Zhao Luoning had no idea someone was watching her from behind with a look of longing. Right now, her mind was entirely on one thing: choosing who would take over.
She had little choice. In truth, she had none.
She tapped on the side of the carriage. Feixing heard the sound, threw back the curtain and peeked out.
“Miss, do you need anything?”
“What has Zhao Luoming been up to lately?”
“After leaving the teahouse, Young Master seemed to have gone out to the countryside.”
Out to the countryside?
Had he gone to look for that woman?
Instead of returning to Willow Lane like he usually did, the third Zhao son had taken a long, roundabout route to the country estate he’d always wanted to visit but never dared. The ridge paths were too narrow for riding, so he tied his horse to a tree and trudged on foot.
It was harvest time. The fields hummed with activity. Reapers swung sickles and chanted an old, simple song. The village head, his voice hoarse from years, led the refrain and it carried across the paddies.
“Rice is ready!”
Faces lifted with the words, answering in unison.
“Ready!”
“Rice smells sweet!”
“Sweet!”
They worked and sang, their motions and voices weaving together — plain words, but full of the honest wishes of people who lived by the land. Then a bell tolled and the meal break began. Men called out, women with baskets and toddlers in tow came into the field bearing food, ready to tend to their husbands.
Zhao Luoming had meant to ask the village head after an old acquaintance, but a familiar voice stopped him cold.
“Darling!”
The sound struck him like a bolt. Qingyao — he would never forget that voice.
He slipped behind a stack of straw and watched. She couldn’t see him, but he saw everything clearly. She had grown thinner and more composed; without that honeyed, sugary tone he would have had trouble recognizing her. She set down a bamboo basket on the ridge and called to the man working in the field.
A dark-skinned man with a kind, shy smile looked up, waved, and plodded through the mud toward her. She set out the food and fussed over him, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief.
“Your cooking keeps getting better,” he said between mouthfuls. “Delicious.”
Watching them, Zhao Luoming thought back to the days when Qingyao had been his personal maid. On the surface she’d been a servant, but in the courtyard she was treated more like half a lady; she never had to cook or do backbreaking work. Back then she’d never laughed so freely.
She had arranged her own engagement without telling him. By the time he knew, she was already someone’s wife. He had resented her for it — for breaking their unspoken pact, for appearing heartless. Now, standing in the field, he realized the heartlessness had been his. He had nothing to offer her but a title: third son of the Zhao family. That status came with strings, with obligations that left him unable to make promises. Who was he to ask her to sacrifice?
The farmer’s life might not bring Qingyao wealth, but it had granted her steadiness and dignity. Zhao Luoming, in contrast, had spent years speaking of a future he never truly settled into. His clothes, his meals, his home — all of it came from the family, propped up by his second brother, Zhao Luojing, who carried the burden of illness and duty. Luck had placed him in an honorable house; beyond that, he had no real footing. If he were born a peasant, he might never have managed even this.
A wind rose and the smoke from the cooks’ fires thinned into the sky. The path he had come by blurred into tall grass, dandelion fluff lifted and scattered across the ridges. Before he left, he had told himself he would go only to see her suffer — that he would find comfort in her hardship. Seeing her now, content and alive, he found his heart relieved instead.
His elder sister had said it plainly — he had drifted long enough. It was time to shoulder his responsibilities. He could not let another chance pass him by.
Back at the tea house, Zhao Luoning was in the factory sorting leaves with the workers when Caixue burst in, breathless. “Third Young Master has gone and come back,” she blurted.
When Zhao Luoning stepped outside she found Zhao Luoming waiting quietly on the steps. His posture was respectful; his spirit looked different from before.
“Second Brother,” he said, “I want to come back and work.”
He had volunteered to return. Zhao Luoning could not suppress a small, surprised smile. Caixue’s jaw hit the floor; she stared at him as if he were a stranger.
“Well, if that’s the case,” Zhao Luoning said, “then go change. We need hands in the factory.”
“Change…what?” he asked, bewildered.
Caixue hurried back with a plain set of factory clothes and handed them to him. The moment he saw the uniform he understood.
“You mean you want me to—” he began.
“You don’t get to jump straight to running the teahouse,” Zhao Luoning cut in. “You don’t even know the tea-making process. You’ll learn from the masters on the floor for now.”
The sudden drop from status took him a breath to process, but Zhao Luoning was already pulled away by a call from the workers; no one had time for his protest.
“Just listen to her,” Caixue told him, pressing the clothing into his hands. “Second Brother started the same way. He won’t steer you wrong.”
Her words snuffed out whatever complaints he had left. He watched Zhao Luoning return to her work with a new expression settling over him — thoughtful, determined.
He had spent his youth among the lights of Willow Lane and learned tricks of charm rather than craft. But he was bright, and years inside the teahouse had given him a baseline; with a willingness to learn he picked up skills fast. Zhao Luoning, pressed for time, already entrusted him with accounting tasks. He grumbled, but he did them well; even Caixue said he seemed like a different person.
At first the staff had taken Zhao Luoming’s return as a joke — the second brother had brought him back to make the handover easier — but seeing him work steadily and speak kindly, they warmed to him. He fit in quicker than anyone expected.
Zhao Luoning had known he had talent. That he could adapt so swiftly, so naturally, surprised her all the same. A small worry, quiet and insistent, began to creep up in her chest. Had she misjudged him?