Chapter One: Beyond Seven Minutes

He Xiao forced himself upright. The creative director insisted on a starting stance. He lasted four seconds on the first attempt. On the third, he fell to one knee. The studio went quiet except for water dripping from the ice pack. “Broken is broken,” Cheng Ye muttered. Through the viewfinder, Shen Yan saw not a superstar but a man everyone had declared finished in advance. He remembered his own graduation show, and Cheng Ye saying, *Your light is good. The name doesn't matter.* The photographs later appeared in a magazine. The name had indeed not mattered. “Look at me,” Shen Yan said. He Xiao raised his eyes. Shen Yan pressed the shutter.