Cooking was not one of Yang Lin's talents.

Before she resigned you could have counted the times she cooked at home on one hand, so most of the dishes at lunch that day were done by Xu Ye, with Yang Lin beside him in charge of passing him the seasonings. Chen Qingqing, bored on her own in the living room, came into the kitchen to watch too.

Yang Lin told the two of them where she had been on her travels these last few months, and set them straight about a few lesser-known spots — places the internet had been calling beautiful that were in fact terrible.

Once the food was ready the three of them sat down at the table, and Yang Lin couldn't wait to try Xu Ye's cooking. In the end she rated it very highly.

It wasn't until the meal was mostly gone that Xu Ye raised it himself. "Auntie Yang Lin, didn't you say on the phone yesterday you had something to talk to me about? What is it?"

Yang Lin had meant to leave it until after they'd eaten, but since he had asked, she laughed. "Give me a minute."

With that she got up, went to her own room and came back with a tablet, which she handed to Xu Ye.

Curious, Xu Ye reached out and took it, and Chen Qingqing tilted her head to lean in beside him. On the screen was a design — and not a sketch either, a fully finished rendering.

One look at it and Xu Ye understood what Yang Lin was getting at. He swallowed, and paged down through several more. Every one of them was distinctive. Every one had a character of its own.

Even Chen Qingqing was caught by them, and it was a long time before she looked away.

Yang Lin was smiling as she explained. "I drew these while I was traveling. Maybe it's easier for ideas to come when a person's relaxed. I'm pretty pleased with them myself. I've put them into four collections — Cuiwei, Qingyao, Yunmeng and Cangyuan, which…