Starlight Descends - 13

Courage

---

On the last day of September, the temperature dropped to around twenty degrees.

A crisp autumn wind swept through the sycamore-lined streets, stirring fallen leaves into spirals. Golden ginkgo branches swayed gently overhead.

A black nanny van moved steadily through the city's main roads, understated and elegant.

Inside the car, however—

"How could you only tell me now that your White Moonlight lives right next door to you?! Sure, I'm filming nonstop and barely sleeping, but I always have time for gossip!"

"And he said what? 'I'll open it for you'?"

Qi Yao sat in the back seat, a stack of documents spread across her lap. Flipping through them, her long lashes fluttered slightly as she gave a casual "Mm."

Ye Qingman nearly shrieked. "Oh my god!! Isn't that basically a confession?! He offered to open your bottle caps for you! He's sooo in love with you, aaaahhh!"

Qi Yao slowly furrowed her brows. "...?"

"Have you secretly been lurking in CP fan forums?"

Otherwise, where had Ye Qingman learned the ability to spin entire romance epics out of microscopic crumbs?

"How could I, there's no internet up here." Ye Qingman pouted. "This is just a natural instinct I have for people in love! How is what he said any different from a confession?!"

"Seriously, why else would a guy go to all that trouble? Anyone who can afford an apartment across from yours is at least rich, if not absurdly rich. And he's just sitting around waiting to open your bottle caps all day?"

It had only been an offhand joke from Yu Jiashu. Nothing more.

Qi Yao laughed and deftly steered the topic away. "Fine, fine. Whatever you say. I'm on my way to an interview. Don't really have time to argue with you right now."

"What interview?" Ye Qingman's sunflower seed-cracking abruptly stopped. "God, that's today?!"

"And you're still taking my call right now? Okay, okay, I'm hanging up. Focus. Don't be too nervous out there."

Qi Yao raised a brow lazily. "Got it."

Truthfully, she wasn't very nervous.

Ye Qingman always assumed she cared deeply about this endorsement. Maybe because over the years, the things Qi Yao genuinely wanted had been so few and far between.

When the van stopped, Qi Yao only took her phone before getting out. The thick stack of documents remained behind in the car.

Last-minute cramming only made you more anxious. She'd learned and accepted this lesson back in her student days.

She'd already done everything she could. A few extra minutes wouldn't change the outcome now.

She'd done her part. The rest was up to fate.

Fengxing's first-round interviews were packed back-to-back. Twenty minutes per person, the order randomly shuffled. One moment it might be a Best Actor winner stepping into the room; the next, a rookie actress from a low-budget web drama.

Of course, major celebrities still afforded certain courtesies.

Though never openly stated, accommodations were quietly made. Some attended through video calls instead of appearing in person. Others sent managers in their place. All entirely acceptable.

Lizi followed behind Qi Yao as a staff member guided them through Fengxing's vast, luxurious lobby and up to the eighth floor.

After years in the entertainment industry, Qi Yao was already used to dazzling spaces like this. Nothing about it felt especially novel. She quietly hid her face under her baseball cap and mask. 

But the young assistant beside her couldn't stop sneaking curious glances around.

After checking in at the registration desk, Lizi leaned close and whispered. "Yao-mei, is that Teacher Zhao Min?"

Qi Yao followed her gaze through the glass wall of Waiting Room No. 1.

Inside a woman in her early thirties sat in a single armchair, dressed in a sharply tailored white pantsuit, posture relaxed and composed.

"It is," Qi Yao answered.

Zhao Min had clearly noticed her too.

Through the glass, their gazes met briefly. Zhao Min lifted her paper cup, the vivid imprint of crimson lipstick visible against the rim, tipping it toward Qi Yao in a silent greeting.

Qi Yao nodded back before stepping into the neighboring waiting room. Removing her baseball cap, she casually ran a hand through her hair.

"I don't get it," Lizi whispered while pouring her water. "Someone at her level actually came in person? Technically we weren't even required to show up."

