When this task card was handed over, Gu Qichi was still a bit dazed.

He accepted the card and immediately recognized the familiar gold-stamped handwriting. One glance was all it took for Gu Qichi to know it was written by Bo Yu himself.

He turned his head to look at Bo Yu standing beside him.

The man’s eyes were lowered, his deep features reflecting only Gu Qichi’s image. Even though there was no smile on his face, the gentleness and deep affection radiating from him were so thick they seemed ready to overflow.

The PD glanced at the two of them and smiled, “Teacher Gu, this is the only task you need to complete today. Once you collect the 22 imprints of spring, summer, autumn, and winter before midnight, you can reach the final destination and redeem the ultimate grand prize.”

“And this grand prize isn’t something prepared by us…”

He blinked, took a few steps back, his words full of unstoppable teasing.

Gu Qichi withdrew his hand, pursed his lips, buried his face in his scarf, and muttered softly, “Bo Yu, you prepared this, didn’t you?”

Bo Yu nodded.

They had agreed on a simple birthday celebration, yet he had still secretly arranged everything.

Bo Yu was always like this.

He always wanted to give Gu Qichi the very best.

In legends, City X was the place closest to paradise. The blue sky stretched vast and vigorous to the horizon, the white snow underfoot was boundless and silent, and the fierce wind blew through overlapping prayer flags, creating bursts of fluttering sounds.

Bo Yu wore a solid black overcoat, his broad shoulders and long legs making a striking silhouette. His voice melted into the wind: “This is the surprise I prepared for you. I will walk with you through the wind and snow.”

“But for the final leg of the journey, I will be waiting for you at the end.”

Gu Qichi’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He remained silent for a long time before finally squeezing out a single word: “Okay.”

The clue on the task card was very general, and the concept was extremely vague. It was hard to guess what Bo Yu’s definition of “spring, summer, autumn, and winter” was.

But Gu Qichi figured it out exceptionally fast.

It was the changing of the seasons, the turning of the wheel.

It was also the years he had lived through.

Bo Yu had prepared paintings.

The first painting was right behind Bo Yu, tied to a colorful prayer flag.

These prayer flags were densely printed with Tibetan mantras, scriptures, and images of Buddha in various shapes—squares, triangles, and strips—orderly secured. The five-colored flags fluttered and swayed, tumbling endlessly between the earth and the sky.

Some were blessings prayed for by herdsmen seeking abundant water and grass, some were travelers begging for a safe journey, and others were offerings to the mountain gods, mixed with the low chanting of Tibetan scriptures, as if one could hear the prayers of countless monks.

Gu Qichi stepped forward and took down the top piece of drawing paper, which looked out of place among the prayer flags.

It was done in watercolor. On it was a tiny baby with delicate features, his lips parted in a joyful smile. His small arms looked like tender lotus roots, and he was grasping something that looked like a star in his hand.

Almost instantly, Gu Qichi recognized it as a photo of himself as a baby.

Below it was a line of very small text:

Gu Qichi, welcome to your impending arrival in this world. These prayer flags were all very old; only the one tied with the drawing paper was exceptionally bright in color, clearly having been hung up recently.

Gu Qichi silently and quietly put the drawing paper away and continued forward, following the clues on the back.

The drawing for his first year showed him having just learned to walk, arms outstretched, stumbling forward.

In front of him was a pair of open hands, in a posture of embrace.

Below it was still a line of very small text:

At that time, you had just learned to walk. If I had been by your side, you probably would have fallen right into my arms. Following that were the drawings for his second year, third year, fourth year… The little person on the paper grew bigger bit by bit, his facial features becoming clearer. His hair would stick up, and his expressions weren’t limited to smiles.

There were times when little Gu Qichi was angry, times when he was troubled, and times when he puckered his lips and cried.

But in every painting, there was more or less a hint of Bo Yu’s presence.

There were probably very few photos from Gu Qichi’s past, because Zhou Yuan believed there was no need to waste money at a photo studio for his first birthday portraits.

Bo Yu had gone to great lengths, doing his utmost to find all the visual records of Gu Qichi from birth to the present, but there were still bound to be some gaps.

The visual records of Gu Qichi between the ages of three and seven were a complete blank.

He could only clumsily rely on his imagination, depicting the image of little Gu Qichi in his heart stroke by stroke, filling in the gaps of his childhood during that time.

When he was seven, Gu Qichi entered elementary school and had his first large group photo in life.

In the group photo Bo Yu found, he was still strikingly good-looking. The watercolor clearly outlined his facial features, complementing the vast blue sky and the meandering white clouds above.

Seven-year-old Gu Qichi, wearing a blue and white school uniform, stared curiously at the center of the camera lens.

A nerve in Gu Qichi’s mind gave a light tug. For some reason, a memory surfaced in his head.

