Archive of Our Own

It was too cold to think. The kind of sharp, dry cold that made every breath feel like punishment and every floor tile an accusation.

Maomao huddled in a corner of the estate’s inner courtyard, the hem of her robe tucked beneath her legs to keep off the frost. In her lap sat a shallow wooden tray with herbs spread across the surface—wolfberries, aged tangerine peel, thin curls of dried yam. She shifted them around with a pair of tweezers, sorting by shape and scent.

Behind her, the faint crunch of footsteps approached.

“You’ll freeze,” Lakan said mildly. “The study is warmer.”

“I’m drying these,” she replied without turning. “They need sun.”

“There’s barely any sun,” he pointed out.

“There’s enough.”

A beat of quiet. She could feel him hesitate behind her, then crouch.

“Do you even feel your fingers?” he asked.

“No. But they’re still moving.”

“That’s alarming.”

“Then go away.”

He didn’t. Instead, he reached forward and gently plucked one of the wolfberries off the tray.

Maomao slapped his hand. “Don’t touch things.”

“You slapped my wrist,” he said, blinking in mild betrayal. “I thought we’d moved past the corporal stage of our relationship.”

“We haven’t,” she muttered.

From the far end of the corridor, Lahan called, “Are you pestering her again?”

“She slapped me!” Lakan called back.

“That’s not an answer.”

Maomao muttered something unspeakable under her breath and went back to sorting.

Lakan remained crouched beside her for a moment longer, then stood with a rustle of his robes. “There’s a shipment of red dates coming in tomorrow,” he said lightly. “I assumed you’d want to sort them.”

Her fingers paused. “That’s for Laba.”

He nodded.

“I haven’t decided if I’ll be here for it.”

“I know.”

She looked up at him sharply—but his expression was unreadable, as always. Soft, polite, frustratingly patient.

“You’re not going to convince me?”

“I’ve found that convincing you of anything often yields the opposite result,” he said mildly.

She scowled, but he was already walking away, sleeves trailing like silk ribbons in the wind.

Lahan appeared around the edge of the corridor, a pear in one hand, and tossed it to her without ceremony.

“You’ll stay,” he said simply.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.” He took a bite of his own pear. “He’s ordered special walnuts. Imported ones. The good kind. You’re too nosy to walk away without tasting them.”

She glared. He grinned, all teeth and dry smugness.

She didn’t throw the pear back.

She just tucked it into the fold of her sleeve and kept sorting.

The storeroom smelled of dust and cinnamon.

Maomao crouched near the back wall, arms buried up to the elbows in a wooden barrel of glutinous rice. The grains hissed softly as they shifted beneath her hands—cool, dry, clean. She scooped out a bowlful and set it aside, then reached for the sealed jar beside it, the one with the faint red ink mark across the lid.

Inside were dried red dates, dark and glossy. She ran her thumb over the rim, slow and deliberate.

Her hand hovered. Just for a second.

Then she picked three.

Only three.

She laid them beside the rice and moved on.

Behind her, Lahan was scribbling in the stock ledger, leaning awkwardly against the doorframe with his sleeves shoved up past his elbows.

“You’re rationing,” he said without looking up.

Maomao didn’t reply.

“Why? We’ve got plenty. Uncle went overboard again.”

“I know.”

Lahan stopped writing. “Then why?”

“Because some of it’s for the altar.” Her voice was quiet but steady. “And some of it isn’t for us.”

She didn’t explain further, and he didn’t ask.

She continued gathering the rest of the ingredients—aged tangerine peel, lotus seeds, mung beans, a handful of fox nuts. When she found a jar of candied ginger slices tucked behind a sack of barley, her fingers stilled for a moment. Then she added it to the tray.

Only after everything was laid out, precise and modest, did she rise to her feet.

Lahan followed her as she carried the tray back toward the inner kitchen, steps slow and careful.

“I’ve never really seen you do this before,” he said.

“It’s not for you to see.”

“No,” he agreed. "But it makes sense for you to be emotional around this time."

Maomao didn’t respond. The tray shifted slightly in her hands, and she adjusted her grip.

As they reached the hallway leading to the main kitchen, Lakan emerged from the opposite direction. He was carrying a folded cloth bundle—new altar cloths, by the look of it—and paused at the sight of them.

