After I died, they cried in the live studio

Chapter 199 Theatrical Turmoil
Sang Shuwan gently placed her mother's old film reels into a waterproof bag, her fingertips touching the lavender at the bottom, pressed as thin as a cicada's wing. The wind on the lake suddenly picked up, swirling sand through the reeds, and the distant roar of bulldozers eerily overlapped with the clicking sound of a film projector from her memory. Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed to the center of the lake: "Look!"—Countless fireflies had appeared on the lake, their faint glow reflecting the morning light, weaving flowing starlight patterns on the water.

"Did you raise these?" Sang Shuwan recognized these modified bioluminescent insects as the "ecological special effects" her sister used in the environmental documentary last year.

Sang Jiyue shook her head: "They must have come from the starlight marks on the old house." She bent down and scooped up a handful of lake water, and the fireflies stopped on her fingertips. "Do you remember? When we were little, we always put fireflies in glass bottles and said we would make them into magic lamps that could play stars."

The shutter of the film camera clicked again. Sang Shuwan caught a glimmer in her sister's eyes—a glimmer that no special effects or lighting could replicate. For the first time in twenty years, there was no longer a barrier between them through the lens. When the swarm of fireflies suddenly took flight, Sang Jiyue instinctively grabbed her wrist. This action reminded Sang Shuwan of her mother's last embrace before her death—the same warmth, the same trembling.

“We should go back,” Sang Jiyue said softly, but did not let go of her hand. “The investors said that if we don’t sign the venue transfer agreement today, they will withdraw the entire budget for ‘Starry Twins’.”

“Then let them smoke.” Sang Shuwan buried the waterproof bag in the reed roots. “But before that, I want to take you to see something.”

They trekked for three hours to reach the deepest, uninhabited area of ​​Dunhuang. When Sang Jiyue saw the densely packed film canisters on the cliff face, her breath almost stopped—thousands of iron canisters were embedded in the rock wall, each lid engraved with starlight, and the crevices were filled with tenacious camel thorns.

"This is……"

“Mom’s secret base.” Sang Shuwan stroked the nearest box. On the inside of the lid, it was written in red pen: “The first roll of film for Xiaowan.” “Three months before she passed away, she would secretly come here every morning to bury the film. The doctor said that she could no longer see the viewfinder at that time, but she still took three hundred rolls of film, saying that she wanted to leave us a starry sky that would never fade.”

Sang Jiyue's fingertips traced the engravings on the box lid, suddenly touching a recessed area—the simplified form of the character "霁" (Ji), which her mother often used. Large tears fell, landing on the dusty lid and revealing faint lavender patterns beneath. She finally understood why her sister was always obsessed with old film reels, and why there was always a faint lavender scent emanating from the star-shaped engravings in the old house's cellar.

“She was afraid we would forget what light looks like.” Sang Shuwan’s voice was mixed with the sound of the wind. “But now I know that light is never in the film, but in…” She turned to look at her sister, the morning light gilding her silhouette, “in the eyes of those who are willing to search for light with you in the desert.”

The sound of the bulldozers suddenly became clear. Sang Jiyue wiped away her tears and took out her mother's old clapperboard from her backpack—the one they had found in the ruins yesterday, with half a dried lavender leaf wrapped around its crack. "Let's use this to shoot the opening shot," she said, shoving the clapperboard into her sister's hand. "Just like Mom did back then, use the simplest method to capture the truest light."

When they rushed back to the oasis, the investors' convoy had already surrounded the dunes. The producer, dressed in a suit and tie, rushed over with the contract in hand, but froze when he saw the clapperboard in Sang Shuwan's hand—the mottled scratches on it matched perfectly with the old photos in his grandfather's study.

"Director Sang, we..."

“Give us three days.” Sang Shuwan slammed the clapperboard heavily on the sand dune, startling a few sand lizards. “If you still want to flatten this place after three days, I’ll personally be your bulldozer operator.” She turned to look at Sang Jiyue, who was adjusting the reflector in front of the lake. The morning light shone through the star-shaped ring on her finger, casting trembling spots of light on the sand dune.

