The winter morning arrived with a hush and a glitter, the courtyard glazed in frost so fine it looked sifted from a silver sieve. Out beyond the walls of the Jia residence, the capital was already in motion despite the biting cold: bicycle bells chimed like clear coins; factory whistles split the pale air; men in quilted jackets hunched low over handlebars, scarves tucked to their noses; women in padded coats carried baskets that steamed with freshly bought buns. The world worked. The world hurried. The world exhaled white and kept moving.
Inside, warmth held like a second skin.
Jia Lan burrowed deeper into her quilt, cheek pressed to cotton that smelled faintly of sun and starch. The brazier had been banked just right; heat breathed steadily from it into the room, turning the frosty window lattice into nothing more than a pretty picture frame for the morning. She stretched one foot out of the covers, immediately yanked it back in, and groaned.
"I refuse," she told the ceiling. "Absolutely refuse."
Her conscience coughed delicately. Seeds. Yesterday's spoils—the rice, wheat, and corn; the half-jins of spinach, Chinese cabbage, radish, and the mischievous handful of chili; the apple and pear saplings; the grapevine cuttings—were all tucked into the warehouse of her planting space, snug and safe, and… completely unplanted.
"Ugh." She flopped onto her side. "Why did I buy so much if Past Me didn't leave Future Me any energy?"
A cart rattled outside the wall, the muffled call of a vendor drifted through: "Fresh tofu...just made warm in the cold!" People were already earning today's bread. Fine. She could at least plant some seeds.
Eventually, she sighed the sigh of someone who knows she's loved and therefore must behave, then slid from bed. Fur-lined slippers swallowed her feet. She padded to the washstand where a porcelain basin waited, already filled with hot water Aunt's habit, or one of the maids', the steam rising in soft puffs like the room itself was content.
She brushed her teeth lazily, mint cooling her tongue. The mirror fogged and cleared, fogged and cleared. She rinsed, patted her face, and headed for the bath. The shower hissed; heat poured over her shoulders and down her spine, a veil of comfort that loosened the last stubborn fingers of sleep. She didn't wash her hair too much trouble to dry in this weather so she twisted it into a loose, neat braid high at the nape and pinned the end with a simple tortoiseshell clip.
Back in her room, she rubbed lotion into her arms and calves until her skin shone faintly, like polished porcelain warmed by hand. She chose a winter dress of soft cream wool with narrow, graceful darts at the waist; slipped on warm, ribbed stockings; then shrugged into a short, quilted jacket the color of milky tea. At her vanity she dabbed toner, pressed in cream, softened her lips with balm, and leaned back to inspect. The mirror returned a girl with winter-rosy cheeks and eyes clear as cold water.
"Acceptable," she decided, mouth tipping. "Even charming."
The house carried morning noises the low hum of conversation, a utensil's clink, Naun's little voice so she crossed the corridor, wooden boards sighing as if pleased to be walked upon, and pushed open the dining-room doors.
Warmth and family enveloped her.
The long table was alive with steam and color: a clay pot of ginseng chicken soup simmered at the center, scenting the air with medicinal sweetness and the rich promise of poultry; baskets of white mantou, their tops gleaming; a pile of golden youtiao cooling on a wire rack; bowls of millet congee flecked with green onion; garlicky stir-fried greens; saucers of pickled radish and crisp mustard stems; tea in a fat-bellied pot; and soy milk in a lidded enamel jug. Beyond, the windows showed the pale world outside like a painting someone had forgotten to warm.
"Lan'er is up," Father Jia said, voice already smiling as he stood to pull out her chair. "Come, sit here this side is warmer." He ladled from the clay pot into a porcelain bowl. "Specially ordered ginseng chicken. You drink this first."
Mother Jia's eyebrows curved with amusement. "If you give her any more 'specially ordered,' she'll float from all the nourishment."
"I'm in favor of floating," Grandfather said, deadpan, lifting his tea. "A floating granddaughter is still a granddaughter."
Grandmother chuckled, the fine web of lines at her eyes deepening. "Sit, Lan'er. Eat. Look at you your face is sweet as a jujube today."
"Morning," Jia Lan sang, taking her place between her sisters-in-law. She leaned to tickle Baby Naun's palm. "Good morning, little dumpling."
Naun squeaked, grabbed Jia Lan's finger with startling authority, and refused to let go. Everyone laughed.
Eldest Brother, Jia Zhe , snapped apart a youtiao with theatrical solemnity. "Sister, be careful. If you eat all Father's Soups of Infinite Nourishment, you will become… a soup."
"Then I'll be delicious," Jia Lan replied primly, accepting the steaming bowl her father set down. "And useful in winter."
Second Brother, Jia Wei, spooned pickles onto her plate. "Don't forget these. Crunchy things build character."
