It started when a bloody rain was about to fall.

At the end of the corridor, the faint sound of an announcement that the auditorium had been evacuated could be heard.

The electronic female voice, after multiple reflections, became blurred and distant, like a signal coming from the deep sea—

A signal from another world, another dimension, unrelated to Helinye.

The next four years.

They are like two planets orbiting on predetermined paths.

The trajectories occasionally approach each other infinitely.

The rows in front and behind each other in the same large lecture on neuroanatomy; adjacent seats by the window in the library, separated only by a wooden partition; the fleeting moment when brushing past each other in the cafeteria during peak hours, with sleeves almost touching.

The two never truly interacted.

It was as if an invisible force field was separating them.

It is the inertia bestowed by social rules, class consciousness, and individual destinies that is more solid than any physical barrier.

Lin Ye's time was precisely divided into fragments of fifteen minutes each:

Delivering newspapers from six to eight in the morning, my fingers were so frozen in the cold winter early morning that I lost all feeling in them.

Sometimes he has to work outdoors for three hours in temperatures below -10 degrees Celsius. His gloves are worn through, and he can only keep his hands rubbed to maintain blood circulation.

Fighting sleep deprivation with the cheapest coffee during morning classes—

The coffee was the cheapest instant coffee in the supermarket; one can lasted a month. It tasted like dishwater, but at least it kept him from falling asleep in class.

I went to the lab at noon to clean glassware in exchange for a meager stipend; the smell of disinfectant seeped into my fingernails—

The smell would follow Lin Ye all day long, even while he ate. He could no longer distinguish whether it was the smell of the utensils or the smell of his own hands.

In the afternoon, Lin Ye continued with classes or self-study, his brain buzzing from excessive fatigue—a continuous, low-pitched buzzing, like the compressor of an old refrigerator, never stopping, always present.

Lin Ye delivers food from 6 PM to 10 PM, his electric scooter weaving between neon lights and shadows.

In those brightly lit office buildings, people waited for him to deliver warm food; while Lin Ye's own dinner was always two steamed buns that he bought on the spur of the moment when picking up his food, which he would quickly eat while waiting for the red light.

Only late at night could Lin Ye open his textbooks at the creaking desk in his rented room, the dim light of the desk lamp his only companion.

The lamp was a secondhand find; the lampshade was yellowed and the light was dim, but it was the best lighting equipment Lin Ye could afford.

Lin Ye's grades always hovered in the middle to upper range—not because he wasn't smart enough.

A teacher at the orphanage once said that Lin Ye had a photographic memory and could memorize any text after reading it only once.

But that talent was gradually eroded, consumed, and drained by the pressure of survival.

Because Lin Ye's brain's computing power was completely exhausted by countless details of survival:

How much rent do I still owe this month? Where will I get money for food tomorrow? Will that three-year-old coat make it through the winter?

The memory curve always succumbs to the limits of physical fatigue, like rusty gears that barely mesh but may break at any moment.

---

Ye Qingrou, on the other hand, rose along a different trajectory.

The trajectory was as smooth as a vacuum tube, without any resistance or bumps, only a continuous, stable acceleration pointing towards the top.

In his freshman year, he was selected by Academician Chen, a leading figure in the field of neuroscience, to participate in a national-level cutting-edge brain-computer interface project—the funding for that project was enough for Lin Ye to deliver takeout for a lifetime.

Her paper on early markers of Alzheimer's disease, published independently during her sophomore year, had an astonishing impact factor and was featured on the cover of The Lancet when she was only nineteen. Lin Ye had seen that issue of the magazine in the library, and the name on the cover stung his eyes.

In his junior year, he received an invitation to give a keynote speech at the Harvard-MIT Medical Conference. He flew first class—the ticket to that conference was enough for Lin Ye to pay for a year's tuition.

Before even graduating from university, Ye Qingrou had already been reserved a director position in the Ye Group's core neural regeneration research department—the department's year-end bonus was enough for Lin Ye to buy an apartment.

Ye Qingrou's starting point is already a ceiling that many people can't reach even in their entire lives.

Occasionally, the two would brush past each other on campus.

For example, in late autumn, when ginkgo leaves carpet the century-old path, sunlight filters through the golden leaves, casting dappled shadows.

Or, on a winter night, when the streetlights illuminate the snowflakes, turning them into golden fluff, the whole world is immersed in that gentle yet serene tranquility.

Ye Qingrou's gaze would sometimes linger briefly on Lin Ye's face.

That face was indeed hard to ignore.

That feeling of being broken is especially noticeable when you're exhausted:

The shadows under his eyes were deeper, his cheekbones more prominent, and the bluish veins beneath his pale skin more clearly visible, like the image of a dying saint on a Gothic stained glass window—

That kind of beauty carries pain, despair, and a stubborn refusal to yield.

But this gaze is never warm.

It's more like an art connoisseur assessing the preservation status of an unearthed artifact, calculating the ratio between the cost of restoration and its final value—calm, objective, and devoid of any emotional bias.

Ye Qingrou never stopped walking, and the two never spoke, not even once nodding to each other.

They are from two different worlds, abiding by the unspoken rules of their respective worlds:

Stars do not linger for dust, and light does not converse with shadow.

Just as deep-sea fish and highland eagles will never cross paths—this is an absolute isolation of ecological niches, an ultimate judgment about "possibility" and "impossibility" etched into our genes.

---

Lin Ye did not attend the graduation ceremony.

I delivered food until 2 a.m. the night before.

On his way back to his rented room, due to excessive fatigue from working continuously for sixteen hours, he lost control of his electric scooter on the wet and slippery road after the rain, and fell into the roadside green belt.

The excruciating pain from a fractured tibia in his left leg instantly brought Lin Ye back to his senses, only to have him quickly drenched in cold sweat.

The ER doctor applied a simple splint and said calmly, "You'll need to rest for four weeks. But that's if you don't want any long-term effects."

Lin Ye knew he didn't even have the luxury of a day to rest.

Next week's rent, next month's mortgage installments, and the ever-counting living expenses—these numbers hang like a knife over his head, constantly reminding him:

You have no right to stop, you have no right to get sick, and you can't even be in pain for too long.

Lin Ye lay in the cramped rented room.

The mattress springs beneath him had failed, forming a concave human shape—the spot where he had lain every night for the past four years, its shape now firmly pressed into it by his body.

I could hear the faint sounds of cannon salutes, cheers, and the principal's speech, which was muffled and unclear, coming from the auditorium in the distance.

The class WeChat group kept vibrating. Someone posted photos from the scene—

Ye Qingrou delivered a speech as a representative of outstanding graduates.

She stood on the stage, wearing the same black graduation gown as everyone else, yet she still shone brightly.

The robe looked like a haute couture gown on her, every fold was just right, and every movement drew everyone's attention.

The spotlight enveloped her in a halo, as if she herself were the source of light—not the light shining on her, but her radiance.

Thunderous applause erupted from the audience, and flashes of light from cameras twinkled like stars. Those lights converged into a sea of ​​light, and she was the brightest star in the center of that sea.

In the photo, her smile is poised and reserved, with the upward curve of her lips perfectly proportioned to the contraction of her eye muscles.

That was the expression of the victor, the chosen one, a standardized output after countless media training sessions—friendly yet distant, radiant yet elegant.