As the first rays of sunset painted the sky red, the film crew miraculously completed the setup. There were no green screens, no AI effects, only real fireflies, old film cameras, and two directors rolling around in the sand—Sang Jiyue was responsible for capturing the last rays of light with a mirror, while Sang Shuwan lay in the mud adjusting the camera positions. The two would occasionally throw sandballs at each other, as if they had returned to their childhood without the obstruction of cameras.

As the crisp sound of the clapperboard echoed across the desert, Sang Jiyue suddenly smiled at the camera—not an expression from any script, but the first genuine smile she had shown in twenty years, a smile that revealed she had truly let go of competition and barriers. Sang Shuwan, seeing this through the viewfinder, suddenly understood what her mother meant by "light remembers": not the chemical coating of film, not the precise calculations of an algorithm, but the unreplicable light of life that flows naturally when two souls resonate under the same starlight.

Late at night, as the last roll of film was fed into the developing tank, the Sang sisters sat side by side on a sand dune. In the distance, countless points of light lit up in the direction of the old house ruins—film fans, holding up their phone flashlights, spontaneously formed a flowing starburst pattern. Sang Jiyue rested her head on her sister's shoulder, watching the Milky Way slowly rotate: "Tell me, how do you think extraterrestrial civilizations would interpret our starburst marks?"

“They will know,” Sang Shuwan held her hand, feeling the calluses and warmth in her palm, “there were two people here who spent their whole lives proving that the most dazzling star trails are the light I see reflected in your eyes when I look at you.”

Beneath the sand dunes, the lake water gently laps against the reed roots where time capsules are buried. Suddenly, a firefly lands on Sang Shuwan's hair, the light at its tip reflecting off the diamonds on Sang Jiyue's ring, much like the twin stars of light and love in the old house's cellar that will never fade.

Sang Jiyue gently traced the lavender pattern on the clapperboard with her fingertips, suddenly remembering the small bottle her mother had given her before she passed away—it contained dried lavender petals, and the words "Starlight Filter for Little Moon" were written in pencil on the bottom of the bottle. At that time, she had just received her first DV camera and always complained that she couldn't get the soft light effect she wanted. So her mother secretly collected lavender all summer long, saying that it could "grind moonlight into powdered sugar."

"Sister, look at this." Sang Jiyue pulled a yellowed note from her pocket, with a few grains of sand still stuck to the corner. "I found this in the ruins yesterday. It should be a storyboard manuscript written by Mom." The paper made a slight rustling sound when it was unfolded. On it, two little figures holding hands were drawn crookedly in red pen, against a background of explosive starburst lines. Next to it was a note: "Twin shot: Let the light leak out from between their fingers, like fragments of the Milky Way scattered on the ground."

Sang Shuwan leaned closer and suddenly choked up—this was the very opening scene they had just filmed. It turned out that twenty years ago, her mother, tormented by a terminal illness, had already rehearsed their reunion. The bulldozers in the distance stopped, and the producer's assistant ran over with a tablet: "Director Sang, the investors say they want to see the sample footage..."

“No.” Sang Shuwan refused without hesitation, but then she saw Sang Jiyue already inserting the first roll of film into the projector. When the beam of light hit the makeshift white screen, everyone held their breath—in the image, Sang Jiyue’s star-shaped ring swept across the mirror, and spots of light fell on Sang Shuwan’s mud-covered eyelashes, like a row of breathing little stars. Even more magically, the real fireflies seemed to understand the language of the camera, collectively flapping their wings at the moment of exposure, leaving flowing light trails on the film.

“This is… the fingerprint of light.” The producer suddenly murmured, his fingertips tracing the cracks on the clapperboard. “My grandfather once said that he worked with a female director when he was young, and she always said, ‘Every shot should have a heartbeat.’ So that woman… was your mother.” He pulled a faded photograph from his suit pocket—a young mother standing on a sand dune in Dunhuang, holding the very clapperboard in her hand, and standing next to her was the producer’s grandfather.

