Shen Qingqiu can't quite parse the look on Luo Binghe's face. There's surprise in it, at first, which makes sense; certainly the original goods had never cooked for Luo Binghe, or for anyone else, for that matter. But then it shifts into something else, something dismayed and fragile and altogether like the shining disciple Luo Binghe Shen Qingqiu had cherished—and then betrayed.

His heart hurts. He makes himself nod, instead of reaching out to him, though his hands twitch to touch, to smooth his hair back from his forehead. "It's congee," he says, in case he can't tell. Because I know you like it, he doesn't say, because he's not supposed to know that. Like I saw you make for your mother, he doesn't say, in a dream we never shared.