His eyes flicked to the tray.

“You’ve chosen well,” he said, tone neutral.

Maomao didn’t meet his gaze. “I know what he liked.”

Lakan nodded once. “I’ll prepare the altar space tonight.”

“I want to do his.”

A pause.

“I see.”

There was no argument. Just the smallest dip of his chin, and then he moved past them, footsteps barely audible on the stone.

Maomao watched him go, then turned into the kitchen without another word. Lahan lingered at the threshold, watching her set the tray down with the reverence of someone placing bones into a grave.

“Do you want help tomorrow?” he asked.

“No.”

“You’ll ask if you change your mind?”

She didn’t answer.

But she didn’t say no again, either.

The room was colder than usual.

Maomao lit no lantern. The moon was enough—white and stark through the broken-sealed window, casting the wooden floor in brittle angles of light.

She moved in silence, folding her robe with slow, deliberate care, smoothing it over the bench by her bedside. The sleeves hung limp, like the hands of someone long since gone.

She slipped beneath the thin quilt without bothering to warm the bedding first. The chill bled through her nightclothes, nestled into the hollow at the base of her throat. She pressed her hand there and let it settle, a weight against the bone.

Outside, a fox barked. The wind answered.

Maomao turned her face to the wall.

Tomorrow, she’d boil the rice. Measure the dried fruits. Burn incense. Arrange the altar.

She would prepare the congee the way Luomen liked it—extra ginger, less lotus seed, no milk—and she would not taste a single bite.

She would not cry.

That was the rule. Has always been the rule. Crying wasted salt, and salt was for preserving, not spilling.

She blinked up at the ceiling beams until her eyes stopped seeing them.

Then she closed her eyes.

And despite her best efforts she fell asleep.

It begins in the old apothecary.

Not the decaying shell she left behind, but the one from years ago—the one she remembers from the scent of dried roots and her father’s quiet humming. Light filters through paper-paneled windows in ribbons, slanting across stacked ledgers, glass jars, and dust that dances in the air like ash.

Luomen is there.

He doesn’t face her. Just crouches beside the hearth, stirring something in a battered clay pot. Steam curls upward. It smells sharp—jujube, and a faint sweetness beneath the heat. His congee, nearly done.

“Too much ginger,” she says without thinking.

Luomen hums, amused. “You always said that.”

He turns, finally. He looks just like he always did. Loose robes, ink-stained fingers, the smudge of sleep still at the corner of one eye. But his face—it’s not blurred the way dreams usually are. It’s too clear. Etched with the kind of softness that makes her ache.

“You’re late,” he says gently.

She swallows. Her voice is barely there. “I forgot the day.”

“You remembered it tonight.” His smile lifts, faint and fond. “That’s enough.”

“I should’ve—” She stops. There are too many unfinished sentences. Too many unspoken things.

Luomen doesn’t press. He never did.

Instead, he gestures to the floor beside him. She walks to him without realizing her legs are moving. When she sits, the warmth of the hearth seeps into her knees.

The steam rises between them.

“Do you think I forgot you?” she asks suddenly.

He looks surprised. Then sad.

“No,” he says.

“But I lived like I did.”

“You lived like you had to.”

Silence stretches. A single bubble rises from the pot and bursts.

Maomao turns her face away. “You didn’t get to be properly buried in your grave. I should have preserved you better.”

Luomen shrugs, but there’s something wistful in the motion. “Graves are for the living.”

“I hated that house without you in it.”

“I know.”

She grips the edge of her sleeve. The fabric trembles.

“I don’t know how to live without you,” she whispers.

Luomen reaches over. His hand folds over hers—warm, callused, gentle. She doesn't remember when he last touched her like that. Maybe never. Maybe always.

“You will,” he says. “You already are.”

The steam curls around her face, and suddenly, the scent changes—less ginger, more smoke.

The walls of the apothecary begin to fade, swallowed by pale light.

He doesn’t say goodbye.

He just lets go.

Maomao woke with wet lashes and cold fingertips. The faintest trace of jujube still lingered in her throat.

Outside, the house was silent.

It could barley be called morning, but she'd sleep no more this night.

Laba had arrived.

When Maomao sat up, her quilt slid to her waist, chilled and damp with sleep sweat. Her skin prickled in the cold. The night had seeped into her bones, slow and quiet, like a fever that hadn’t broken.

