There was a bowl of congee at Ning Yue's place at breakfast.
Lin Yue noticed it before he noticed anything else that morning — before the gray light through the dining hall windows, before Auntie Rong's usual quiet movement between tables, before the empty chair itself. The bowl sat exactly where it always had, centered on the tray, a spoon resting against the rim at the same careless angle Ning Yue always left hers.
Steam still rose off it.
He stood there a moment longer than he meant to, looking at it.
"Who put that there?" he asked, to no one in particular.
Nobody answered right away. Tang Li, two seats down, looked up from her own tray with the particular slowness of someone who had heard the question a half-second late, as if it had taken that long to travel from his mouth to her understanding.
"I don't know," she said. "I thought someone else did."
