After I died, they cried in the live studio

Sang Shuwan clutched the necklace as she boarded the helicopter, the engine's roar masking the pounding of her heart. She gazed at the yacht receding into the distance outside the porthole; Sang Jiyue's figure was blurred by the waves, a white silhouette, yet she vividly remembered the warmth of his fingertips brushing against the old scar on the back of her neck as he covered her with a blanket last night. The corners of the medical report were crumpled, and the words "caused by long-term overwork during filming" stung her eyes—so those NGs, mocked as "deliberately making things difficult" on set, were nothing more than someone's clumsy protection.

The family meeting was held in the Crystal Hall of the Sang Family Manor. Sang Shuwan walked through the long corridor in high heels. Portraits of the female heirs of the Sang family hung on the walls. Her grandmother and aunt's gazes pierced through the paint and landed on the emerald on her wrist. The old man in the main seat glanced at the diamond necklace around her neck, and his cloudy pupils suddenly brightened: "Where is Jiyue?"

“She’s in the Maldives adjusting to the new environment,” Sang Shuwan pushed the script onto the center of the table, her pearl earring gleaming coldly under the chandelier. “I’ll be playing the lead role in this play.” A collective gasp filled the room. Uncle San slammed his hand on the table and stood up. “You ruined Jiyue back then, and now you want to steal her role?” Before he finished speaking, the projection screen suddenly lit up, and a holographic image of Sang Jiyue cascaded down from the crystal chandelier, with Sang Shuwan’s white shirt casually draped over her bikini.

“My dear family,” she waved the medical report in her hand, the camera panning across the brace supporting her lower back, “the doctor said I need to take a six-month break from work. But don’t worry—” The scene cut to a clip of Sang Shuwan directing extras on set, sunlight filtering through the wisps of hair behind her ears, casting a soft glow on the monitor, “My dear cousin will walk the red carpet at the Palme d’Or with our shared dream.”

The old man silently opened the sandalwood box, inside which lay two emerald rings side by side. Sang Shuwan suddenly recalled the time when she and Jiyue were seven years old, secretly wearing their grandmother's jewelry in the attic of the old house. When they were caught by the housekeeper, the girl, two years younger, stuffed the rings into her pocket, while she herself received three slaps on the palm. At this moment, the murmurs below the stage gradually subsided. She saw the sly smile flash across Sang Jiyue's image and finally understood that those years of fierce competition were actually two fledglings trapped in a gilded cage, pecking at each other's feathers for warmth.

After the meeting, a torrential downpour began. Sang Shuwan met Sang Jiyue waiting for her car in the garage—Sang Jiyue was wearing a large black hoodie, and raindrops were still dripping from her hair. "Cousin, your acting is pretty good," Sang Jiyue said, pulling down her hood to reveal a newly applied bandage on her forehead, "but next time you make it real, remember to find a reliable body double."

Sang Shuwan opened the trunk and pushed the gift box containing the back support over: "The hotel in the Maldives is booked. Take your assistant." The other person suddenly reached out and hugged her, his damp hoodie brushing against her chin: "Actually, I wanted to ask you this yesterday at the pool... back in the fire, how did you know I was afraid of the dark?"

The windshield wipers traced a fan-shaped arc of light on the car window. As Sang Shuwan started the car, their overlapping reflections appeared in the rearview mirror. She remembered that winter night when she was twelve, when Sang Jiyue was locked in the basement of the old house. She had been the one to dig through the snowdrift blocking the door with an emergency light, listening to the girl sobbing in the darkness, saying, "I'm scared." At that moment, the navigation sounded, and the destination was none other than the private physiotherapy clinic that Sang Jiyue frequented. The person in the passenger seat was already asleep, her fingertips still hooked around the second button of her shirt.

The car stopped in front of the physiotherapy clinic when the rain stopped. Sang Shuwan gently pulled her sleeve out of the way, only to see Sang Jiyue suddenly open her eyes and place something into her palm with her fingertips. It was a small thorn earring, the same style as the tattoo on her ankle. "Wear it," the girl said as she got out of the car, her messy hair billowing like a butterfly flapping its wings. "After all—a daughter of the Sang family always needs a few thorns to survive."

The figure in the rearview mirror disappeared behind the glass door. Sang Shuwan smiled as she looked at the earring in her palm. A rainbow stretched across the sky in the distance. She touched the pearl earring on her earlobe that she hadn't worn in a long time and suddenly remembered the last words Sang Jiyue said in the holographic image: "Actually, I knew the sound of the stair railing breaking better than anyone else back then."

