The Liu family’s main estate in Beijing is an impressive sight. Ryo stares up at the looming grey glazed tile roofs hanging over the inner and outer courtyards. Lattices adorn the paper screen windows and the buildings are arranged in orderly square formations to separate the main family from the rest of the clan. He can see its residents up on the framed balconies of a mini pagoda, peering curiously back at him.

“Welcome, welcome!” Liu-xiansheng beams, waving to them with his wife by his side and an entourage of retainers and servants trailing behind. Ryo tries to remember what his father taught him on the ship about etiquette. It seems the proper honorific for her would be Liu-nüshi or, since he’s a family friend, he could call her Auntie. Similarly, Liu-xiansheng could be Uncle.

“It is good to see you again, Jianmin,” his father addresses the Chinese man, and the two cusp their own hands over the other in greeting, “And you as well, Jiayi.”

“You and your son are always welcome here. We have a banquet prepared,” Jiayi says, a modest smile on her face. “Let’s catch up over dinner.”

Ryo follows them into the inner courtyards where the entourage stops. It is fairly spacious, with rooms on all sides except for the wall facing the outer courtyard. But unlike the imposing outer courtyard designed with stone carvings and lion head statues at the gates, the inner courtyard is ripe with ponds and vegetation.

A sudden movement at the corner of his eyes catches his attention. He whips his head around, only to find a dash of red.

“Ryo, why don’t you play with Mingyue jiejie?” Jiayi suggests. “I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

“Okay, Auntie.” 

Following her nudge, he trods off to find that dash of red robes. He crosses the bridge to the other side of the yard, squinting to try and find Mingyue. The older girl was always very quiet. In all honesty, Ryo found himself getting shy around her; neither of them were the type to strike up a lively discussion, after all. Unlike Satori, who was a bit of a wild child and a conversation starter, Mingyue had a piercing gaze that seemed to peer right into his mind. She would not make small talk at all, seeming to be very comfortable with silence — something that made Ryo very uncomfortable.

Past the bamboo trees, he finally sees her crouched down, poking at something in the dirt with a stick.

“Hi,” he says, his cheeks growing warmer already.

Mingyue prods at the dirt some more. Ryo is about to awkwardly leave when she finally answers back a quiet, “Hello, Ryo.”

She dusts her hands off, standing up to her full height, about a head and shoulders taller than him— she is two years older than him. Her black hair is tied in a braid and her red qipao features chrysanthemum flowers and phoenix tail feather patterns.

Elegant.

Mingyue always is. She may be quiet like him, but in this regard they are nothing alike. She is composed and refined, with poise that puts him on edge and demands that he pay his respects.

“You got taller,” she remarks. “Visiting the Blackwoods in London?”

“Y-Yes.”

She nods. “Mm. Richard-xiansheng relies on your father’s research a lot.”

He’d heard about that before from his father, though not in great detail. Richard Blackwood, Edward’s father, is sick. Ryo’s father invented a medicine to cure him, though it isn’t a permanent cure. Said medicine is apparently difficult to make and needs the cooperation of all the Seven Families. Once every three years or so, the heads of the families will meet to make the medicine for Richard. That’s what his father’s last trip to the Blackwoods a little more than half a year ago was about. 

And that’s why the purpose behind the trip this time cannot be about making Richard’s medicine. This time, it must have something to do with Lucifer’s deal with a time limit.

“You have a question,” Mingyue states.

“Uh, yeah… What exactly is my father’s research about? He’s been trying to make something called the Blood of Asphodel and E-Enoia is part of the recipe…”

She raises an eyebrow and gauges him in silence. Suddenly, the bamboo groves look very interesting and Ryo studies them with great effort. Look how tall they are…

“You know what Enoia is?”

He shakes his head.

“It might not be my place to reveal the answers, then.” Mingyue starts walking towards the wing where her room is stationed. 

He scrambles after her, trying to find conversation topics to maybe convince her to talk. “So…are your brothers home today?”

“No, they’re out.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have asked. He isn’t actually that close to Mingyue from an emotional standpoint and often found it difficult to connect with her, so the information he got from Hao on the ship is leagues more than he would’ve gotten in a single conversation with her. Perhaps he makes her uncomfortable for some reason?

“I see… Uh, I’ve heard about your new nickname? The Miracle Child?”

Mingyue halts at that. “Don’t call me that.” Her expression is stony and tinged with an emotion he can’t identify. 

“Sorry.”

They’re outside her room now. She enters and plops herself down on a chair. Picking up unfinished embroidery, she threads the needle through the white fabric. Ryo sits down outside.

“You can come in, you know?” she mutters.

He slinks inside, watching her work.

“Do you want to try?” she asks, offering her embroidery.

“Sure, but I don’t know how…”

“Just hold it like this and pull the needle through where you want to make the next part of the design.” She demonstrates. Finished, she hands it over.

He fumbles, trying to hold it correctly. Hold it on this side right…? He hesitantly pokes the needle through the fabric.

“They started calling me that a little over half a year ago,” she says.

Ryo pauses, but continues to embroider at her expectant stare.

“It was right after I was accepted into the main family. Which was shortly before your last visit.”

“Is it true that you’re good at everything?”

She is silent. “Sort of. I have to study a lot more than my brothers, though. They’ve been preparing for heirship since they were born.”

“So…are you smart?”

She deadpans. “Yeah, I am.”

A grin grows on Ryo’s face. “So you work hard and you’re smart. And you also create miracles.”

She frowns. “Miracles is too strong a word.”

“Ow!” Ryo cries. A bead of blood wells up from his finger where the needle broke skin.

Mingyue takes the embroidery back from him, handing him a cloth to cover his cut.

“That stuff is hard,” he complains, pouting. He squeezes the cloth around his finger. “Do you do that everyday?”

“Yes.”

“Part of being ‘The Miracle Child’?”

“Yes. It’s expected of all of us, actually. We have to learn how to do everything to be a child of the main family, regardless of if it’s something girls or boys are supposed to do.”

The more Ryo hears, the more his mind wanders to thoughts of Satori. “How do you get adopted into the Liu family?” he blurts.

Mingyue stills.