The air smelled faintly of rain.
Morning light slanted through the lattice windows of Jiù Mèng Xuān, painting the studio in a soft, silver haze. The faint scent of tea, paper, and old lacquer mingled — a comforting quiet that usually steadied Lin Qing Yun's mind.
But lately, even quietness had begun to feel heavy.
Her brush trembled slightly as she restored a Song scroll's faded ink. The fine black strokes blurred before her eyes. She blinked them back into focus, frowning. She had always prided herself on precision — her hands steady, her breathing measured — yet for the past week, she'd been fighting an unfamiliar fatigue.
She brushed it off as exhaustion.
Still, it lingered. The dull nausea in the mornings. The brief dizziness when she stood up too fast. The strange way food no longer tempted her, and tea left a metallic aftertaste.
From his desk, Master Shen looked over his spectacles.
"Girl, even the scrolls can tell when your spirit's out of balance."
Qing Yun smiled faintly. "Just tired, Shifu. I'll be fine."
He snorted. "That's what people say right before they collapse. Go see Dr. Wu — tell her old Shen Huai Zhen sent you. She's gentler than I am."
She laughed softly but didn't argue. The laugh sounded normal. The way her fingers gripped the table wasn't.
Two days later, she found herself sitting in a quiet clinic tucked behind an old gingko-lined street.
The doctor — a calm woman in her fifties — listened patiently to Qing Yun's symptoms, then recommended a routine check-up. Qing Yun complied, absent-minded, expecting a scolding about low blood pressure or malnutrition.
Instead, the doctor looked up from the ultrasound screen with a gentle smile.
"Congratulations, Miss Lin," she said. "You're expecting. Around six weeks."
Qing Yun blinked once, then again.
"…Expecting?"
The doctor turned the monitor toward her. A tiny blur of light flickered on the gray screen — faint, steady, impossibly small.
Six weeks.
Her breath caught. The sound of her heartbeat filled the room, louder than the machine's hum.
She didn't speak, not when the doctor handed her a printout, not when she explained about vitamins and rest. The world felt muffled, as if she were standing inside a bubble of still water.
When she finally stepped outside, the city air hit her like a whisper.
Rain had started to fall — fine mist catching on her eyelashes. She stood on the clinic steps, clutching the envelope of medical papers to her chest. For a moment, she could only stare down at her flat stomach beneath the beige coat.
"There's really someone there…"
The words felt unreal, almost foreign.
She wandered into a nearby teahouse, ordered chrysanthemum tea, and sat by the window. The warmth of the cup seeped into her palms, but not into her heart.
Raindrops slid down the glass, merging, falling.
Inside her, thoughts overlapped and tangled — her mother's broken voice, the smell of stale liquor, the echo of her own childhood loneliness.
"Love yourself first, then love others."
How could she? When she'd never been taught how?
She had spent her life piecing together other people's ruins. Yet now, something inside her — unplanned, undeserved — was forming quietly, asking to be protected.
Her throat tightened.
"I've lived my whole life in masks," she whispered to herself. "What if I become a fake mother too?"
That night, Gu Ze Yan called.
She had almost forgotten what day it was — a habit they kept, a call every night before bed, even if only for a few minutes.
When his face appeared on screen, she smiled automatically.
He looked tired — his shirt collar undone, tie loose, hair slightly disheveled from work. But when he saw her, his eyes softened.
"Have you eaten?" he asked, voice low and warm.
"Mn." She nodded. "You?"
"Not yet. Shen Qiao said if I keep this up, he'll start putting vitamins in my coffee."
Her lips curved. "That doesn't sound too bad."
He smiled back, but she could see the exhaustion behind it — the silent war he was fighting for Luminar, the pressure on his shoulders. For a moment, the urge to tell him the truth rose like a wave — the doctor's words, the flicker of light on the screen.
She almost said it.
Almost.
But instead, she watched him laugh at something trivial, and the words sank back down.
He's already carrying too much.
Let him win this battle first.
So she simply said, "Sleep early, Ze Yan."
His eyes lingered on her. "You too."
The call ended. The screen went dark.
Silence filled the apartment.
Qing Yun sat still for a long time before moving. Finally, she stood, opened her drawer, and took out her restoration notebook — the same one she used to record ink patterns and fiber structures. She slipped the folded medical report between its pages, tucking it deep inside.
Then she closed the book, her fingers resting on the worn cover.
"When this storm ends," she murmured, "I'll tell him."
Outside, thunder rumbled faintly in the distance.
Later that night, she lay in bed on her side, hand resting gently on her abdomen. Through the open window, rain whispered against the leaves.
"Please wait for me… just a little longer."
Her voice was so soft it barely existed — like a wish carried on breath.
In another part of the city, Gu Ze Yan sat in his office at Luminar headquarters, staring at cascading red graphs on the screen. He glanced at his phone once, smiled at the message she had sent — Goodnight.
He typed back: Goodnight, Qing Yun.
Neither of them knew how fragile those words would soon become.