My sister, whom I raised, has turned evil after faking her death for three years.

The images kept switching in front of her, like a movie being fast-forwarded.

Jiang Ran saw her sister secretly saving money, stuffing the few coins she earned from washing clothes for the handyman into a small, flattened cloth bag under the bed.

His movements were very light and discreet. Every time he hid something, he would first glance around to make sure no one was watching him before quickly stuffing the item away, smoothing out the sheets, and walking away as if nothing had happened.

Then it was late at night, and everyone in the orphanage was asleep, except for a dim desk lamp in the director's office at the end of the corridor.

Jiang Ran saw her sister silently squeeze out from the crack in the dormitory door, her bare feet stepping on the cold cement floor, walking forward like a cat at night, clinging to the shadows of the wall.

He walked to the door of the dean's office, squatted down, took out a thin wire he had taken from the cafeteria from his pocket, inserted it into the keyhole and turned it gently twice.

The door lock made a very faint click. He listened for a moment to make sure he hadn't disturbed anyone, then pushed the door open and slipped inside.

Jiang Ran followed her sister into the office, which was filled with the smell of smoke and musty old papers. She watched as he skillfully opened the unlocked drawer at the bottom of the filing cabinet and pulled out her own file from a pile of archives that had been crammed together for years.

She watched as her sister pulled out the thin identity document and examined it under the lamp for a long time, her fingers lightly tracing the printed words in the name column, a small, smug, and mischievous smile curving her lips.

A glint flashed in her eyes that she had never seen on her sister's face before. It wasn't stubbornness or forbearance, but the kind of shrewd confidence that held all the chips in one's own hands.

  

Jiang Ran stood in the dimly lit corner, watching her sister carefully tuck the documents into her bosom, close the drawer again, restore everything to its original state, and then silently retreat, not even forgetting to wipe the fingerprints off the doorknob with her sleeve. Only one thought remained in her mind... her sister was really smart.

The screen then switched again.

This time, the surrounding scenery had completely changed. The dark and low buildings of the orphanage had disappeared without a trace, replaced by a very high wall.

It is over two meters tall, with a rough and mottled surface, and a few clumps of withered grass growing in the cement cracks.

Above me was a deep blue night sky, without a moon, but the stars were very bright, like a handful of crushed diamonds scattered across the heavens.

The night breeze carried the scent of soil and grass from the distant fields, rustling the leaves of the old locust tree by the wall.

Then she saw him.

A figure jogged out of the darkness, taller and with broader shoulders than before, but still very thin.

He carried a bulging old backpack and wore a dark coat that was so faded from washing that its original color was no longer discernible. The sleeves were rolled up to his wrists, revealing two slender but already softly shaped forearms.

His hair was longer than before, falling over his shoulders and the sides of his face, fluttering gently in the night breeze.

He looked up at the high wall, took a few steps back, took a running start, pushed off the wall with his right foot, grabbed the top of the wall with both hands, and flipped up as nimbly as a cat.

He paused on the top of the wall for about two seconds, straddling it and breathing slightly, raising his hand to brush back the stray hairs that had fallen across his face.

Jiang Ran looked up at him.

The starlight fell on his face, illuminating his features clearly yet softly.

His skin was still as fair as when he was a child, but the contours of his eyebrows and eyes were more defined than before, and his eyelashes were long, casting two faint arcs under the starlight.

Those eyes remained cold, carrying an innate sense of aloofness that made people afraid to approach.

A breeze blew, causing his hair, which was loose over his shoulders, to flutter. A few strands brushed against the corners of his mouth and chin, and against his face, which was so white it was almost transparent under the starlight, he looked like a piece of porcelain that had been broken and pieced back together. Every crack was still there, but he was so handsome that it was impossible to look away.

Jiang Ran's heart skipped a beat as she looked at the figure straddling the wall.

She remembered her sister standing backlit in the morning light, wearing that white dress, and she also remembered the girl in front of her, wearing faded old clothes, her hair loose over her shoulders, her gaze coldly looking down at the darkness behind her.

It turns out that my sister has been this beautiful for a very, very long time.

He glanced one last time at the low buildings behind him, a faint smile curving his lips, a smile that held a hint of mockery and relief. Then he took a deep breath, released his grip, and leaped from the two-meter-high wall.

Jiang Ran stood on the ground directly below him, watching him fall towards her. The night wind blew his hair and clothes, and he looked like a bird that had finally broken free of its cage, descending from the sky against the starlight.

She knew she couldn't touch her sister, and she knew her hands would pass through her sister's body just like every time before, but she still opened her arms.

If she could, if she were able, she would definitely catch her sister.

Su Qing's figure passed through her arms, through her open embrace, like passing through a transparent mist.

Jiang Ran's arms remained in an embracing position, but her arms were still empty.

But in that very brief moment, as her sister passed through her body, she felt... not touch, not temperature, but something deeper, something more essential.

It was as if his heartbeat and hers overlapped in that instant, as if fate had already tied this thread when he climbed onto the balcony of that dilapidated apartment building seven years ago.

She turned around and watched as her sister landed, dusted off her knees, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and started walking forward.

Then my sister suddenly stopped.

He turned his head, his gaze passing over his shoulder to the empty corner behind him... the corner where she was standing.

