The morning was crisp, with thin layers of mist curling over the tea garden like silk.
Xu Qingling lit a stick of sandalwood incense in the tea room and opened the windows to let in the scent of pine and damp soil. The first chrysanthemums had bloomed along the edge of the garden, pale gold with dew clinging to their petals.
Lin Mu emerged from the portable world just after dawn, carrying a woven basket filled with fresh starleaf buds and two newly ripened Heartlight Fruit.
"These were growing near the waterfall now," he said, holding one up. "They glow brighter when picked at night."
Xu Qingling touched one gently. "They smell sweeter, too."
---
They had no scheduled guests that day, something rare now.
Stillness House had never advertised, never posted online. And yet, the number of quiet footsteps at their gate increased weekly.
It wasn't popularity.
It was gravity.
The kind that drew in people carrying something too delicate to say aloud.
---
Around midmorning, the mailbox clinked.
A rare thing. Lin Mu stepped down the path and retrieved a thick envelope tied with a red ribbon.
No sender listed. Just a folded piece of rice paper and several old photos inside.
Xu Qingling opened it carefully at the tea table.
The letter was handwritten in elegant, slightly shaky script.
> *"To the caretakers of Stillness House—
I visited only once, last autumn. I was the man who sat by the pond without speaking.
I didn't have the courage to write in your guest journal, but I left something else:
A piece of my heart, finally settled after years of wandering.
I've since returned home and, for the first time, unpacked boxes I had sealed for nearly a decade.
Among them were these photographs—of my late wife, of our garden, of our favorite tea shop that no longer exists.
I'm sending them not as a burden, but as an offering.
Perhaps you'll tuck them into your garden somewhere. Let them rest among the petals.
Thank you,
Y. Tian"*
Xu Qingling was quiet as she sorted through the photos—some faded, some vibrant with memory.
One, in particular, caught her attention: a woman in a cheongsam, pouring tea under a cherry tree. Her smile was calm, patient.
She turned it over.
On the back: "Spring, 1997. She laughed the whole afternoon."
---
That afternoon, Lin Mu found a soft patch beneath the elderberry bush, and together they buried the photographs inside a wooden box lined with pressed jasmine petals.
Xu Qingling placed a single sprig of rosemary on top.
"He sent them to let go," she said, standing. "But also to remember."
Lin Mu nodded. "The garden will keep them."
---
Later, as the sky turned silver, they brewed a new blend using the Heartlight Fruit and newly gathered osmanthus from the portable world.
The result was bright, fragrant, and tinged with something neither of them could quite name.
"Memory," Xu Qingling said after her first sip. "But not sadness."
They called it "Warm Echo."
---
Just before dusk, a familiar figure appeared at the gate—Grandpa Yu, carrying a small wooden flute and a bamboo walking stick.
"I was nearby," he said, "and my feet decided before I did."
They served him a cup of Stone Root, and he sat by the wisteria arch, watching the light shift through the leaves.
After a while, he looked toward the tea pavilion and asked, "You two ever think about teaching?"
"Teaching what?" Lin Mu asked.
"This," Grandpa Yu said, gesturing to everything. "Stillness. Observation. The way you steep the day, not just the leaves."
Xu Qingling smiled softly. "We're still learning it ourselves."
"That's exactly why you're the right ones," he said.
---
That night, under the flickering lanterns in the portable world, they discussed the idea.
"Not a school," Lin Mu said. "But something like a guided silence."
Xu Qingling traced a circle in the moss with her fingertip. "Maybe one person at a time. Just one."
They decided to leave the idea alone—let it steep, like everything else.
---
Before bed, Xu Qingling returned to the guest journal.
She opened it to a fresh page and wrote:
> "Not all gifts are given in person. Some arrive in silence, wrapped in memory."
She tucked a dried chrysanthemum petal between the pages and closed the book gently.
---
The next morning brought a change.
The air felt different, charged with something invisible but certain.
Lin Mu walked through the garden and noticed it too: a new vine creeping along the back wall of the portable world—its leaves shaped like tiny hearts, its blossoms soft gold, pulsing faintly with warmth.
When he touched one, it gave off a scent like tea steam and old paper.
Xu Qingling joined him moments later, her eyes wide.
"This wasn't here before," she whispered.
"It feels like… the past is growing with us."
They decided to name the vine Memorybloom.
And though neither of them said it aloud, they both knew what it meant:
Stillness House was becoming more than a place.
It was becoming a keeper of stories.
---
End of Chapter 20