Read Chapter 30: — WIND OVER WATER

The photograph from the restaurant opening eventually hung in Cimo Hall.

Five friends by the river, laughing too early for the camera.

Visitors often assumed it was an old family picture.

Mufeng never corrected them.

In a way, it was.

Dacheng's heat-treatment workshop reached stable production. Qiu Bin worked on electric vehicles and still avoided writing calligraphy whenever possible. Daidi expanded her pear-candy business and complained that marriage had not made Qiu Bin any better at speaking. Duoduo's restaurant became successful enough that he opened a second branch and immediately began worrying about a third.

Huashi thrived under Gu Cheng, who developed his own management style rather than imitating Mufeng.

Hua remained in contact from overseas. Jiazhen had good months and difficult ones. The family learned to treat each period of health not as a guarantee but as time worth inhabiting.

Yonghe continued running Qinghe Gallery.

Mufeng painted.

Some works sold. Some did not. He refused to reduce the price of the ones he believed in, which Yonghe said proved that arrogance was the one youthful quality he had successfully preserved.

One evening they walked beside the canal as the last light slipped over the old roofs.

"Do you ever miss Huashi?" she asked.

"Sometimes."

"The power?"

"The air-conditioning."

She laughed.

Mufeng looked at the water.

He had once believed he wanted a life with no ropes attached: no company, no family burden, no expectation, no duty. A wind answerable to nothing.

But wind did not become meaningful by escaping the world. It became visible by what it touched—the surface of water, a curtain, a branch in blossom, another person's face.

His life had been the same.

Failure had touched it. Love. Friendship. Ambition. Fear. Blood. Art. The parents who gave him life and the father who gave him a childhood. A company he had saved and chosen to leave. An old house he refused to own and agreed to protect.

The canal moved toward the Yangtze and beyond it the sea.

Yonghe slipped her hand into his.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

Mufeng smiled.

"Forward."

The wind moved over the water.

And this time, he went with it.

END