The coffee was cooling slowly, but Shěn Yīniàn was in no hurry at all to reach the bottom of the cup.He held it with both hands, as if that simple piece of ceramic were a portable heater. From time to time, he lifted his gaze to the front window: the snow was now falling in thicker flakes, drawing white diagonals between the street and the sign of 姜家早安烘焙.
Outside, the world seemed mute. Inside, there were small sounds that kept the day standing: the crack of bread cooling on the rack, the sigh of the oven adjusting itself, the light clinking of stacked cups. The difference in temperature was almost visible: out there, a cold blue; in here, a yellow that made you want to stay.
Jiāng Mián pretended she'd been cleaning the same part of the counter for far too long.
She had wiped it once, twice, three times. The surface already shone, but her hand insisted on the motion while her eyes kept sliding, inevitably, back to the table where he was sitting.
Yīniàn sipped his coffee slowly, his posture slightly hunched over the cup, his glasses fogging a little with the steam. Sometimes he closed his eyes for a second, like someone measuring taste with more than just a tongue: temperature, acidity, that quiet comfort that passes through the chest when something is exactly at the right point.
— If you scrub that counter any more, Miánmián, you're going to come out on the other side of China. — murmured Wáng Àilián from the sink area, without raising her voice much.
Jiāng Mián startled, almost letting the cloth slip.
— I just… he spilled a little coffee here before… — she tried to justify herself, knowing very well the coffee hadn't come anywhere near the counter.
Her mother lifted her eyes over the rim of the cup she was rinsing. A small smile appeared first in her eyes, then on her mouth.
— Uh-huh. And what exactly are you trying to clean now? His orbit?
Mián felt the heat rise to her cheeks in a way that had nothing to do with the oven.
— Mom… — she muttered under her breath. — He's going to hear you.
— Only if his hearing is as sharp as that baker's eye of yours. — Àilián shot back, returning to the dishes but clearly amused. — Since he sat down, have you already counted how many sips he's taken?
Jiāng Mián squeezed the cloth in her hands.
— I'm not counting anything… — she lied badly. — It's just… it's been a long time since anyone came in this early. And he almost fell with me outside… I mean, I almost fell on him… I mean…
Her mother let out a short laugh, muffled by the sound of running water.
— Relax, Mián. You don't need to conjugate the verb "to fall" in every tense. It was just a scare. And a polite young man. And… — she cast a quick glance toward the table — apparently, someone who knows how to appreciate good bread.
At the table, Yīniàn was breaking the soft center of the little roll into small, almost identical pieces, as if even in the way he ate there were an unconscious need for symmetry. He took each piece to his mouth calmly, chewing slowly, his eyes alternating between the plate and the snow outside.
He felt, somehow, that he was being watched.
It wasn't the same feeling as a defense committee, nor as colleagues in the lab waiting for the next spreadsheet. It was a lighter gaze, curious, one that didn't demand a result — only presence.
He set the cup down on the table and, by reflex — the reflex of someone who lives surrounded by monitors — he noticed: if he were to measure that moment, it wouldn't be blood pressure, heart rate or skin temperature that mattered. There was a kind of different "atmospheric pressure" in there. A climate of its own.
Behind the counter, Mián tried to convince herself she wasn't staring.
But it was hard.
He seemed… quiet. Not the cold quiet of someone who shuts the world out, but the focused quiet of someone listening to something inside. His long fingers held the handle of the cup with a strange delicacy for someone who was probably used to test tubes, she thought, not even knowing where that association came from.
— If you keep looking at him like that, his coffee is going to go cold just from your curiosity. — her mother whispered, stepping a little closer with a dry cloth in her hands. — Go check if the bread is good instead of studying the customer.
— I already know the bread is good. — Mián answered automatically.
— And since when has that ever stopped you from asking anyway? — Àilián arched an eyebrow. — You ask the sugar, you ask the yeast, you even ask the oil if it's at the right point… but when it's people, you freeze?
Jiāng Mián bit her lip.
— It's different, mom.
— It is. — agreed Àilián, without arguing. — Sugar doesn't look back.
She gave two light taps on her daughter's shoulder and moved away, pretending to take care of something else. But the expression in her eyes said she was, yes, paying attention.
At the table, Yīniàn ran his finger around the edge of the plate, gathering a rebellious crumb. Outside, the snow was getting heavier, slowly erasing the outlines of the street; the bakery, in contrast, seemed to gain sharper borders. In there, everything had contour: the table, the counter, the faces of mother and daughter in the warm half-light of the kitchen.
