second grace [E, 28k] by lunarriviera
pairing: Mo Sanmei/Bai Sanwan
fandom: 人生大事 | Lighting Up the Stars (2022), 开始推理吧 | The Truth (TV 2022)
rating: explicit
words: 28k
warnings: no archive warnings apply
characters: Wu Xiaowen, Wang Jianren, Liu Xailai
tags: post-canon, kid fic, Wuhan, found family, noodle stalls, funeral parlors, mo sanmei's canonical impulsiveness, men crying, absent parents, bai sanwan's sketchy past, wu xiaowen speaks only truth, listen to her san-ge, ZYLBY48
Mo Sanmei scrubs at his head out of habit, but his hair’s grown out now, uneven and falling into his eyes, and it feels unexpectedly soft to the touch. Xiaowen’s left alone too often, he thinks, but he can’t do much about it, and anyway she’s always been fiercely self-sufficient. He should get married, probably. It would be more decent for Xiaowen to have a woman in the house—a real mother, since Wu Haifei left. He thinks about women he knows, but none of them seem right.
In which San-ge, already grateful for the miracle of Wu Xiaowen, stumbles onto another in the shape of local noodle-stall owner Bai Sanwan. And it's just as hard for him to accept this one, at first, until he lets Xiao Bai into his life.
[read it on ao3]
