A pale mist drifted in from the eastern hills, hugging the stone path that led to Stillness House. It was early, even by Lin Mu's standards, but he had already lit the morning incense. The soft coils of sandalwood smoke curled around the edges of the courtyard, blending with the scent of fresh tea leaves drying on the rack.
The silence was whole—not hollow, but filled with presence.
Xu Qingling stepped into the courtyard barefoot, hair still damp from the bath, a cloth pouch in one hand. "I dreamed of water again," she said, brushing dew from a bench with her sleeve.
"Shallow or deep?"
"Endless," she replied. "But warm."
She placed the cloth pouch on the Petal Table. Inside were five polished stones, each marked with a hand-painted circle. One red, one blue, one gold, one silver, and one white.
"Game pieces?" Lin Mu asked.
"Something like that. I felt them in the dream. Like markers… for beginnings."
---
After their morning tea—a gentle infusion of rose root and rain fennel—they walked to the small willow grove behind Stillness House. A breeze stirred the thin branches, and the leaves rustled like a whisper half-remembered.
There, beneath the oldest willow, Xu Qingling knelt and began placing the five stones in a circle on the mossy ground.
"I don't know what this is yet," she murmured. "But it feels like something needs to be invited."
Lin Mu watched her with quiet respect. In recent months, he had learned that when Xu Qingling acted on intuition, something always revealed itself in time. He returned to the house and brought back a bowl of dried wind-blossom petals and a jar of honeyed water.
Together, they arranged the space—a circle of petals around the stones, a line drawn from the willow's roots to the center. No instructions. No chants.
Just attention. Just presence.
When they stepped back, the wind slowed.
A hush settled—so soft, even the birds seemed to pause mid-song.
Then a leaf fell inside the circle, landing gently on the white stone.
Xu Qingling smiled. "That's the first."
---
They didn't speak of the circle again that day.
Instead, they returned to the Wind Room and began sorting herbs for the next market visit. While Stillness House was a quiet retreat, once every two weeks Lin Mu traveled to a small town nearby to sell tea and dried arrangements, always anonymously. No business name. Just a small hand-painted wooden sign that read:
> "Tea That Remembers You."
That afternoon, he prepared the parcels—twelve jars of loose blends, each with hand-written tags:
Evening Forget – for grief that's overstayed.
Whisperbright – for shy beginnings.
Stillroot – to anchor the mind during storms.
Hope of Nine Petals – for courage with no reason.
Xu Qingling added one new jar without a label.
When Lin Mu raised an eyebrow, she said, "It's not meant for sale. Just… leave it where someone's eyes will catch it."
He nodded. They didn't need to explain everything to each other anymore.
Some feelings didn't need translation.
---
That evening, as the sky turned to lavender, a new visitor arrived.
A man in his sixties with a cane carved from driftwood and eyes that had seen too many endings. He entered without speaking and went straight to the Petal Table. After studying it in silence, he sat on the stone bench by the Wind Room and removed a folded handkerchief from his coat.
Inside was a locket. Rusted. Its clasp slightly broken.
He held it in his palm for a long time before placing it gently on the table.
Then he asked, "Do you bury things here?"
Xu Qingling stepped closer. "Only if the thing has already begun to disappear."
He nodded slowly. "Then it's time."
They brewed him Moonlight Root, a rare blend reserved for those who'd already said goodbye once but still carried the echo.
As he drank, he said nothing. But his hands, which had trembled when he entered, began to still.
After he left, they found a note folded beneath the teacup.
> "I gave her this locket on our first walk in the snow. Now she walks without me. This place lets me stop walking too."
They wrapped the locket in silk and placed it in the base of the willow tree's roots.
The moss accepted it like an old friend returning home.
---
The next morning, the five-circle stone formation beneath the willow had changed.
The red and blue stones had faint trails of ash beside them, as if something had passed over in the night. In the center of the circle was a single feather—black, soft, unbroken.
Neither of them questioned it.
They simply placed the feather on the mural wall, inside a small wooden frame with no glass.
---
Lin Mu left for the market that afternoon.
Xu Qingling remained behind, tending to the gardens and preparing scrolls of pressed flower arrangements.
At the market, Lin Mu set up his small stall beneath a weeping elm. He didn't call out. Didn't advertise. He simply laid out the jars and let the space invite its own rhythm.
A young girl approached, no older than ten, dragging a suitcase.
"Are these for drinking or dreaming?" she asked, peering at the jars.
"Both," Lin Mu replied.
She picked up the unlabeled jar Xu Qingling had added.
"This one's mine," she said confidently. "It smells like the song my grandmother used to hum."
He didn't ask how she knew. He simply nodded and handed it to her.
"No charge."
She gave a small, serious bow, then left without another word.
That evening, he found a folded paper crane in his basket, with a single phrase written on the wing:
> "When I forget who I am, I remember her humming."
He placed it in his pouch and brought it home.
---
Back at Stillness House, Xu Qingling was painting a new portion of the mural—this time in blue ink made from boiled indigo petals and resin. It curled like river current across the wall, connecting the older spirals and blossoms.
When Lin Mu returned, they shared their stories.
She of the feather. He of the girl and the paper crane.
Then she turned to him and asked, "Have we become a place people visit to forget, or to remember?"
Lin Mu thought for a long moment.
"Maybe forgetting and remembering are the same thing," he said. "We're just helping them breathe between the two."
---
They brewed Willowthread tea that night, made from a new plant growing near the willow grove in the portable world. It tasted like green light, like rain just before it falls.
They drank on the porch, the tea warming their palms as fireflies began to dance beyond the garden.
Xu Qingling leaned her head against Lin Mu's shoulder.
"Do you think we'll ever run out of room?" she asked.
"Not if we stop trying to hold everything," he replied. "Let it pass through us. Let this place carry the rest."
The wind stirred.
The willow leaves whispered back.
---
End of Chapter 28