the children's center. Sang Shuwan was surrounded by children making star ornaments when suddenly a boy ran over holding a crookedly carved wooden sign: "Sister Wanwan, this character 'Shu' looks like a little moon!" She smiled and took the sign, carving a crooked "Ji" next to it. In the gap between the two wooden stars, she secretly embedded snowflakes brought back from Switzerland—ice crystals that had fallen on her eyelashes when they first watched the snow together.

Before the clinic closed late at night, Sang Jiyue saw Sang Shuwan sitting alone on the sofa in the consultation room on the security camera. The other woman was staring blankly at the curling iron holder in the glass cabinet, the shadows of ivy casting a net-like pattern of light on her white coat. She quietly went behind her and slipped a warm glass of milk into her hand—the same temperature as it had been in the storage room seven years ago. Sang Shuwan looked up in surprise, and in each other's pupils they saw a shimmering Milky Way, and the "Twins Never Separate" sticky note she had secretly stuck in the hospital corridor when she was seventeen.

"Thinking about that year's diary again?" Sang Jiyue nudged the other with her shoulder. Sang Shuwan shook her head and took out a miniature chip from her pendant—a biological storage device cultivated from the stem cells of the two of them. "I just stored new data." When the screen lit up, the pulsating electrocardiogram waveform overlapped with the children's "thank you"s from today and the fragrance of roses in the courtyard.

Sang Shuwan re-embedded the miniature chip into the diamond pendant, when she suddenly heard soft footsteps in the courtyard. The surveillance footage switched to the locust tree, where three children, clutching pillows, were whispering around the old trunk. The youngest boy held up a firefly lamp, its light falling on the inscription "Jiyue Shuwan, forever twins," like a breathing gold border around the characters.

“I heard that if you make a wish into a tree hollow, twins won’t fight.” The girl with pigtails pressed her ear to the tree bark, a star-shaped hair clip rubbing off half a piece of gold dust. “Last year, my sister and I fought over a strawberry cake, and we made up right here!” Sang Jiyue smiled, stuffing a handful of rainbow candies into her pocket and quietly making her way to the back door. As the children gasped in surprise, she magically pulled a glass jar full of star-shaped candies from the locust tree hollow. Sang Shuwan was holding up her phone, filming their bright eyes. In the reflection on the screen, the half-eaten lollipop peeking out of her white coat pocket perfectly complemented the cartoon moon on Sang Jiyue’s T-shirt, forming a complete circle. (End of Chapter)