On the day I received the cancer diagnosis email, I was squatting in front of the freezer at a Chinese supermarket in Nairobi looking for frozen dumplings. Suddenly, my phone popped up a special attention notification—@Zhang Yixing Studio updated the vlog of the "Chromosome Charity Fund" visit to Africa. In the video, he squats in a malaria village in Rwanda, his fingertips brushing over a children's hand-drawn starry sky: "I heard these kids have never seen the Milky Way."
In the shadow of the shelves, I folded the chemotherapy notice into paper stars and stuffed them into a jar. The ticket stubs I collected over the past five years chasing Zhang Yixing's global tour felt like a stack of pale moons mocking me. Until I caught a glimpse of a website link flashing at the end of the vlog, and in the background, he said: "I hope this place can become your starry navigation."
At three in the morning, I registered an account on "StellarLink." This platform, dubbed the "Fan Version of NASA Control Center," surprisingly displayed real-time support dynamics for Xback worldwide on its homepage:
🌌 The Chicago group painted a giant shell necklace graffiti in the slums (a tribute to the "Lotus" MV)
🌌 The Seoul sub-team spelled out a DNA double helix with drones (corresponding to the Chromosome Charity Program)
🌌 Most shocking was the star trail image uploaded by a Cairo user—using a telescope to track Zhang Yixing's birthday constellation, raising funds to install a clean water system for an orphanage
"How about trying to turn chemotherapy into a cosmic journey?" A message suddenly popped up in the private message box. A South African nurse with the ID "Orion Spoon" shared her experience: she initiated the #CancerFightingPlanet# topic on StellarLink, and now 327 people upload treatment logs daily, with the latest post being a Malaysian girl documenting her radiotherapy process through a dance to "Flying."
On the day of my first chemotherapy, I walked into the hospital wearing the "LAY's Galaxy" light therapy bracelet sent by the support group. When the purple light changed wavelengths with the rhythm of "Dreams Don't Fall in the Rainforest," a little Kenyan boy in the clinic suddenly stopped crying, pointed at the changing halo, and shouted: "Mama! Rainbow snake!"
Now my treatment pod has become a starry classroom for African children. Through the "Star Link Live" feature on the website, fellow patients learn Chinese with me while keeping rhythm:
☄️ The platelet index is called "Today's Ranking Value"
☄️ The infusion stand is the "Support Stick Holder"
☄️ The most popular is creating a "Personal Nebula Map" using CT scan images—one HIV-positive child who always vomits named his lung image "Jade"
A miracle happened after the third failed bone marrow matching. I initiated the "Searching for Human Cosmic Match" campaign on the platform, receiving gene data uploaded by Xback from 23 countries within 48 hours. When the HLA data from a Singapore medical student matched 90% with my nebula map, a flurry of "Shell Meteor Showers" (virtual gifts on the website) floated through the live stream, and for a moment, I seemed to see the lyrics from Zhang Yixing's "Sheep" MV:
"Turn all the loneliness in the world into sugar."
Yesterday, when the doctor removed the bandage, he pointed at Mount Kilimanjaro outside the observation window and said: "Do you know? The glacier at the top of the mountain is disappearing." I opened the "Interstellar Mission" section to create a new project titled: "Plant ten thousand glowing roses at the peak of Africa"—using cold-resistant LED technology developed by a Chinese team, the flowers will bloom to form the handwritten lyrics of Zhang Yixing's "Wish."
Late at night, I received a cosmic delivery from "Orion Spoon." When I opened it, it turned out to be a jar of starry sand art, with a note saying:
"Every grain of sand is Xback's HLA data,
When starlight passes through the chromosome spiral,
We are each other's eternal universe."
At this moment, the ticking of the chemotherapy pump sounds like the chimes in "Flying," and I touch my bald scalp, humming the newly learned Swahili version of "Accompanying You." Outside the window, in the African wilderness, the first electronic rose is breaking through the soil in a furious bloom.