The night wind swirled fine sand across the projection screen, blurring the images of two generations into starlight. Sang Jiyue suddenly remembered the day of her mother's funeral, when her older sister, clutching a tin full of film reels, ran frantically into the desert. She chased her for three miles, finally finding her sister covered in mud, burying the reels in the reeds, crying and saying, "These lights will expire, they will fade..."

“No, it won’t.” She gently held her sister’s hand, looking at the firefly-like spots of light dancing on the white cloth. “Look, Mom planted light in us.” Sang Shuwan turned to look at her and noticed that the beauty mark at the corner of her sister’s eye looked like a star that had not yet fallen in the moonlight. She suddenly remembered that her mother had said that they were born during the Perseid meteor shower, so one was named “Shuwan” and the other “Jiyue”, “two containers that let starlight fall on earth.”

At three in the morning, the red light in the film developing room came on. As the last still was developed, the Sand sisters smiled at the same time—in the image, their shadows overlapped on the sand to form a complete starburst, while in the distance, a group of fans walked towards them with lights, the chains of light winding like a real galaxy, turning the entire desert into a luminous cocoon.

"The investors called, saying they're tripled the budget." The assistant rushed in, phone in hand, her voice trembling with tears. "But they want to know... if we can preserve the ruins of the old house and turn it into a live-action filming location?" Sang Shuwan looked at Sang Jiyue, who was using tweezers to pick up a piece of scrap film and turning it upside down in the light—the scratches on the film unexpectedly formed a flowing star trail pattern.

“Tell them,” Sang Jiyue placed the film reel into the specimen box, with half a dried lavender leaf at the bottom, “that we’re going to make a film without a script. Let the wind write all the light, let the sand record it, and let those who are willing to look up at the stars become the starlight in the lens.” Sang Shuwan picked up her mother’s old light meter, with half a note tucked inside the dial. The faded handwriting read: “When you can’t find the light, look at the people around you; they have the answer you’re looking for in their eyes.”

Ripples spread across the lake beneath the dunes, reflecting two figures standing side by side. Suddenly, a swarm of fireflies rose from the reeds, swirling around them in a luminous vortex, reminiscent of that summer night twenty years ago when they secretly collected fireflies, or the off-key nursery rhyme their mother always hummed while developing film in the darkroom—it turns out that some lights never truly go out; they simply become starlight in their blood, destined to reunite at some moment, forming a galaxy that illuminates each other once more.

As morning light filtered through the screen window of the film processing room, Sang Shuwan noticed tiny grains of sand clinging to her younger sister's eyelashes. She reached out to brush them away, but Sang Jiyue suddenly grabbed her wrist, her fingertips brushing against the old scar on her sister's hand—a mark from when they were twelve, falling down a sand dune while fighting for the last roll of color film. "Remember? You said film was more important than life," Sang Jiyue chuckled, her voice rough with the gritty texture of sand. "Now I understand, what's more important than the film is the person I fought with for it."

When the producer's grandfather suddenly visited the set, everyone was building a temporary habitat for the fireflies. The old man, leaning on his cane, shakily reached for the film canister on the cliff wall. His age-spotted fingers stopped on the lid engraved with the character "霁" (ji, meaning clear sky): "Back then, she always said that film was the amber of time. I laughed at her romanticism, until after she passed away, I found the work photos she secretly took of me in the darkroom—it turns out that the way I frowned in front of the developing solution looked like someone holding the moon in her lens."

The old man pulled a crumpled ticket stub from his wallet—an admission ticket to the 1998 Dunhuang International Film Festival. On the back, written in pencil, were the words: "If one day I can no longer take photos, remember to bury these stars in the desert for me. They will sprout." Sang Shuwan suddenly remembered her mother's repeated murmurs of "sprout" before her death. It turned out that she wasn't referring to plants, but to the inheritance of light.

