Time passed quietly in the Zheng estate, like a shadow lengthening across stone. Days blurred. Meals came and went, offered with stiff politeness. No one asked questions, but everyone watched.
Zhang Zheng had taken to walking again — slowly, with effort — around the edge of the training yard. His shoulders were straighter, his eyes steadier. The children followed him sometimes like ducklings, sometimes like ghosts.
Mihir stayed in the west wing. The room was plain but carried the scent of old ink and mothwood. He had started reading again — half to pass time, half to remember who he was.
This evening, the moon was soft and drowsy behind clouds. Mihir sat by the window, arms folded over a scroll, mind drifting.
He was thinking about the father — Zheng Qingshan — and how a man could be broken yet still hold the air of a god.
He was thinking of the stepmother — still beautiful, still cold.
He was thinking of this house — how it breathed secrets through every corridor.
Then —
Bang.The door swung open with no warning.
A small boy barged in.
Hair messy, cheeks pink, fists clenched like he was about to demand a kingdom or break one.
Mihir blinked. "Y-you—?"
The boy stomped forward without speaking. He was five, maybe six. Wild, sharp-eyed, furious like a thundercloud in miniature.
He glared up at Mihir.
Then — with all the drama of a little emperor — he slammed a crushed flower into Mihir's lap.
It was a wild chrysanthemum. Yellow, stubborn, a little broken at the stem.
"For saving Baba," the boy muttered. Then he turned on his heel and ran out so fast he tripped, caught himself, and still refused to look back.
The door banged shut.
Mihir stared at the flower in his lap.
For a long moment, he didn't move.
Then he smiled.
It was small. Real.
He picked up the flower, smoothing the stem gently. The petals were crumpled, but the color still glowed — fierce and golden, like a sun that refused to die.
He murmured aloud, though no one was there:
"Children… they love with their whole body.Even when their hands are fists,They still carry light."
He stood and placed the flower in a cup by the window. No vase. No ceremony. Just enough water to help it stand.
And outside, the wind whispered through the trees, rustling leaves like little hands trying to hold on.