For a moment she didn’t move.

The dream still clung to her ribs like an echo—weightless, but present. She pressed her palm to her sleeve, to the exact place where Loumen’s phantom hand had rested. The fabric was warm from her skin, but not enough. Never enough.

She stayed there in the hush of her small, crooked room, knees drawn beneath the quilt, eyes half-focused on the ceiling beams above her. Dust lingered in the corners of the room, pale in the grey half-light of dawn.

Time passed. She didn’t track it.

But eventually the shadows stretched across the floor in new directions, and the silence grew too heavy to sit beneath. She exhaled once—sharp and low—then pulled back the covers and slid her feet onto the floor.

The wood was cold against her soles.

She dressed without ceremony: plain cotton robes, slightly wrinkled from where she’d left them the day before. No sash. No cosmetics. Her hair stayed uncombed. She didn’t bother with the mirror.

The hem of her robe whispered against the uneven floorboards as she stepped into the corridor, barefoot and quiet. Her shadow followed at her heel, blurred at the edges.

The estate hadn’t fully woken.

Somewhere, a door creaked softly. Farther still, a kettle clinked faintly on a hook. But most of the house still breathed the slow rhythm of sleep. The air was laced with faint traces of ink, pine smoke, and the dry dust of old books and winter wood.

Maomao passed the main courtyard on her way to the family shrine.

She paused.

A single lantern still flickered on the east veranda. Its flame was small, but steady—gold trembling inside its rice paper shell, casting long, lopsided shadows over the wooden deck.

Someone had forgotten to put it out.

Or maybe not.

Maybe it had been left for her.

Maomao didn’t move to extinguish it. Just watched it for a long, wordless moment.

The flame bent sideways in the wind. And she thought—not for the first time—that some things stayed lit because someone needed them to.

Even if no one said so out loud.

Before going to the kitchens, Maomao turned down a narrow corridor—one few in the household used, a side wing tucked behind lacquered screens and carved shelving that smelled faintly of mothballs and old incense. It was still dark here, the windows shuttered, the tatami soft beneath her feet.

This hallway didn’t welcome visitors.

It was the kind of quiet meant for remembering, not hosting.

She stopped in front of a modest sliding door, one she had passed a dozen times since arriving months ago but never opened. Until now.

She slid it aside.

The small ancestral shrine sat beneath a low beam, not much taller than her shoulders. It had been cleaned recently. The wooden surface, once dull and dusty, had been polished until it gleamed with soft reflection. Two fresh candles stood in bronze holders, one on either side—unlit, their wicks white and untouched. The incense dish sat in the center, carefully emptied of old ash, a new bundle of sticks resting beside it.

And in front of all that, propped neatly on the center of the altar, was a single spirit tablet. New. The calligraphy freshly brushed in ink so deep it still carried a faint sheen in the dawn light.

Maomao’s breath hitched.

The air in the shrine was warmer than the rest of the corridor, like it had been holding its breath.

She stepped inside.

Her fingers touched the edge of the altar, just briefly. Cool wood. Smooth lacquer. Beneath it—what Lakan had made room for. What he had not dared to fill.

He had left the rest for her.

No fruit. No rice. No sweet congee. No offerings yet.

No fire.

Maomao stood still for a long time, longer than she meant to. The quiet wrapped around her like cloth, heavy and familiar. Her gaze didn’t rise to the name on the spirit tablet. She didn’t need to see it to know who it belonged to.

She exhaled, shallowly. Her hand curled on the altar’s edge.

This should have been done last year. Before she fled the Verdigris House. Before she let Lu0men go into the earth with no one watching. She should’ve had an altar then. She should’ve lit incense when the snow began to fall.

She should’ve done many things.

But instead, she turned away.

The candle wicks remained untouched. The incense unburnt.

She stepped back over the threshold, slid the door shut behind her, and kept walking.

Not yet.

Not now.

But soon.

The kitchen was empty when she arrived. 

Good.

She preferred it that way.

Maomao began with water. Cold from the well, poured into a thick iron pot. The sound of it filled the space like breath returning to a ribcage.

She moved slowly but without hesitation. Each motion a thread pulled taut across memory.

The glutinous rice came first. Then the lotus seeds, fox nuts, barley, red beans. She added the dried jujubes last, cradling each one in her palm before dropping them into the pot.

