Xu Yunlian watched the blossoms drifting in the breeze, and then said quietly, “You love your sister very much.”
Poppy’s throat tightened. “She was everything good in my life.”
Xu Yunlian nodded as if she understood more deeply than she let on. “I cannot imagine what it feels like to have her returned in such a form,” she continued softly, “but I can tell you this. You are not alone in carrying the weight of that grief.”
Poppy’s breath hitched.
Xu Yunlian reached out slowly and brushed a tear from Poppy’s cheek with her thumb. Maternal. Tender. Steady.
“Child, you have been brave for far too long. Let someone else be brave for you now.”
Poppy blinked hard, voice barely a breath. “I don’t know how.”
“You don’t need to,” Xu Yunlian said. “Just allow us to stand with you.”
Silence again. Soft. Healing.
Then Xu Yunlian added, her voice gentle and curious but absolutely deliberate, “My son worries for you.”
Poppy’s head jerked up. “Mingxi?”
Xu Yunlian hid a small, knowing smile in her teacup. “He is not easily shaken,” she said. “He is quiet, disciplined, dutiful, and most days stubborn as stone.”
Poppy looked back at the blossoms, cheeks warming.
“I didn’t want him to think I was rejecting him,” she whispered. “I just needed space.”
Xu Yunlian nodded. “That is understandable. And he understands you.” Her eyes softened. “But he is unused to caring. Deeply. It frightens him.”
Poppy’s breath stuttered. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
Xu Yunlian turned to Poppy sharply, gentle but firm, and said, “You could never be a burden. Not to him.”
Poppy stared, unsure, overwhelmed.
Xu Yunlian reached out again, this time placing a warm hand over Poppy’s. “Let me tell you something about my son,” she said softly. “When he chooses someone to protect, his entire spirit aligns with that choice. He does not bend away from it. He does not waver.”
Poppy’s lips parted slightly. She remembered the steady way he had caught her. The calm way he held her upright. The fierce, quiet promise in his voice:You protected her. Now we protect her.
“I didn’t ask him to watch me,” Poppy whispered.
“And yet he stayed,” Xu Yunlian said with a knowing smile. “Because he wanted to.”
Poppy felt something loosen inside her chest, a knot of fear and loneliness she’d carried for years.
Xu Yunlian squeezed Poppy’s hand. “Drink your tea, child. And breathe.”
Poppy did, marveling at how Yunlian’s generous spirit had reached places Poppy thought still closed.
Across the garden, Mingxi slowed. He stopped several paces away, watching Poppy as she breathed through the weight of it, as her shoulders gradually loosened. When she steadied, he moved again, crossing the remaining distance and settling beside her. Only then did he lean slightly toward her as he spoke, his posture angled protectively without eclipsing her. Poppy’s shoulders eased as she listened, as if her grief was no longer carved in stone but trembling, human, allowed.
Xu Yunlian stood at the edge of the garden, half hidden behind a flowering arch of wisteria. She watched in silence, hands folded, expression soft, eyes warm with something deeply maternal.
Xu Yunlian exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
He is opening himself, she thought.Good. He has been alone long enough.
For the first time in years, she saw her quiet, disciplined eldest son reaching toward someone.