A sudden gust of wind swept through the desert in the afternoon. Sang Jiyue chased after a sun hat that had been blown away, but discovered a new starburst pattern in a depression in the dune—seven radiating lines embedded with shards of glass, refracting rainbows in the sunlight. "It was left by a film fan," the script supervisor ran over, holding up his phone. "Social media is all talking about this 'starburst photo spot,' and some people are saying they want to bring their kids to bury their own 'time capsules.'"

Sang Shuwan squatted down and traced the engravings with her fingertips. Suddenly, she touched a raised piece of glass with the crooked character "晚" (wan, meaning evening) carved on it with her fingernail. Her nose tingled with emotion as she recalled a private message she received last night. A girl had said that she hadn't seen the stars since her parents' divorce, and only dared to reopen the telescope her father had given her after seeing their firefly trailer.

"Sis, look at this!" Sang Jiyue rushed over, holding a tablet computer. The screen displayed real-time aerial footage—more and more car headlights converged along the desert highway, and glass bottles were strapped to the roofs of the vehicles, with twinkling lights inside. "They said they wanted to be our 'mobile spotlights'," the younger sister said, her eyes shining like fireflies immersed in a lake. "So light really is contagious."

As dusk fell, the film crew unexpectedly received a group of special "extras"—the production assistants, lighting technicians, and editors from the mother's film crew twenty years ago. Now, their temples are gray, but they have trekked there with their old equipment from back then. The old lighting technician choked up as he touched the rusty spotlight: "After she passed away, we all changed careers, but it always felt like a piece of film was missing in our hearts. Now we realize that what we were missing was not film, but the people who chased the light together."

When Sang Shuwan handed her mother's old clapperboard to the old editor, the old woman suddenly pointed to the chip in the corner of the board: "Look at this! Back then, she used the clapperboard to smash the rapids to save a film box that had fallen into the water. Later, we repaired the chip with lavender wax." Sang Jiyue leaned closer to smell it and indeed detected a faint, sweet fragrance in the wood grain, like starlight marinated by time.

The smell of developing solution lingered in the film processing room late at night. The Sang sisters were dozing against the wall when they were suddenly awakened by a phone notification. On social media, the hashtag #FindingStarsAroundYou# had already garnered over 200,000 posts. Some shared photos of their grandmother's silver hairpin engraved with starlight, while others posted their father's last sketch of the starry sky. In the most popular video, a boy in an intensive care unit held up his phone, the screen reflecting the moon outside the window. He said to the camera, "These are the starlights my mother and I promised each other. She went to the stars, and I want to save her light in my photo album."

As Sang Jiyue watched, tears dripped onto her tablet, but she forwarded the video to the investors' group. Three minutes later, the producer sent a message: "We've decided to establish the 'Starlight Fund' to specifically support new directors who use traditional film to record real stories. Also..." He attached a photo of a newly erected wooden sign in front of the old house ruins, which read: "No leveling here—light will grow."

At dawn, Sang Shuwan was shaken awake by her younger sister, who pointed to the eastern horizon—a pale purple dawn floated on the horizon, and a flock of seagulls flew by in a V-formation, their wings edged with a golden-red light. Sang Jiyue suddenly grabbed her camera and ran, kneeling atop a sand dune to take a shot. As the first rays of sunlight leaped out, her finger, which was about to press the shutter, suddenly froze—in the lens, her older sister was running towards her, holding a reflector, her backlit figure surrounded by early-rising fireflies, like a ring of flying starlight. "Don't move!" she shouted, pressing the shutter. At the same time, Sang Shuwan also raised her old film camera, aiming it at her sister's profile bathed in the morning sun—the grains of sand on her eyelashes were sparkling, like scattered diamonds, and the beauty mark at the corner of her eye fell precisely on the crosshairs of the viewfinder, becoming the starlight center of the entire image.

The two printed photos were pasted side by side on the wall of the darkroom. In Sang Shuwan's photo, Sang Jiyue kneels on a sand dune, with the rising sun behind her, and fireflies weaving halos in her hair; in Sang Jiyue's photo, her sister runs against the light, and the light spots refracted by the reflector fall exactly on the film pendant on her chest, which contains a photo of their mother, with a smile on her lips that she hadn't finished saying twenty years ago.

