Xiaoqi raised his head and suddenly wondered in a daze, were the stars here spinning one by one in the universe, or were they true as legends, including the Qionglou Yuyu, and the immortals and beasts?

Ji Ran held Xiaoqi's hand, pointed it at Tianyu, and called out their names one by one.

First there was the red Betelgeuse hanging high in the southern sky;

Moving southeast is Sirius, the brightest in the entire night sky;

Directly east of Betelgeuse, there is another bright star, Nanhe San;

Between the three bright stars forming a triangle, a faint Milky Way passes through it...

Xiaoqi almost turned his head to look at Ji Ran. She blushed slightly and asked in surprise, "...How could you know these things? Have you prepared for the Sitiantai exam before?"

Ji Ran shook his head, "No, it's all my mother taught me. She likes to see the stars at night... She used to tell me that among the four seasons, the stars on winter nights are the best, because there will be many bright stars that cannot be seen in summer. Later I found out that it seems to be like this."

Xiaoqi sighed, "It turns out that my aunt likes to look at the stars."

"My mother told me many stories about immortals in heaven before, but unfortunately I don't remember them now." Ji Ran also looked at the sky, "There are gods on most stars, because they have had various experiences in the world. After death, they were promoted to star officials. She said that she believed in these things when she was young, and often fantasized about what she would look like after becoming a star official."

Xiaoqi smiled, "How can we become a star official?"

"Ha, I asked this question when I was a child," Ji Ran replied happily, "She said that after a person dies, a virtue scale should be put on. On the left side of the scale is the good deeds of a person throughout his life, and on the right side is the karma he created. If there are too many evil karma, the soul will enter hell and be punished. If the merits and demerits are offset, or the merits are slightly greater than the faults, then you will enter the cycle of reincarnation and turn to the next life.

"But if a person's good deeds far exceed his karma, then his soul will float into the sky and become a star official."

Xiaoqi blinked, "Really?"

"Haha," Ji Ran replied, "It was my grandmother who made it up."

Both young people laughed for a moment.

When the laughter of the two calmed down, Ji Ran said again, "My mother said that she had always believed in this legend when she was a child. Until later when she shared the story with her sister, she found that no one else had heard of it. She realized that it might be the fabrication of the grandmother - because when she was a child, she always pestered the old man to ask questions. Maybe the grandmother felt it was also troublesome, so she made up a story to deal with it, right?"

Xiaoqi supported her face, "If I could become a star after death, it would be very romantic."

The night wind blew gently, and the two of them were speechless for a moment. Suddenly, the sound of a big firecracker came from afar, which shocked everyone in the middle of the night.

Sitting on the top of the banyan tree, Xiaoqi soon saw many bright torches moving towards another giant banyan tree - the one with lights on the ground.

Ji Ran stood up and looked around. A certain professional instinct almost made him rush to the place where the sound came from immediately - but he immediately remembered that his job was no longer there, so he frowned and sat down again.

"It seems to be the tree that the princes and nobles are waiting for." Ji Ran whispered.

Xiaoqi stretched his neck and looked away, "It should be the eldest princess's mansion preparing for Cen Lingju's birthday."

Ji Ran turned around, "How do you know?"

"Ha, because every year on birthday, the county lord has to go to the countryside to set up the lamp of immortality. The firecrackers are lit - how old is it, just a few." Xiaoqi tilted his head, "Maybe who accidentally lit a firecracker in advance? I guessed randomly."

She calculated by counting her fingers, "Her birthday is the sixteenth day of the first lunar month. Well, it's almost the same, it's been a few days."

“When is your birthday?”

As soon as Ji Ran said that, he immediately remembered the fact that the Feng family's daughters were very secretive about their birthdays.

Sure enough, Xiaoqi quickly shrugged, "I don't know, but my mother prepares a bowl of longevity noodles for me every year on the 16th day of the first lunar month. It seems that because when I was a child, I was always jealous of Cen Lingju's birthday, so my mother wanted to give me some compensation--"

"That's the sixteenth day of the first lunar month?"

"Anyway, I don't know which day it is, so it's OK!" Xiaoqi turned to Ji Ran with his eyes closed, "Are you going to prepare a gift for me?"

Ji Ran did not immediately answer yes. The girl with her eyes closed in front of him was so close to him that he could almost see a little bit of white hair on Xiaoqi's cheeks.

Ji Ran blushed and his throat suddenly became dry.

On such a tall banyan tree, he suddenly wanted to bow his head and kiss the girl beside him. No one taught him to do this, but at this moment, this thought naturally drifted into his mind.

"Huh?" Xiao Qi didn't get an answer. He was a little surprised that Ji Ran was suddenly silent. She reached out to lean on the person beside her and quickly touched Ji Ran's arm.

"What's wrong?" Xiao Qi asked.

"Can you... kiss you?"

Xiaoqi's eyelashes moved slightly, and finally opened his eyes.

With eyes facing each other, she felt that she hadn't seen Ji Ran's eyes for a long time. The boy's eyes were brighter than the stars in the sky.

Xiaoqi's hands clutched the branches tightly - her vision was still as before, and all living things were filled with silhouettes of the past and the future in her eyes.

She tried her best to ignore these false phantoms, and her eyes stopped firmly at the present moment, in front of her eyes.

This moment of silence made Ji Ran feel tormented like a fire. He suddenly felt ashamed of his rudeness. He had not had time to think about how Xiaoqi would understand his frivolous behavior, and he was already in a very strong panic for the rash words just now.

Too many emotions swept over like wind and waves, which made Ji Ran's mind blank, and opposite was his face - even when he shouted "I like Miss Seven" at the foot of the Six Talisman Mountain, he was not as popular as he is now.

"Come here." Xiaoqi suddenly said.

For a moment, Ji Ran lost the courage to explain. He leaned slightly in Xiaoqi's direction, but looked elsewhere, as if he had made a huge mistake and was guilty, or like a drowning person falling from the turbulent flow, desperately trying to find some excuses to save the situation.

"Look up." Xiaoqi said again.

"I--"

Ji Ran's voice stopped abruptly, and his heartbeat seemed to stop at this moment.

A throbbing feeling was like a burst of electric current flowing from his heart to his limbs and bones. He felt a little chilling in his hands and feet, but after just a moment, the warm blood flow quickly circulated in his body.

Xiaoqi closed her eyes throughout the whole process, and her heart beat very quickly. Even her hands holding the branches were sweating and she was trembling slightly.

After a while, Xiaoqi retreated a little. She opened her eyes and saw Ji Ran looking at her with a shy face. Xiaoqi's original pity was a little nervous, but after she found that the other party was even more panicked than her, she quietly dispersed.

"Have you been keeping your eyes open just now?" Xiao Qi asked.

Ji Ran moved slightly in his throat, and then nodded slightly.
Chapter completed!