The moment the two music boxes touched each other, time seemed to be liberated from the shackles of the clock and froze in the air above the shrine. Silver light burst forth from the junction of the box surface, like a starry river bursting its banks, silent yet vast, dyeing the entire shrine into a flowing Milky Way. The crack in the star map badge healed in the light, transforming into a complete ring. In the center emerged a seventh symbol - neither a note nor a star painting, but a totem interwoven with a pen and a lute, as if the blood had merged.
Song Wanqing felt a warm sensation spreading from her palm to her heart, as if someone had gently held her hand in a distant time and space. She lowered her head and saw the sketchbook open automatically. The charcoal pen moved rapidly on the paper, drawing a star map that had never been seen before - seven light tracks encirtured the center, and at the end of each track emerged a blurry face: there was a woman holding a paintbrush, a man playing a zither, an old man writing with his head down, and a young man looking up at the starry sky... Those were the seven generations of star painters and star guardians. Their figures rose and fell in the star trails, eventually converging at the intersection of Song Wanqing's and Lu Jinnian's life paths.
So... We are neither the beginning nor the end. She said softly, "We are the continuation."
Lu Jinnian gazed at the totem interwoven with a pen and a zither, and suddenly understood something. He slowly opened the violin case and gently placed the bow on the strings. It's not a performance, but a dialogue. When the first note rang out, the music box automatically responded, playing a variation of "Whispers of Spring" - no longer a mournful farewell, but a gentle response. The notes transformed into filaments of light, entwined around the "chain of fate" on the wrists of the two, and slowly injected into the illusory image of the star core door.
The tremor of the star core subsided.
Instead, there is a low and gentle resonance, like the stars sighing softly.
It's responding. Lu Jinnian closed his eyes and felt, "It no longer resists being sealed, but..." Waiting to be understood."
Song Wanqing nodded and gently placed the sketchbook on top of the double boxes. She dipped her fingertip into a drop of blood seeping from the palm of her hand - the blood of the star painter, which fell in the center of the star map. The blood beads did not disperse; instead, they transformed into a faint light, flowing along the star trails and illuminating the faces of seven generations of ancestors. She murmured the phrase she had never understood at the end of her mother's letter:
"Guided by memories and connected by hearts, the starry river endures forever." " **
In an instant, the door of the star core opened in the void.
That was not a door, but a vast sea of stars - boundless, with nebulae surging and stars like sand. Song Wanqing and Lu Jinnian stood side by side and stepped into it. They saw the falling stars from a hundred years ago, saw the first star painters drawing with their blood and the first star guardians tuning with their lives. I saw six seals, six times of forgetting, and six pairs of lovers dissipated in the wind at the end of the star trails.
And in the deepest part of the starry sea, a figure slowly emerged.
It's Lin Wan.
She was dressed in an old-fashioned school uniform, holding a paintbrush, with a gentle yet tired face. She looked at Song Wanqing, with no sadness in her eyes, only endless yearning and relief.
"Mother..." Tears slid down Song Wanqing's face.
Lin Wan remained silent. She merely raised her paintbrush and wrote two words in the void: "Remember." **
Immediately, the figure transformed into stardust and merged into Song Wanqing's sketchbook. All the memories swallowed by the star core - mother's laughter, father's piano playing, and the afternoons under the cherry blossom tree of childhood - returned like a tide. She finally understood that the price of sealing was never "forgetting", but "being forgotten". What the star core devours is the world's memory of the guardian, not the guardian's own recollections.
Now, it's our turn. Song Wanqing turned around and held Lu Jinnian's hand.
Lu Jinnian nodded and placed the violin on his lap. He no longer played old pieces but improvised them - the melody was filled with the rustling of Song Wanqing's brush, the gentle rustling of falling cherry blossoms, the turning of gears on the clock tower, and the trembling of stars whispering. This is the first piece of music that truly belongs to Xinghe County.
Song Wanqing, on the other hand, depicted the starry sea at this moment in her sketchbook, encapsulating Lu Jinnian's music, her own heartbeat, and the resonance of the star cores all within her brushstrokes.
When the last note fell and the last stroke was completed, the two music boxes merged with a loud bang, transforming into a silver star emblem that slowly landed in Song Wanqing's palm. On the back of the badge, a new oath is engraved:
"Not to sacrifice with memory, not to contract with life." **
With creation as the bridge and the voice of the heart as the appointment
"Star painting and star guarding coexist eternally." " **
As the starry sea receded, the shrine reappeared.
The dawn light broke and fell upon the stone tablet. A new line has been added to the inscription, with clear and firm handwriting:
The seventh seal has been formed. The star core rests in peace, and the starry river endures forever. **
"Song Wanqing and Lu Jinnian, standing together." **
When the wind blows, the cherry blossoms are like snow.
This time, each petal, with a faint glow, was like a kiss from the stars, gently landing on every inch of the land of Xinghe County.
The hands of the clock tower pointed to exactly eight o 'clock, and the morning bell rang over the loudspeaker.
On the corridor of the teaching building, freshmen entered the classroom one after another. A girl opened her sketchbook, her pen tip gently dropped, and she drew the first stroke
It was a violin and a sketchbook, quietly leaning on each other under the cherry blossom tree.
At the other end of the campus, Song Wanqing and Lu Jinnian walked side by side towards the music classroom.
"Next," Lu Jin asked in a young voice, "write a piece of music that belongs to us?"
Song Wanqing smiled and held the star map badge tightly in her hand: "Alright." The name is - "Star River Oath".
The starry river has not yet ended, but the vow has already been made.
The story has just begun.