The phone vibrated; a new message from Sang Jiyue's private account, accompanied by a screenshot of an X-ray. Sang Shuwan stared at the diagnosis of "congenital lumbar dysplasia," a sudden lump forming in her throat. A second photo lit up the screen: two little girls posing in the old house's garden, wearing necklaces woven from foxtail grass, their smiles brighter than the summer sun.

As the engine roared to life again, Sang Shuwan turned the car around and drove in the opposite direction. In the gift box in the trunk, besides the back brace, there was a gold-embossed invitation—to the opening ceremony of the Palme d'Or Film Festival, two adjacent seats. She took out the thorny earring and put it on. The reflection in the mirror overlapped with a fragment of her memory: that year, she shielded Sang Jiyue from a falling trophy; the moment the shards of glass grazed her neck, the little girl cried, pressing her princess dress against her wound, sobbing, "Don't die! If you die, who will argue with me?"

The setting sun cast long shadows of the car. Sang Shuwan turned on the car's air freshener, and the scent of orange blossom filled the cabin. The navigation system prompted her to turn right at the next intersection. Suddenly, she stepped on the gas, drawing a beautiful arc in the sunset—some roads are destined to be walked together, even if they are full of thorns, they will eventually bloom into the most dazzling flowers.

When Sang Shuyue arrived at the Palme d'Or red carpet, the streets of Paris, still fragrant with the scent of plane tree leaves after the rainstorm, were filled with her presence. She wore a black fishtail dress, her diamond necklace shimmering like a galaxy under the spotlight, but her steps faltered when she caught sight of a bright yellow figure around the corner. Sang Jiyue leaned against a marble pillar in the backstage corridor, twirling a silver lighter between her fingers. The slit in her burgundy dress revealed a thorn tattoo on her ankle—perfectly positioned opposite the earring she had just put on.

“Cousin, this dress,” Sang Jiyue raised an eyebrow and whistled, a faint blue light flashing as she switched on and off her lighter, “is even more eye-catching than the one I wore to Cannes back then.” Sang Shuwan noticed that her left wrist was wrapped in a medical bandage and that there were traces of iodine on her fingertips that hadn’t been wiped off. She was about to speak when the other woman pulled her into the dimly lit dressing room.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Sang Jiyue locked the door behind her, took an ice pack from the freezer and pressed it against her lower back. “It’s just a cut from removing the cast. But you—” She suddenly leaned closer, her nose almost touching Sang Shuwan’s, “I heard that last night during your makeup trial, you threw the jade necklace that the jeweler gave you out the window?”

Their reflections overlapped in the mirror, and Sang Shuwan smelled the rose perfume mixed with disinfectant on the other person. Seven years ago, on a rainy night like this, they shared a moldy cake in the attic of the old house, listening to the thunderstorm pounding on the glazed tiles outside the window. Sang Jiyue suddenly said, "From now on, I will wear the brightest diamonds, to blind those who say I am an illegitimate child." Now, looking at the candlelight flickering in the other person's eyes, she finally spoke softly, "Because the color of that jade bracelet is just like the jade bracelet that my grandmother clutched when she breathed her last."

Suddenly, the host's voice called out Sang Shuwan's name from outside. Sang Jiyue released her hand from her waist, took out a lipstick from the vanity drawer, and dabbed it below her collarbone: "This needs some covering up." Sang Shuwan then remembered the cut she had made from the paperweight while organizing the script last night. As the cool concealer spread, she heard Sang Jiyue say in a voice only the two of them could hear: "I checked the security footage from the old house regarding the steel bar you shielded me from back then."

Cheers erupted like a tidal wave on the red carpet. Sang Shuwan walked arm in arm with the film festival chairman, but as she passed the media area, she overheard a reporter from a gossip magazine asking, "I heard you and Ms. Sang Jiyue are at odds?" Suddenly, a flurry of camera flashes erupted, and through the gaps in the lenses, she saw Sang Jiyue standing on the steps, her burgundy dress billowing in the breeze, revealing an emerald anklet that matched her own.

