The sun had set completely, and the streetlights flickered on one after another, bathing the bus stop sign at the entrance of Quanhe Middle School in a warm yellow glow.
Xiao Yan and I stood there holding hands.
Her palm was slightly cool and still trembling ever so slightly.
Her thumb mindlessly rubbed the back of my hand, a frantic energy hidden within her touch.
“President…”
Her voice was muffled, carrying the nasal tone of someone who had just been startled.
She leaned her head against my shoulder.
“That badge Lin Yu has is exactly the same as Senior Lin Ming’s. Could she be here to stop us? What if she tries to steal the badge and ruins our plan to find the truth behind the transformation?”
I looked down at my phone.
Bai Lu’s message was still glowing on the screen:
“Lin Yu is Lin Ming’s younger sister. She is investigating the same thing. She is not a villain.”
“Senior Bai Lu says she isn’t an enemy.”
I handed her the phone and reached up with my other hand to rub her hair.
‘Help, she’s half a head taller than me; my arm is going to cramp from rubbing her hair like this.’
But it was unexpectedly comfortable, like petting a giant golden retriever.
The ends of her hair were soft, carrying the faint, fresh scent of shampoo.
After reading the message, she pursed her lips and suddenly hugged me from behind.
Her chin rested in the crook of my neck.
Her breath was warm, and her body was still shivering.
“I’m a little scared,” she whispered, her voice even more nasal.
“I’m afraid something will happen to you, President. I’m afraid the clues we worked so hard to find will be cut off, and even more… I’m afraid something will happen to your body.”
I stiffened.
With my back pressed against her chest, I could clearly feel her rapid heartbeat.
The streetlights stretched our shadows long, overlapping them until we looked like a pair of inseparable binary stars.
“Don’t be scared, don’t be scared. I’m here.”
I raised my hand to pat the back of hers.
While she wasn’t looking, I quickly gripped the Star Badge in my pocket.
My fingertips traced the patterns on the back.
Those horizontal lines weren’t scratches at all; they were carvings of varying depths.
Their edges had tiny burrs that caught barely perceptible bits of dust.
I had noticed it long ago—the curvature of the strokes at the end of these carvings matched Senior Lin Ming’s handwritten signature on the journal’s title page perfectly.
“President?”
Xiao Yan leaned in. Her nose almost touched the back of my hand, and her breath tickled.
“What are you looking at? You look so serious.”
“Lin Ming carved these.”
I turned the badge over to show her, pointing at the markings.
“She carved these lines herself. They might be the key to opening the secret room, and they’re likely tied to the secret of our transformation.”
Xiao Yan stared at the carvings.
Her eyes slowly widened, and her mouth hung open slightly, looking like a little hamster that had just been fed a surprise.
She carefully touched the carvings.
The temperature of her fingertips transferred through the metal, and her eyes filled with excitement.
“Does that mean this badge is the key to finding the truth?”
A breeze blew from the direction of the Old Observatory, carrying the scent of rust and dust.
I put the badge back into my pocket and squeezed Xiao Yan’s hand, my fingertips applying pressure.
“Let’s go. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the Old Observatory to find out for sure.”
She nodded, tightening her grip on my fingers as the warmth from her palm slowly seeped into mine.
“Yeah, let’s go together.”
—
On Saturday afternoon, the dining table at home was covered in things.
A transcript of Lin Ming’s journal, the structural diagrams of the observatory, the weather data sent by Bai Lu, and a stack of old photos Xiao Yan had dug out of the storage room.
Mimi jumped onto the table, her tail sweeping across the star trail patterns and leaving a few paw prints.
She even swiped at the lines with her claws.
I reached out to push her away.
She jumped down reluctantly and sat on the windowsill to lick her paws, shooting me a glare as if protesting that I had interrupted her “creative” process.
‘This cat is definitely doing it on purpose! It’s surely because I didn’t open a tuna can for it this morning!’
With a thud, the door was pushed open.
Xiao Yan rushed in with a bulging backpack.
Her foot slipped, and she nearly ended up flat on her back.
I was quick, reaching out to catch her around the waist.
Then, as expected, we both tumbled down together.
Through her sweatshirt, I felt the slenderness and warmth of her waist.
Xiao Yan’s face turned bright red instantly, and the bag in her hand dropped to the floor.
“S-sorry!”
She scrambled to pick up the items, the tips of her ears as red as ripe cherries.
I knelt down to help her unzip the backpack.
Our fingertips accidentally brushed against each other.
We both recoiled as if we had been electrocuted.
She stole a glance at me, her eyes hiding a bit of flustered panic.
“Did you empty out the whole storage room?”
I joked, stunned as I looked inside the bag.
Only then did she remember her backpack.
Climbing gloves, a bright flashlight, thick bandages, orange candies I like—to prevent low blood sugar—and a small pack of wet wipes.
At the very bottom were two neatly folded old jackets, and tucked beneath those were two packs of hot cocoa and several heating pads.
“The back mountain is cold at night, and it’s covered in gravel. It’s easy to sprain an ankle.”
She pulled out a deep blue jacket and held it up against me. Standing on her tiptoes, she brought the collar close to my nose.
“This one is windproof and durable. I wore it the last time I went trekking. Don’t worry, I washed it clean!”
“Also, I checked the records—the observatory walls have fallen into disrepair. There’s loose gravel everywhere. You must wear the gloves so you don’t get scratched.”
Wow, she actually did so much homework.
She’s being a bit too reliable.
She knelt down to organize the clues on the table, smoothing out the structural diagram.
She traced a line from the position of the observation window with her finger.
Her hair brushed against the back of my hand, making it itch.
I reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear, and my fingertip accidentally brushed against her earlobe.
I gave it a little squeeze.
