There was a dent on the back of the note.
Lin Yinan didn’t notice it until late that night, back in his kitchen.
He had spread the note flat on the table, wanting to read those four words again.
When he flipped it over, the light caught a very shallow groove—not drawn, not written, but pressed in, as if whoever had written on the page above had pressed down so hard that the mark bled through to the next sheet.
He couldn’t tell what character it was.
He stared at it for a few seconds, then flipped the note back over and set it on the upper left corner of the table.
He didn’t trace it.
Didn’t guess.
A dent was just a dent.
It didn’t matter.
There was also something else on the table: the returned red bean cake.
When he took it out of the brown paper bag, the edges had already dried out, but the indented teeth marks were still clear.
He turned the cake over to look at the bottom—the browning was uneven, darker on the right side than the left, with a slight collapse along the rim, like a structure that couldn’t quite hold its own weight.
He placed the cake next to the note, then took out flour, water, sugar, and red bean filling from the fridge.
He mixed a fresh bowl of batter.
Not to replicate.
To see.
If he lowered the flour ratio slightly, would the batter flow differently when poured into the molds?
If he used a little less filling, would the crust’s structural integrity change during baking?
He stirred, then stopped to look at the batter in the bowl, like he was examining something he’d made a thousand times but had never really looked at before.
His hands were steady.
But for the first time, he didn’t stop stirring out of habit.
He stopped three times.
Picked it up to look.
Set it down and stirred again.
In the end, he decided to make two versions tomorrow.
Not because she wanted to eat them.
Because he wanted to know—the “gravity” she mentioned—whether he could see it too.
He divided the two batters into separate steel bowls, covered them with damp cloths, and put them in the fridge.
Before turning off the light, he glanced one more time at the note on the table.
Four words.
No signature.
No date.
“The gravity is off.” He turned off the light.
The sky wasn’t fully bright yet.
Lin Yinan pulled back the cart’s canvas tarp.
Oil Seal was already on the awning, front paws tucked under its belly like a lump of butter not yet starting to melt.
Lin Yinan didn’t look up at it.
He lit the burner under the copper molds and took the two steel bowls out of the cooler bag, setting them on the inner shelf of the cart.
The bowl on the left held the original batter.
The bowl on the right held the adjusted batter.
He didn’t label them.
But he knew which was which.
The copper molds began to heat up.
When he poured the first batch of batter in, he filled two wells simultaneously—the left with the original batter, the right with the adjusted batter.
The batter flowed into the wells at different speeds.
The right one moved a little faster, like water.
The left one slower, like mud.
He watched them slowly rise in the molds.
Not much difference.
But he could see it.
The first customers trickled in.
The man in the suit stopped in front of the cart: “Two custard.” Lin Yinan took two from the original batch on the left, bagged them, took payment.
A middle schooler bought a red bean one, eating it as he walked, his backpack bouncing behind him.
A mother pushing a stroller bought one custard and one red bean.
An old man cycled past without stopping, calling out, “Got taro today?” “No.” “Tomorrow?” “Don’t know.” As Lin Yinan sold the cakes, he was selling both versions.
He didn’t label them, didn’t explain, just mixed the adjusted cakes in with the original ones.
He wanted to see if he could tell the difference from his customers’ reactions.
No one noticed.
The cakes from both molds looked identical in the customers’ hands.
But Oil Seal leaned down from the awning to look.
It looked at the left well, then the right well.
Then it turned its head back to Lin Yinan.
Lin Yinan was pouring new batter into the molds, not looking up.
But he felt Oil Seal watching him.
He paused.
“…What are you looking at.” Oil Seal didn’t meow.
But its ear turned toward the right well.
Lin Yinan stared at the cat for a few seconds.
“……You’re not a cat.” Oil Seal turned its head back.
The breakfast shop auntie pushed open her door and stepped out, holding a cup of tea still steaming.
She stood beside the cart, glanced at the freshly baked cakes on the iron plate, then at Lin Yinan’s expression.
“You look different today.” “…Different how.” “You don’t normally talk to cats.” Lin Yinan didn’t answer.
He poured new batter into the molds, his movements as steady as ever.
But the adjusted batch on the right was already nearly half gone.
A red scooter screeched to a halt in front of the cart.
The apprentice jumped off, helmet still dangling from his hand, drenched in sweat.
This time he wasn’t carrying a brown paper bag, and he didn’t have a cake with him.
He just pulled a note from his pocket and placed it on the edge of the cart.
“Sister Jiang said to give you this.” He set down the note but didn’t leave immediately.
He stood by his scooter, like he had something else to say.
Lin Yinan picked up the note and unfolded it.
Three words: “The second one.” He looked at those three words.
He didn’t ask.
He folded the note and put it in his apron pocket—next to the first one.
The apprentice was still standing there.
“…Something else?” The apprentice hesitated.
“Brother Lin, can I ask you something?” “Go ahead.” “When Sister Jiang gave me the note to give to you,” the apprentice’s expression was complicated, like he was reporting a fault code he didn’t understand, “she said—’If he asks why, tell him “you know.”‘” Lin Yinan: “…” The apprentice: “She was unscrewing a bolt when she said it.