“Our Sang family daughters,” Sang Shuwan turned to look at the other woman, letting the flashbulbs overlap their shadows like two sides of a coin, “have always been each other’s armor.” Before she finished speaking, Sang Jiyue suddenly shook the trophy in her hand—it was the Best Actress award she had won last year, with the tiny “SW” abbreviation engraved on the base. As the downpour started again, the two women simultaneously stretched out their hands, making a “V” sign back-to-back in front of the camera, like two swords drawn from their sheaths, yet with twin flowers blooming at their tips.

The awards ceremony concluded at midnight. Sang Shuwan received a location from Sang Jiyue backstage. When she opened the door to the rooftop terrace, she found the other woman kneeling on the railing, pouring champagne into the rain. "The doctor said I can never do action scenes again," Sang Jiyue said, shaking the empty bottle, rainwater trickling down her chin and into the hollow of her collarbone. "Cousin, am I really useless?"

The sea breeze, carrying damp mist, swept in. Sang Shuwan took off her shawl and wrapped it around her thin shoulders, touching the protruding knuckles of her spine. When they were twelve, they had carved each other's names into the family genealogy in the old house. Sang Jiyue had pricked her fingertip with a craft knife and drawn a crooked star next to "Shuwan." Now, she turned the other's face, making that always meticulously made-up face face her directly: "Do you remember when we were little, we secretly drank Grandma's sherry? You were drunk, hugging a sycamore tree and saying you wanted to be the biggest star, and me—"

“And you said you wanted to be the best director at filming celebrities.” Sang Jiyue suddenly laughed, and water droplets on her eyelashes fell into Sang Shuwan’s palm. “So now, could the great director do me the honor of acting in one last scene with a washed-up actress?” She pulled out the script hidden in her skirt. The gold-embossed words “Twins” on the cover were blurred by the rain, revealing the intertwined character biographies of the two on the inner pages.

In the darkest hour before dawn, they sat on the edge of the terrace, swinging their legs. Sang Shuwan watched the lights of the Eiffel Tower gradually go out in the distance, and suddenly remembered the unfinished words in Sang Jiyue's holographic image—the second before the stair railing broke, it was Sang Jiyue herself who kicked off the screw, in order to make the fabricated "accident" a reality, so that the old man would award the inheritance rights that should have belonged to the illegitimate daughter to her cousin who seemed to have "made a mistake" but was of pure blood.

“Actually, I received some new information yesterday,” Sang Jiyue rested her head on her shoulder, her voice as soft as a feather, “My attending physician is the same one who treated your back wound back then.” Sang Shuwan’s body stiffened abruptly, but she heard the other person chuckle in the rain: “He said that the shards of porcelain embedded in your wound were deliberately left in, because he was afraid I would feel guilty.”

As the first rays of dawn pierced the clouds, Sang Shuwan noticed that the bandage on Sang Jiyue's wrist had come undone, revealing a crescent-shaped birthmark on the inside of her neck, identical to her own. They smiled at each other, like two children who had finally seen through each other's disguise. The sound of street sweeping drifted from afar, and Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed to the horizon and said, "Look, that's our new film set."

The rain stopped, and in the puddles on the terrace, two overlapping figures were reflected. Sang Shuwan picked up the script, soggy from the rain, and signed her name on the words "Filming Completed," followed closely by Sang Jiyue's crooked handwriting. As the first flight swept over Paris, they stood up simultaneously, the water droplets on their skirts falling into the dust, destined to grow into a forest that shelters them from the wind and rain on some warm spring day.

"Where to next?" Sang Jiyue shook her car keys, her burgundy dress damp with dew. Sang Shuwan gazed at the rising sun on the horizon, her fingertips tracing the fading scar on her collarbone: "To film our story, starting from the attic of the old house." The sound of the engine broke the morning's tranquility, and the two figures disappeared at the end of the Champs-Élysées. Paris in the rearview mirror gradually blurred, but their clasped hands were clearly reflected, like two intertwined vines that, through the winds and rains of time, would eventually grow into towering trees supporting each other.

Sang Shuwan set the start of filming for "Twins" on the autumnal equinox at the Sang family's old house. As the ornate iron gate slowly opened, Sang Jiyue gazed at the moss-covered stone steps and suddenly grabbed her wrist—where the teeth marks from their "kidnapping game" when they were seven years old still remained. "Remember? You tied me to this sycamore tree," she kicked away the fallen leaves at her feet, revealing the faint marks under the tree, "saying we'd wait for Mom and Dad to come and redeem us."