"Who told you that?" Yao Jing asked, bumping his shoulder. "You told me crunchy things build muscle."
"It builds… both," he said gravely. "And a marriage."
The table rippled with laughter; even Grandfather's mouth quirked.
Jia Lan blew on her spoon, sipped, closed her eyes. Heat blossomed down to her stomach, fragrant with ginseng and chicken fat, anchored by a thread of salt the kind of warmth that felt like hands placed around a winter-cold mug. She let out an involuntary little hum.
Father Jia watched like a man who'd personally harvested the ginseng. "Good? Not too strong?"
"Perfect," she said. "I feel my lifespan extending."
"Good," he said, satisfied. "Extend it more with another half-bowl."
Mother Jia pushed a dish of greens toward her. "Eat the vegetables too. Beauty needs balance."
Grandmother, peeling a boiled egg with neat, capable fingers, slid the yolk to Jia Lan's saucer. "For the eyes," she said, as she had always said. "So you can see through nonsense."
Eldest Brother clicked his tongue. "She sees through my nonsense and still lets me talk. That's filial piety."
"Or pity," Xu Li murmured, earning herself a conspiratorial grin from Jia Lan.
Between bites, the chatter braided itself into warmth. Jia Zhe asked after an old neighbor's rumor; Jia Wei aired a theory about a new policy notice; Mother Jia harassed Father Jia about wearing his scarf; Grandfather declared the pickled mustard was inferior to last year's and was immediately contradicted by Grandmother, who insisted it was superior, and if he didn't taste properly then it was his nose that was inferior this year. Naun banged a wooden spoon in joyous accompaniment, then held her arms out imperiously for Jia Lan.
"She likes you more than breakfast," Yao Jing teased, relinquishing the toddler.
"Of course," Jia Lan said, cuddling Naun so the baby's cheek pressed to her collar. "I am very likeable."
"Questionable," Jia Wei coughed, and ducked the napkin Mother flicked at him.
Father Jia refilled her soup without asking. "Lan'er, drink more. You're still growing."
"Am I?" She widened innocent eyes. "In height or in pampering?"
"In both," he said.
"Especially pampering," Grandfather agreed gravely.
They were ridiculous. They were wonderful.
Eventually, Jia Lan placed her chopsticks down and covered a yawn with the back of her hand. "I'm… possibly still sleepy," she confessed, choosing her tone with practiced artlessness. "I might… rest a little more."
Jia Wei groaned. "This child! Up with the sun? No. Up with the soup!"
"Better than up with the roosters," Jia Zhe said. "Those things are noisy."
"Let her sleep," Grandmother decided, regal as a magistrate. "Winter is for sleeping. In spring we will wake her to plant cabbages."
Jia Lan sipped the last of her soup, eyes sweet. "Grandmother is my destiny."
Mother Jia hid her smile in her teacup. Father Jia looked ridiculously pleased with himself. The sisters-in-law exchanged the affectionate look of people who had accepted that this household was more comedy troupe than family.
Naun patted Jia Lan's cheek, then her own, then Jia Lan's again. "An! An!"
"That's right," Jia Lan whispered, nuzzling her. "Aunty will nap. You nap, too. Let men do all the work today."
Grandmother snorted. "Hear that, old man?"
"I hear, I hear," Grandfather muttered, hiding his grin in his tea.
Jia Lan stood, kissed Mother's temple in passing, tapped Father's shoulder with two fingers like a salute, and escaped amid good-natured jeers about lazy fairies and winter bears.
Back in her room, the quiet folded around her like an extra quilt. She closed the door, slid the latch, smoothed the coverlet as a decoy gesture and then let her consciousness dip, sure and practiced, into the soft brightness of her planting space.
The shift was weightless.
Sunlight met her different sunlight than winter's blade: gentle, ever-morning, with a warmth that kissed rather than bit. The space stretched clean and organized, twenty rich plots like book pages waiting for a story. The air was a little sweet, the colors a little truer, as if the world had been rinsed.
The warehouse stood close by: whitewashed walls, neat wooden shelves, everything precisely where she had willed it yesterday. The cloth bags were lined in a row, each tagged in her tidy hand: Rice (long-grain, winter); Wheat; Corn. Beside them sat paper twists of Spinach; Chinese cabbage; Radish; a very small twist marked Chili (be careful). Against the inner wall, straw-wrapped bundles waited like sleeping children: Apple (1), Pear (1), Grapevine (2).
A thrill climbed her spine the kind of domestic triumph that felt almost wicked. Look at me, she thought, delighted. A respectable young lady with a secret farm.
"Work," she told herself, because if she didn't, she would start naming individual seeds.