Qi Yao's expression remained calm. She tapped lightly against the tabletop with her fingertips and took a sip.

"I heard she's planning to leave her agency and start her own company. Wants to bring a few people with her."

Lizi made an "oh" of understanding. "Well, that explains it. This is Fengxing, after all. Getting access to their resources changes everything."

The waiting room door wasn't fully shut.

From the hallway outside came the hushed whispers of several junior staffers gossiping in a corner.

"A whole week and I still haven't seen the transplanted vice president in person. Everyone who's seen him kept raving about how handsome he is. Young too."

"I know! Top domestic university grad, Ivy League master's. Just graduated last year, a STEM major. Xiao Xu delivered documents upstairs the other day and came back completely starstruck."

"That guy mostly stays upstairs, never comes down. People at our level can't even access those floors. We can only pray for a lucky elevator encounter someday."

"What good would that do? Have you no idea what his surname is? You'd need terrifying courage to even dream that dream. Read too many domineering CEO novels?”

Knock knock.

The cluster of young women gossiping in the corner startled like deer at gunfire. They exchanged alarmed glances and scattered like startled birds.

"Teacher Qi Yao? They're ready for you."

The staff politely pushed open the conference room door.

The room was large and immaculate, fluorescent lights shining brightly overhead. Crystal clear floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the center of C City below.

Three interviewers in formal business attire sat across the table.

A staff member pulled out a chair for her with a quiet "please."

As Qi Yao sat down, a strange feeling rose within her.

She'd signed with her agency before even graduating university, bouncing directly from one production crew into another ever since. She’d never experienced what a fresh graduate's job interview felt like. Today, at least, she could finally fill in that blank.

Though this wasn't quite the same as a traditional interview. With the nature of her profession, the atmosphere felt more like sitting down for a conversation.

"Teacher Qi."

The short-haired woman seated in the center nodded politely. The screen beside her flickered on, beginning to play clips from Qi Yao's work.

It was Qi Yao’s first time watching her own finished work together with others in such a setting.

She quietly straightened in her seat, her expression calm and focused. 

***

Twelfth floor. Marketing Department.

Zhou Qi sat ramrod straight on the sofa inside the office.

Beyond the transparent glass walls stretched endless rows of workstations filled with bowed heads.

At first glance, everything looked uniformly black.

But upon closer inspection, quite a few heads had already begun revealing faint patches of scalp beneath thinning hair.

Zhou Qi rubbed his arms dramatically.

"Man, Fengxing's work atmosphere is terrifying. I didn't even dare breathe loudly walking in here."

If he hadn't been eating nearby and wanted to mooch a ride home with a certain someone after work, he never would've voluntarily stepped into this place.

Before he finished speaking, a knock sounded at the office door. The pure-hearted college boy immediately fell silent.

"Vice President Yu."

A woman in a fitted business suit stepped inside on sharp eight-centimeter heels, long wavy hair cascading down her back. Her lipstick a vivid red, her long legs eating up the ground with efficient speed.

Zhou Qi stared at those razor-thin heels with genuine admiration for modern working women.

"The promotional video and posters for the X-11 series are complete. Interviews downstairs are almost finished, results should be finalized within the hour. The copy draft is in the Word document. Would you like to review it?"

"Leave it there." Yu Jiashu didn't even looked up. Long fingers tapped twice against the desk.

Reading the atmosphere, the secretary placed the documents down and retreated on her clicking heels.

It wasn't until the clack-clack-clack was sealed outside the door that Zhou Qi, who'd been tracking her path, dared to speak again.

"...Bro, think you’ll work here long enough to bring home a sister‑in‑law?”

Yu Jiashu: "?"

"Office romance is so cool. Cold CEO and shy secretary. Boss and subordinate by day, and by night..."

"The psychiatric ward exit is on your left." Yu Jiashu couldn't be bothered to so much as lift his eyes.