The producer named the two photos "Twin Stars." Later, at the premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, when the giant screen lit up with these shots, the entire theater gasped—not because the composition was perfect or the colors were stunning, but because everyone saw in those shimmering spots of light a light they had lost but which had never truly disappeared: the fireflies they had secretly hidden in their childhood, the reflection in their lover's eyes, a lamp handed to them by a stranger, and the courage to record things even knowing they would fade.

As the movie ended, the Sang sisters stood at the cinema entrance, watching the audience walk out with their phone flashlights. The light trails meandered through the rainy Berlin streets like an inexhaustible galaxy. Sang Jiyue suddenly remembered her mother's darkroom, the film hanging on the drying ropes, once illuminated by moonlight on a certain night, each frame of the image floating with tiny silver particles, as if someone had ground stars into powder and kneaded them into the folds of time.

“Sister,” she whispered, “do you think Mom might be watching us from some starlight right now?” Sang Shuwan reached out and caught a falling ginkgo leaf, its veins naturally forming radiating patterns. She smiled and tucked the leaf into her film canister: “No, she’s in every frame we shoot, in the eyes of everyone watching the film, in every moment when people are willing to stop for the light.”

The Brandenburg Gate loomed in the distance, half-hidden by the lights. Suddenly, a passerby raised their phone and took a picture in their direction. Sang Shuwan instinctively put her arm around her sister's shoulder. In the photo, their shadows overlapped on the wet pavement, like two starlight pieces joined together. Above them, the rain had stopped, and a pale crescent moon peeked out from the clouds, as if someone had accidentally spilled the Milky Way, scattering a few drops onto the earth.

Three years later, the "Starry Night Base" in Dunhuang has become a sacred place in the hearts of film fans. The Sang sisters' "Starry Night, Starry Sky" won seven international awards, but the most precious "uncut version" has always been preserved - the original film that records their search for light, arguments and throwing sand at each other in the desert. It is placed in a lavender tin left by their mother and placed on the top shelf of the display case in the base museum.

One autumn equinox morning, Sang Shuwan was awakened by a phone call from the museum curator: "Director Sang, someone has carved new starlight on 'Time Cliff'!" When she arrived, she saw Sang Jiyue squatting in front of the rock wall, stroking a fresh carving with her fingertips—two small sapphires embedded in the seven delicate lines, like solidified stars.

"It was filmed late last night." The administrator pulled up the surveillance footage. In the video, a young couple knelt before a cliff by moonlight. The boy held a headlamp, and the girl held a carving knife. Their overlapping shadows were cast on the rock face, much like the two sisters who secretly collected fireflies twenty years ago. At the end of the video, the girl raised her phone and waved it at the camera. On the screen was a yellowed movie ticket stub, for the first commemorative screening of "Starry Night, Twin Stars."

“They say this is a marriage proposal mark.” Sang Jiyue smiled and pointed to the area below the mark, where a line of words written in fine sand had appeared: “Your eyes are the brightest starlight I have ever seen.” As the wind swept across the cliff, the lid of an old film canister was gently lifted, revealing a yellowed letter inside. It was a letter from her mother to her future children: “My little moons, if you see these stars, remember to ask the wind for me if it has carried the scent of lavender into your lenses.”

The midday sun shone through the base's glass dome, casting countless star-like patterns on the ground. Sang Shuwan suddenly received an email from the International Astronomical Union, her pupils contracting sharply—the "star spectrum" they had sent last year had been officially certified as "the first cosmic coordinate system marked by biological light sources." On the attached star map, a small symbol had appeared next to Dunhuang's latitude and longitude: , resembling two overlapping firefly wings.

"Sister, come quick!" Sang Jiyue's voice came from the screening room. On the huge domed screen, "The Starry Night Chronicles," a film co-produced by film fans around the world, was playing: Alaskan aurora hunters used aurora trails to draw starlight, tribal elders on the African savanna carved starlight on totem poles, and even astronauts on the International Space Station used a wrench to draw a star-shaped condensation mark on a porthole during extravehicular maintenance.

