The camellias were blooming again.
It had begun quietly, as most things did at Stillness House. First a few buds, tightly wrapped, like secrets unsure of being told. Then, without ceremony, a single bloom opened fully in the early morning light—soft pink petals unfurling in the hush before sunrise.
Xu Qingling was the first to notice.
She had risen before dawn to make tea for the Listening Bell, a ritual she had begun only recently but now felt necessary. It wasn't that the Bell needed tea—but that the air around it responded differently when warmed by intention. She moved through the courtyard barefoot, the cold tiles grounding her steps, the silence wrapping around her like a shawl.
When she passed the camellia hedge, she stopped.
The bloom glowed faintly in the morning dim.
It felt like a nod. Not from her to the world, but from the world to her.
She bowed, then continued on.
---
Lin Mu was already in the portable world by then.
The Room With No Corners had continued to evolve. Not in shape, but in sensation. Guests often returned from it looking different—not visibly altered, but subtly rearranged. As if someone had quietly reshuffled the contents of their chest and left the heaviest piece in a softer place.
He was there now, not to write or observe, but to clean.
Even this sacred space needed dusting, occasional patching. The moss floor had gathered too much moisture in one corner, and several of the cloth panels had begun to fray where hands lingered too often.
He took his time.
While working, he found something tucked between two panels—a folded napkin, damp at the edges, with a small pressed flower inside.
There was no name.
No message.
Just the flower, preserved in the fold, as if someone needed to say, "I remember this. And I want you to remember it, too."
He refolded the napkin and placed it in the low drawer beside the central writing desk.
It belonged there now.
---
By mid-morning, the house had stirred to quiet life.
Guests filtered in slowly: a mother and daughter from Kunming, two middle-aged friends who ran a secondhand bookshop in Chengdu, and a young ceramicist traveling alone, whose luggage was mostly clay samples.
They didn't arrive in a rush. Stillness House never invited urgency.
The mother and daughter asked about the orchard first.
The friends inquired about the Listening Bell.
The ceramicist said nothing at all, just stood for several minutes before the Wind Room's open door, her face unreadable.
Xu Qingling, carrying a tray of fresh tea, approached her gently.
"You're welcome to sit inside," she said. "Or walk the path. Or simply stand."
The woman blinked.
Then nodded.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "I came to stand. That's all."
And so she did.
For nearly an hour.
---
Later that afternoon, Lin Mu and Xu Qingling sat beneath the camellia hedge with a notebook between them. Not one of the house journals—but their private one. The one they used when trying to plan things that refused to be planned.
Today's topic: a new room.
But not just any room.
"I keep thinking," Xu Qingling said, "we have spaces for listening, for remembering, for letting go… but not for receiving."
Lin Mu looked up from where he was sketching a curved bench.
"Receiving?"
"Yes. The moment when someone is ready to say yes. Not to anything specific. Just… yes to something new."
He considered this.
"A room for beginnings."
"Exactly."
They sat with the idea for a while.
The camellia petals swirled in the soft breeze.
Then Lin Mu turned the page and began drawing again.
---
The new space emerged slowly in the portable world.
Not like the others.
This one began not as a structure or garden, but a sound.
A bell tone, faint and high, that seemed to come from nowhere. The tone would appear in the ears of those who were open—never loud, never startling. Just enough to turn the head. To pause a thought mid-sentence.
Then, a clearing appeared.
Not within the previous spaces, but slightly removed—just far enough to require choice.
At the center of the clearing: a circle of white stones.
And in the very middle: a glass bowl of water, perfectly still.
It wasn't marked. No plaque, no sign.
But when Xu Qingling stepped into the circle for the first time, the air around her shifted.
It felt like a page turning.
---
Guests were not led there.
But some found their way.
The young ceramicist, for instance, was the first.
She returned from the grove of letters in the evening, silent and flushed. Instead of going back to her room, she walked—seemingly without direction—and ended up at the white stone circle.
She stood just outside it for a long time.
Then stepped in.
She didn't touch the bowl.
She didn't speak.
But when she returned, she sat with Xu Qingling on the Wind Room steps and said, "I think I'm ready to begin again."
She didn't say what.
Xu Qingling didn't ask.
But she poured her a second cup of tea, and they drank together beneath the hanging lanterns.
---
Lin Mu noticed the subtle change in the orchard the next morning.
Where once there had been a small section of uneven terrain, there was now a soft rise—a gentle hill, freshly covered in grass. At its summit: a single camellia bloom, untouched.
The hill hadn't been there the day before.
But it didn't feel out of place.
He knelt beside the flower and waited.
A breeze passed.
The petals held steady.
He smiled.
A beginning had taken root.
---
That afternoon, Xu Qingling received an unexpected message.
It came not by post or phone—but in the form of an old friend.
Lan Yue, her university roommate, appeared at the gate in a rain-specked coat, her suitcase trailing a squeaky wheel. She looked older, thinner, but her eyes still carried the same flickering warmth.
"Qingling," she said, "I didn't know where else to go."
Xu Qingling embraced her without a word.
Later, they sat in the Wind Room, sipping honeysuckle tea. Lan Yue stared into the fire and said, "He left. And I couldn't stop him."
Xu Qingling nodded slowly.
"I know that kind of leaving."
"I don't want to talk about him," Lan Yue added. "I just want to remember who I was before."
"Then you've come to the right place."
---
Over the next two days, Lan Yue didn't explore much.
She didn't visit the orchard or the pine bench or even the mural wall.
She just lingered—between rooms, on the veranda, in the kitchen where she helped chop herbs in silence.
Then on the third night, she disappeared.
Not from the house—but from its usual rhythm.
Xu Qingling found her the next morning standing in the circle of white stones.
Lan Yue didn't notice her.
She was staring into the bowl of water.
Tears streamed silently down her face.
When she stepped out of the circle, she said only, "I didn't know I could still feel that much."
And Xu Qingling held her hand all the way back.
---
The ceramicist left a day later.
Before she did, she presented Lin Mu with a gift: a small cup, glazed in soft gray, with an uneven lip and three tiny fingerprints on the base.
"It's not perfect," she said.
"That's why it fits here," he replied.
She bowed.
And was gone.
They placed the cup in the Wind Room, beside the guest log.
Not for use.
Just for presence.
---
That evening, a guest left a letter in the grove addressed to "Who I Used To Be."
Xu Qingling read only the final line before sealing it in the wind-fold box:
> "I forgive you, but I will not follow you anymore."
She placed it beside the napkin with the flower.
Then lit a candle.
And let it burn until dawn.
---
End of Chapter 36