He took a deep breath. The smell of yeast, coffee and sugar at soft-ball stage mixed with something newer, which he hadn't yet named. Maybe that was what his graphs were missing: a variable called "home" that didn't fit into any equation.
Without realizing it, Mián took a step toward the table, still holding the cloth. She stopped halfway, looked at her mother. Àilián just made a tiny gesture with her chin, the kind that says: go.
She cleared her throat, trying to set her words at the right temperature.
— The coffee… — she began, coming closer. — Is it… good?
Yīniàn raised his eyes. For a second, the sounds of the bakery seemed to fade.
— It is. — he replied, simply, but with the sincerity he usually reserved for when he approved a well-done experiment. — Warm enough to chase the dawn away, but not so hot it burns your tongue.
One corner of Jiāng Mián's mouth lifted.
— We've got practice with cold mornings. — she said. — And with people who wake up before the sun.
He nodded, glancing at her apron, still stained with flour, and at the slightly crooked blue ribbon.
— I know what that's like. — he murmured. — There are hours of the day that don't seem to exist on other people's clocks.
From the counter, Wáng Àilián watched the exchange with her arms crossed, trying to hold back the smile threatening to escape.
Mián squeezed the cloth, as if wringing out her own shyness.
— If… you'd like, I can pack another roll for you to take. — she offered. — For the way back. Or for your mother. — The words slipped out before she could think, and she immediately wondered if he had a mother, if he lived with her, if she'd just said too much.
A shadow of a thought crossed Yīniàn's eyes when he heard the word "mother". It wasn't a sharp pain, but a small, familiar tightening.
— She'd like that. — he said at last. — Knowing I stopped at a decent bakery, at least.
The silence that followed wasn't heavy. It was the kind that has space for what hasn't yet been said.
When the oven beeped again, Yīniàn's coffee was already just a dark ring at the bottom of the cup.
He set the half-eaten roll down on the plate, filled his lungs with that air of yeast and sugar one more time and, with the calm of someone who still didn't really want to leave, got up and walked to the counter.
Jiāng Mián instinctively stepped back, as if his approaching were just a little warmer than normal. Wáng Àilián, on the other hand, came half a step forward, drying her hands on the cloth.
— How much do I owe you? — he asked politely, taking his wallet from the pocket of his overcoat.
— Whatever you feel like paying. — Àilián replied first, a playful sparkle in her eyes. Then she laughed, shaking her head. — I'm kidding. Coffee and two rolls.
As she mentally added up the amount, she couldn't hold back:
— You're new around here, aren't you? — she asked, tilting her head. — I don't remember seeing you in this hutong.
Yīniàn thought for a moment before answering, like someone revisiting an old map.
— Yes… and no. — he said. — I lived nearby many years ago. — His eyes took a quick tour of the bakery's interior, as if checking that memory matched the present. — Then I moved, went to study, and now I've come back to Beijing to work at the university.
Jiāng Mián felt her heart give a small leap, so clear she almost looked down at her own chest to see if anyone had noticed.
At the university.He came back.Here, nearby.
The words arranged themselves in her head in a sentence she would never dare to say out loud: So… maybe I'll get to see you more often.
— University… — repeated Wáng Àilián, nodding slowly, as if testing the sound of the word. — So you're one of those who wake up early and go to sleep late.
— Sometimes don't sleep at all. — he gave a half smile, a good-humored tiredness crossing his face. — But I'm trying to fix that.
Àilián took the money and made the change with the agility of someone who's handled bills for decades. Meanwhile, she spoke in a light tone, but loaded with intention:
— A hutong isn't like a campus, you know? If you disappear again for many years, we notice.
He held the mother's gaze for a second, realizing there was more there than small talk from behind the counter.
— I'll try not to vanish. — he promised simply.
Beside them, Mián pretended to rearrange a basket of rolls, but every word felt like it hit her ears with the clarity of a bell.
Yīniàn put his wallet away and adjusted his scarf.
— Thank you for the coffee. — he said, looking first at Wáng Àilián, then at Jiāng Mián. — And for the bread.
— Take them while they're still warm, or the snow will make them forget they came out of the oven. — Àilián remarked, pushing the little bag toward him.
He took the package, feeling the heat seep through the paper. He took two steps toward the door. The bell tinkled when he opened it.
Outside, the world was blue and white again. By reflex — or maybe something older than memory itself — Yīniàn turned his head over his shoulder before stepping out completely.