"..."

Zhou Qi obediently shut his mouth and sat there fiddling with his fingers.

His silence lasted roughly thirty seconds.

Then:

"Hey." He ventured cautiously. "When Yao-mei came over the other day... you didn't give her a hard time, did you?"

Yu Jiashu raised a brow ever so slightly and spared him a brief glance.

"Why would you assume I'd give her a hard time?"

"Cause that's exactly the kind of person you are." Zhou Qi muttered. "If someone rubs you the wrong way, you just freeze them out. Like what you're doing to me right now." Then, a sudden, horrifying thought struck him. His eyes went wide in alarm. "You didn't... just flat-out not open the door for her, did you?!"

"..."

Yu Jiashu almost laughed from sheer disbelief. His gaze drifted toward the interview schedule displayed on the desk.

Leaning back lazily in his chair, fingers loosely interlaced, his expression hovered somewhere between amusement and something unreadable.

"Go downstairs and ask her yourself?"

---

Eighth floor.

The conference room lights dimmed.

Only the screen remained illuminated, the video began to play slowly, like stage curtains silently drawing open.

The opening shot swept over central C City from above.

Traffic surged like rivers, sun rising and moon setting, glass skyscrapers reflecting the ever-shifting sky. The scenes flashed rapidly one after another, almost like the opening sequence of a documentary or national commercial.

Then suddenly, the perspective narrowed, zooming in to street level.

Crowds flowed endlessly past. Some hurried forward. Others strolled leisurely.

As the people gradually faded from view, a line of text appeared at the center of the screen:

‘What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?’

A little boy missing his two front teeth clutched a lollipop and looked proudly at his mother. "I never bully girls in class."

A little girl with a perfectly tied Young Pioneers scarf, tossed her ponytail confidently, thought for a moment and announced. "I ran for class president and won."

"We all have places we want to reach." Several high school girls carrying towering stacks of workbooks exchanged glances before breaking into laughter. "Places we'd go no matter how far away they are."

A man in a blue dress shirt hurried out of a subway station gripping a laptop bag. Something seemed to cross his mind, his previously weary expression softened into nostalgia. "Back in college, I played drums in a band. It was awesome."

A woman seated alone in a coffee shop paused midway through editing a presentation, then smiled shyly. "When I was still an intern, I skipped work behind my boss's back. Went to a concert in the middle of a typhoon."

An elderly man strolling slowly through a park with his hands behind his back narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and answered slowly, in a thick, local dialect. "When my father died, I didn't cry. I said I was done with school, and that was that. Went to work and supported the whole family."

Beside him, his wife reached out to tease a bird perched nearby, smiling as she glanced his way. "The most courageous thing I ever did? Marrying him, of course. Despite everyone's objections."

...

Men and women. Young and old. From children to the elderly. One face after another flickered across the screen. Every scene bloomed with untold stories.

Within those brief moments, thousands people's ideas of courage converged into the span of one human life.

At the end of the long road ahead glowed a distant light. Sycamores lined the path, swaying gently in the wind, their leaves rustling softly like a corridor welcoming the young woman walking forward. 

Qi Yao wore a floral dress, her white canvas sneakers brushing over fallen autumn leaves. Slender and beautiful, she emerged from the light with a serene expression, strolling unhurriedly down the street.

She passed a kindergarten with low walls. The sound of children laughter drifted from the courtyard.

A small boy with missing teeth suddenly stepped forward, fists clenched tightly against his shirt hem, yet his face showed no fear. He planted himself in front of a girl, glaring fiercely at the children who had been bullying her.

His missing-tooth grin looked, somehow, almost gallant.

Click.

Qi Yao dangled her phone between her thumb and forefinger, snapped a photo, swiped a lollipop from the snack pile outside the classroom, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. She walked on.