She walked to the first four plots and, with a thought as clean as a switch being flipped, called up the plan she'd made in bed last night: rice on Plot One (for practice, even if improbable indoors), wheat on Plot Two, corn on Plot Three; Plot Four to rest under a green cover of spinach quick to sprout, generous to harvest.
The space obliged.
It was effortless and precise. The rice seed lifted from the warehouse and drifted like chaff on a tame breeze, sifting into the soil in neat, shimmering spirals. The earth parted for it, swallowed it, smoothed shut. The wheat followed with its own faint rustle; the corn with a friendly staccato patter. On the fourth plot, spinach settled in disciplined rows at a spacing her mind selected from a fan of possible diagrams the space offered her this was perhaps its most mysterious gift: if she asked for "best," it laid a dozen "bests" at her feet and let her choose like a spoiled empress.
"Mm," she said aloud, ridiculously pleased. "This one."
She laid Chinese cabbage into Plot Five, radish into Six, and a single slender line of chili into the back of Seven as if she were drawing a secret in red ink. The space accepted each decision the way good silk accepts dye no blotches, only deepening.
She lifted her eyes to the open plots beyond, considered, and smiled. Plot Eight would stay fallow under a living mulch of clover she had none now, but the space thrummed with the quiet knowledge that if she marked a thing desired, it would tell her where to find it when the world offered a chance. Plots Nine and Ten could hold successive spinach and cabbage, a little army she could harvest from in two days' time if she wished. The thought made a bubble of laughter rise in her chest. Two days for what takes a month outside. Ridiculous. Wonderful.
The orchard corner waited to her right a crescent of slightly taller light, as if the sun pooled there with thicker kindness. She crossed to the straw-wrapped bundles and brushed the apple's rough bark with her knuckles.
"Wake up," she murmured like a secret.
The apple lifted, unwrapped itself with soft sounds that felt like hands politely unpacking a gift. It settled into a prepared circle of soil that darkened as water appeared from nowhere but not nowhere; from here, simply called. The roots stretched with a cat's satisfaction. The pear followed, elegant even as a stick; the two grapevines nestled into their trellis line which also hadn't been there a moment ago and now was, cedar posts fragrant, wire taut.
"Traitorously easy," she said, half accusing, half adoring. "I was prepared to suffer. I dressed in practical thoughts."
The space hummed back, a gentle who-said-you-must-suffer? that made her grin.
She walked the perimeter, hands clasped behind her, a little superintendent inspecting excellence. A transparent film showed itself when she wished the irrigation network like veins beneath the skin. She could see moisture levels as an intuition: those plots cool with satisfaction, this corner asking for a touch more. A thought and cloudless rain fell in a thin, even veil, only where needed, not a drop wasted.
At Plot Seven she crouched and pressed a fingertip to the soil. Warm, spring-damp, smelling faintly of green the scent she had always thought belonged only to childhood gardens and stories. "Grow politely," she told the buried seeds. "No showing off. We are modest people here."
The space, outrageously complicit, shimmered in amusement.
She toured the warehouse again, because organization was a pleasure: she moved the empty sacks to a side shelf, stacked the paper twists by type, and chalked small harvest boards that appeared when she asked Spinach A: 2 days; Cabbage B: 4 days; Radish C: 3 days. If she focused, she could almost hear the slow arithmetic of growth the space did on her behalf: light plus water plus time equals leaf, equals root, equals fruit.
When she was sure everything was settled, she stood under the orchard's false sun and closed her eyes. Somewhere, faintly, a bee she could not see made the idea of a sound. Leaves she could not yet have had cast the idea of a shadow. In two days the spinach would be ready, in four the cabbages would begin to curl into tight heads, and the grapevines… well, those were promises that belonged to later. She could be patient. Especially here, where patience was rewarded insulting-fast.
"This will do," she said softly, satisfied down to her bones. "This will do very well."
She stepped out of the space and back into her room in the time it takes to open a hand.
The brazier's warmth greeted her; outside, a bicycle bell chimed. The house murmured on dishes washed, a door somewhere clicked, someone laughed. She glanced at her bed. The quilt had fallen into the soft hollow where she'd left it. It looked like forgiveness.
"Since I've already made the excuse," she told the empty room, "I might as well honor it."
She loosened the tie of her jacket, slid between cotton sheets that had retained a whisper of her heat, and exhaled. The pillow grabbed her cheek, the mattress remembered her shape. Her eyes sank closed.
Just as sleep reached for her, a silver ribbon of thought brightened and a calm voice chimed in the quiet of her skull:
Ding!Ding! System Daily Check-In Complete
Reward:
200 yuan
A box of milk chocolate
The corner of her mouth rose. She tucked the knowledge away like a banknote into an inner pocket and let the soft dark come. Outside, the capital hurried through its winter morning. Inside, a girl slept, a family fussed, and beneath a private sun, seeds turned toward the idea of leaf.