"Auntie Chen said that every time a child holds a glass bead..."
There was a sudden "bang" outside the window. They turned to look and saw a white peacock pecking at the most cracked pane with its beak. The sunset glow filtered through the spiderweb-like cracks in the bulletproof glass, casting a flowing, star-shaped light spot on the marble floor.
Not more, not less, exactly 8,696 golden-like points of light.
Hua Jinyue stared at the glass bead in Ye Qingliu's palm, and the rainbow light danced on her eyelashes.
She suddenly extended her pinky finger and hooked it around Ye Qingliu's index finger. This was the gesture they had agreed upon, meaning "a promise never to change."
"Last time, you promised to teach me how to fold paper airplanes," Hua Jinyue muttered softly, gently scratching the calluses on her brother's knuckles from piano practice with her fingernails. "Use the cover page of the Starry Sky Atlas."
Ye Qingliu was stunned. It turned out his sister had remembered what he had casually promised her three months ago. He pinched her pinky finger with his backhand and shook it, his bruised wrist drawing a half arc of light in the twilight. "Do you want to learn now?"
"No!!" Hua Jinyue suddenly threw herself on his back, rubbing her chin against her brother's shoulder. She still carried the scent of rosemary from the garden, and when her hair brushed against Ye Qingliu's neck, he could smell the scent of grass bathed in sunlight.
"Wait until your hands turn rainbow colors."
Hua Jinyue added that she deliberately bit her brother's collar with her front teeth - this was her unique way of expressing "I'm angry".
Chen Chunhua stood in the shadows holding a bowl of medicine, watching the little boy pull his sister from behind to the front of him.
Ye Qingliu's gestures were very special. He would always poke Hua Jinyue's dimples with his index finger first, and then support the back of her head with his palm until she couldn't hold back her laughter.
At this moment, Ye Qingliu was placing a glass bead between his sister's eyebrows. Hua Jinyue immediately began to count reflexively: "One, two, three..."
"Where was the last time?" Ye Qingliu suddenly asked.
Hua Jinyue puffed out her cheeks and suddenly reached out to press down on her brother's eyelashes: "Every time you blink, a star disappears!"
Hua Jinyue's thumb was still stained with dirt from the garden, leaving two funny mud marks under Ye Qingliu's eyes. "So, brother, don't move..."
A white peacock's tail feathers swept across the window lattice, and 8,696 specks of light began to flow across the floor. Hua Jinyue suddenly fell silent, pressing her ear to her brother's chest. Dong, dong, dong, like the rhythm of the music box they had secretly buried under the maple tree.
"Aunt Chen said..." Ye Qingliu just opened his mouth when his sister covered his mouth.
"I want to count them myself," Hua Jinyue said stubbornly, her fingers still stained with the sweet scent of honey ointment, but she deliberately drew six whiskers on her brother's face. "8696. If there's one less, I'll throw all of Sister Yi'an's pearls into the fountain!"
When the 8,695th spot of light passed over his sister's nose, Ye Qingliu suddenly blew a breath. Hua Jinyue cried out, and glass beads slipped through their clasped fingers, bouncing on the floor before rolling towards the last, star-shaped spot of light.
The cracks in the bulletproof glass cut the scene into countless pieces, one of which reflected Hua Jinyue as a child—she was putting a Band-Aid on Ye Qingliu's finger that was cut by the guitar strings, and the pattern on the Band-Aid happened to be stars.
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