While the crew was busy setting up the tracks, Sang Shuwan squatted in front of the attic floor, using a utility knife to pry up the third plank. Amidst the rising dust, two faded movie ticket stubs were revealed in a metal box—they were from the first time they secretly slipped out of the old house to see *Roman Holiday*. As Sang Jiyue leaned closer, a strand of her hair brushed behind Sang Shuwan's ear: "Back then, you said Hepburn's hat looked like a mushroom, and I laughed so hard the crew kicked me out."

The afternoon sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows, casting dappled patterns on the face of the "older sister" character played by Sang Jiyue. Wearing a replica of her grandmother's cheongsam, Sang Shuwan vaguely saw herself at sixteen when she turned around on the spiral staircase—the year she secretly wore her aunt's dress to a ball, and when Sang Jiyue caught her, the latter not only didn't report her but also sewed up her torn cuffs.

"Cut!" Sang Shuwan suddenly called for a stop; the moment Sang Jiyue lost her footing in the shot was too realistic. She rushed over and supported the other woman's lower back, touching an unusual bulge under the brace—more noticeable than the last time they met. "The doctor said..." Sang Jiyue turned her face away, her earring shimmering in the shadows, "it's bone hyperplasia caused by an old injury."

The old house was lit by candlelight late at night. Sang Shuwan was adjusting the color tones in front of the monitor when she suddenly heard the sound of fabric rustling behind her. Sang Jiyue, wrapped in her director's coat and holding two cups of hot cocoa, said, "When I was little, I always thought this house was like a haunted house, but now I think..." She looked at her grandmother's portrait on the wall, "...a little lonely."

The monitor flashed images of their childhood—family videos that Sang Shuwan had secretly hidden on the hard drive. In the video, five-year-old Sang Jiyue chased after her with a butterfly net, and when they fell into a rose bush, both of their noses were covered in pink petals. “Actually, I went through the family archives,” Sang Shuwan said, twirling her coffee spoon, “and found that your mother’s name was already written in the family genealogy.”

The downpour arrived as expected at midnight. Sang Jiyue stood on the stairs where she had fallen years ago, rain pelting her shoulders through the skylight. Sang Shuwan's hand, holding the spotlight, suddenly trembled. In the light and shadow, she saw two overlapping timelines—sixteen-year-old Sang Jiyue falling in the rain, while her "sister" was reaching out, in the same gesture as when she had caught her years ago.

"Plop"—that was the sound of Sang Jiyue's tears falling into the rain. She suddenly rushed down the stairs and hugged Sang Shuwan in the muddy courtyard, her expensive costume covered in mud: "I actually heard you shouting 'Be careful' that day." In the halo of the spotlight, Sang Shuwan saw her own reflection in her reddened eyes, like two fish trapped in amber, finally swimming into the same warm water.

The wrap party was held in the glass conservatory of the old house. Sang Jiyue, without makeup, leaned on Sang Shuwan's shoulder, watching the staff pack up the equipment. Suddenly, someone played the theme song from "Roman Holiday," and she pointed out the window: "Look, a rainbow." Two arcs spanned the dilapidated roof and landed precisely on the sycamore tree where they had named each other as children.

Sang Shuwan took out a movie ticket stub from the tin box and wrote on the back: "To my twin stars, may you never fall." Sang Jiyue took the pen and drew two intertwined stars next to it. The ink smudged accidentally, but it looked just like the birthmarks below their collarbones. As the last light went out, they walked side by side down the corridor, the sound of their leather shoes echoing in the empty old house, just like the heartbeats of two little girls on that night they sneaked out many years ago. As the car drove away from the old house, Sang Jiyue suddenly rolled down the window, letting the night wind tousle her hair. The neon lights in the distance gradually lit up. She touched the MRI report in her pocket, her fingertips brushing over the words "surgical recommendation," but when she saw the newly added gray hairs at Sang Shuwan's temples, she quietly folded the paper. In the rearview mirror, the outline of the old house grew smaller and smaller, but the light they had left behind before leaving remained lit, like a star that would never go out.

"What do you want to film next?" Sang Shuwan handed over a warm milk tea, the cup bearing the thorny logo they had designed together. Sang Jiyue looked at the shooting stars flashing past the car window and suddenly laughed until tears streamed down her face: "Let's film the day we chased hats in the Caribbean, but this time—" She turned to look at the person next to her, her eyes reflecting the lights of countless homes, "I want the director to fall into the water too."

