The afternoon light had softened by the time we returned from the post office, the folded receipt from our parcel tucked neatly into my sleeve. The city had entered that quieter stretch between day and evening where the cold sharpened but the streets refused to slow down with it.
I pointed across the road.
"Let's have a look at that bookshop."
Qiang followed my gaze toward the narrow storefront wedged between a tailor's shop and a café whose windows had fogged completely from heat inside. The bookstore's hanging sign swayed slightly in the wind, crooked enough to suggest nobody had bothered fixing it for years.
He adjusted the book beneath his arm.
"Fine."
Practically enthusiasm.
We crossed the street together. A carriage rattled past close enough for damp wind to tug at my coat before I pushed open the door.
The bell above it gave a tired little ring.
"Welcome."
The voice came from somewhere deeper inside the shop.
Warmth settled around us immediately—not the clean warmth of tea houses, but something older. Dust, dried lavender, aged paper, tobacco smoke soaked into wood over decades. The entire place smelled lived in.
I liked it immediately.
"Good afternoon, sir," I greeted automatically.
Behind the counter sat an old man with silver hair combed straight back, glasses low on his nose while he read a newspaper spread across the desk. He looked us over briefly before returning to the page.
Not unfriendly.
Just unconcerned.
I wandered toward the nearest shelf, boots creaking softly against the wooden floorboards.
"A foreigner," I murmured after pulling out a random novel. "Interesting."
The illustration on the cover showed a pale man beneath a moonlit sky. I angled it toward Qiang with a grin.
"Do you think they're a vampire?"
His eyes lifted just enough to acknowledge my existence.
Before he could answer, another voice drifted from the back of the shop.
"How is that not the answer?"
A few quiet laughs followed.
Curious, I leaned slightly around the shelf.
Three people sat around a cluttered table buried beneath books and loose papers. One had a pencil tucked behind their ear while another gestured dramatically in the middle of an argument.
Students, probably.
Or scholars.
There was barely a difference sometimes.
Qiang glanced at them once before calmly continuing deeper into the store.
"The city is not so bad," I said as I followed him.
Naturally, he had already found a chair beside the window.
And naturally, he had already reopened the exact same book he had been carrying around all day.
I dropped into the seat opposite him with exaggerated disappointment.
"If you are going to read the book you brought," I said, holding up the bookstore novel accusingly, "why come to a bookshop?"
He looked at the novel in my hands.
Then at his own.
Then back down at the page.
No answer.
Hopeless man.
Outside the window, people continued moving through the winter streets bundled in coats and scarves. Carriages rolled by often enough that the sound of wheels over stone had become part of the city's breathing.
I opened the novel anyway.
The paper felt rough beneath my fingertips.
"What do you think the clerk meant earlier?" I asked after a while, keeping my voice low beneath the quiet atmosphere of the shop. "Are we assisting them in something?"
Qiang turned a page.
"I don't know."
"And the way she phrased it…"
I stretched my legs slightly beneath the table.
"Retrieve."
The word still sat strangely in my head.
Retrieve sounded less like meeting someone and more like being collected for transport.
Something about it—
No. I still didn't like it.
I leaned back deeper into the chair with a sigh.
The bookstore settled around us in layers of quiet sound. Porcelain clicked faintly near the counter. One of the students whispered something before another immediately shushed them. Dust drifted lazily through strips of late afternoon sunlight crossing the floorboards.
Time moved differently here.
Not slower exactly.
Softer.
I read for a while without absorbing much of the story. My thoughts kept circling back toward the Concord building, the sealed letter we still hadn't been allowed to read, and the suspiciously easy way our task had apparently concluded.
Too easy, honestly.
Outside, the light gradually shifted from gold into amber.
Eventually Qiang closed his book with a soft thump.
"That was a good read."
I blinked at him.
Of course it was.
"What should we do now?" he asked.
I looked toward the window. Gas lamps along the street had already begun flickering awake one by one, warm light spreading against the deepening blue of evening.
"Dinner," I answered immediately.