The ingredients hit the water like soft punctuation.

She stirred once. Twice. Then set the lid in place.

Only then—when the water began to hiss and whisper against the heat—did she let her fingers rest on the rim of the pot.

Steam hadn’t risen yet. But she could feel it coming.

She always could.

The pot had been simmering since before the sun rose.

Maomao stood at the kitchen hearth, sleeves rolled to her elbows, stirring the bubbling congee with a long-handled wooden spoon. Steam ghosted around her face, softening the sharp angles of her jaw. The scent of dried longan, glutinous rice, peanuts, and red dates filled the air—an odd blend of sweet and earthy that clung to the walls and her skin alike.

She didn’t look up when Lahan stumbled in, hair tousled from sleep and shirt only half-buttoned.

“You’re early,” she said flatly.

“I smelled something burning.”

“It’s not burning.”

“I said what I said.”

He slid into the corner seat of the kitchen bench, chin in his palm. She could feel him watching her with the bleary-eyed focus of someone debating whether this counted as a dream or a mistake.

“You’re not even going to pretend you just wanted to join me?” she muttered.

“I don’t lie before dawn.”

From the hallway, the soft tap tap tap of slippered footsteps approached—measured, precise, too elegant to be anyone but Lakan. He stepped into the kitchen wrapped in a brocade robe far too regal for the hour, like he’d been expecting an audience.

“Ah,” he said, eyes lighting up at the scene. “You’ve started without me.”

“You were late,” Maomao and Lahan said in perfect sync, then scowled at each other for the unintentional harmony.

Lakan’s lips twitched.

“I see we’re working in chorus now. How familial.”

“Stop talking like that,” Lahan said with a groan. “It’s too early for allegory.”

Maomao, spoon in one hand, dipped the other into a bowl of chopped walnuts and sprinkled them into the pot without fanfare.

“You didn’t forget the lotus seeds?” Lakan asked, inching forward to peer into the pot.

Maomao slapped his hand away without looking.

“Do I look like someone who would forget lotus seeds?”

“You look like someone who hasn’t slept.”

“Not my concern.”

“It is if you plan to poison the entire household with undercooked mung beans,” Lahan muttered.

“I soaked them overnight, like a normal person,” she snapped, stabbing the spoon toward him. “If anyone dies, it’ll be from the smell of your breath.”

Lahan smirked. “There she is. Our little warm bundle of joy.”

She glared at him. “You’re lucky I don’t throw you in the pot.”

Lakan, watching the exchange with the strange, fond amusement only he seemed capable of conjuring, finally stepped back.

“I’ll prepare the altar,” he said gently. “You finish the pot. And remember, Maomao—”

“If you say ‘sweetness comes from bitterness,’ I will pour this down the drain,” she warned.

His chuckle echoed down the corridor as he retreated.

She stirred the pot in silence for a while.

Lahan, still half-slouched over the table, rested his chin on folded arms. “You really stayed up all night cooking?”

“No." She saw his doubtful look. "I didn't sleep well.”

“You say that a lot.”

She didn’t respond. The scent of red bean, ginger, and crushed rice filled her lungs. It was too warm. Too familiar.

But when she ladled a small taste into a bowl and handed it to him, he took it without complaint.

“You’re not bad at this,” he mumbled through his first bite.

“I know.”

It was difficult, though, to cook with smell alone. No matter how early she started the food would take all day. It went faster when Luomens' hands moved beside hers, but she'd cut off the offending limb of either of the men should they think they had the right to interrupt her.

She turned back to the hearth, silent and focused, as the winter morning began to bloom behind the frost-lined windows—slow and pale and steady.

The sun had firmly risen on this hell of a day and chased the moon away.

The corridor to the kitchens curved gently beneath the tiled eaves of the east wing. Frost still clung to the corners of the wooden beams, delicate white crystals catching the dull morning light. Maomao walked slowly, her arms folded into her sleeves, her thoughts trailing like footprints in snow.

Laba.

One of the coldest day, the heart of winter. A day for porridge and prayers—for steeping roots into sweetness, for stirring warmth into the bottom of empty bowls. Of remembering sacrifices and preparing for the New Year.

A new year without him in it.

