Nanny Chen Chunhua knelt beside the piano stool, her knees pressing against the broken crystal spots on the Italian Carrara marble floor. Those prism-like fragments were refracting the twilight into twelve shades of blue.
She held a cotton swab dipped in comfrey ointment above Ye Qingliu's collarbone. The wound, where blood had clotted, was embedded with fragments of mother-of-pearl that had fallen off when the pearl necklace broke, like the Milky Way falling on the boy's thin chest.
Outside the window, the down feathers of a white peacock fluttered across the cracks in the bulletproof glass. Those spider-web-like cracks were now cutting the sunset into arcs of crescendoing symbols, just like the blood-stained music marks on the music stand.
Chen Chunhua applied the ointment on Ye Qingliu's wrist. The boy's skin was as thin as rice paper, and the purple bruises looked like they had been heavily drawn with an ink pen.
She blew gently, and the bitter fragrance of the herbs mixed with a hint of sweet honey floated slowly in the air.
"Does it hurt?" she asked.
Ye Qingliu shook his head, but his eyelashes trembled slightly, like butterfly wings skimming across the water.
Chen Chunhua took out a glass bead from her apron pocket and shook it towards the light outside the window. Colorful patterns flowed in the bead, like a frozen rainbow.
"Have you heard the story of 'Nine Thousand Five Hundred and Eighty-Five'?"
Ye Qingliu raised his head, his expression a little dazed.
"A long time ago, there was a little princess who lived in the tallest tower." Chen Chunhua's voice was low, as if she was coaxing someone to sleep.
"She counted the stars every day, and when she reached the 9,585th one, she discovered that it would not shine."
Ye Qingliu stared at the glass beads and surprisingly didn't say anything.
"The little princess asked the wizard why the star didn't shine. The wizard said it was because it was locked in a cage."
Chen Chunhua touched Ye Qingliu's bruises with her fingertips. "It's like some light is hidden."
"Then what?"
"Then," Chen Chunhua slowly placed the glass bead in his palm, "the little princess decided to steal the wizard's key and release the stars."
Ye Qingliu clenched the glass bead tightly, and colorful light leaked out from between his fingers and fell on the ground, like a small piece of broken Milky Way.
"Did she succeed?"
Chen Chunhua smiled and didn't answer directly, but just gently pinched his fingers.
"People later said that every time a child held a glass bead and made a wish, the star would light up."
Just then—there was a bang.
The door of the piano room was pushed open suddenly, hitting the wall with a dull thud.
Hua Jinyue stood at the door, holding her faded cloth rabbit tightly in her arms. There were still spots of mud from the garden on the hem of her skirt, as if she had just returned from a hurried adventure.
Ye Qingliu's breathing was a little rapid, and his cheeks were red from running, but his eyes were fixed on Ye Qingliu's wrist, and his pupils suddenly constricted.
"Brother Yi Yi!!"
Hua Jinyue's voice seemed to be strangled by something, rapid and low, like a kitten with its tail stepped on.
The next second, Hua Jinyue rushed over and the cloth rabbit fell to the ground with a "pop", but she didn't bother to pick it up. She rushed directly to Ye Qingliu and grabbed his wrist.
Hua Jinyue's fingertips were cold, but when they touched the bruise on his wrist, she shuddered violently, as if she had been burned.
"Who did it?" Hua Jinyue asked, her voice tense, like a fully drawn bowstring. "Is it Yi An? Is she the one who—"
Hua Jinyue's eyes suddenly turned red, but the tears stubbornly refused to fall. She just bit her lower lip tightly, and her lips turned white.
Ye Qingliu wanted to pull his hand back, but Hua Jinyue held it even tighter, his knuckles turning white.
She lowered her head and blew on the bruise, her cheeks puffing out like a little frog trying to cast a spell, as if that could blow the pain away.
"Jinyue..." Ye Qingliu called her softly.
But Hua Jinyue ignored him and continued blowing stubbornly, her eyelashes drooping, casting a small shadow on her face. Her breathing was trembling, as if she was desperately holding back something.
Nanny Chen Chunhua looked at Hua Jinyue's red eyes and sighed softly: "I just applied the medicine, don't disturb it."
Hua Jinyue suddenly looked up, her eyes sparkling with tears, but she stubbornly refused to let the tears fall.
She stared at Chen Chunhua, her voice low and urgent: "Aunt Chen, the scent of Sister Yi An's perfume is still in the corridor... Did she ask her brother to play "Moonlight" again..."
Without waiting for an answer, Hua Jinyue suddenly let go of Ye Qingliu's hand, turned around and rushed to the piano, stood on tiptoe and slammed the piano lid shut with a "clatter".
The cracks in the bulletproof glass cut her shadow into several pieces, one of which fell right on the golden letters of the Steinway logo, like a small seal.
"Deep moon..."
Ye Qingliu wanted to stand up, but Chen Chunhua held his shoulders.
When Hua Jinyue ran back, she was holding a handful of pearls she had grabbed from the jewelry box - those expensive props that Yi An used to "correct" her posture, now tied up in a ball with her skirt, the luster of the pearls flickering between her fingers.
"Let's play catch!"
Hua Jinyue piled the pearls on her brother's knees. Her voice was deliberately light, but the corners of her mouth were tightly drawn, and the dimples that were exactly the same as her mother's were completely gone. "Just like last week under the maple tree, I will definitely beat you this time!"
Ye Qingliu looked at her, was silent for a while, then slowly spread out his palm, revealing the colorful glass bead.
"Jinyue," Ye Qingliu said softly, "Do you know the story of the nine thousand nine hundred and eighty-five stars?"
Chen Chunhua quietly hid the blood-stained cotton swab in her apron pocket. Amid the sound of the silver bracelet rubbing against the medicine box, she saw the little boy put the glass bead into his sister's palm, and the two of them wrapped their fingers together around the rainbow light.
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