What took their breath away was a video from a Mars rover—on the edge of a crater in the red desert, there was a naturally formed star-shaped pattern, like the Earth's open eye. The comments section exploded: "So light really can travel through interstellar space!" "Perhaps alien civilizations are also collecting starlight!" "Director Sang, we've sent your light to Mars!"

As dusk fell, the two sisters climbed the highest sand dune with their mother's clapperboard. Suddenly, Sang Jiyue pointed to a spot in the Milky Way: "Look, the Perseid meteor shower!" In the instant countless meteors streaked across the sky, they simultaneously raised their film cameras. The shutter sound startled a swarm of dormant fireflies, and the points of light and meteors overlapped in the viewfinder, creating a frame that transcended time and space.

While developing the film, Sang Shuwan discovered that one negative had been accidentally exposed, leaving a strange image in the corner: the silhouettes of two little girls were faintly visible in the starlight, running hand in hand towards a glowing door, with lavender vines entwined around the door frame. Sang Jiyue leaned closer to take a look and suddenly burst into tears of laughter—the shape of that door was exactly the same as the wooden door in the old house's cellar.

“So this is what Mom meant when she said ‘light can sprout.’” She gently stroked the light spots on the negative. Those light leaks that were once considered flaws now resembled growing mycelium, weaving the images of two generations and the starlight of countless strangers into a vast web of light. Sang Shuwan put the negative into a new tin box, engraved new starlight on the lid, and stuffed the gaps with dried lavender.

Suddenly, gasps of surprise echoed through the base at midnight. The Sang sisters rushed outside and saw the entire desert glowing—at some point, film fans had placed glass bottles atop each dune, filled with "starlight specimens" collected from around the world: aurora ice crystals from the Arctic, fluorescent moss from the Amazon, and even bioluminescent plankton from the deep sea, all shimmering under the moonlight, as if the entire Earth had become Mother Earth's darkroom.

Sang Shuwan looked at her younger sister and saw her holding up a clapperboard to the starry sky. Tiny glimmers of light leaked through the cracks in the clapperboard, much like the "fragments of the Milky Way" her mother had described years ago. In the distance, someone released Kongming lanterns, each painted with starlight. As they ascended, they connected to form a flowing nebula, gradually merging with the real Milky Way.

“You tell me,” Sang Jiyue’s voice mingled with the sound of the wind and the fluttering of fireflies, “where will these lights go when we grow old?” Sang Shuwan picked up a grain of sand illuminated by the moonlight and let it slip through her fingers: “They will seep into new film and grow into other people’s stars. Just like our mother’s light became ours, and our light will become the star seeds of the next generation.”

Suddenly, the lake beneath the dunes shimmered with golden light, and a flock of swans glided across the surface in formation, their necks tracing graceful arcs in the moonlight. Sang Shuwan raised her camera, only to find her younger sister looking at her through the lens, the beauty mark at the corner of her eye sparkling like a falling shooting star. She suddenly understood that what her mother had spent her entire life trying to teach them was never how to capture the light, but how to become each other's light—when two souls reflect each other in the desert of time, they can create an undying starlight.

The Milky Way spun, casting their shadows long, long. A firefly landed on Sang Shuwan's clapperboard, its tail flickering like Morse code deciphered only by the stars. And in the far distance, countless starlight were quietly sprouting in the folds of the universe, waiting for a moment when someone looked up to illuminate the world.

Following the huge success of "Starry Night Twins," the Sang sisters rose to fame in the entertainment industry, receiving countless offers to collaborate. However, instead of rushing to take on new projects, the sisters devoted themselves entirely to the operation of the "Starry Night Fund," busy discovering promising new directors and high-quality scripts.

