The noodle shop had one table left.
Shen Xifan stood just inside the door, a small hand on her bag, squinting toward the back wall where the owner, Mr. Liu pointed helpfully toward a low table by the window.
"Two?" he called.
She hesitated, glancing behind her.
Xu Songzhuo was still speaking to the old woodcutter two stalls down, explaining how to care for a cracked jade cuff. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, fingertips gray with polishing dust. He looked like someone who belonged to a slower century.
"One for now," she said politely.
Mr. Liu raised an eyebrow. "You sure? Your husband coming in?"
Her breath caught.
Not because it offended her.
But because it was so… casual.
So matter-of-fact.
So assumed.
She opened her mouth to correct him.
Then paused.
Her gaze drifted back to the window, where Xu had just looked up almost as if he'd felt her name spoken. His eyes met hers across the road.
Not curious. Not questioning.
Just there.
Present.
And for once, she didn't feel the need to explain who she was or what she wasn't.
She turned back to Mr. Liu.
And smiled. "He'll be here soon."
By the time Xu stepped through the door, the shop was half-full. Locals hunched over bamboo bowls. Steam curled in lazy spirals above soy broth. Faint radio music hummed near the kitchen wall.
He paused when he saw her already seated.
She waved her chopsticks slightly.
He crossed the floor without needing to ask.
Sat beside her, not across.
They both knew what that meant.
"Liu called you my husband," she murmured.
Xu glanced toward the counter. "Did you correct him?"
She sipped her soup.
"No."
A pause.
"Did it bother you?"
Xu didn't answer immediately.
He didn't need to.
Because in the soft clink of chopsticks, in the way he refilled her teacup without asking, in the slow way he turned toward her in the middle of a sentence — she felt it:
No.
No, it didn't bother him.
No, he wasn't surprised.
No, he wouldn't ask her to explain.
She reached across the table, not for his hand.
But to take a strip of ginger from his bowl.
He let her.
Outside the window, plum blossoms drifted past the glass.
Inside, two bowls of noodles sat steaming on opposite sides of a table that no longer felt divided.
And neither of them corrected the world.
Because sometimes, love didn't need a name to feel real.
It was at the bottom of a tin box she'd nearly forgotten about — tucked beneath spare batteries, a folded receipt from a market in the city, and a torn piece of red silk she used to tie her hair when she still filmed shampoo commercials.
The sketch wasn't dated.
But she remembered drawing it.
Late at night.
Between shoots.
In the corner of her apartment where the streetlight cast long shadows across the wall, and nothing felt real unless she sketched it first.
The woman on the page didn't look like anyone in particular.
She had Xifan's profile, slightly tilted chin, thoughtful mouth but her hair was braided low, her posture relaxed, almost rural. She was holding something in both hands: a plum blossom, maybe, or a stone.
The lines were clean but tentative. Unfinished, as if the artist had meant to return and never did.
Xifan stared at it for a long time.
She didn't remember why she'd stopped drawing that night.
Maybe exhaustion.
Maybe grief.
Maybe just the sense that art done only for herself wasn't allowed to matter.
Now, under the quiet lamp of her new kitchen, her courtyard still wet from rain, her tea cooling beside her elbow — she ran a thumb along the paper's edge and whispered:
"I still know who you were."
The next morning, she brought the sketch to Xu Songzhuo.
Not with fanfare.
Just folded into the back of her notebook.
He was grinding powder for seal paste, sleeves pushed up, the muscles in his forearm tracing soft lines each time he turned the pestle.
She placed the paper beside his tray.
He looked down.
Studied it.
Said nothing.
Then:
"She looks like you."
She shook her head. "Not really."
"She looks like the version of you you thought you weren't allowed to become."
He handed the sketch back gently.
But then pulled a small piece of jade from the shelf — oval, almost flat.
"Carve it," he said.
She blinked. "You mean to sketch a carving?"
"No. Carve it. Your hands remember more than your eyes do."
She didn't say yes.
She didn't need to.
That afternoon, she returned to the sketch.
Not to erase it.
But to finish it.
She gave the woman hairline cracks across her knuckles. A smile so faint it could only be seen if you leaned close. The kind of details you only draw when you're no longer afraid of softness.
She placed the drawing on the table beside the jade block Xu left her.
Then picked up the chisel.
And began.
That night, Xu passed by the studio to leave a box of thread.
Inside it: fine gold filament.
The kind used to fill the fractures in jade once broken.
No note.
No comment.
But she knew.
He had seen the lines she'd added to the woman's hands.
And he understood they weren't flaws.
They were honors.
He arrived with a leather satchel and city shoes too clean for Water Moon town
Late twenties, maybe thirty. Wire-rimmed glasses, wind-pressed hair, the kind of slightly academic slouch that came from carrying a shoulder bag filled with pens, paper, and deadlines. He introduced himself to the tea vendor as Zhang Yimo, said he was writing a piece on vanishing water towns — not nostalgia, but quietness.
"The kind of places that refuse to speed up," he explained.
Xifan heard the conversation while choosing sweet buns at Madam Jin's.
She turned, just slightly, just enough to see him.
And froze.
Not because she knew him.
But because she didn't.
And he didn't know her either.
Not even a double take. Not a flicker of recognition. Not a pause mid-sentence as so many others used to do.
He saw her.