Luomen used to start it before dawn. The apothecary’s stove would burn for hours, its smoke curling out through cracked windows and over the tiled roof, mingling with the winter wind. By the time she woke, the congee would already be thickening—sticky rice, red beans, lotus seeds, a handful of peanuts if the budget allowed.

He said it wasn’t about the ingredients.

“It’s about patience,” he told her once, ladling porridge into bowls too chipped to match. “Anything worth warming takes time.”

She used to mock him for the sentiment—mimicking his voice, rolling her eyes. But she always ate every bite. Even when it scalded her tongue. Even when there was more water than rice. Even when it tasted like nothing but salt and effort.

The Verdigris House celebrated Laba too, though in a different way. Finer bowls, spiced congee perfumed with almond milk and dried fruit, set out for clients and girls alike. She remembered curled steam rising from red-lacquer trays, how the girls would cling to the heat between their palms like it might fill the hollow of a long winter. She remembered the laughter, tired but real. The way Yao would try to sneak extra sugar from the pantry. The quiet clink of bowls in the morning haze.

She remembered bringing porridge to the lone woman who waisted away.

It had always been noisy.

Always crowded.

Now—silence.

No Luomen to hum tunelessly at the stove. No clatter of girls chasing one another past the doorway. No secondhand scarves wrapped around her neck by someone with too-warm hands.

Just frost on the beams.

Just silence where sweetness used to be.

Maomao pressed her palm briefly to her chest, beneath the fold of her robes. The dream had left something there—something too soft to name.

By the time the rice had begun to swell on the stove, Maomao’s sleeves were dusted with powder-fine starch. The scent of ginger and jujube clung to her cuffs, warm and sharp. She stirred the pot once more—slowly, methodically—and covered it to simmer.

Then, she gathered what she needed.

She did not hesitate as she walked back through the sleeping wing of the house, this time cradling a tray in both hands. The offerings were simple: a folded square of winter cloth; a sprig of candied ginger, painstakingly peeled; the food would come later.

Nothing extravagant. Nothing he wouldn’t have done for her.

The door to the family shrine slid open without sound. The shadows were thinner now—the light of morning catching against the polished altar, the quiet elegance of the shrine Lakan had prepared but never finished.

Maomao knelt.

First, she unwrapped the cloth. It was linen, pale and clean. She spread it across the center of the altar with practiced care, tucking the corners, flattening the wrinkles.

The ginger followed. A small piece, curled like a petal, placed beside the bowl. She hesitated only a second before setting down a pair of chopsticks, worn smooth from long use. They weren’t Luomen’s. She didn’t have his anymore. But they were hers, and that felt close enough.

She lit the candles last.

The flame caught on the first try. A low, golden glow flickered to life, dancing in the silence. When she lit the incense, the curl of smoke was almost invisible in the morning sun.

She folded her hands.

She did not speak aloud.

Not this time.

But her head dipped low, and her shoulders trembled just once—barely enough to notice. A breath left her, and with it something tighter, older, like thread being unwound.

This wasn’t closure.

It wasn’t even peace.

But it was the beginning of a fire. A warmth against the deep cold of absence.

She remained kneeling there until the incense burned down to ash.

The day stretched on, colder now, as the sun began its descent. The kitchen was warm from the lingering heat of the stove, but Maomao could still feel the bite of winter pressing against the stone walls. She had been moving between the kitchen and the small shrine, trying to settle her thoughts, when she found Lakan in the family room, idly flipping through a book of old records.

She paused in the doorway.

Lakan didn’t look up. Instead, he simply set the book down with a soft thud and sighed, his eyes narrowing as though something had caught his attention.

“You’re quiet today,” he said, his voice low but warm, like he was used to her silences by now.

Maomao didn’t answer immediately. She leaned against the doorframe, staring at the hearth. The fire had dimmed a little, the flickering light catching in his dark hair.

“It’s Laba,” she said finally, her voice smaller than usual.

Lakan nodded, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the arm of the chair. “Yes. It’s... hard, isn’t it?”

Maomao tilted her head, surprised by the softness in his tone. “You sound like you’ve been through it.”

Lakan’s gaze shifted to the window, where the last traces of light hung like fading stars. He cleared his throat, taking a moment to choose his words.

“There was a time,” he said slowly, “when Luomen and I... we were close. Very close.”

