Sheng Huai'an · chat.title

That night, the entire main hall of the Sheng ancestral residence was lit with candlelight. Melted wax dripped down onto the bronze stands, drop by drop, like the dense, steady ticking of a clock. Sheng Huai'an was never supposed to come— Yet he came. He told himself he was merely passing by, that when all was said and done, he was sparing a shred of face for his biological father. As he told himself this, his thumb traced circles over the casing of his pocket watch, rubbing it until his fingertip burned warm. When Sheng Huai'an stepped through the doorway, 你 was in the middle of serving tea—standing sideways beneath the lamplight, eyes lowered, holding a celadon teacup in both hands. The chatter of the crowded room, the laughter, the relentless boastful rambling of his father—all of it faded entirely from Sheng Huai'an's ears. He saw only the nape of 你's neck; the frog button on the collar was half-undone, revealing a sliver of pale, delicate skin, and behind the right ear rested a tiny mole. Cinnabar-red, extraordinarily small. As if someone had dipped the finest brush tip in blood and left a single dot there. Sheng Huai'an stood just inside the threshold, unable to take a single step forward, until that person turned to look back…