Chapter One: The Man She Could Not Hear

When they first met three years ago, he was calibrating the acoustics of a theater. Standing in the last row of the empty auditorium, he had asked, “If I whisper here, can someone onstage hear me?” She heard a technician thinking about dinner and an investor silently vowing to finish the project on schedule. From Zhou Xubai came only the hush of falling snow. It was why she approached him, and part of why she fell in love. A man she could not read in advance was a door she finally had to open with her own hands. Her phone lit up with his message: Tasting at seven. Don't forget. Your groom needs an appointment too. He had added a sticker of a bowing cat. Lin Wan smiled. Tang Li peered over. “Still this sweet in the final week. I'm reassured.”