If he believed in fate – which he supposed he did not – Yu Tu would say that Jing Jing burst back into his life like a supernova at the time he needed her light the most, taking him so much by surprise that it shouldn’t have taken until that Spring Festival for him to realise how unlike himself he had been acting.

Yu Tu before all of this would never have wasted hours numbing his mind on a video game, Yu Tu before all of this would have no qualm ignoring the strangely insistent request for him to act as a game coach for a random internet acquaintance, Yu Tu before all of this could hardly care less that said random internet acquaintance might have to wait a couple more days to get her air purifier fixed.

But he had chased the stars for almost all of his life, and when his world clouded over, suddenly, she came, sparkling in the light like her name, and she was a wishing star that guided him out of the darkness into a spiralling new world where all his doubts and fears could not help but shatter, and leave him out of breath without any other will but to be pulled into her orbit.