“During a manic episode, I set the library ablaze at night; during a depressive episode, I counted the cracks in the bathroom tiles, until he, a psychology student, held up my torn painting and said, ‘Every crack is a tributary of a star’s orbit.’”
Nineteen-year-old art student **Ruan Mian** develops bipolar disorder after getting into a top art academy:
- **Manic episode**: She paints a huge mural of a starry sky for three days and nights, and people hail her as a “genius.”
- **Depressive episode**: In the dorm bathroom, she scratches her arms with a toothbrush, convinced she deserves to be expelled.
**Gu Yu**, a psychology student with a secret crush on her, sees through her act and intervenes under the pretext of “academic research”:
“Please let me record your emotional cycles. It’s data for my paper on ‘Art Therapy for Bipolar Disorder.’”
When Ruan Mian discovers the torn-up certificate for a psychological counselor’s license in Gu Yu’s drawer (he destroyed his future after failing to save his younger sister, who died by suicide due to bipolar disorder), two broken stars use paint and lies to stitch each other’s wounds amid medication side effects and the confusion of youth.