One day, while tidying up old things, Sang Shuwan found her mother's old diary. The diary detailed her early experiences in the entertainment industry, the days of meticulously refining a single scene, and tirelessly seeking investment. This gave Sang Shuwan a deeper understanding of her mother's struggles. On one page, her mother wrote: "In this industry full of temptations and challenges, staying true to your original aspirations is more important than anything else. Don't let fame and fortune blind you; remember why you started."

Meanwhile, undercurrents were brewing within the entertainment industry. A long-awaited blockbuster film suffered severe delays due to the lead actor's diva-like behavior and frequent script changes, resulting in significant losses for investors. This incident caused a huge uproar in the industry and raised questions about the professional ethics of some celebrities. After seeing the news, Sang Jiyue couldn't help but lament, "If everyone had more reverence for their work and less personal greed, the entertainment industry wouldn't be so chaotic."

Shortly after, the Starlight Foundation received a project proposal from a new director. The director, Su Ran, was a young man who had just graduated from film school. His proposal was for an inspirational film about the growth of a newcomer in the entertainment industry, titled "The Road to Light." The Sang sisters were moved by the sincerity and dedication to their dreams in the proposal and decided to fully support the film.

During the preparation process, Su Ran encountered a casting problem. Some popular celebrities, while having high popularity, lacked satisfactory acting skills, while newcomers with genuine acting talent were not considered for box office appeal. Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue suggested that he boldly use new actors and let their acting skills speak for themselves. After several rounds of screening, they finally found suitable leads: a new male actor named Lin Yu and a new female actress named Ye Xuan.

After filming began, Lin Yu and Ye Xuan encountered many difficulties in their acting due to their lack of experience. Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue frequently visited the set to guide them and share their own filming experiences. With their help, Lin Yu and Ye Xuan improved rapidly and gradually found their footing in their roles.

However, just halfway through filming, the crew encountered a funding shortage. A sponsor who had initially promised to invest suddenly withdrew their funding, bringing filming to a standstill. Su Ran was frantic, unsure of what to do. Upon learning of this, the Sang sisters decided to personally cover the shortfall while simultaneously searching for new investors.

In their search for investors, they encountered numerous difficulties. Many people were skeptical of this film, which featured newcomers, believing it was too risky. But the Sang sisters didn't give up. They took the script and footage, visiting investors one by one, explaining the story and significance of the film. Finally, their persistence moved a veteran producer, who decided to invest and help the film complete production smoothly.

After several months of arduous filming, "The Road to Light" has finally wrapped. The Sang sisters were also involved throughout the post-production phase, meticulously overseeing every detail. Upon its release, the film quickly gained popularity and critical acclaim thanks to its compelling storyline and the outstanding performances of the new actors, resulting in soaring box office returns.

The success of "The Road to Light" not only catapulted newcomers like Lin Yu and Ye Xuan to fame overnight, but also made Su Ran a rising star director. The Sang sisters, through their quiet dedication behind the scenes, earned the respect and praise of industry professionals. Their actions injected a breath of fresh air into the entertainment industry, showcasing the power of genuine passion for film and unwavering commitment to one's original aspirations.

The phenomenal success of "The Road to Light" has made "Starry Night" films an industry benchmark, and the Sang sisters were invited to serve as judges at an international youth film festival. In the backstage dressing room, they bumped into a veteran producer who had questioned "Starry Night Twins" years ago. Now, holding a thermos, he sighed, "Now I understand what your mother meant when she said 'the light will remember.' Popularity may fade, but sincerity will never." He pointed to the red carpet for newcomers at the end of the corridor, where a group of young directors in school uniforms were holding up their self-made short films, their eyes shining like the fireflies of Dunhuang in the past.

That evening, Sang Shuyue received a mysterious package. Inside was her mother's unfinished script from thirty years ago, "Starlight in the Darkroom." A casting photo fell out from between the yellowed pages: her young mother, crouching on a film set with an old-fashioned film camera, stood behind a young man in a baseball cap—none other than Zhou Mingchuan, now a powerful "capital hunter" in the entertainment industry. Sang Jiyue scanned the QR code on the photo with her phone, and a long-forgotten video surfaced: her mother smiled at the camera: "Little Zhou said he wanted to build a 'film set that never goes out.' Now it seems he's gone astray?"