The word alone made me realize how hungry I'd become.
Qiang nodded once.
"Should we eat at the hotel or—"
He stopped because we both already knew the answer.
The hotel restaurant had lost before the competition started.
Naturally.
I grinned as we stood.
The old man behind the counter glanced up while we approached the entrance.
"Take care."
I bowed slightly in return.
"You too, sir."
The evening air greeted us colder now.
The city remained fully alive beneath the fading light. Shop windows glowed warmly against darkening streets while voices drifted through passing crowds. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed loudly enough to turn heads before disappearing back into the noise.
"Let's walk around for a bit," Qiang suggested.
I stared at him.
"Even though that is what we have been doing all day?"
"Yes."
He stepped off the curb before I could continue arguing.
"That was then. Now is different."
I snorted quietly and followed after him.
"And this can improve our appetite," he added.
Convenient reasoning.
The sidewalks had grown busier with evening properly settling in. Office workers, merchants, students—everyone seemed to spill into the streets at once beneath the glow of gas lamps. The cold sharpened every smell drifting from the restaurants we passed: grilled meat, spices, fresh bread.
A woman in a long dark coat walked by wearing silver earrings that caught the light beautifully.
"That's a really lovely outfit," I murmured, mostly to myself.
The city dressed differently at night.
Less practical.
More deliberate.
As though darkness invited performance.
Eventually my legs began informing me that perhaps I had, in fact, walked enough for one day, so we flagged down a carriage.
The coachman flicked the reins and the carriage rolled back into the evening streets.
"Do you think we might be working with the Concord on something?" Qiang asked suddenly.
I watched the city drift past through the rattling window.
"Most likely."
Buildings slid by beneath strips of moonlight while carriage wheels hissed softly over damp stone.
Qiang hummed once in acknowledgment.
Enough conversation for the moment.
From inside the carriage, the city felt strangely distant. Restaurants glowed behind windows fogged by heat. Couples walked shoulder-to-shoulder beneath streetlamps, leaning into each other against the cold. Somewhere farther down the avenue, music drifted briefly from an upper-floor balcony before fading again into the sound of traffic.
"I wonder what we'll actually be doing," I sighed quietly.
The thought settled unpleasantly after I said it.
Not fear exactly.
Just the sense of standing slightly too close to something larger than myself.
Above the rooftops, the moon had finally emerged fully between the clouds.
By the time we returned to the hotel, night had settled properly over the city.
The lobby remained warm and softly lit. Travelers crossed through carrying luggage while, somewhere deeper inside the building, a pianist played something slow enough to blur into the background.
"I want to try something new," Qiang said as we headed toward the dining hall. "And equally delicious as last time."
"Same."
Dinner stretched comfortably after that.
We ordered completely different meals again, only to exchange half the dishes midway through anyway. The restaurant buzzed with conversation without ever becoming loud, waiters moving smoothly between tables beneath the warm glow of hanging lamps.
Outside the tall windows, snow threatened but never fully committed.
Afterward, warm and pleasantly full, we finally separated upstairs for the night.
I collapsed backward onto the bed almost immediately after entering my room.
The mattress dipped softly beneath me, and I was rapidly becoming emotionally attached to it.
Honestly, leaving this hotel might hurt.
Moonlight spilled through the window in pale silver bands, stretching across the floorboards and halfway up the opposite wall. I loosened my collar slightly and stared at the ceiling.
The city outside had quieted some, though not entirely.
Far below, carriage wheels still occasionally rolled through the streets. Somewhere in the distance, laughter rose briefly before dissolving again into the night.
I smiled faintly to myself.
"How did you say it again…"
The memory returned slowly—the waiter from dinner correcting my terrible pronunciation earlier, repeating the phrase patiently while trying not to laugh.
I chuckled quietly into the empty room.
"It had a nice finish."
The words lingered pleasantly in my head while moonlight rested against the walls.
And sometime after that, still listening to the distant breathing of the city beyond the glass, I drifted into sleep.