The milk tea cups clinked together with a crisp sound. Sang Shuwan glanced at the flashing "Next Journey" on the navigation screen, then suddenly reached out and grasped Sang Jiyue's hand. The touch was like the mulberries they used to steal as children—sweet and sour with a hint of astringency, yet, with the passage of time, they had become the richest honey. The rain began to fall again, but no longer with the coldness of her memories; instead, it carried the warmth of a spring night, gently tapping against the car window as they traveled together.

When Sang Jiyue awoke from her coma, the ticking of the monitor sounded just like the grandfather clock in the attic of the old house. She struggled to move her eyes and saw Sang Shuwan lying beside the bed, her fingertips still clutching her hand—an IV catheter inserted into the back of that hand, the edge of the adhesive tape rolled up, revealing pale blue veins underneath. Morning light filtered through the blinds, weaving silvery threads on the top of her hair. She suddenly remembered the last time she had seen her this close was on a yacht in the Caribbean, when that person had retrieved her hat that had been blown away by the wind, and the sea salt clinging to her eyelashes.

"Awake?" Sang Shuwan's voice was hoarse like sandpaper. When she looked up, the dark circles under her eyes almost dripped into her collarbone. She reached out to adjust the height of the IV stand, her sleeve slipping down to reveal fresh needle marks on her forearm—the energizing injections she'd received while accompanying her. Sang Jiyue wanted to say "Aren't you stupid?" but found her throat felt like it was stuffed with seawater-soaked cotton. She could only lightly tap the back of the other's hand with her fingertips, making the "safe" gesture they'd agreed on in the movie.

The days in the hospital stretched out like an elongated film reel. Sang Shuwan moved her director's chair into the ward. During the day, while revising the script, Sang Jiyue would use cotton swabs dipped in warm water to draw storyboards on the bedside table—she always said that Sang Shuwan's wrinkled nose when revising the script looked like a cat, and the other would tap her forehead with a pencil and say, "The patient should be watching 'Animal World' obediently." When keeping vigil late at night, Sang Shuwan would always secretly use her phone to check the latest recovery cases from abroad after she fell asleep. The blue light from the screen reflected in her eyes, like a hidden sea of ​​stars that refused to be easily revealed.

On the day the stitches were removed, Sang Jiyue lifted her hospital gown in front of the mirror in the ward, revealing pale pink stains along the edges of the gauze wrapped around her lower back. Sang Shuwan stood behind her, changing her dressing. When her fingertips touched the new skin, she suddenly remembered when she was twelve years old, during their exploration of the old house's cellar. Sang Jiyue had cut her calf on a rusty nail, and had gritted her teeth and said, "It doesn't hurt," but when she saw Sang Jiyue's eyes redden, she turned around and used her dusty fingertips to wipe away her tears.

“The doctor said I can start rehabilitation next week,” Sang Shuwan’s voice came from behind the gauze, trembling almost imperceptibly. Sang Jiyue looked into her eyes in the mirror and saw her own reflection carefully cradled in her pupils, like holding a puzzle piece that had finally been completed. She suddenly turned around, hooked her arm around the other’s neck with the hand that wasn’t on the IV, and whispered in her ear, “Cousin, I dreamt about our aurora scene. You were dressed like a polar bear, but you insisted on lying on the snow to take pictures of the starry sky.”

As the first snowflakes drifted outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the rehabilitation room, Sang Jiyue was finally able to take ten full steps with the help of her walker. Sang Shuwan was recording a video on her phone, but the camera shook violently the moment she stumbled—the footage flashed as she rushed over to support Sang Jiyue, and when the two collided on the soft mat, Sang Jiyue heard her groan, yet she still tightly protected her waist. Later, when reviewing the video, Sang Jiyue noticed that the old scar on the back of Sang Shuwan's neck was soaked with cold sweat, like a dark flower blooming in the snow.

On Christmas Eve, Sang Shuwan pushed her wheelchair out of the hospital. Snowflakes pattered against the glass of a convenience store. They shared a bowl of oden and watched the clerk put up Santa Claus stickers in the window. Suddenly, Sang Jiyue pointed to the movie theater across the street: "Roman Holiday is being re-released." The next second, Sang Shuwan had already pushed her through the revolving door. As the wheelchair rolled over the carpet, she heard the other person say, "This time, no one dares to kick us out."

