The morning before the quarterfinal match, Lan Yue found a plum blossom on her windowsill.
It was fresh. Pale pink, still holding dew, placed precisely in the center of the ledge where it could not have blown in by accident. The stem had been cut cleanly with a blade, not snapped, which meant someone had taken the time to do it properly.
Lan Yue picked it up and held it like it was made of glass.
She tucked it into her hair before she could think about why, and spent the rest of the morning pretending she had not done that.
At the training grounds, she found Zhao Lingxi practicing alone. Not the intense, isolated sessions of the previous week. Lighter. Controlled. The ice formations she conjured were delicate, almost decorative, spiraling upward like frozen calligraphy before dissolving into mist.
