In the meeting room of the old Lin family mansion in Donghai, the musty smell of sandalwood mixed with documents entered Lin Aotian's nose. He stared at the "Clan Financial Audit Report" in the hands of the elder, but his right ear was erected to listen to the movement outside the window - Su Qing had agreed to deliver lotus seed soup at noon, and at this moment, she was probably fighting with the guard at the door.
"Chief Aotian," the third elder tapped his finger on the item "Overspending on Malacca Port Maintenance Fee", "You used clan funds to give Mid-Autumn Festival gift boxes to old employees of Zhou Group, how do you explain this?" His eyes behind the lens swept across Lin Aotian's wrinkled shirt collar, which was still stained with oil stains from Su Qing's fried eggs this morning.
Just as Lin Aotian was about to speak, the carved wooden door was pushed open with a "creak". Su Qing squeezed in with a green porcelain bowl. Her apron was embroidered with crooked freesias, which she bought at the night market yesterday. "Sorry, elders. Aotian has a bad stomach. I made some lotus seed soup." She walked around the long table and placed the bowl in front of Lin Aotian, sweeping away the pile of documents in front of him. "Drink it while it's hot. It will be bitter when it's cold." The elders coughed one after another. The chief elder's cane tapped the ground in a rapid rhythm: "How shameful! This is the clan meeting room, not the kitchen——" "Would you like to try it, elder?" Su Qing suddenly turned around and took out a bag of packaged osmanthus cake from her apron pocket.
"Uncle Zhou brought it from Shanghai. He said that you loved to eat this when you were in Zhou Group." Her smile was like honey, which made the chief elder swallow the reprimand. The atmosphere in the meeting room suddenly relaxed. Lin Aotian lowered his head to drink the soup, the hot lotus seeds bloomed on the tip of his tongue, mixed with the osmanthus flowers that Su Qing secretly sprinkled, and it was so sweet that it was greasy. He remembered that last week at Zhou Group, Su Qing also rushed into the board of directors with soup in her hand, and the elders who were arguing were stunned.
"Ahem," the elder cleared his throat and softened his attitude a little, "It's not that we don't allow nostalgia, but the clan rules..."
"I know," Lin Aotian wiped his mouth, and there was still half a lotus seed left at the bottom of the bowl. "But among the old employees of Zhou, three were sailors who followed my mother to sail." He shook his phone, and there was an old photo in the album. Three old people were holding Mid-Autumn Festival gift boxes and smiling with their teeth showing. "They said that this was the first time they received a gift box with dragon patterns in 20 years."
The elders looked at each other. Su Qing took the opportunity to clean up the empty bowl, and her apron string accidentally caught the clan token of the third elder: "Sorry, sorry!" She hurriedly tried to pick it up, and the freesia hairpin on her hair rubbed against the sleeve of the first elder.
"Forget it," the first elder suddenly sighed, "It won't happen again." He looked at the broken jade bracelet on Lin Aotian's wrist, and thought of the anonymous letter he received this morning, saying that he was "bewitched by women", but he couldn't say anything more serious - after all, the osmanthus cake just now was as sweet as he remembered.
In the afternoon, in the Finance Department of Zhou Group, Zhou Mingxuan was putting his feet on the desk and poking the boba in the milk tea with a straw. Hearing the sound of the door being pushed open, he hurriedly put his legs down, but spilled the milk tea on the newly made financial report: "Damn! This is a birthday gift for Lin Aotian!"
Lin Aotian looked at the mess on the table, and the oil stain on the collar of his shirt just matched the milk tea stain on the report. He suddenly chuckled and picked up the softened report: "Birthday present?"
"Ahem," Zhou Mingxuan scratched his head, the coconut tree pattern on his floral shirt swaying, "I wanted to do a beautiful financial analysis, who knew..." He suddenly took out a gift box with simple packaging, "Forget it, I'll give you this!"
In the gift box lay a hand-carved wooden dragon, with crooked wings and four typos of "Aotian Special" engraved under its claws. Lin Aotian remembered that when he was in college, Zhou Mingxuan had carved his bicycle handlebars into a dragon head, and it was finally confiscated by the dormitory aunt.