The theater was empty. As Hepburn smiled while biting into her ice cream on the screen, Sang Jiyue suddenly grasped Sang Shuwan's hand and placed it on her lower back—the muscles there could now exert a slight strength. Sang Shuwan's fingertips trembled slightly along her spine, as if touching some lost and found treasure. As the end credits rolled, Sang Jiyue saw her quietly wipe the corner of her eye, but as she turned her head, she quickly put on a disgusted expression: "The radish chunks in the oden were overcooked."

As the New Year's bells rang, they released sky lanterns on the hospital rooftop. Sang Jiyue, wrapped in three blankets, watched Sang Shuwan write her wishes on the lantern surface; the handwriting was crooked and distorted by the cold wind. "What did you wish for?" she asked, hunching her shoulders and leaning closer, only to have Sang Shuwan press her forehead against her own with her frostbitten nose. "If you say it out loud, it won't come true." The moment the lantern rose, she glimpsed two lines of small writing on the surface: one read, "May Sang Jiyue recover soon," and the other, crossed out, read, "May we never be separated."

On the day of Lichun (the beginning of spring), the Sang family's old residence sent a new family genealogy. When Sang Shuwan turned to the last page, she found a new annotation next to the name "Sang Jiyue": legitimate daughter, inheriting the film and television business. Sunlight fell on their intertwined legs. Sang Jiyue wiggled her ankles, which could now move slightly, and suddenly said, "Actually, I secretly checked. Our birthdays are exactly seven months and seven days apart, which is exactly the cycle of the Big Dipper."

"So?" Sang Shuwan closed the family genealogy book, her fingertips tracing the emerald bracelet she had put back on her wrist. Sang Jiyue suddenly leaned down and placed a kiss as light as a feather on her forehead: "So you are my Tianji star, and I am your Yaoguang star, destined to shine as the brightest pair of twin stars in each other's orbits." The magnolias outside the window were budding, and the spring breeze carried their laughter through the ward, like it swept over the glazed tiles of an old house, over the crests of the Caribbean Sea, and over all the years they had spent together.

On the day her rehabilitation ended, Sang Shuwan took her to a secret location. Pushing open the warehouse door, Sang Jiyue saw a wall of monitors playing a loop of footage of them from childhood to adulthood—snow scenes from their old house, lights from the film set, and the image of Sang Shuwan covering her with a blanket while she dozed off on the rooftop the previous night. "This is our star trail database," Sang Shuwan said, pressing a remote control. All the screens lit up simultaneously, spelling out their intertwined names, "recording every moment you were by my side."

The setting sun cast long shadows of them. Sang Jiyue, supporting herself with her walker, walked towards the door, then suddenly turned and made a "shooting" gesture at the camera—a classic move from their new script. Sang Shuwan laughed until tears streamed down her face behind the monitor as she watched Sang Jiyue suddenly bend down, take a paper rose from the walker's basket, and gently blow on it towards the camera.

The paper rose twirled through the air, passing over all the screens that recorded time, finally landing in Sang Shuwan's palm. She touched the crooked handwriting on the petals; it was the first flower Sang Jiyue had folded with her teeth during her rehabilitation, which read: "Next stop, the Arctic." The calls of returning birds drifted from afar. Gazing at the sky outside the window, which was gradually turning red, she suddenly understood that some stories never need an ending, because every moment they experienced was an eternity being written.

A spring breeze stirred the script on the table. On the title page of *Twins 2: Star Trails*, two brand-new movie ticket stubs were affixed. Sang Shuwan looked at Sang Jiyue, who was also looking at her, her eyes shining with a light more dazzling than the aurora borealis. They knew that no matter how much wind and rain lay ahead, as long as they stood side by side, every step they took would become a star trail, forever shining and inseparable in the long night of time.

When Sang Jiyue awoke from her coma, the ticking of the monitor sounded just like the grandfather clock in the attic of the old house. She struggled to move her eyes and saw Sang Shuwan lying beside the bed, her fingertips still clutching her hand—an IV catheter inserted into the back of that hand, the edge of the adhesive tape rolled up, revealing pale blue veins underneath. Morning light filtered through the blinds, weaving silvery threads on the top of her hair. She suddenly remembered the last time she had seen her this close was on a yacht in the Caribbean, when that person had retrieved her hat that had been blown away by the wind, and the sea salt clinging to her eyelashes.