It was the figure of seven-year-old Gu Qichi taking that photo. He was very happy that day, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes and brows, joyfully holding the teacher’s hand as he ran on the red and white track.

His image shifted from blurry to clear, and Gu Qichi saw the other self reach out a hand toward him.

Seven-year-old Gu Qichi said, “Happy birthday, 22-year-old Gu Qichi.”

In his ninth year, his expression was a bit colder, his height had shot up considerably, and he squatted in the corner like an injured little beast. Above his head was a hand gently stroking him.

I wish the me back then had superpowers, so I could travel through time and space to protect you. He followed the trail of photos all the way. The drawing papers in his hand were stacked together, forming a very thick pile. They were all scenes depicted stroke by stroke by someone hiding deep in the night, under the dim yellow glow of a lamp.

The Gu Qichi in the paintings had vivid expressions. No matter the time, he possessed the vitality and youthful spirit unique to that age.

The person in the paintings progressed through the years until he turned sixteen.

It was also the beginning of his most unbearable pain.

But the person in the painting wasn’t experiencing that pain. A smile hung on his face, and he held a first-place certificate from a competition in his hand, looking high-spirited and vigorous.

The teacher said you won first place the very first time you entered a competition, that you were the most outstanding student. At that time, I had just started college. I really wish I could have gone back to the school to see you. The drawing for his seventeenth year was based on the ID photo he and Bo Yu had seen at East City No. 1 High School—a pure male high school student.

The eighteenth year was a profile photo Wen Xi had hastily snapped when she first met him.

The nineteenth year was Gu Qichi participating in his first variety show; on stage, he was stunningly radiant.

The twentieth year was when he picked up Ah Ci, their first photo together with the little cat who “staged a scam” (bumped into him on purpose).

The twenty-first year was Gu Qichi’s wrap photo from a low-budget web drama, showing he had carved out a very, very small path for himself in the entertainment industry.

Starting from his seventeenth year, blessings from various people gradually began to appear on the drawing papers.

There was one from Wen Xi: “Happy birthday, my precious little Chi. This is the fifth birthday I’m spending with you. I hope there are countless futures waiting for you and me.”

There was one from Gu Qichi’s very first fan: “Chi Chi, we accompanied you through those most difficult days. The road ahead will be bustling with people and brilliantly bright, and we will continue walking it together.”

There was one from Luo Qianqian: “Happy birthday, Teacher Gu! I hope Yu Qin Gu Zong has a harmonious union that lasts a hundred years! Never separate!”

There was one from Yu Sheng: “My Chi-bao, the most beautiful in the world, you are the most beautiful in this life. In the next life, share a little of your beauty with me, but you still have to be the most beautiful!”

There was one from the entire “Firmiana Tree” fan club: “The phoenix rests on the Firmiana tree, the sheng and xiao play in harmony. Precious little Chi, happy birthday. The Firmiana trees will shelter you from the wind and rain, supporting a path of starlight for you.”

There was even one from Ah Ci.

The silver-shaded cat’s tiny, pink paw pads had been pressed into an inkpad, leaving many bright red imprints on the paper, perfectly forming the shape of a round cat head.

There was also quite a bit of cat hair stuck to it.

Gu Qichi followed the instructions on the drawing paper, moving forward along the path.

He crossed splashing streams, trod over snow that never melted year-round, and passed by an ancient, tranquil Buddhist temple. Until the last speck of the sun’s golden brilliance vanished into the darkness, night flooded the sky, the stars shone brightly, and a crescent moon hung high, he finally arrived at the foot of an observatory.

Bo Yu had slipped away secretly an hour ago, saying he would wait as the final surprise for him to find.

Gu Qichi tilted his head up, his gaze reaching the top of the high platform, where a faint light was emerging.

He walked up the steps one by one. With every step he took, a layer of the stairs lit up. The steps beneath his feet were like tiny dust particles floating and sinking in a river of stars; they twinkled, they flowed.

Looking from a distance, one could see that these tiny dust particles formed a resplendent sea of stars, bursting forth into a universe beneath Gu Qichi’s feet.

When he reached the top of the tower on the highest level, his field of vision abruptly broadened.

A faint blue beam of light hit the top of his head diagonally, making Gu Qichi’s hair look as if it were plated with a layer of flowing fireflies.

In the dark and silent starry sky, thin gas or dust combined into cloud-like nebulae, the colorful light mists forming a magnificent sight amidst their scattered arrangement.

Gu Qichi had never seen such magnificence, yet at this moment, he witnessed a scene even more spectacular than that.

Bo Yu stood right in the center of the observatory, surrounded by various planetary models rising, falling, and orbiting.

They twinkled frequently in the long Milky Way, piercing through billions of light-years of distance to drop starlight into the night sky.

