The exam is on a Thursday morning.
I leave the estate early, before anyone else is awake, or at least before the house sounds like anyone is awake. Liang Feng is waiting outside at six-thirty, engine already running. The morning is gray and cold in the specific way that feels appropriate for something that matters.
I don't eat breakfast.
My stomach won't accept it.
The university architecture department is forty minutes away. I know the building from the inside, from the original Runze's years there — the specific smell of the studio floors, the way the light comes through the north-facing windows in the afternoon, the particular stairwell that always echoed.
I carry those memories the way I carry most of his life, not as my own experience exactly, but worn enough by now that the distinction has softened. Somewhere in between mine and his and just mine.
Today it feels like mine.