"Awake?" Sang Shuwan's voice was hoarse like sandpaper. When she looked up, the dark circles under her eyes almost dripped into her collarbone. She reached out to adjust the height of the IV stand, her sleeve slipping down to reveal fresh needle marks on her forearm—the energizing injections she'd received while accompanying her. Sang Jiyue wanted to say "Aren't you stupid?" but found her throat felt like it was stuffed with seawater-soaked cotton. She could only lightly tap the back of the other's hand with her fingertips, making the "safe" gesture they'd agreed on in the movie.

The days in the hospital stretched out like an elongated film reel. Sang Shuwan moved her director's chair into the ward. During the day, while revising the script, Sang Jiyue would use cotton swabs dipped in warm water to draw storyboards on the bedside table—she always said that Sang Shuwan's wrinkled nose when revising the script looked like a cat, and the other would tap her forehead with a pencil and say, "The patient should be watching 'Animal World' obediently." When keeping vigil late at night, Sang Shuwan would always secretly use her phone to check the latest recovery cases from abroad after she fell asleep. The blue light from the screen reflected in her eyes, like a hidden sea of ​​stars that refused to be easily revealed.

On the day the stitches were removed, Sang Jiyue lifted her hospital gown in front of the mirror in the ward, revealing pale pink stains along the edges of the gauze wrapped around her lower back. Sang Shuwan stood behind her, changing her dressing. When her fingertips touched the new skin, she suddenly remembered when she was twelve years old, during their exploration of the old house's cellar. Sang Jiyue had cut her calf on a rusty nail, and had gritted her teeth and said, "It doesn't hurt," but when she saw Sang Jiyue's eyes redden, she turned around and used her dusty fingertips to wipe away her tears.

“The doctor said I can start rehabilitation next week,” Sang Shuwan’s voice came from behind the gauze, trembling almost imperceptibly. Sang Jiyue looked into her eyes in the mirror and saw her own reflection carefully cradled in her pupils, like holding a puzzle piece that had finally been completed. She suddenly turned around, hooked her arm around the other’s neck with the hand that wasn’t on the IV, and whispered in her ear, “Cousin, I dreamt about our aurora scene. You were dressed like a polar bear, but you insisted on lying on the snow to take pictures of the starry sky.”

As the first snowflakes drifted outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the rehabilitation room, Sang Jiyue was finally able to take ten full steps with the help of her walker. Sang Shuwan was recording a video on her phone, but the camera shook violently the moment she stumbled—the footage flashed as she rushed over to support Sang Jiyue, and when the two collided on the soft mat, Sang Jiyue heard her groan, yet she still tightly protected her waist. Later, when reviewing the video, Sang Jiyue noticed that the old scar on the back of Sang Shuwan's neck was soaked with cold sweat, like a dark flower blooming in the snow.

On Christmas Eve, Sang Shuwan pushed her wheelchair out of the hospital. Snowflakes pattered against the glass of a convenience store. They shared a bowl of oden and watched the clerk put up Santa Claus stickers in the window. Suddenly, Sang Jiyue pointed to the movie theater across the street: "Roman Holiday is being re-released." The next second, Sang Shuwan had already pushed her through the revolving door. As the wheelchair rolled over the carpet, she heard the other person say, "This time, no one dares to kick us out."

The theater was empty. As Hepburn smiled while biting into her ice cream on the screen, Sang Jiyue suddenly grasped Sang Shuwan's hand and placed it on her lower back—the muscles there could now exert a slight strength. Sang Shuwan's fingertips trembled slightly along her spine, as if touching some lost and found treasure. As the end credits rolled, Sang Jiyue saw her quietly wipe the corner of her eye, but as she turned her head, she quickly put on a disgusted expression: "The radish chunks in the oden were overcooked."

As the New Year's bells rang, they released sky lanterns on the hospital rooftop. Sang Jiyue, wrapped in three blankets, watched Sang Shuwan write her wishes on the lantern surface; the handwriting was crooked and distorted by the cold wind. "What did you wish for?" she asked, hunching her shoulders and leaning closer, only to have Sang Shuwan press her forehead against her own with her frostbitten nose. "If you say it out loud, it won't come true." The moment the lantern rose, she glimpsed two lines of small writing on the surface: one read, "May Sang Jiyue recover soon," and the other, crossed out, read, "May we never be separated."