"Thank you." He placed the wooden carving on the table, and the dragon's tail just pointed at the loan symbol that Zhou Mingxuan had mixed up, "But next time you record non-operating income as main business, I will send you to the dock to move durian."
Just as Zhou Mingxuan was about to refute, Su Qing's video call came in. She held her phone and walked around the kitchen of the old house, with white smoke coming out of the steamer behind her: "Steamed sea bass or braised pork for dinner? Zhou Mingxuan said you ate scallion pancakes three times last week, it's time to change your taste."
"Whatever," Lin Aotian stared at the tip of her nose covered with flour on the screen, "Just don't blow up the kitchen."
"Hey!" Su Qing's face suddenly enlarged, "I followed the recipe today!" Zhou Jianbang behind her poked his head out, holding the newly bought hairy crab in his hand: "Aotian, come back and have a drink with uncle, and tell me about your mother's experience as a sailor."
As dusk drifted into the Finance Department, Lin Aotian looked at the neon lights outside the window, and the wooden dragon cast a crooked shadow under the desk lamp. The phone vibrated, and Chen Mo sent a message: "The Southeast Asian consortium sent an expedited document, saying that it is willing to give up 20% of the shares of Malacca Port." He suddenly chuckled and replied: "Let them send it directly to the old house. Su Qing will use it to pack hairy crabs."
In the bedroom of the old house late at night, Su Qing was taking off her hair in front of the mirror. The freesia hairpin fell on the dressing table and rolled next to Lin Aotian's wooden dragon. She touched the jade bracelet on her wrist, and the golden dragon pattern flowed under the light: "Aotian, do you think the Dragon King really lives in the deep sea?"
"Maybe," Lin Aotian flipped through his mother's logbook, and the latest page was pasted with the wood carving photo given by Zhou Mingxuan, "But my mother wrote in the logbook that the Dragon King loves to eat scallion pancakes from the human world, so he always protects the merchant ships well."
Su Qing suddenly turned around, with a cunning light in her eyes: "Then when I make scallion pancakes for the Dragon King tomorrow, do you want to pretend to be a shrimp soldier and crab general to help?"
"Steam the hairy crabs first." Lin Aotian reached out and ruffled her hair, touching the flour left in her hair. The cicadas outside the window suddenly became dense, mixed with the smell of ginger and scallions from the kitchen, making this old house, which should have been solemn and solemn, more fireworks.
The phone vibrated on the bedside. It was a message from Zhou Mingxuan, with a secretly taken photo attached: Lin Aotian was sleeping on the table, with the broken jade bracelet on his wrist facing the wooden dragon, and an unfinished lotus seed soup next to him. The message note read: "The daily life of the Dragon King. It is recommended to frame it and hang it in the ancestral hall."
Su Qing laughed at the photo and suddenly pointed to the new note in the logbook: "When did you write it?"
Lin Aotian looked at the sentence he secretly wrote down at noon: "The dragon's roar does not have to be deafening. It is the best sound if it can be heard by the people who care about it." He suddenly held Su Qing's hand and touched the thin callus on her palm - that was the mark of the steam burn when she made soup for him.
As the night deepened, the night watchman of the old house walked through the corridor knocking on the clapper. Lin Aotian looked at Su Qing's sleeping face and suddenly realized that the so-called dragon business is never standing in the clouds overlooking all living beings, but squatting in the fireworks of the world, accompanying his lover to fry a piece of scallion pancake, helping his brothers to clean up the financial mess, and listening to the elders telling stories of the past.
When the first ray of sunlight shone on the crooked wings of the wooden dragon, Lin Aotian gently got up and prepared to go to the kitchen to help Su Qing steam hairy crabs. The cuffs of the clan leader in a suit and leather shoes revealed half of the untucked hoodie cuffs, which were stained with lotus seed soup from last night - such imperfections made him feel more vivid and more like a real person than any record in the family tree.
And this may be what his mother wanted him to understand back then: no matter how hard the dragon scales are, you must remember to leave a piece of softness to catch the moonlight and starlight in the world.