Wasn’t looking at me.” Lin Yinan: “……” The apprentice: “So I don’t know if she was talking to you or to the bolt.” He revved the scooter.
“Anyway.
Note delivered.” The red scooter echoed in the alley for a few seconds before disappearing around the corner.
The breakfast shop auntie was still standing by the cart.
She took a sip of her tea, her gaze dropping to Lin Yinan’s apron pocket.
“The second one?” “…Mm.” “She knows you made two versions?” Lin Yinan paused.
“…I don’t know.” The auntie didn’t press.
She turned and walked back into her shop.
The metal shutter slid down slowly behind her, hiding half the storefront.
The alley was quiet for a while.
Lin Yinan looked down at the cakes slowly rising in the copper molds.
The row on the left was the original batch.
The row on the right was the adjusted batch.
He wasn’t selling them separately.
He just kept pouring batter, flipping, lifting from the molds, bagging.
His movements were the same as always.
But he would stop to look—at the cakes on the right, whether they were rising a little faster than the ones on the left, whether the surface cracks were different.
Oil Seal sat on the awning throughout.
Didn’t meow.
Just watched.
Around noon, the street was at its quietest.
The soy milk shop’s steam had stopped rising.
The breakfast shop’s metal shutter was closed.
The alley held nothing but the wind and the faint sizzle of the heating molds.
Lin Yinan was pouring the last batch of batter into the molds.
The adjusted version on the right was finished.
There was still a little of the original recipe left on the left.
He heard footsteps.
He didn’t look up.
But the rhythm of the footsteps was steady—the interval between each step almost identical, as if calculated.
The footsteps stopped in front of the cart.
He looked up.
Jiang Shoushi was standing in front of the cart.
She wore the repair shop’s navy blue coveralls, grease stains on the cuffs.
She wasn’t carrying anything.
Her hair was tied back haphazardly, a strand falling loose at the side of her face.
She hadn’t come on the scooter, hadn’t brought the apprentice.
She’d come alone.
She stood there, not looking at the menu.
Her gaze passed over Lin Yinan’s shoulder and landed on the edge of the iron plate.
That one adjusted cake was still there.
He’d deliberately left it as the last one unsold.
She pointed at it.
“That one.” Lin Yinan didn’t move.
He looked at her.
“…How did you know it was that one?” “I saw you pour it from the bowl on the right.” Lin Yinan: “……” He didn’t ask again.
He picked up that cake with the tongs, put it in a paper bag, and handed it to her.
Jiang Shoushi took the bag but didn’t bite into it immediately.
She took the cake out of the bag first, turned it over to look at the bottom—the browning pattern, the curve of the rim.
Then she rotated it once, like she was checking the tolerance on a component.
She took a bite.
Chewed for a long time.
Lin Yinan didn’t rush.
He stood behind the cart, still holding the tongs, not putting them down.
The wind blew through the mouth of the alley, lifting a corner of the cart’s tarp and letting it fall again.
Jiang Shoushi swallowed.
“Yesterday’s cake started giving way at the fourth bite.” Lin Yinan didn’t respond.
She took another bite.
Chewed.
“—Because it started collapsing.” “…Why?” “Weight.” She paused.
Lin Yinan paused too.
“So your note said—” “I didn’t know how else to describe it.” She looked down at the cake in her hand, like she was examining a part she hadn’t fully disassembled yet.
After a moment, she said: “The gravity is off.” Then she took another bite.
Lin Yinan stood there.
The tongs were still in his hand.
He realized he’d been gripping them the whole time, hadn’t put them down.
“…And today’s?” Jiang Shoushi didn’t answer.
She finished the entire cake.
After she swallowed the last bite, she folded the paper bag neatly and held it in her hand.
“This one’s right.” “…How could you tell?” “You changed the batter density.” She said it simply.
Like it was obvious.
“The filling settles more slowly now.
The air layer’s still there between the crust and the filling.” Lin Yinan: “…How could you tell that just by eating it?” “I bit it.” She said.
“You don’t explain everything at once.” Lin Yinan: “……” Jiang Shoushi looked away from the cake and met his eyes.
“You have another one.” She said.
Not a question.
Lin Yinan looked down at the molds.
There was still one original-recipe cake left on the left row.
He picked it up with the tongs, put it in a paper bag, and handed it to her.
Jiang Shoushi took it, bit into it.
Chewed.
“This one’s right too.” She paused.
“But that one was better.” She meant the first one.
Lin Yinan didn’t speak.
He didn’t know what to say.
He’d made thousands of cakes, and no one had ever eaten them like this—biting in, dismantling them, then telling him in a different language what he’d done.
Jiang Shoushi finished the second one.
She folded the paper bag, nested it with the first one, and held them together in her hand.
“…So?” He asked.
“Good.” She said.
A pause.
He waited for her to continue.
“That’s all.” She said.
Lin Yinan: “……” “You asked me how it was.
I said good.
