Li Yuan folded the letter and slipped it into his shirt pocket.
Outside the window, Qinlu continued with its bustling afternoon: merchants shouting their wares, children chasing kites, carts creaking along cobbled streets.
But inside the little noodle shop, something felt different from the days before.
Not because the noise had stopped—people still came from time to time with notebooks, whispers of the "Li Yuan phenomenon" still floated in the air.
But because the flow had found a new path.
A path that neither resisted attention nor depended on it.
A path that simply gave what was needed to those in need—regardless of who was watching, interpreting, or trying to understand.
As closing time approached, a young boy arrived with his mother.
He was shy, hiding behind her legs, peeking at Li Yuan with eyes full of curiosity—but also fear.
Li Yuan knelt down to meet the boy at eye level.
"Hello," he said gently.
The boy didn't answer, but he didn't run either.
Li Yuan took a small bowl and filled it with warm water.
"For little hands that got dirty," he said with a quiet smile.
The boy looked at the bowl, then at Li Yuan, then at his mother.
She nodded.
"It's okay."
The boy slowly dipped his small hands into the warm water. His eyes widened as the warmth embraced him.
"Warm," he whispered.
"Yes," said Li Yuan. "Like a hug."
The boy smiled for the first time. A small, pure smile—free from analysis, expectation, or layered meaning.
Just the simple joy of finding warmth on a cold day.
After the child left—with clean hands and a smile still glowing—Li Yuan sat in his broken chair.
No one had recorded that interaction.
No one analyzed the "child-communication technique."
No one wrote a thesis on "positive psychology approaches in customer service."
There was only a child who felt a little warmer on a cold day.
And that was enough.
More than enough.
Night fell over Qinlu with its usual sounds—the food vendors setting up their carts, the murmur of tea house conversations, laughter drifting from homes.
Li Yuan wiped the last table with a movement that had become meditation—slow, unhurried, like water conforming to the shape of its container.
Tomorrow, more people might come searching for a phenomenon.
Tomorrow, new interpretations might spread.
But tomorrow, there would also be an old woman needing warm food. A child needing a smile. A young scholar needing a reminder of what it means to be human.
And Li Yuan would be there.
Not as a master.
Not as a phenomenon.
Not as a subject of research.
But as… an empty space in which others could find what they needed.
Like water that never chooses who may drink.
Like the sky that never chooses who to shelter.
Like a presence that simply… is.
For anyone who needs it.
Li Yuan extinguished the last oil lamp.
In the darkness of the quiet noodle shop, he felt something that could not be named, yet had always been there.
A peace not born of solving problems,
but of understanding that some problems need not be solved.
A calm not born of controlling the current,
but of becoming part of it.
An existence not defined by being understood,
but by being needed.
Somewhere in Qinlu, Chen Weiqi was helping her students with their reading assignments.
Somewhere else, Liu Teng was writing a letter to his mother's grave—not a research note, but the words of a son who missed her.
In another corner of the city, the old woman who had eaten warm noodles earlier was now sharing food with a neighbor in greater need.
The water continued to flow.
Never in the same shape, but always with the same essence.
And Li Yuan—who had learned to become part of that flow—slept peacefully in his small room.
Not as the center of a much-discussed phenomenon.
But as one drop in the great river that never ceases to give life.
Tomorrow would come.
With new questions, new interpretations, new seekers hoping to find something they may never recognize in the form they expect.
But they might find something better.
Something that can't be recorded or taught.
Something that can only… be felt.
By hearts that do not come to take,
but to receive what has always been there.
Waiting.
In silence.
In simple presence.
In the flow that never ends.