"A paper boat cannot float in the sea, but the North Star will always tell me where you are."
——The last time Cheng Ye received a text message from Xia Tong was in July 2012.
In 2003, Cheng Ye, a stuttering boy, threw a torn homework paper boat on the river bank. The neighbor girl Xia Tong used an old telescope to circle the first star in the entire universe for him. She taught him the power of silence: paper boats carry thoughts far away, and stars guide the lost. They agreed that ten years later they would stand together under the launch tower of the Space City and witness the rocket tearing up the night sky.
In 2010, Cheng Ye rushed into a convenience store holding two college admission notices, only to see Xia Tong numbly scanning the code behind the counter. She cut her hair short, hid the scars from when she protected him under her long sleeves, and tore up the notice with a sneer: "Do you think anyone is worthy of chasing the stars?" That summer, Cheng Ye went north to study with a suitcase full of shells, while Xia Tong disappeared in the rainy night when the typhoon landed.
In 2023, Cheng Ye, who had become a satellite engineer, received a soaked cardboard box at the launch base containing 284 yellowed paper boats. The oldest one had tiny words written in pencil: "Drop out of school not because of lack of money, but because I stuffed the surgery fee in your schoolbag the day my mother was diagnosed with uremia." He looked up at the twinkling North Star on the monitor screen, and suddenly remembered the night when he was sixteen, Xia Tong pointed at the starry sky and said: "People will turn into stars when they die, but the pain of living is darker than the universe."
Intent: Friendship and love