On the day of Lichun (the beginning of spring), the Sang family's old residence sent a new family genealogy. When Sang Shuwan turned to the last page, she found a new annotation next to the name "Sang Jiyue": legitimate daughter, inheriting the film and television business. Sunlight fell on their intertwined legs. Sang Jiyue wiggled her ankles, which could now move slightly, and suddenly said, "Actually, I secretly checked. Our birthdays are exactly seven months and seven days apart, which is exactly the cycle of the Big Dipper."

"So?" Sang Shuwan closed the family genealogy book, her fingertips tracing the emerald bracelet she had put back on her wrist. Sang Jiyue suddenly leaned down and placed a kiss as light as a feather on her forehead: "So you are my Tianji star, and I am your Yaoguang star, destined to shine as the brightest pair of twin stars in each other's orbits." The magnolias outside the window were budding, and the spring breeze carried their laughter through the ward, like it swept over the glazed tiles of an old house, over the crests of the Caribbean Sea, and over all the years they had spent together.

On the day her rehabilitation ended, Sang Shuwan took her to a secret location. Pushing open the warehouse door, Sang Jiyue saw a wall of monitors playing a loop of footage of them from childhood to adulthood—snow scenes from their old house, lights from the film set, and the image of Sang Shuwan covering her with a blanket while she dozed off on the rooftop the previous night. "This is our star trail database," Sang Shuwan said, pressing a remote control. All the screens lit up simultaneously, spelling out their intertwined names, "recording every moment you were by my side."

The setting sun cast long shadows of them. Sang Jiyue, supporting herself with her walker, walked towards the door, then suddenly turned and made a "shooting" gesture at the camera—a classic move from their new script. Sang Shuwan laughed until tears streamed down her face behind the monitor as she watched Sang Jiyue suddenly bend down, take a paper rose from the walker's basket, and gently blow on it towards the camera.

The paper rose twirled through the air, passing over all the screens that recorded time, finally landing in Sang Shuwan's palm. She touched the crooked handwriting on the petals; it was the first flower Sang Jiyue had folded with her teeth during her rehabilitation, which read: "Next stop, the Arctic." The calls of returning birds drifted from afar. Gazing at the sky outside the window, which was gradually turning red, she suddenly understood that some stories never need an ending, because every moment they experienced was an eternity being written.

A spring breeze stirred the script on the table. On the title page of *Twins 2: Star Trails*, two brand-new movie ticket stubs were affixed. Sang Shuwan looked at Sang Jiyue, who was also looking at her, her eyes shining with a light more dazzling than the aurora borealis. They knew that no matter how much wind and rain lay ahead, as long as they stood side by side, every step they took would become a star trail, forever shining and inseparable in the long night of time.

The filming ceremony for "Twins 2: Star Trails" was held on the spring equinox. Sang Jiyue, wearing the white cloak from the film, stood under the aurora borealis in Iceland. Her walking aid had been replaced with an ornate walking stick, the emerald inlay at the top shimmering with light, as if carrying Sang Shuwan's eyes with her. The moment the director yelled "action," she saw Sang Shuwan, holding the clapperboard not far away, suddenly turn around. Snowflakes landed on the other's eyelashes, the lighting gentler than any scene she could remember.

This aurora scene required Sang Jiyue to lie on the snow and spin around. The cameraman, leaning over the tripod, frowned: "There might be a risk to her lower back from the strain." Sang Shuwan suddenly took off her down jacket and squatted into the shot, placing her own cashmere scarf under Sang Jiyue's lower back. The white wool was quickly soaked with snow water, but it diffused into a soft area of ​​light on the monitor. As the first ray of green light swept across the sky, Sang Jiyue heard Sang Shuwan call out in the minus fifteen degree wind: "Yuebao, remember to tilt your chin up when you look at the camera, like this—" In the instant she looked up, she saw the other person kneeling on one knee in the snow, her cotton pants at the knee already covered with ice, yet she was still gesturing the angle with her frozen, purple fingertips.

During breaks in filming, they huddled in the converted campervan to keep warm. Sang Jiyue slipped a hand warmer into Sang Shuwan's hand, feeling the thin calluses on the other's palm—marks left from Sang Shuwan's daily leg massages when she was bedridden last year. The car's TV was replaying the old version of "Twins," showing her twelve-year-old self running through the old house's corridor with a toy gun, Sang Shuwan chasing after her in an ill-fitting tuxedo, her wig askew, yet she still called out in a taut voice, "Miss, please wait!" (End of Chapter)