Twilight soaked the cobblestone streets of Windwhisper Town, casting a warm yellow glow through the bakery's glass storefront that edged the swirling indoor steam with gold. Ye Feng leaned casually against the oak counter, his well-defined fingers unconsciously tracing the flour on his baking gloves while his gaze remained fixed on a yellowed piece of parchment on the table. Suddenly he straightened up, the tip of his nose nearly brushing the paper, leaving only the sound of a pen scratching across the surface in the quiet air.
Luna huddled in a corner near the woven wicker bread basket, her eyes following his wandering pen tip. The fluid ink strokes seemed imbued with magic, reminding her of winter-frozen streams—those winding, twisting paths she used to see on the back hills of the orphanage that always kept moving forward.
Those mottled childhood memories suddenly surged back: tattered literacy textbooks stained with rain-blurred ink blots, the withered hand of an old nun clutching her knuckles to write in a sandbox, right up until that snowy night when the Director said, "Learning to read is useless for a girl after all..."
Chapter 38