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The funeral began with a familiar stillness, the kind that crept into the marrow of the air before incense was even lit.
Hu Tao knelt beside the coffin, murmuring words that had passed her lips countless times, words meant to soothe the living and guide the departed. The mourners stood in a small semicircle, their grief subdued, tangled with gratitude. The family had said he passed peacefully thanks to the physician who stayed with him through the night.
That physician was none other than Baizhu. He was also here, standing at the edge of the crowd.
He didn’t wear his usual placid smile, nor the practiced warmth that softened the sight of death for others. His eyes were half-lidded, unfocused, staring past the drifting incense smoke as if trying to trace something invisible beyond it.
Changsheng rested cold and quiet around his shoulders, her head tucked low, watching the same way he did.
He was there at nearly every funeral she led, always at the back, always silent. But today, he seemed even further away, like a man only half tethered to the world standing under his feet.
As she finished the final rites, she looked up.
The cypress branches swayed. The incense hissed out.
Hu Tao bowed one last time to the family before the mourners began to drift away into the night, their lanterns bobbing like dim stars down the path.
When she turned to look for him, the space where he’d stood was empty.
Baizhu was gone.
No goodbye, no polite nod... just gone.
Hu Tao sighed softly, folding her hands behind her back.
When the last of the mourners had disappeared, she lingered at the edge of the cemetery. Sometimes she liked to stay a little longer, just to make sure the dead had truly settled.
But tonight, something tugged her to keep walking.
The forest thinned as the hill sloped toward the sea. The moon was high, silvering the cliffs and turning the tide below into restless glass. And there not far from the edge stood Baizhu.
He hadn’t noticed her.
The wind tugged at his hair, loose and tangled, blowing it across his face. He looked nothing like the calm, neat physician from Bubu Pharmacy. He looks more like a man stripped of his mask, standing alone at the edge of something vast and cold.
In his hand, a single flaming flower still burning bright. Hu Tao saw him lift it, thumb brushing its burning petals, then crushing it gently. The light died in his palm, scattering into ash that drifted away with the sea wind.
He didn’t move for a long while. His shoulders trembled once. Then again.
And in the moonlight, Hu Tao realized—he was crying.
The tears were silent, tracing down his cheeks before vanishing against the wind. His eyes were open, but far away, unfocused on anything in this world.
Hu Tao took a step closer, then stopped.
She could joke. She could call his name.
But something about that quiet, that unbearable stillness, told her she shouldn’t.
Then, quietly, she turned away. Leaving the night to take whatever grief Baizhu couldn’t show in daylight.
The next day, Hu Tao showed up at Bubu Pharmacy, holding a stack of funeral pamphlets as an excuse, really. She hummed as she stepped inside, pretending she had business there and not a hundred questions about what she saw last night.
Baizhu was at his consultation desk, glasses perched low as he read over a prescription. His right hand was neatly bandaged.
At the sound of the door, Qiqi turned. Her eyes widened the moment she recognized the visitor, and without a word, she bolted toward the back door.
Qiqi! Don’t run—” Baizhu sighed mid-sentence before glancing up.
Ah… I see. So it’s you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Hu Tao huffed, puffing her cheeks in exaggerated offense.
“When do you think Qiqi will stop being scared of me?”
“Well,” Baizhu said, adjusting his glasses, “you’ve scared her enough to make it… possibly forever?”
“Uuugh. Then I’ll just come every day until she accepts my pure and honest intentions!”
“That’s just a bad idea,” Baizhu chuckled, offering her that familiar gentle smile that never reached his eyes.
For a moment, it almost fooled her. Almost.
He was the same calm doctor again, the shadow from last night tucked away behind his polite tone.
“Huff. Fine, I’ll be back again,” Hu Tao said, turning on her heel. “You’ll see.”
Before she reached the door, she paused and glanced back.
“Also… you shouldn’t touch a flaming flower with your bare hand, you know.”
Baizhu blinked, caught off guard. His gaze dropped to the bandage on his hand, fingers flexing slightly.
“Yeah,” he murmured, a faint, rueful smile tugging at his lips. “It burns… human flesh, it’s so easy to burn.”
There it was again... that distant look in his eyes, the same one she’d seen last night.
“Some things are meant to burn, you know… so new ones can bloom. But don’t be silly enough to set yourself on fire just to see it happen.”
For a moment, Baizhu’s smile faltered before he steadied it again.
“Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I’ve been burned enough to know when to step back.”
Hu Tao huffed, more to fill the silence than out of annoyance. Then, without another word, she left.
She made her way down the stone steps in front of the pharmacy.
“I honestly need to stop worrying about that man…” she muttered, shaking her head. “Tch. Too much sentiment’s bad for business, Hu Tao.”