Rituals in Meiyuan were not announced. They were assumed—like breath, like hierarchy. When the last lantern completed its rise and the envoy's ledger closed, the public ceremony ended.
But the house was not finished.
A servant stepped forward with a lacquered tray—two porcelain bowls filled with West Lake water, a folded strip of silk, and incense carved with the Li family crest. Ancestral offering. A quiet cleansing rite, done not for display but to bind the event to family memory.
"This is for household hands," Shen Yiran murmured softly to a nearby attendant, her tone neutral, her gaze politely distant. Her place in the ritual was obvious. Lin Xueyi's was not.
Li Tianhua stepped forward to take the incense.
Expected.
Correct.
Madam Li lifted her hand—not toward him, but toward Lin Xueyi.
"Miss Lin," she said, voice clear, carrying across the courtyard like a bell that did not need metal to ring. "Step forward."
Silence rippled outward like a dropped coin.
Some lower house maids blinked. One attendant nearly dropped her ledger. Even the envoy paused with his pen suspended mid-air.
Shen Yiran turned slightly—only enough for her earrings to catch the light.
Lin Xueyi did not move at once.
In Meiyuan, hesitation could be mistaken for arrogance. But she wasn't hesitating.
She was measuring something.
Then she stepped forward.
Not fast. Not timid.
Like someone walking into light she had already met in another life.
Madam Li lifted the porcelain bowl. "Tradition states that the one who leads the lantern must wash their hands in the water of the hosting city to signify passage from outsider to witness."
Her gaze sharpened—a warning disguised as invitation.
"In the absence of the originally designated name—" her voice thinned just enough to be noticeable— "Meiyuan allows the lantern to choose its representative."
An old man in the guest row whispered, "Lantern choosing…" as if he had just heard something that belonged to another generation.
Lanterns do not speak.
But everyone had seen it refuse to bow.
Li Tianhua stood beside the tray, bowl in hand, waiting—not as host, not as master—but as witness.
He held it out—not to Shen Yiran.
To Lin Xueyi.
The house exhaled.
Xueyi looked at the bowl. West Lake water, catching flecks of light, still as a held breath.
She dipped her fingers.
The surface parted without a ripple.
And the seam lantern flickered. Once. Like a nod.
Not approval. Recognition.
Ancestral incense waited to be lit.
Madam Li stepped back—not much. Just a step that meant: the house is watching; do it cleanly.
Shen Yiran's gaze lowered. Carefully. The way one lowers a blade before it decides whether to sheath or cut.
Li Tianhua spoke, voice low enough for lanterns more than people.
"Miss Lin," he said, as if speaking her name again was part of the rite,
"light it."
Lin Xueyi took the incense between damp fingers. West Lake water was cool, but the incense felt warm, as if it had been waiting for a pulse. She brought it toward the flame of a waiting lantern ember.
A hush rippled through the courtyard.
The incense did not catch instantly.
It hovered, ember glowing but refusing to consume.
It was as if the flame was… considering.
Then, the seam lantern flickered, and that was when the incense ignited—clean, steady.
Not rushed. Assured.
Shen Yiran's hands tightened behind her silk sleeves.
A noblewoman beside her whispered, trying to sound light, "So Meiyuan truly intends to let an artisan's name appear in the ancestral record?"
Yiran smiled beautifully—the kind of poised smile that cracks from the inside first.
"Meiyuan intends," she said softly, "to see what bends… and what does not."
Li Tianhua held out the strip of silk. The ritual required the incense-bearer to mark the beam beneath the leading lantern—only family ever touched that beam.
He should have done it.
Instead, he extended it to her.
Lin Xueyi hesitated—not from fear this time, but from understanding. Crossing thresholds is not frightening. It is binding.
The envoy's pen hovered, catching that moment like a hunter catching breath before the arrow.
She stepped forward.
And pressed the faint ash of incense to the old wood.
Not much. Just a brush. A kiss of smoke.
But the carved almost-names darkened—just a shade. Enough for Elder Zhao to lift his head sharply, eyes wet without shame.
Lin—
Li—
They were still only beginnings.
But the house acknowledged both strokes now.
Li Tianhua did something no one expected.
After she marked the beam, he lowered his head slightly—not a bow. A recognition.
In a house like Meiyuan, that was louder than applause.
Madam Li's expression did not change. But her fingers, resting on the rail… relaxed. As if she had finally accepted that a seam could enter this house and not tear it apart.
Or perhaps she was simply preparing for a different kind of break.
The ritual concluded.
Silk rustled. The crowd began to murmur again, safe now that the sacred part had passed.
Xueyi stepped back.
The seam lantern did not dim.
As people dispersed, a little girl—likely a relative of someone wealthy enough to be invisible—approached the beam. She touched the wood with curious fingers and turned to her mother.
"Whose names are those?" she asked.
Her mother, distracted, replied, "Old names. They were never finished."
The girl looked at the seam lantern—and smiled as if she disagreed.
Later, when the court emptied and only the lanterns remained, Li Tianhua stood alone at the beam.
He looked at the new ash mark. Then at the carved half-characters that had survived winters and secrets.
He pressed his thumb to the wood—not enough to mark, only enough to feel.
Under his touch, the seam lantern above flickered once more, as if answering a question no one had asked aloud.
—To Be Continued…