That’s all.” Lin Yinan: “…Then why did you eat the second one?” Jiang Shoushi looked down at the two folded bags in her hand.
“Because I was hungry.
Not testing.” She said.
Lin Yinan: “……” She didn’t explain.
Didn’t add anything.
She just put the two paper bags into her coverall pocket.
Then she raised her head, looking past Lin Yinan’s shoulder, toward the awning.
“What’s its name?” “…Oil Seal.” “Like the grease seal?” “Yeah.” “It sits there every day?” “…Yeah.” “Okay.” She didn’t ask why.
She just nodded once, then turned and walked back toward the repair shop.
Her footsteps had the same rhythm as when she came—the interval between each step almost the same, as if calculated.
Lin Yinan stood behind the cart, still holding the tongs.
He looked down at the molds.
The burner was still on.
There was a little batter left in the original-recipe bowl on the left.
He poured it into the well, flipped it, lifted it from the mold, bagged it.
His movements were as steady as always.
But he didn’t put that cake on the iron plate to sell.
He set it on the shelf beside the cart.
After it cooled, he’d put it in a brown paper bag.
Afternoon.
The street grew even quieter.
The breakfast shop had long since closed.
The soy milk shop’s metal shutter was pulled down.
The garbage truck had come and gone.
Lin Yinan was packing up.
He wiped the copper molds clean and put them back in the tool bucket.
He washed the two steel bowls and set them upside down on the rack.
He closed the change box and slid it into the bottom drawer of the cart.
He paused.
He took the two notes from his apron pocket.
The first: “The gravity is off.” The second: “The second one.” He spread them out on the shelf side by side and compared them.
The handwriting was identical.
The strokes were concise, each one crisp, as if written with a ruler.
The paper quality was the same too, the edges cut neatly.
He folded them and put them back in his pocket.
He stepped out from behind the cart and walked across to the repair shop.
The repair shop’s metal shutter was half open, the fluorescent lights still on.
There were fewer cars inside now; the wrenches on the tool wall were hung neatly.
He stood outside the entrance, not going in.
Through the gap in the shutter, he could see Jiang Shoushi at her workbench.
On the corner of her workbench, there was a small glass jar.
Inside it were crumbs.
Cake crumbs.
Some still showing bite marks.
He watched for a long time.
Then he took a small piece of red plastic from his pocket—the piece that had been beside Oil Seal on the awning this morning, like the casing of a scooter turn signal.
He didn’t know where it had come from.
He’d just picked it up.
He placed the fragment on the shelf by the metal shutter.
Didn’t knock.
Didn’t call out.
Didn’t leave a note.
He just placed it there, then turned and walked back to his cart.
He didn’t see if she turned around.
He didn’t look back to check.
As he walked back to his cart, Oil Seal jumped down from the awning.
It didn’t follow behind him.
It walked ahead of him.
Not too close, not too far—about three paces.
At the mouth of the alley, it suddenly stopped and sat down, like a stone placed in the middle of the road.
Lin Yinan walked past it.
Didn’t stop.
Didn’t look down.
He was almost at the corner when he heard a very faint sound—not a meow.
An ear twitching.
The sound of fur brushing against itself.
He didn’t look back.
He turned into the deeper part of the alley.
The night swallowed his footsteps.
Evening.
The street slowly darkened.
The breakfast shop’s metal shutter had long been pulled down.
The soy milk shop’s steam had stopped rising.
The garbage truck hadn’t come back.
The repair shop’s lights were still on, but the shutter was already half-lowered.
Lin Yinan returned to his cart to do one last thing.
He opened the molds and took out the last cake—the original-recipe one from the afternoon, the one he’d kept.
The crust had cooled, turned from golden to light brown, its edges slightly collapsed.
He put it in a paper bag and placed it on the very edge of the cart, weighing down the corner of the bag with a small saucer.
He was locking up the cart.
The breakfast shop auntie walked out with her tea.
She stood beside the cart, looking down at the paper bag held down by the saucer.
“Who’s that one for today?” “Don’t know.” “You used to say ‘one extra.'” “……” Lin Yinan fastened the lock.
“Today it’s not an extra.” He straightened up.
“Today I’m leaving one behind.” The auntie looked at the saucer for a while.
“You use a saucer to hold down a paper bag, and you say you’re leaving one for someone.” Lin Yinan: “……” The auntie: “I don’t know if you’re leaving the cake or the saucer.” She took her tea and turned back into her shop.
Lin Yinan stood beside the cart.
The wind blew, lifting a corner of the tarp and letting it fall again.
He looked at the paper bag.
The saucer was still on it.
He knew that when he came back tomorrow morning, the saucer would still be there, and the paper bag would still be there.
But if someone came to take it, she’d take it herself.
He didn’t plan to check.
He turned and walked into the alley.
The entire street went dark.
The repair shop’s lights went out.
The metal shutter closed fully, with a very light metallic clink.
Only the awning remained.
Oil Seal wasn’t there.
It was sitting at the mouth of the alley, like a stone that hadn’t yet been picked up.
The wind blew.
Its ear twitched.
Very soft.
End of Chapter 2.