Meanwhile, Zhou Mingchuan's "Hengxing Entertainment" was embroiled in a media storm. Its top star was accused of data manipulation, leading to a fan war and online clashes that went viral, and his investment in an AI-generated deepfake historical drama was criticized as "mass-produced, artificially sweetened content." Sang Jiyue came across a clip of his interview, where the well-dressed man frowned at the camera: "Whatever the market demands, we produce it. Is that wrong?" She suddenly remembered the words on the back of her mother's photograph: "Capital should not be a cage of light, but a ship carrying light."

Late at night in the editing room, the Sang sisters stared at their mother's unfinished script, lost in thought. The story revolved around the clash of ideologies between a darkroom apprentice and a nouveau riche, ending with the protagonist holding up shredded film and shouting, "You think buying all the film will give you a monopoly on light? Light will leak through your fingers!" Sang Shuwan suddenly grabbed the phone and called Zhou Mingchuan: "We have a project, and we'd like you to play the villain." The other end sneered, "I'm too busy to act in movies." "No," Sang Jiyue took the receiver, "we're asking you to play yourself."

Three days later, Zhou Mingchuan was wheeled into the screening room of the Starlight Base by his assistant. As the lights came on, he saw clips of his past investments flashing across the screen: monotonous filters, assembly-line plots, and data-driven "blockbusters." The final image froze on a shot of fireflies from "Starlight Twins"—those real points of light stood out starkly in the sea of ​​commercial films. "Do you know why your AI films can never capture this kind of light?" Sang Shuwan handed him a box of lavender-flavored throat lozenges. "Because light needs a sense of breath, and you give the actors schedules down to the second."

Zhou Mingchuan crumpled the candy wrapper, then suddenly pointed to the old film cabinet in the corner: "Twenty years ago, I really wanted to be a ship carrying light." His voice lowered, "But when the first investor said 'tears are not as valuable as data,' I..." Before he could finish, the side door of the screening room was pushed open, and a dozen young actors rushed in—it was the crew of "The Road to Light." Lin Yu held up the clapperboard soaked with sweat: "President Zhou, we really get so hungry when we film crying scenes that our stomachs hurt, but the director said that's how we get bloodshot eyes." Ye Xuan showed the bruises on her knees: "This is the effect of thirty-seven takes. It hurts more than AI effects, but it's more realistic."

As silence spread, Sang Jiyue suddenly played a recording. Against the backdrop of the noisy film set, her mother's voice came through clearly: "Mr. Zhou, look at this lamp. It casts shadows on the actors' faces, but those shadows hold the soul of the character. You always say you want perfect shots, but a perfect moon without craters is so lonely." Zhou Mingchuan looked up sharply and saw Sang Shuwan pushing his mother's old clapperboard in front of him; the lavender wax scars on the board gleamed warmly under the lamplight.

A week later, Hengxing Entertainment announced its transformation. At the press conference, Zhou Mingchuan unusually removed his sunglasses, revealing fine lines around his eyes: "I've invested in traffic for thirty years, but I've forgotten how to film people's eyes." Behind him, on the screen, the newly established "Starlight Youth Support Program" was displayed—every new director would receive unconditional start-up funding and one-on-one guidance from the Sang sisters. A gasp suddenly came from the audience, and reporters saw half a piece of film sticking out of Zhou Mingchuan's suit pocket—a "test shot" his mother had given him thirty years ago.

In late autumn in Dunhuang, the Sang sisters welcomed a special guest at "Time Cliff." Zhou Mingchuan, carrying a shovel and film canister, buried a new iron box next to the star-shaped marks on his mother's face. Inside was a script he was working on as a "producer" for the first time, featuring crooked starlight on the cover and the note: "This time, let light sprout before data." As he straightened up, he found Sang Jiyue filming him. The man in the lens smiled with squinted eyes, his wrinkles filled with sunlight, as if he had finally shed some heavy armor.