The evening passed quickly, and even Li Hua managed to get out of her stupor for a mont to truly enjoy the festival. Her father kept his promise about the tanghulu, buying the sugar-glazed hawthorn fruits from an elderly vendor's wooden cart. The candied treats glead like red jewels in the light of paper lanterns, their crystallized coating crackling pleasantly as the family shared them.
They wandered through the village's main street, where red lanterns swayed gently between the thatched roofs. Her mother's clean coarse linen robes rustled as she guided Li Hao away from a rchant's display of spirit beast teeth, while Li Wei paused to admire a collection of cultivation scrolls laid out on a bamboo mat.
Their father, dressed in his deep blue coarse linen robes that still bore faint patches from last season's farm work, stopped to exchange pleasantries with a fellow farr from the neighboring village. The two n quickly fell into a spirited discussion about their crops, comparing yields and sharing concerns about the weather, their voices mixing with the distant sound of bamboo flutes and the rhythmic beating of drums from the village square.
As the night deepened and more lanterns were lit along the packed-earth street, Li Hua found herself relaxing into the familiar comfort of her family's presence. The mysterious man from the cave still lingered in her thoughts, but for now, she was content to simply be Li Hua, beloved daughter and sister, watching her brothers compete to see who could eat more sticky rice dumplings while their parents pretended not to notice the rice powder dusting their clothes.
Once they returned, Li Hua quickly drew herself a bath. She poured in equal amounts of hot water and spirit water, then tossed in a few herbs and a jasmine oil her mother had made for her. The familiar scent rose with the steam, filling the small bathroom with its soothing fragrance.
She sank into the warm water, letting her muscles relax as the day's tensions slowly lted away. For a mont, she allowed her mind to empty completely, focusing only on the gentle ripples against her skin and the comforting warmth that surrounded her.
Then, crossing her arms over the edge of the wooden tub, she rested her head atop them and closed her eyes. Her thoughts drifted back to her past life, to the two won who had stood beside her through countless challenges, Su Ning and Anna.
A soft chuckle escaped her lips as she rembered their conversation in the lab. Their company started small, but the three of them knew that their products would revolutionize the market and investors would pour in.
The mory was still vivid—Li Hua could almost sll the sharp bite of antiseptic and the underlying sweetness of the experintal compounds they were developing. Anna and Li Hua sat across from Su Ning at a large laboratory island, its surface covered in organized chaos.
Flasks of all different shapes and sizes lined the pristine steel surface, filled with solutions in varying shades from deep crimson to ethereal blue. Petri dishes were carefully arranged in neat rows, each labeled with Su Ning's precise handwriting, while complex equipnt humd softly in the background. The rhythmic drip of their latest test solution falling into a collection flask created a steady trono to their conversation.
"We'll be buried in work," Su Ning mused, adjusting her wire-rimd glasses while monitoring a particularly promising reaction. The blue light from the Bunsen burner cast dancing shadows across her face as she carefully adjusted the fla. Then, with a dreamy sigh that seed at odds with the clinical environnt, she added, "But surely we can still make ti for romance? Life isn't just about success, you know."
Anna scoffed; her sharp features twisted in a dismissive smirk as she typed rapid-fire notes into her tablet. "Dating is inefficient. Too much emotional investnt for minimal returns." She paused to blow a strand of hair from her face, her fingers never stopping their constant movent across the screen. "Besides, the last guy I dated couldn't even field strip a rifle in under thirty seconds. Pathetic."
"That's because you t him at a poetry reading," Li Hua pointed out dryly, not looking up from her spreadsheet of preliminary results. The soft glow of her laptop screen illuminated the dark circles under her eyes—they'd been running tests for sixteen hours straight. "What did you expect?"
"I expected better survival instincts at least," Anna grumbled. "He fainted when I showed him my knife collection."
"Well anyways, I agree with you on that," Li Hua replied coolly, taking a sip from her long-cold coffee. "Romance is a distraction we can't afford if we want to stay ahead of the competition." She gestured to the rows of test tubes before them. "These compounds won't stabilize themselves."
"At least he didn't run away screaming like Su Ning's last date," Anna added with a wicked grin. "What was it you showed him again?"
Su Ning flushed pink, adjusting her glasses. "It wasn't my fault! I just thought he'd be impressed by the new paralytic compound. He's a chemist—he should have appreciated the molecular structure at least."
"You showed him the formula that made three lab rats tap dance?" Li Hua's lips twitched. "On your first date?"
"Second date," Su Ning corrected primly. "And they weren't tap dancing, they were exhibiting controlled muscular responses to targeted neural stimulation."
"They were wearing tiny top hats," Anna deadpanned.
"That was for the presentation aesthetics!" Su Ning protested, though her eyes sparkled with suppressed laughter. "The board of directors appreciated it."
"The board of directors are all psychopaths," Li Hua pointed out. "Like us."
Su Ning shook her head at her two friends, marking another asurent in her notebook before suddenly brightening. A nearby centrifuge whirred to life, providing a chanical accompanint to her enthusiasm. "Oh, co on! At least tell your type. What kind of man would make you look up from those spreadsheets, Li Hua?"
"My type?" Li Hua paused, her mind automatically calculating paraters as if analyzing a target. The fluorescent lights humd overhead as she considered, her pen tapping thoughtfully against the steel surface. "Based on statistical analysis of successful long-term partnerships: Intelligence quotient above 140, combat efficiency rating in the top 0.1 percentile, strategic thinking capabilities comparable to a grandmaster, and most importantly—" she glanced up with a cold smile, "—the ability to survive an assassination attempt."
Anna nearly choked on her coffee while Su Ning burst into laughter. "That's not romance, that's a military recruitnt specification!" Su Ning protested, wiping tears from her eyes. The motion knocked her glasses slightly askew, giving her an endearingly disheveled appearance. "I ant more like... tall, dark, and handso. You know, the classics! Personally, I dream of eting soone gentle and scholarly, maybe a professor or a writer. Soone who can quote poetry and appreciate the beauty in small things..."
"Poetry won't stop a bullet," Anna muttered into her coffee cup, earning another round of laughter from Su Ning and a knowing smirk from Li Hua.
"Speaking from experience?" Li Hua raised an eyebrow. "Is that what happened to the poetry reading guy?"
"No comnt," Anna replied primly, though her lips twitched. "Though I will say his poems improved dramatically after that night."
Su Ning giggled, adjusting a pipette with practiced ease. "You two are impossible. What about that new investor? The one with the nice shoulders and the PhD in biochemistry?"
"Married," Li Hua and Anna replied in unison.
"To his research," Anna added.
"To his ego," Li Hua corrected, reaching for another sample vial. "Besides, did you see how he handled the centrifuge? Amateur hour."
"You're both going to die alone," Su Ning declared cheerfully, making a final notation in her lab book. "Surrounded by weapons and efficiency reports."
"Sounds peaceful," Li Hua mused, earning a high-five from Anna.
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