He tilted his head slightly, a subtle hint of confusion flashing in his clear, sharp eyes under the starlight, as if he were trying to discern something he couldn't see but could sense.

His gaze met hers through a barrier so thin it was almost nonexistent, piercing through time, through space, through life and death, through all insurmountable rules, meeting in that very moment.

Jiang Ran held her breath.

She could feel him looking at her, not at the open space, not at the wall, but at her.

His gaze pierced through her pupils, through her heart, through every tear she hadn't shed and every scream she hadn't uttered in all these days.

He stared for about two or three seconds, then looked away, tugged at his backpack strap, turned and walked toward the road outside the wall, never looking back.

Jiang Ran stood there with her arms outstretched, staring blankly as his figure receded into the distance.

The corners of her mouth slowly and involuntarily turned up, while a warm tear silently slid down her cheek.

She turned around and watched the figure gradually disappear under the starlight, her infatuation growing deeper.

her sister.

The following scenes rapidly shifted, dragging her from that star-studded night into a crueler reality.

She saw her sister's life after leaving the orphanage... Her twelve-year-old sister was thinner and smaller than other children her age, with no family, no friends, and not even anyone to talk to.

Jiang Ran stood on the street corner, watching the small figure squatting on the ground washing dishes in the messy kitchen of the small restaurant. Oily water splashed all over him, and the boss stood next to him cursing that he was too slow.

She watched him move odds and ends at the construction site. His thin body carried cement bags heavier than himself, walking back and forth under the scorching sun. His shoulders were chafed raw by the rough burlap sacks, and sweat mixed with blood seeped from his back.

She watched him handing out flyers on the street under the scorching sun. Passersby came and went, but most of them didn't even glance at him. Occasionally, someone would take the flyer and casually throw it on the ground. He would bend down, pick it up, and put it back in his bag.

She watched as her sister would squat by the roadside and eat dry steamed buns when she was hungry, and turn on the tap on the street to drink some cold water when she was thirsty.

I watched my sister have her wages docked, be called a bastard, be chased all over the streets by urban management officers, and have the few dollars she had in her pocket stolen by thugs in an alley.

Jiang Ran followed behind her sister, passing through every corner of his life.

She watched him squatting by the roadside, eating a steamed bun. Beside him was a secondhand textbook he had bought cheaply from a used bookstore. He was eating and reading at the same time, with crumbs of steamed bun stuck to the corners of his mouth, but his brows were slightly furrowed, as if he was struggling with a math problem.

She watched as he took out a tattered notebook from his schoolbag before sleeping on a makeshift bed in the workers' shed, and began writing something on it stroke by stroke with a stub of a pencil he had picked up.

She leaned closer and saw that it was a handwritten elementary school textbook, with handwriting as neat as printed text.

She watched him get up from the ground every time life knocked him down, brush off the dust, and sweep his cold gaze over this world that was unkind to him but could never defeat him, before continuing to move forward.

She followed him through countless springs, summers, autumns, and winters, watching him grow taller little by little, gradually shedding his childishness, his already handsome face becoming more and more serene and captivating.

She saw it all clearly every second: when he was being scorned while handing out flyers on the street, when he was being scolded by the foreman at the construction site, when he was scalded by boiling water in the kitchen of a small restaurant. Every time, she wanted to reach out and catch him, but she couldn't.

Her tears fell on the mud he had trodden on, on the roads he had walked on, on the places where he had fallen and risen again.

She had never understood her sister so deeply as she did at this moment... the sister who gave her everything, who seemed omnipotent, the sister who climbed over the wall in the dark to pull her out of hell, the sister who crawled out of the mire step by step.

Her sister never had a single good day.

Then the scene shifts to a late night when the older sister was sixteen.

My sister had just finished her part-time job as a cleaner at a bar, and it was already past midnight when she came out through the back door.

He walked very slowly, his steps were unsteady, one hand was holding onto the wall, and the other hand was unconsciously pressing on his stomach.

Jiang Ran followed behind him, looking at her sister's pale lips and slightly hunched back. She knew her sister was hungry... He probably hadn't eaten anything all day.

She followed him for several blocks and saw him try to buy a bottle of water from a vending machine on the street, but after counting the few coins he had in his pocket, he put them back, licked his chapped lips, and continued walking.

She followed him into an alley lined with ginkgo trees. The night breeze carried the chill of early autumn, the streetlights cast a dim yellow glow, and the shadows of the plane trees swayed gently on the road.

The older sister's steps became slower and more unsteady, and her body began to tremble slightly due to low blood sugar.

Then he suddenly stopped.

He stood under a dim streetlamp, tilting his head slightly, as if trying to identify some kind of scent in the air.

It was a rich, sweet aroma, a blend of butter, caramel, and freshly baked bread, wafting from the shop deep in the alley, still lit by warm yellow lights, enveloping him completely.

He unconsciously followed the scent and walked to the spotless glass door, looking up at the handwritten sign above the door.

Half-sweet dessert shop.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

PS: (Also, can you guess what this is?)

( . . . . . . （. . . _ ）（. . . . . （. _ _ _ _ ）（_ _ _ _ _ （_ _ _ _ （_ _ . . . （. . . _ ）（_ . . . . （. . _ _ ）

(Let's see who can crack it!)