Chapter 244: Almost Ready

*Runze’s POV*

The nursery smells like fresh paint and something warm underneath it, cedar from the new shelving, clean cotton from the folded blankets still in their packaging on the changing station.

I stand in the doorway for a moment before stepping in.

Everything is here. The crib sits against the far wall, pale wood and soft lines, the mobile hanging above it catching the morning light. The wardrobe is already filled, tiny clothes organized by size, smallest at the front. The changing station has everything it needs arranged neatly across it. Soft toys crowd one corner shelf, big and small, some of them still with their tags on. A rocking chair sits beside the window, positioned to catch the afternoon light.

I step inside.

My hand finds the edge of the crib and rests there, my fingers curling lightly around the wood.

A few more weeks.

Warmth moves through my chest, slow and certain. I have spent so many months being afraid, of the pregnancy, of Ming, of everything trying to reach us from outside, that I had almost forgotten this part. The part where someone is actually coming. Where all of this waiting has a direction.

Bael comes in behind me.

His arms slide around me from behind, his chin coming to rest on my shoulder. We stand like that in the quiet room, both of us looking at the crib, at the mobile, at the small folded things waiting on the shelves.

"Almost everything is ready," I murmur.

Bael’s chin lifts slightly from my shoulder. "Almost?"

"There’s still a lot to do before they get here."

His arms tighten around me, just slightly. "The baby isn’t arriving tomorrow, Runze."

"It’s only a few weeks."

"Exactly."

I turn my head to look at him. "That’s soon."

He holds my gaze for a moment, something quiet and warm in his eyes, then his mouth curves. "It is," he agrees, and presses his lips to my temple.

I cover his hands with mine and face forward again.

Neither of us says anything after that. We just stand there and let it be real for a moment.

Eventually Bael exhales slowly against my hair.

"I have to go."

"Hmn... You’re already late."

He doesn’t move. Another few seconds pass before his arms finally loosen.

"I’ll come back early."

I glance at him over my shoulder. "You always say that."

"This time I mean it."

"You said that yesterday too."

He pulls back with an expression of genuine offense, and I smile as he turns toward the door.

***

Upstairs in the study, I open the Grandmother project file and get to work.

The base design has to be done within two weeks. My deadline, not hers. She hasn’t asked me to rush, she hasn’t asked me for anything except my best work and my genuine attention. But I want it finished before the baby comes. I want everything finished before the baby comes.

The studio preparations are almost complete. Liang Feng has handled everything I couldn’t do myself while confined to the estate — the lease is signed, the furniture sourced and arranged, the equipment delivered. I gave him the money, the list, and showed him exactly what I wanted. He has been meticulous, sending photographs and asking the right questions and handling the rest without needing me to hold his hand.

What remains is the work itself.

I want the studio to open with something worth showing, and this project is worth it. And once the baby arrives, I want my schedule clear. I don’t want to be buried in work while Bael and I are learning how to take care of someone we’ve never met before.

I work through the morning with my pencil moving in long slow arcs across the paper, the room quiet around me.

At some point I pause and rest my hand on my stomach.

The baby shifts.

"Calm down," I say quietly. "I’m almost done."

I go back to work.

***

By early afternoon I have done enough for one day. My back is starting to ache in the particular way that means I have been sitting too long, and the lines are blurring at the edges in a way that means my eyes have also had enough.

I save everything, close the files, and go downstairs.

Ling Yue’s door is closed. I knock.

"Come in."

He is exactly where I expected him to be, sitting against his headboard with a book open in his lap, a small plate of crackers and sliced fruit on the nightstand beside him. He looks comfortable and mildly suspicious of being interrupted.

I close the door behind me and come to sit on the edge of the bed.

He marks his page and sets the book on his nightstand.

"Done for the day?"

"For now." I lean back against the headboard beside him, close enough that our shoulders touch. "How are you doing?"

Ling Yue picks up a cracker and looks at it for a moment.

"I’m fine," he says. "I’ve decided I’m fine."

I glance at him. "That’s a very deliberate way to be fine."

"It is." He eats the cracker. "It’s been a deliberate few weeks."

I smile, and we sit quietly for a moment the way we have always been able to, no pressure to fill it, no performance required.

"I’m sorry I haven’t checked on you more," I say eventually. "It’s been—"

Ling Yue scoffs. "As if. Don’t you already have enough on your plate?" He turns to look at me. "Since I got here, it’s been one thing after another. Your email gets interfered with. Then the news decides your husband is a murderer. Then it turns out your uncle-in-law has been faking his own death and running an entire operation from a safehouse somewhere." He pauses. "And then pinning his murder on your husband. While he was still alive!?"

He pauses. "All of that, Runze. While you were seven months pregnant."

I press my lips together.

"So don’t apologize to me," he says, his voice dry but not unkind. "I’m trying to figure out how you’re still upright."

"Barely," I admit.

"Barely counts." He reaches for another cracker. "I’ve been sitting in this room eating Mrs. Wen’s food and watching your life from a safe distance, and even that aged me. So."

The laugh that comes out of me is quiet and genuine.

He looks at me sideways, something softer underneath the dry expression now.

We sit quietly for a moment.

Then I ask, more seriously: "What about you? Have you thought about anything? What you want to do next?"

Ling Yue is still for a moment.

Then he lets out a slow breath and looks down at the cracker in his hand.

"I have," he says. "I thought... you know, you’re starting your studio, you have this thing you’re building. I thought maybe I should figure out what my thing is too." He turns the cracker over. "So I gave it serious thought. Days of it. But Runze." He looks at the cracker. "I couldn’t think of anything, not even one thing. My mind is completely blank."

I look at him.

"Is it wrong," he continues, sounding like he’s just making a joke when I know by now he’s saying something real underneath it, "that what I actually want is to just... exist? Without lacking anything? Without having to do something to justify it?"

"That’s not wrong," I say.

"It sounds wrong when I say it out loud."

"It doesn’t."

He looks at me, something uncertain sitting in his eyes that he is trying to make look like humor.

I reach over and take his hand.

He doesn’t pull away.

"Give yourself time," I say. "You don’t have to figure it out right now. You’ve barely had a chance to breathe since you got here."

"That’s your fault."

"I know." I smile. "But seriously, you’ll find it. And even if you don’t, you said it yourself. You can just exist. And I’ll support you forever."

Ling Yue looks at me for a long moment.

Then something in his face settles, and he lets out a short, soft laugh.

"You’re too good to me," he says.

"I know that too."

He makes a sound that is half laugh, half something else, and then he pulls me into a hug, sideways and slightly awkward from the angle, his arm coming around my shoulders and his chin dropping briefly against my hair.

I hug him back as best I can with my stomach between us.

He pulls away after a moment, clears his throat, and picks up his book.

"Okay," he says, in the voice of someone who has decided that is enough sincerity for one afternoon. "Go away now. I’m reading."

I smile and stay exactly where I am for another minute before I finally get up.

Through Ling Yue’s window, the afternoon light has shifted, long and gold now. Somewhere down the hall, I can hear Mrs. Wen’s voice giving instructions to someone in the kitchen.

Not long ago this house was full of tension and fear and people waiting for the next blow to land.

Right now it just sounds like home.