He leaned back in his chair, his fingers tracing the edges of a scar on his wrist, old and faded. His voice grew more distant, like he was recalling something long buried beneath the years.

“He used to drag me out to the orchard when the weather was at its coldest. In winter, after the harvest, when the trees were bare and the air was sharp enough to bite. He insisted on picking the last of the winter pears. ‘Good for the heart,’ he said.”

Maomao blinked, surprised. “You don’t seem like the orchard type.”

Lakan chuckled softly. “I wasn’t. But Luomen... he had this way about him. He’d get so excited over the most ridiculous things. Sometimes, he’d even hum as he picked the pears, like he was performing some sacred ritual.”

Maomao’s lips curled slightly at the image of the usually serious Luomen dancing around the cold orchard, hums drifting in the silence.

Lakan paused, staring into the hearth. “We’d spend hours out there. And then, when we came back, he’d make the pears into jam. He always said it was the best way to warm the bones for the new year. He’d put it in everything—teas, congee, even the steamed buns.”

He gave a slight, rueful smile. “He thought I was too gruff to enjoy it, but he always made sure I had a jar.”

Maomao felt a shift in the air—something brittle but tender. “You miss him.”

Lakan didn’t answer right away. His gaze flickered toward her, dark eyes catching the faint light from the hearth. “I do. We never said much to each other about it—about... everything. But Luomen knew how to make you feel like nothing was ever as bad as it seemed.”

He chuckled softly to himself, a quiet sound that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Even now, I can hear him telling me to put the pear jam in the porridge this morning. He’d never have let me get away with skipping it.”

Maomao swallowed, feeling the weight of the quiet pull at her chest. She found her voice, barely a whisper. “I didn’t know him well, I suppose. He never told me his story. But he... he always made me feel like I belonged.”

Lakan met her gaze for a moment, his lips tugging upward just a fraction. “He had that way about him. You didn’t need to be his daughter or his friend to feel it. Just being near him made you feel like you were part of something.”

Maomao nodded, her fingers curling tightly into the fabric of her sleeve. “I should’ve known him more.”

Lakan stood up from his chair, his hands slipping into the pockets of his robe. He walked over to the window, glancing out at the snowy courtyard. “We all should’ve. But there’s no use in regret. Just... remember him, in the way he wanted to be remembered.”

He paused before turning to face her fully, his gaze steady but softer than before. “And maybe... in some small way, make sure the things he loved are kept alive. Like the orchard. The pears. The jam.”

Maomao felt something stir in her chest—a quiet ache, the faintest flicker of warmth. She nodded, unable to speak at first. But she did speak, eventually, her voice quiet but firm.

“I will.”

Lakan gave a small, knowing smile. “Good. He’d be glad to hear it.”

There was a long pause as the room filled with the sound of the fire crackling softly in the hearth. For a moment, it felt like the past was a little closer to the present, like the memories they shared had somehow seeped back into the air.

Maomao stood up, her movements slow but purposeful, as if she could already feel Luomen’s presence in the house again—maybe not entirely, but in ways that mattered. She turned toward the door and then, almost without thinking, stopped.

“You still have the pear jam?”

Lakan smiled faintly, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “I’ll have a jar set aside for you.”

She didn’t respond, but something inside her warmed at the thought.

The sun had set earlier than usual, the cold of the Laba evening settling in with an almost palpable stillness. The air was thick with the scent of incense and the aroma of simmering grains. Maomao stood by the low hearth in the family room, stirring a pot of laba congee, its sweet fragrance mingling with the fragrance of dried fruit, nuts, and the familiar warmth of a holiday meal.

Lakan had insisted on preparing the house. Lanterns hung by the doorways and along the walls, flickering softly in the dark. His small touches were everywhere—fresh pine boughs along the eaves and red paper decorations symbolizing good fortune and peace.

“You’ve done this every year, haven’t you?” Maomao murmured, her voice soft as she glanced toward Lakan, who was arranging the dishes on the low table.

Lakan nodded, his movements deliberate. “It was always Luomen’s thing. He made sure the house was prepared, the food, the altar—he liked things to be done properly. I didn’t care much for it, but... I always went along.”

Maomao gave a small, understanding nod, her fingers tightening on the ladle. She didn’t say anything more. There was no need to fill the silence. It made sense iiff it was an act of devotion- otherwise it was too house-wife like for the old man.