Class One, Grade Two sat on the first floor. Through the open window, a tiny girl stood at the podium, her palms slick with sweat and her ponytail trembling with nerves. She swallowed hard. “Hello, everyone…”

She clutched her speech paper tightly at first, but as she continued, the fragile page was finally spared its torment. Her words grew more fluent, and she gradually, visibly, became more confident.

Click.

A corner turned, the scene shifted again.

High school was far more intense. A heavy silence blanketed the corridor. Countless students hunched over their desks, writing furiously.

Qi Yao softened her footsteps, stopping outside a bright, clean window. Inside, a girl sat completely absorbed in concentration, gripping her pen tightly as she carefully wrote inside her diary:

"Three years from now, I'm going to Beijing."

The handwriting was neat and delicate. Yet every stroke carried undeniable pressure.

Click.

In a blink, the scene shifted once more.

University campus.

After evening classes, many students still lingered outdoors. A few boys gathered beside the roadside adjusting guitar cables, bass amps, and a drum set. One sat atop a stool and strummed a tentative chord.

His expression was still a bit shy, but little by little, he raised his eyes to meet the audience. The night breeze was gentle. More and more people stopped to listen.

Click.

Qi Yao continued walking down the street, hands clasped behind her back.

The sky darkened gradually overhead. Muted clouds pressed low against the city.

Autumn rain always arrives in a hurry but falls slow; a fine, pattering descent onto sycamore leaves not yet ready to drop, tracing the wide veins downward.

The girl in the floral dress ducked into a convenience store, the wind chime above the door tinkling in the breeze.

Rainwater streamed from the awning. Rain fell in threads from the eaves. An elderly couple, their hair completely white, sat peacefully on a nearby bench sharing steaming cups of oden.

Sitting beneath the shelter, Qi Yao watches a young office woman sprint through the growing rain from the office building toward a distant stadium.

On the massive LED screen outside, a concert was broadcasted live. The stage was vast. A beam of blue light shone down on a woman in a long, sweeping dress.

“I’m not unafraid of death. Nor am I fearless.”

The moment her voice began, the roar of tens of thousands of fans nearly shattered the roof, echoing across the city.

The woman stood quietly at the center of the stage, her silhouette slender, her expression serene and gentle, eyes and lips curved in a soft smile. But the moment she opened her mouth, it was a revelation. Tender Cantonese lyrics drifted through the pounding rain: 

"But before the romantic kiss, no matter how sheer the cliff face, how steep the chasm, for you, I will treat it as flat ground."

Qi Yao sat beneath the eaves in the falling rain, listening to her sing through the storm. The sound carried a strange, layered power that seemed to cut through everything.

“Though no one approves, though reason itself forbids it, I still throw myself in completely, so deep I feel no wound."

The young woman tilted her head slightly while listening. Then she lowered her gaze and slowly flipped through the photos she'd taken throughout her journey.

The little boy who had stood up for someone. The little girl feigned composure. The high schooler hunched over her desk, writing with desperate purpose…

Countless ordinary people. Countless private moments of courage.

“Like chasing a dream, no matter how fiercely others charge ahead, none of them charge harder than I do for you.”

After a very long silence, the young woman seemed to make a decision of immense importance. Her fingers tightened around her phone. Taking a deep breath, she dialed a number.

The frame slowly pulled back. Water droplets slid from the sycamore leaves. Rain traced its lines beneath the eaves.

As the dial tone buzzed, Miriam Yeung's voice reached the climax:

‘No matter how many red lights block the road ahead, nothing can stand in the way of my courage.’

‘I would still charge forward, even if a thousand soldiers stood before me.’

In the final shot, Qi Yao stood quietly beneath the grey rainy sky. Her skirt and long hair fluttered softly in the wind. Her expression calm and serene. Her eyes were as clear and wintry as a snow-covered cedar forest.

Slowly, she lowered her gaze. Her voice was soft.

"Hello?"

In the distance, the song continued relentlessly:

‘I have no gentleness. Only this single strain of courage.’

---

← Previous | Table of Contents | Next →

0