And right now, someone had brought them to the observatory, spinning, twinkling, and flowing like fireflies, solely for Gu Qichi.

Gu Qichi couldn’t speak. His eyes felt a bit sore, and all the senses in his body seemed to go on strike as if by prior agreement. He could only feel the blood gurgling and flowing from his heart, carrying a warm current through his limbs and bones, causing a slight tingling sensation.

Standing beside Bo Yu were his few close friends.

There was Luo Qianqian, Wen Xi, Lin Shuangyi, Wen Shi, and even Director Jiang An…

They were scattered behind Bo Yu, all staring at Gu Qichi with sincere smiles on their faces.

The sky was swept with ink, the floating moon high above, and the night sky filled with stars, shining and interweaving, bathing the entire platform in silver radiance.

This was a sight that was absolutely impossible to see in a brightly lit city like East City.

The last painting was behind Bo Yu, attached to an astronomical telescope.

Gu Qichi clutched that stack of drawing papers in his hand, his heart beating frantically, producing a buzzing hum against his eardrums.

He didn’t move, just stared straight at Bo Yu.

Behind him were the boundless snowy mountains that had remained unmelted since ancient times, and the pure, endless, silent starry sky.

It was the lights of ten thousand homes, the mortal realm stretching for hundreds of miles.

And countless models of celestial bodies, large and small.

Gu Qichi’s heart skipped another beat. At the same time, an asteroid in space struggled to release its light, vibrating at the exact same frequency as him.

Those distances, unreachable yet close at hand, were instantly compressed into an eternal embrace.

It felt as if, many, many years ago, things should have already become like this.

Bo Yu stepped forward, took Gu Qichi’s hand, and tore down the last piece of drawing paper.

It was their marriage certificate photo.

A red background, white shirts, but instead of facing the camera, they were looking into each other’s eyes.

In the watercolor painting, Bo Yu held his hand.

In reality, Bo Yu was the same as always.

He held his hand, led him close to the astronomical telescope, and tore down the painting on it.

Even though there were countless scattered, shining stars here, Gu Qichi felt that not a single star was as dazzling as the light flashing in Bo Yu’s eyes.

Like the clearest, most brilliant North Star hanging deep within the black clouds, blindingly bright and snowy white.

Bo Yu gazed at him and spoke very, very slowly: “You don’t like diamonds, you don’t like houses, cars, you don’t like these things trapped by materialism, nor do you like all that is illusory.”

Gu Qichi heard the momentary pause in his own heartbeat, yet he could feel the frantic pounding that followed even more clearly.

Bo Yu leaned in and kissed his forehead, looking down at him. “So I wanted to give you a star.”

His thumb caressed the reddened corners of Gu Qichi’s eyes, his voice gentle enough to drown a person. “A real asteroid, belonging solely to you.”

“In our limited lifespans, it will be eternal in time.”

The wind on the observatory was much stronger than on flat ground. The sound of the wind howled, piercingly cold, blowing until one’s ears went numb.

Yet Gu Qichi could hear nothing at this moment. He was stripped of all his senses, even his breathing lightening. The only things he could hear and see were tightly bound to Bo Yu.

Bo Yu held his hand, leaned down near the astronomical telescope behind him, and carefully, patiently helped him adjust the angle.

A silent celestial body, twinkling with an azure stellar aura, broke through the boundless darkness and arrived before his eyes. Soft clouds and mist flowed around it, mixed with wisps of stellar aura, bursting forth with a light uniquely its own.

“It sounds a bit too whimsical, but I discovered this asteroid when I was eighteen.”

“On January 17th, the day you were born.”

He patiently introduced the origin of this asteroid to him, the scalding heat of his palm pressing into Gu Qichi’s skin, raising a subtle, burning sensation.

“My grandfather was a very great astronomer. Even he felt astonished and found this discovery unbelievable, because it sounds far too absurd. But this asteroid truly exists, and it was indeed discovered by us.”

“In the long river of time, the existence of this asteroid was confirmed, its orbit precisely calculated, and only then did it gain the right to an official designation and name.”

The celestial body in the astronomical telescope was surrounded by countless tiny particles. In the vast universe, this small yet magnificent celestial body had a name uniquely its own.

“I named it—Qichi Star.” Bo Yu interlocked his fingers with Gu Qichi’s, his voice deep yet immensely powerful, slamming into the depths of Gu Qichi’s heart like a thousand-pound hammer. “Happy birthday, Gu Qichi.”

“You always like to repeatedly confirm the things you possess, wanting to verify their existence, to prove their ownership.”

“I know it’s because you are confused, hesitant, worried that you can’t grasp reality, afraid that what you’ve obtained is merely imagination.”

“You lack a sense of security, but I want to give it to you.”

“This asteroid is also my promise to you.”

“The love from billions of light-years away will never end. Regardless of time or distance, I will love you until death.”