Lahan appeared at the doorframe, carrying a small bundle wrapped in cloth. He stepped inside, setting the bundle down on the table before joining them. “Everything looks ready.”

“We’re finishing the food now,” Maomao said, not meeting his eyes. She wasn’t sure what she expected from Laba, whether it would feel different this year. But as the familiar scents filled the air, a part of her felt as if the quiet, invisible thread between her and her past was being pulled taut again.

Lakan moved closer, settling himself at the table, his face drawn in a rare expression of contemplation. “Luomen always made the offerings before the meal. He said it was to honor those who’d passed—make the offerings first, wait, and then eat. I never really understood it, but we did it.”

Maomao didn’t ask who Luomen had offered food to—she already knew. She glanced at the small family shrine across the room, where the offerings for the ancestors were set neatly in place. A few fruits, some rice, the ritual incense burning steadily.

Lahan sat down across from Maomao, his movements casual but somehow more deliberate than usual. “We can do it like Luomen would’ve wanted,” he said, setting his hands together on his lap. “Then we’ll eat.”

A sudden heaviness pressed in, and Maomao swallowed hard. There was something almost too sacred in the air now. She wasn’t used to this—this space between them, a gathering for something she had once shared with Luomen. It felt too soon to be part of it again, yet here she was, part of this new family, these new traditions.

Lakan gestured to the congee with a gentle smile. “Would you like to serve the first bowl, Maomao? It’s customary, for someone new to take the first portion.”

The words were simple, but they held weight. She didn’t respond immediately, the question pressing against her like the past that still lingered in her chest. But then she nodded, the slight movement a signal to herself as much as to them.

She ladled the congee into a small bowl, setting it before the small shrine in offering. Her hands didn’t shake as much as she thought they would. The act was simple, but the quiet reverence that filled the room felt like a bond being forged in silence.

Lakan followed her lead, bowing his head for a moment in quiet prayer. Lahan, too, lowered his head briefly. Then, without a word, they both turned to the table, ready to share the meal.

The warmth of the congee filled her mouth as she ate, the sweetness of the red dates and longan melding perfectly with the soft grains. The meal was simple, but in that moment, it felt like enough—like something was slowly being mended inside her. She could feel the absence of Luomen—sharply, clearly—but she also felt the presence of something else. Something softer. Something less tangible but real.

“I never thought I’d see the day we’d celebrate Laba together like this,” Lahan said suddenly, breaking the silence, his voice tinged with something like disbelief.

Maomao looked up, catching his gaze. “I never thought I would, either.” It was always preformatory before, she never had anyone to feel this hurt for.

Lakan smiled gently, his eyes flickering between them. “It’s strange. But I think Luomen would have liked this. He always wanted you two to be a family. Cousins or.. otherwise.”

Maomao pressed her lips together, not sure if she agreed with that sentiment, but the warmth in Lakan’s voice made something soften inside her. She’d never expected her life to unfold like this—not the way it had, not the way it was now. She doesn't think Luomen would've even thought of this to want it, but he would want her to be happy. To enjoy the warmth of the food.

But here they were. She didn’t know if she could ever forget Luomen, nor did she want to. But she knew, somehow, that she was allowed to keep him in her own way, and that perhaps, for the first time, she could share that space with the two men who had quietly invaded her family.

Lahan picked up the final dish, a tray of preserved ginger and winter roots, setting it beside her. “You should try making Luomen’s jam next year.”

Maomao, surprised, lifted an eyebrow. “You can’t be serious.”

Lahan smirked. “You’d be surprised at how good it is with porridge.”

Lakan chuckled softly. “I think Luomen would’ve liked the idea of a winter jam, no matter who made it. He always did enjoy a challenge.”

For the first time, Maomao felt something like peace settle into the room, a shared silence that didn’t feel heavy. They ate together, quietly, until the congee was finished, the last bowl set down with a clink.

The soft flicker of the lanterns cast long shadows against the walls as the night deepened outside, but inside, warmth lingered—quiet, persistent, like the small joy that came with the shared ritual of Laba.

And in that simple, familiar silence, Maomao allowed herself to feel what she hadn’t let herself feel for so long: that despite everything that had changed, she was not alone. Not anymore.

It was terrifying.