And then looked away.
Like she was no more or less remarkable than the rain-polished stones beneath their feet.
It stunned her.
More than she expected.
Xu stood beside her.
He had arrived sometime after her, just in time to overhear the man's reason for visiting.
He handed her the buns she'd paid for — brushing her hand in a way that wasn't public affection, but wasn't absence either.
"You okay?" he murmured.
She nodded.
Then quietly "I don't think he knows."
Xu followed her gaze.
Zhang Yimo was now interviewing a boy who sketched willow trees with calligraphy brushes. Yuling's cousin, maybe. Or just another quiet soul.
Xu didn't say anything.
Just placed a gentle hand on her elbow, guiding her away.
But that afternoon, Zhang Yimo showed up at the carving studio.
Not for her.
For Xu.
"I heard you're the one they talk about. The grandson of Master Xu."
Xu glanced at Xifan once who was standing near the window, sleeves rolled, sorting charcoal for her sketchwork.
Then back at the man.
"I just carve."
"That's what I'm here for," Yimo said. "People who just do something quietly. The kind of presence you have to earn to see."
Xu didn't smile.
But he nodded.
The interview was short.
Three questions.
A photo of the outer courtyard, not the studio interior, not the carving itself and a short explanation of why the Xu seal mark hadn't appeared on any new jade pieces since 2023.
When he left, Yimo paused at the gate.
Looked at Xifan again.
Then said, politely:
"You have the kind of face I feel like I've seen somewhere. Maybe on an ink scroll."
She smiled.
A soft, quiet one.
"Only if you were looking."
He tipped his head. "No. I think I was just lucky."
And then he walked away.
Later that night, she sat beside Xu in the studio, half-curled against the old cabinet.
"He didn't know," she said.
Xu looked down at her hand, which was resting against his knee.
"You wanted him to?"
"No," she said.
But her voice caught slightly.
Then: "I think I just didn't expect to feel... nothing. No fear. No weight. Just air."
He turned to her.
Called her name — the whole thing.
"Shen Xifan."
She looked up.
"Even when no one sees you, I do."
And she believed him.
Not because he said it.
But because he always had.
The lanterns were for the season change.
Not a festival, not a national holiday. Just something the townspeople of Water Moon Town did once each quarter — a quiet walk near the canal, paper lanterns lit with soft flame, names written in brush script tucked inside each frame.
Not wishes.
Not dedications.
Just remembrances.
To say: I passed through here. I cared for something.
Xifan had never been to one before.
Yuling invited her.
"You don't have to wear anything fancy," the girl said, stuffing a brush into her satchel as they packed up the scroll booth. "Just come with him."
"With who?"
Yuling gave her a long, knowing look.
"You really need me to say it?"
The walk started at the old temple.
Dozens gathered by dusk. Older women in shawls. Men holding lanterns for their grandchildren. Two cats weaved between the stone steps, unfazed by the scent of burning oil or the chatter of the rice vendors setting out small tins of tea for passersby.
Xu met her near the second bell.
He hadn't said much that day working steadily, sanding the curve of a pendant with near-silent devotion but now, standing beside her, lantern in hand, he looked… steady. Comfortable.
At peace.
"You wrote something in yours?" she asked.
He nodded.
"You?"
She hesitated.
Then: "Not yet."
He handed her his brush.
And didn't look away.
She wrote quickly.
But carefully.
Inside the lantern: not her name.
Not a prayer.
Not a regret.
Just a single sentence:
"I was allowed to stay."
She tied the paper to the inner base.
And breathed.
They began walking.
The canal shone with soft golden threads from the lanterns ahead. The ripple of the water caught each flame like a heartbeat. Reflections stretched like silk. The mist, low and gentle, rose like smoke from an old scroll.
Somewhere behind them, someone played a reed flute.
A tune Xifan didn't know, but wanted to remember.
They walked side by side for half the route.
Then something shifted.
A hand.
Fingertips brushing lightly against hers.
She didn't flinch.
She curled her hand into his.
And they walked the rest of the path that way.
A woman near the back turned to her daughter and whispered, just loud enough for Xifan to hear:
"That's the carver's girl. The quiet one."
The daughter asked, "Are they together?"
The mother shrugged.
Then smiled.
"They walk like they are."
Xifan didn't turn.
Didn't respond.
But her grip on Xu's hand tightened slightly.
And he noticed.
By the time they reached the final canal bend, most of the lanterns had already been set adrift. One by one, they floated forward — no hurry, no fanfare — carrying names, quiet thoughts, and private truths into the water.
Xu's hand left hers.
He knelt at the edge.
Set his lantern down.
Watched it drift.
Then turned back to her, and offered his palm.
She took it.
Knelt too.
Her lantern wobbled for a moment before catching the current.
It floated beside his.
Not touching.
But never drifting far.
They stayed until the crowd thinned.
Until the vendors packed up their tins.
Until even the cats were gone.
Only the lanterns remained, still glowing.
Still knowing.
Later, in the stillness of Xu's studio, he placed a single plum blossom dried and pressed into the curve of a pendant he'd been carving all week.
He said her name then.
Not the name on headlines.
Not the one she used to survive.
"Shen Xifan."
And she answered:
"Xu Songzhuo."
No one else heard it.
Only the lanterns.
Only the jade.
Only them.