The café Ling Yue suggests is nothing like the places I’ve been dragged to since becoming a Wuchen.

No marble floors, no staff who recognize my last name and adjust their posture accordingly.

Just a corner spot two streets from a university campus, mismatched chairs, the kind of ambient noise that comes from people actually talking instead of performing conversations at each other.

I find him already there when I arrive, sitting with both hands wrapped around a mug, scrolling through his phone with the relaxed posture of someone who has nowhere more important to be.

He looks up and smiles. "You came."

"I said I would."

"People say a lot of things." He gestures to the chair across from him. "Sit. I already ordered for you, hope that’s okay. The matcha latte here is genuinely good and I didn’t want you making a bad choice on your first visit."

I sit. "What if I don’t like matcha."

"Do you not like matcha?"

"...No, I like matcha."

"Then we’re fine." He sets his phone face-down on the table, which I notice because most people don’t bother. "How are you? And I mean actually, not the version people give at events."

The question catches me slightly off guard.

It’s direct without being aggressive, genuinely curious without being intrusive, the kind of question that assumes you’re a person with an actual answer rather than a social position to maintain.

I think about it honestly.

"Tired," I say. "But less than I was. The competition submission was two days ago."

"I know." Something flickers in his expression. "Jin Hao mentioned the submission period closed. He’s been reviewing entries."

My stomach tightens involuntarily. "And?"

Ling Yue’s mouth curves. "And I would absolutely tell you if I knew anything useful, but he doesn’t discuss entries with me. Something about integrity of the process." He rolls his eyes, fond. "Very principled. Very inconvenient."

I exhale. "Right. Of course."

"What I can tell you," he says, leaning forward slightly, "is that he mentioned the quality of submissions this round was unusually high. Which is either encouraging or terrifying depending on how you look at it." 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"Both," I say. "It’s both."

He laughs, and it’s easy, unguarded in a way that I’ve stopped expecting from people in the circles I move in now.

The matcha latte arrives. I take a sip and it is, genuinely, very good.

"So," Ling Yue says, settling back. "Tell me something that has nothing to do with the competition. What’s your life actually like? I feel like I only ever see you at events or hear about you secondhand."

"Secondhand from who?"

"Mrs. Zhou mostly. She’s very fond of you." He tilts his head. "She said you have sharp edges but good instincts. Which from her is basically a declaration of love."

Something warm moves through my chest at that.

"My life," I repeat, considering. "Honestly? Strange. Still strange. I’ve been living at the Wuchen estate for months and there are still hallways I take wrong turns in."

"That tracks. That place is enormous."

"You’ve been there?"

"Once, with my parents. Years ago, before Bael took over from his father." He wraps both hands around his mug again. "Different energy now. Less formal, somehow, even though Bael is..." He pauses, searching for the word.

"Bael," I supply.

He points at me. "Yes. Exactly."

We both leave that sitting there for a moment.

Is it strange?" Ling Yue asks, and his voice shifts slightly, more careful. "The marriage. I know the circumstances were... complicated."

He’s being tactful, everyone knows the circumstances, the tabloids made sure of that.

"It was stranger at the beginning," I say, which is true enough without being anything.

Ling Yue waits, like he expects more.

I don’t give him more.

"Fair enough," he says simply, and doesn’t push, which I notice. Most people push.

He refills his mug from the small pot the café provided, unhurried.

"Jin Hao and I started unconventionally too," he offers instead, like he’s trading rather than prying. "People constructed entire narratives about it. Very creative ones." He tilts his head. "It’s strange, being someone else’s story."

That lands somewhere specific.

"Yes," I say. "It is."

We sit with that for a moment, and it doesn’t feel like silence that needs filling.

"Does it stop?" I ask eventually. Not about the marriage specifically. Just... in general.

"The narrative thing?"

"People deciding what your life means."

He considers it properly instead of reaching for something reassuring.

"They don’t stop," he says. "But at some point your actual life gets loud enough that you stop hearing them as clearly." He shrugs. "Takes longer than you want it to."

I nod once.

It’s not comforting exactly, but it’s honest, and I find I prefer that.

The café hums around us, someone at the counter arguing cheerfully about the difference between two types of beans, a group of students at the large table by the window all talking over each other about something that sounds like a group project spiraling into disaster.

Normal, mundane, completely removed from Wuchen Group and competition results and all the weight I’ve been carrying for months.

I didn’t realize how much I needed this until right now.

We move on after that, onto lighter things, a hiking disaster involving Jin Hao’s misplaced confidence in solar navigation, a question about whether I’ve explored the city much since moving.

I answer that one carefully, giving him the surface of it, keep the rest.

He doesn’t seem to mind.

By the time we finally signal for the check, the afternoon has tipped past its midpoint, light coming through the windows at a lower angle than when I arrived.

When I finally leave, stepping back out into the city air, everything feels slightly less heavy than it did this morning.

Not fixed, not resolved, just lighter.

Like I set something down for a while and my shoulders remembered what it felt like not to carry it.

Two weeks until results.

But right now, walking back to where the car is waiting, I’m not thinking about that.

For the first time in longer than I can accurately remember, I’m just thinking about nothing in particular.

And it turns out that’s exactly what I needed.