Jiāng Mián was standing behind the counter, still holding the cloth, her blue ribbon slightly crooked, her apron dusted with flour. When their eyes met, he let a brief, almost shy but complete smile slip out.
It was quick, but enough to make her stomach tighten for absolutely no practical reason.
The bell rang again when the door closed. The snow swallowed his figure bit by bit, until only his footprints remained heading into the hutong.
For an instant, the silence inside the bakery felt fuller than before.
— Hmmm. — went Wáng Àilián, drawing out the sound like someone tasting a new recipe. — So that's how you look at customers now?
Jiāng Mián almost dropped the cloth.
— How? — she pretended not to understand. — I was just… making sure he wouldn't slip again in the snow.
— Uh-huh. — her mother leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, smile trapped at the corners of her mouth. — You were so worried about his safety you even forgot to breathe for a few seconds.
Mián felt her face heat up again.
— Mom…
— What? — Àilián lifted her hands theatrically. — I'm just happy that after so long staring at dough rising, you finally looked at something else.
She gave a conspiratorial wink.
— And you didn't seem to mind it.
On impulse, Jiāng Mián turned her back and headed for the tables, cloth in hand.
— I'm going to clean up over here. — she muttered. — Before the dough gets jealous.
The table where he had sat still held small traces: crumbs of bread, the pale circle left by the cup, a smell of coffee that insisted on lingering. Mián wiped the surface slowly, with a care she didn't use on any other table.
That was when she noticed something stuck between the salt shaker and the menu holder.
A rigid rectangle, with a coiled lanyard.
She frowned, carefully pulling the object free.
It was an ID badge.
The transparent plastic made the picture perfectly clear: Shěn Yīniàn in glasses, black hair a little more tamed than in person, the same focused look, serious without being cold. At the top, in dark blue, the logo of Peking University. Just below, in bold:
Prof. Dr. 沈一念 (Shěn Yīniàn)Department of Neuroscience
Further down, in smaller letters, almost like a second layer of information no one reads in a hurry:
Neuroscientist · Principal InvestigatorDate of birth: 15/12/1988 – Year of the Dragon (龙年)Blood type: A
Jiāng Mián felt her heart speed up in a way that had nothing to do with running batches through the oven.
It was too much information to fit in such a small piece of plastic — and yet, everything seemed to match the man who had held her wrist in the snow like someone calculating the exact angle of a fall.
She held the badge by the edges, afraid to crease it.
— He… left this here. — she said in a thin voice.
Wáng Àilián appeared at her side without her noticing, wiping her hands on her apron.
— Ah. — she said, leaning in to get a better look. — So he's not just a polite young man. He's a forgetful one too.
Her mother's eyes ran quickly over the lines on the badge, like someone reading a complicated recipe and understanding it at once.
— Professor doctor… — she murmured. — Department of Neuroscience and Chronobiology… Year of the Dragon, type A… Peking University, huh. — she gave a low whistle. — That explains the way he looks at coffee like he's reviewing a paper.
Mián didn't laugh.
She was too busy staring at the tiny portrait, trying to reconcile that formal, credential-framed face with the brief smile he had given at the door a few minutes before. On the badge, he looked more distant, slotted into roles and departments. Inside the bakery, for a moment, he had seemed… almost close.
— Mom… — she murmured, not taking her eyes off the plastic. — What now?
Àilián shrugged, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
— Now? — she repeated. — Now you put it somewhere safe so you can give it back when he comes back.
— And if he doesn't come back? — The question slipped out faster than her thoughts, carrying something she wasn't ready to name yet.
Her mother turned her face away for a second, as if that possibility touched something very old in her own life. Then she smiled — gentle, but firm.
— Someone who forgets their badge forgets to disappear too. — she answered. — They stay stuck somewhere.
She tapped lightly on the edge of the plastic with her index finger.
— And anyway, Miánmián… — she went on, turning her gaze toward the oven beeping in the back. — If fate calibrated the temperature for a professor of biological rhythms to walk into this bakery at five ten in the morning, it's not a little piece of plastic that's going to change the point of this story.
Jiāng Mián lowered her eyes once more to the printed name:
沈一念 – Shěn Yīniàn
She ran her thumb slowly over the letters, like someone underlining an important ingredient that can't be left out.
Outside, the snow went on falling silently, erasing tracks from the street.Inside, in the pocket of Jiāng Mián's apron, a forgotten badge made her heart beat to a different rhythm — as if, without realizing it, the temperature of the silence had risen by a few tenths of a degree.