Under the Starry Sky

After dinner, the sky gradually darkened.

Su Bai and Chen Yusheng cleaned up the campsite.

Night fell quickly, and the temperature in the valley began to drop again, but compared to the blizzard a few days ago, tonight was noticeably milder.

Most importantly—the sky had cleared.

Su Bai looked up. The lead-gray clouds had scattered completely, replaced by a deep, ink-blue expanse.

A few stars had already eagerly emerged, twinkling faintly in the twilight.

“Sheng Sheng.” Su Bai turned around and waved at Chen Yusheng, who was crouched by the tent entrance organizing her sleeping bag. “Stop packing. Come here.”

Chen Yusheng looked up, a hint of confusion in her cool eyes. “What’s up?”

“There’s something good to see tonight.” Su Bai smiled mysteriously, then pulled two folding chairs and a thick wool blanket from the car. “The weather forecast said visibility would be excellent tonight—no cloud cover, perfect for stargazing.”

Chen Yusheng froze for a moment, then her eyes lit up.

She stood up quickly, dusted off her hands, and jogged over to help.

Together, they set up the folding chairs on a patch of open ground with a wide view outside the campsite. They adjusted the chair backs to the flattest angle, nearly allowing them to lie flat.

Su Bai spread the wool blanket over the chairs and patted the spot next to him. “Come on, lie down.”

Chen Yusheng obediently lay down, and Su Bai followed, settling beside her. They lay shoulder to shoulder, faces turned toward the sky.

The night deepened, and more stars appeared.

At first, there were just a few scattered pinpricks, but within ten minutes, it was as if someone had torn open a seam in the sky, and countless stars poured out, dense and thick, blanketing the entire night.

Chen Yusheng held her breath.

She had grown up in the city, where Jiangcheng’s light pollution was severe—at night, looking up revealed only a few dim stars. Later, when she went to university, she spent all her time in the lab and never had a chance to look at the sky.

But now, lying in this valley far from the city, she was seeing a true starry sky for the first time.

It wasn’t just a few stars dotting the darkness; it was a brilliant river of countless stars gathered together.

The Milky Way stretched across the sky like a glowing ribbon, spanning from one ridge to the other. The stars varied in size and brightness, distinct and layered, as if she could reach out and pluck them.

“Wow…” Chen Yusheng’s voice was full of awe. “This… this is way too beautiful!”

Su Bai turned his head, watching her stunned expression, and couldn’t help but smile. “See? Worth waiting these days, isn’t it?”

“Totally worth it!” Chen Yusheng fidgeted excitedly in the folding chair, hands and feet all moving. “I used to watch those timelapse videos of starry skies online and thought they were edited with special effects. Now I know—the real sky is even more stunning than the videos!”

She stretched out a finger and pointed at the sky. “Look at the Milky Way, you can see it so clearly! And that really bright one, is that Venus? And over there, that hazy patch—is that a nebula?”

Su Bai followed her gaze and nodded. “Mm, that brightest one should be Venus. As for the nebula… I’m not sure either. We’ll look it up on a star chart later.”

They lay there quietly, neither speaking.

A mountain breeze blew through, carrying a hint of chill, but the wool blanket was thick, and they pressed close together, so they felt no cold at all. The starry expanse above was boundless, and occasionally a meteor streaked by, trailing a long tail before vanishing in an instant.

As Chen Yusheng watched, she suddenly spoke softly: “Su Bai, how far do you think those stars are from us?”

“Very far,” Su Bai thought for a moment. “The nearest star is several light-years away. Some are hundreds or thousands of light-years.”

“Thousands of light-years…” Chen Yusheng murmured. “So the light we’re seeing now was actually emitted thousands of years ago?”

“Right.” Su Bai nodded. “Maybe that star even died long ago, but its light is still traveling through space, flying for thousands of years, until it reaches our eyes.”

Chen Yusheng was silent for a moment, then let out a soft “wow.” “So that means, the stars we’re looking at are actually the past?”

“Sort of,” Su Bai said with a smile. “But to us, this is the present moment of the sky.”

Chen Yusheng tilted her head, thinking this was a bit paradoxical, but it felt strangely romantic. She turned to look at Su Bai’s profile. Starlight spilled across his face, outlining his sharp features, and his eyes remained bright even in the darkness.

“Su Bai,” she said suddenly, her voice very soft.

“Hmm?”

“Do you think… we’ll be like those stars someday?” Chen Yusheng’s voice carried a hint of uncertainty. “I mean, a long, long time from now, when we’re old, or even… gone, but the things we did together, the sights we saw—will they stay there forever, like starlight?”

Su Bai was stunned.

He hadn’t expected Chen Yusheng to suddenly say something so poetic.

She was usually pretty straightforward, speaking bluntly, rarely this sentimental.

He turned on his side, reached out, and pulled her into his arms. “They will.”

“Really?” Chen Yusheng looked up, her cool eyes glittering in the starlight.

“Really.” Su Bai’s voice was firm. “Think about it—the photos we took on this mountain today will be saved forever. The hotpot we ate, the snowy mountains we saw, and this starry sky we’re looking at now—they’ll all stay in our memories. Even after a long time, when we pull out those photos, we’ll remember today. Isn’t that just like starlight?”

Chen Yusheng felt an indescribable warmth rise in her heart. She buried her face against Su Bai’s chest and mumbled, “Then you have to promise me, from now on, you’ll bring me out to see the stars every year.”

“Alright, I promise,” Su Bai said, gently ruffling her hair. “Not just stars—snowy mountains, grasslands, oceans. Whatever you want to see, I’ll take you.”

Chen Yusheng let out a contented “mm” and rested her head back against his shoulder. They continued to gaze up at the starry sky.

After a long while, Chen Yusheng spoke again. “Su Bai, do you think, if we have a baby someday, and we bring him to see the stars, would he find them beautiful too?”

Su Bai’s heart stirred.

He remembered last night in the tent, when Chen Yusheng had rambled on about the future of their child. That unborn little one already had a shape in her heart.

“He will,” Su Bai said softly. “Someday, the three of us will lie right here, watching the stars together. I’ll tell you both stories about the constellations, and you can teach him to recognize the Big Dipper.”

The corners of Chen Yusheng’s mouth curled up, and her eyes crinkled into crescent moons. “Then we’ll need to bring a few extra blankets. Kids get cold easily.”

“Mm, we’ll bring extra,” Su Bai replied, following her train of thought. “And we’ll need a thermos to mix his formula.”

“Right, right, and diapers—we need to stock up on plenty of those.” Chen Yusheng grew more animated as he spoke, as if that little one had already appeared before his eyes. “What if he starts crying? Would he scare off other hikers?”

“Then we’ll book the whole place,” Su Bai said with a smile. “The entire campsite will be just our family. He can cry as long as he wants.”

Chen Yusheng was amused by his extravagantly indulgent tone and gently punched him on the chest. “You’re going to spoil him rotten.”

The two of them chatted back and forth, planning out the life of that nonexistent little one from birth all the way to kindergarten. Under the starry sky, their voices grew softer and softer, eventually fading into silence, leaving only the steady rhythm of each other’s breathing.

The night deepened, and the stars grew ever brighter.

The valley was utterly still, broken only by the occasional cry of a night bird in the distance. Su Bai held the person in his arms, feeling her soft body pressed against his. A feeling of indescribable contentment welled up within him.