On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the old house was snowing. Su Qing squatted on the kitchen floor and sighed at the burnt macarons. The burnt smell from the oven mixed with the fragrance of winter plums outside the window reminded her of the embarrassing incident last week when she set off the fire alarm while baking cookies at Zhou Group. "It's really over this time," she poked the charcoal-black "dragon-shaped" dessert, "The elders must think I'm taking revenge for breaking the celadon bowl last time." Lin Aotian pushed the door open, his suit trouser legs stained with incense ash from the ancestral hall - he had just been burning incense for his mother, but the dragon-patterned jade pendant on his chest was hung upside down. "Who said that?" He picked up a barely formed macaron and made a "crunch" sound when he bit it. "It has a crispy texture, which goes well with the smoked black tea Zhou Mingxuan brought." Su Qing looked up and saw the cocoa powder on the corners of his mouth. She suddenly laughed out loud: "You tied your tie wrong again. This is the Windsor knot tutorial I learned yesterday." She took out her mobile phone. There were 20 photos of him tying his tie wrongly in the album. The latest one was an emoji of him trying to compete in front of the mirror this morning. The crystal chandelier in the clan banquet hall reflected Su Qing's apron. She was decorating a dragon-shaped cake, but the cream bag suddenly burst, and the white cream covered half of her face. Zhou Mingxuan rushed in holding a cell phone, with a homemade "Dessert Director" badge on his floral shirt: "Something bad is happening! The CEO of the Southeast Asian consortium arrived early and is now staring at your burnt macarons!"
"What are you panicking about?" Lin Aotian wiped Su Qing's face with a tissue, his fingertips brushing the cream on the tip of her nose, "Put the burnt macarons on a plate and say that this is a limited edition of 'Ice and Fire Fusion', worthy of their ice-breaking journey." He suddenly lowered his voice, "Chen Mo said that the other party came with a photo of his mother, and he and my mother were classmates in the sailing class."
In the banquet hall, the elder was toasting with the CEO of the consortium in a suit and tie, who was staring at the burnt macarons on the table with a subtle expression. Su Qing took a deep breath and approached with the freshly baked almond dragon biscuit: "Sir, try it? Although the appearance is not perfect, it contains coconut flakes brought by the old sailor from Malacca."
The CEO's chopsticks paused in mid-air. Seeing the crooked dragon claw marks on the biscuit, he suddenly chuckled: "When your mother was on the ship, she always said, 'The real deliciousness is hidden in imperfection.'" He took out a yellowed photo. Twenty years ago, Lin Xueli stood on the deck, holding a similar almond biscuit in her hand. "She saved my life. At that time, I was a seasick trainee sailor."
Lin Aotian looked at his mother's young smile in the photo, and suddenly remembered the celadon bowl that Su Qing broke at the winter solstice festival - his mother always knocked a small chip on the edge of the bowl, saying "this way it won't slip when you pick it up." He suddenly said: "We don't want equity for the additional 3 billion investment you want."
The CEO raised his eyebrows: "What does Mr. Lin want?"
"Build a sailing school for the old sailors of Zhou Group," Lin Aotian pointed to Old Chen, who was making a milk tea gesture with Zhou Mingxuan in the corner, "Let them pass on the story to the next generation, just like my mother did back then."
The atmosphere in the banquet hall suddenly softened, and the elder's cane no longer beat out a rapid rhythm, but swayed gently with Old Chen's sailing tune. Su Qing took the opportunity to push the burnt macaron over: "In fact, sprinkle some sea salt on the burnt part, the taste is more special!"
When the dinner reached its climax, Zhou Mingxuan rushed onto the stage with a microphone in his hand, and his floral shirt was full of dessert forks: "Next, please enjoy - "The Daily Life of the Dragon King" directed by me!" The screen lit up, and it was playing a candid video of Lin Aotian taking a nap in the office and Su Qing secretly sticking on a freesia hairpin.
"Zhou Mingxuan!" Lin Aotian's roar was mixed with the laughter of the audience, but Su Qing pointed at his crooked tie on the screen and laughed until tears came out. Old Chen took the opportunity to take the microphone and sang the sailing song of the year in his hoarse voice. The lyrics were mixed with the jokes about scallion pancakes and bubble tea, which made the investors in suits and leather shoes follow the beat.
In the study room of the old house late at night, Su Qing lay on Lin Aotian's desk, with her head resting on her mother's sailing log. The jade bracelet on her wrist was attached to the newly baked dragon-shaped biscuits, and the biscuit crumbs fell into the gap of the log, just covering the annotation of the word "ambergris". Lin Aotian looked at her curled toes and suddenly remembered the scene when she fell asleep in the library in college and kicked his notebook to the ground with her foot.
"Aotian," Su Qing suddenly said in a dreamy voice, "Will you teach me how to drive a cargo ship tomorrow?"
He chuckled, covered her with a blanket, and ran his fingertips over his mother's handwriting in the diary: "Real ambergris is not the spice in the deep sea, but the smell of fireworks in the world." The phone vibrated, and Chen Mo sent a message: "The CEO of the consortium decided to invest 5 billion, on the condition that Miss Su will serve as the honorary principal of the navigation school."
The snow stopped at some point, and the moonlight flowed on Su Qing's face through the window lattice. Lin Aotian looked at the cream stains on her apron, and suddenly realized that the so-called Longyu business was never a solo dance of capital, but like the cookies baked by Su Qing, the videos shot by Zhou Mingxuan, and the ballads sung by the old sailors, they melted the ice of the business world with the warmth of life.
When the first ray of morning light climbed up the plaque of "Longyu Hall", Su Qing's alarm clock rang on time. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, and suddenly pointed at Lin Aotian's tie and laughed: "You wore a bow tie at the banquet yesterday, right? The elders must have secretly recorded it in the family tree!"
"Remember it," Lin Aotian pulled off his tie, revealing the freesia pendant Su Qing gave him, "Anyway, they still remember your glorious deeds of baking rice cakes into lizards." He suddenly leaned in, and the smell of baked cakes in her hair lingered on his nose, "But seriously, starting tomorrow, do you want to formally learn to make clan cakes?"
Su Qing picked up the pillow and threw it over: "Learn how to tie your tie first!" The laughter scared away the sparrows on the windowsill, but for the first time, this century-old house was filled with the imperfect warmth of young people.
And this, perhaps, is what his mother wanted to tell him the most back then - when ambergris is integrated into the fireworks of the world, even the coldest rules will turn into spring water that nourishes all things. In the ocean of capital, the most powerful helmsman is not the one who controls the stormy waves, but the one who can make the waves roll with the aroma of biscuits and the sails float with freesia. After all, a true business empire should always be built in the warm human world.