She froze.
The pen in her hand fell with a clack and rolled under a chair.
When she leaned down to pick up the pen, her elbow hit the corner of the table.
She grimaced in pain, and her eyes suddenly rimmed with red.
“…Thank you,” she whispered, her eyes fixed on the floor, not daring to look at me.
I turned away, pretending to look at the structural diagram, but the corners of my mouth couldn’t help but curl upward.
My heart was thumping like a trapped rabbit.
Just then, the Star Badge in my pocket suddenly grew hot.
It was so hot it felt like it was on fire!
“Sss!”
I gasped, nearly throwing the badge across the room.
“What’s wrong?”
Xiao Yan looked up immediately and grabbed my hand, her eyes full of anxiety.
“It suddenly got really hot.”
Her hands were very warm as she cupped mine, her fingertips gently rubbing the spot where I had been burned.
I looked at her face so close to mine.
Her eyelashes were long like little fans, and her breath carried an indefinable sweetness.
We rushed to the kitchen, carefully rinsing my finger and the badge under ice-cold water.
Strangely, after a few seconds of rinsing, it returned to room temperature.
It was perfectly ordinary, without a trace of heat, as if the burning sensation from before had been a mere hallucination.
I stared at the carvings on the back of the badge and suddenly remembered the Orion Star Trail Map tucked inside the journal.
These horizontal lines… weren’t they just a simplified version of the Orion Belt?!
“Xiao Yan, look!”
I pulled her hand over and pointed at the carvings, my voice trembling slightly.
“This is the Orion star trail! It’s exactly the same as the one Senior Lin Ming drew in the journal!”
Xiao Yan leaned in to look, and her eyes lit up instantly.
“It is! It’s a perfect match! If Senior Lin Ming carved this, she must be giving us a hint. It might be related to the conditions for opening the secret room!”
My phone suddenly vibrated, breaking the excitement.
It was a text from an unknown number, containing only a single line of cold data.
“The night of the Orion Alignment has the highest peak of magnetic resonance. Trespassing at any other time = triggering Memory Disorder.”
There was no signature.
But Xiao Yan and I exchanged a look. We both knew who it was.
Who else could it be but that ice-cold Lin Yu?
“That Lin Yu!”
Xiao Yan huffed, stuffing the phone back into my hand.
Her cheeks puffed out like a riled-up pufferfish.
“She’s so cold! She didn’t even use a greeting. Who does she think she is?”
I stared at the words “Memory Disorder” in the text, and my heart skipped a beat.
After my transformations, there were several times when I woke up in the morning and couldn’t remember what had happened the night before.
Was it because I had accidentally come into contact with some kind of magnetic field?
‘If I really trigger a memory disorder, will I be like the others who don’t remember I am a boy—forgetting Xiao Yan, forgetting everything from these past few days’
As soon as the thought surfaced, I shook it away.
“Xiao Yan.”
I took a deep breath, suppressing the unease in my heart.
“Lin Yu might be right. To open the secret room, we might need both badges together.”
She looked at me.
“Then we’ll find Lin Yu and cooperate with her! Since she’s Senior Lin Ming’s sister, she must want to know the secrets her sister left behind too.”
“Will she be willing?”
I asked hesitantly.
After all, Lin Yu didn’t have a great reputation at school.
She was seen as sharp-tongued, unsympathetic, and very dangerous.
“If she won’t lend it to us, then we’ll… we’ll reason with her!”
Xiao Yan clenched her fists and waved her small arms before she couldn’t help but laugh at herself.
“Just kidding. If she’s unwilling, we’ll just keep pestering her until she gives in. We’ll find a way to convince her.”
Outside the window, a ginkgo leaf drifted down, twirling in the wind before landing on the windowsill.
Mimi immediately pounced on it to play.
I folded the structural diagram and tucked it into the bag.
Then, I took out two orange candies.
I popped one into her mouth and one into mine.
The sweetness of the orange spread across my tongue.
“Tomorrow night, we’ll see what this observatory is all about.”
—
The following night, the sky was as dark as ink, and even the moonlight was obscured by thick clouds.
There were no lights on the small path up the back mountain.
Only the beam of our flashlight cut through the darkness, illuminating the fallen leaves beneath our feet.
They made a crunching sound as we stepped on them.
Xiao Yan gripped my arm tightly, letting me lean my head against her shoulder.
She let out small breaths that felt warm against the air.
I really should have worn sneakers.
These canvas shoes are way too slippery on these leaves.
I feel like I’m going to eat dirt at any second!
And sure enough.
When we reached the halfway point of the mountain, my foot slipped.
My center of gravity shifted, and I nearly tumbled down.
She was quick, catching me by the waist and pulling me forcefully into her arms.
“Be careful.”
Xiao Yan looked down at me.
Her face was pressed near my chest, and her voice was soft.
“Are you too nervous? Should we take a break?”
“Sorry…” I whispered, my face suddenly flushing.
“A little.”
She let go of me and knelt down.
She carefully rolled up my pant leg and pulled down my sock.
My ankle was already a bit red.
I felt my face heating up.
“Does it hurt?”
She frowned, reaching out to touch it gently.
“It doesn’t.”
I shook my head, though I couldn’t help but wince slightly.
She didn’t say anything, remaining half-squatted to carefully check my ankle.
The warmth of her fingertips lightly graced my skin.
I watched her as she looked down, and something stirred in my heart.
I reached out and gently stroked her hair.
“Xiao Yan, you’re so good to me.”
She froze, a spark of surprise flashing in her eyes.
Soon, the corners of her mouth curved up into a smile as tender as moonlight.
The moonlight fell upon her face, covering it in a thin, ethereal veil.
After that, I obediently held her hand, and we slowed our pace significantly.
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