Qiyao left the stall, the market pressing around him once more. The fragrance of fresh lilies hung faint in the air, carried from the flowers in every home and shop, but not from the baskets that should have held them.
He walked slowly, his thoughts steady.
The single stick that had burned true still lingered in his memory, its smoke curling upward, its fragrance alive. To make it again, he would need more. Not wilted stems. Not shadows of what had been cut and sold. But lilies as they lived—alive on the slopes where moonlight first revealed them.
The road to Mount Wen was not yet before him. But he knew, even as he left the market, that his path was already set.
The sun was dipping low when Qiyao left the market. Lanterns had begun to swing from ropes strung across the streets, their soft glow chasing the shadows that gathered in the narrow lanes. The air smelled of fried dough, roasted chestnuts, and river mud drying in the warmth of evening.
Yet over everything lingered the faint sweetness of lilies. Not from the stalls—they were empty—but from the flowers tucked into doorways, pressed into vases, hung in bundles above thresholds. The entire village breathed with their fragrance, as if bound by an unseen thread.
Qiyao walked among them in silence. The pouch of coins at his side felt heavier now, unused. He passed the millstone clattering under a boy's push, passed the apothecary closing its shutters, passed a child carrying a stem of lilies in both hands as though it were treasure.
The words of the flower seller repeated in his mind: The gatherer has fallen ill. The lilies grow only on Mount Wen. Not easy to reach.
By the time he reached the bamboo grove, dusk had thickened into night. The path narrowed, the hum of the village faded, and the sound of the grove rose in its place—the ceaseless murmur of leaves brushing, a voice both restless and calm. Fireflies glowed low between the stalks, their faint light guiding him home.
The shrine stood as he had left it: quiet, worn, yet breathing with the small care he had given it. He stepped onto the veranda, set aside his pouch, and lit the lamp. Its glow spread across the low table, catching the edges of the book, the mortar, the jar of resin. The board still bore the remains of failed incense—cracked sticks, faint powders.
Qiyao sat cross-legged before it. He lit the brazier, not with lilies—there were none left—but with the last cone of sandalwood he had purchased. The smoke rose straight and steady, carrying its dry, familiar scent.
But sandalwood was not what he wanted.
He remembered the one true stick, the way its smoke had curled slow and alive, the way its fragrance had carried the valley into this small shrine. It had been like a voice in silence, thin but undeniable.
Now the air felt empty.
He looked toward the altar, where the last withered stems of lilies lay in a shallow bowl. Their bells had collapsed, their whiteness gone. He touched one gently, and it broke under his fingers, scattering like brittle paper.
These could give nothing more.
He lowered his hand, resting it upon his knee. The book's words stirred again in his mind: Incense is the memory of a flower carried by fire.
But memory required the flower. And the flower was gone.
He rose and stepped outside. The night was cool, the grove alive with the sound of insects, the faint rustle of bamboo bending in the wind. The sky above was a clear stretch of stars, pale against the dark.
Qiyao stood on the veranda, looking out at the shifting shadows. The mountains rose in the distance, faint outlines against the sky. Mount Wen lay somewhere among them, unseen but steady.
The flower seller's words returned: The lilies grow on the far slopes… not easy to reach.
He thought of the villagers who tied lilies to their doors, who floated them in bowls of water, who burned them at small altars with simple devotion. They believed in protection, in gratitude, in safety. For them, the flower was a shield.
For him, it was something else.
He remembered the valley that night—the lilies swaying in moonlight, the flute threading through them, The figure half-lit, half-shadowed. The flower was not only a shield. It was a thread. A path between silence and sound, between waiting and presence.
To others, lilies were devotion to a protector unseen. To him, they were the shape of longing.
He leaned against the pillar, closing his eyes. The bamboo's murmur blended with the memory of the flute, faint but unforgotten. He breathed in the night air and whispered, barely moving his lips:
"If smoke is memory, then I must carry it true. Wait for me."
His words were carried away at once by the wind, swallowed by the leaves.
When he returned inside, he placed the book carefully back on the table. He gathered the broken sticks and powders into a small clay bowl, carrying them outside and scattering them at the edge of the grove. Ash fell into soil, resin clung to his fingertips.
Tomorrow, he would go to the north edge of the village, to the mill, to the gatherer's home. He would ask. He would listen. And if the path was revealed, he would climb Mount Wen himself.
For now, he sat again upon the veranda, watching the fireflies drift. Their glow rose and fell in the dark like tiny lanterns, patient, unhurried.
The shrine was silent but no longer empty. The failures, the single success, the village's devotion, the mountain unseen—all of it filled the night.
Qiyao breathed in slowly, his chest steady. He would wait one more night here, and then he would go.
The next morning, sunlight pressed against the shutters of the shrine. A warm beam crept across the floor, climbing slowly until it touched Qiyao's face. He stirred, blinking into the brightness, and sat up from his mat.
For a moment, he stayed still, letting the sound of the grove settle around him—the hush of bamboo swaying, the trill of early birds. The night's thought returned clearly: he could not remain waiting.
He washed his hands in the basin, tied his hair back, and left the shrine.
The road to the north edge of Zhuyin wound past fields already alive with work. Women bent among rows of beans, pulling weeds into baskets. Old men mended fishing nets by the riverbank, their hands steady despite their age. Children chased each other through the dust, carrying stems of lilies as if they were banners.
Qiyao followed the path toward the mill. Its great wooden wheel turned slowly with the flow of the stream, the creak of its beams echoing across the water. Nearby, at the edge of a grove of willows, stood a small house of mudbrick and timber. Smoke curled faintly from its chimney.
He paused at the gate. The home was humble, but well-kept: a broom leaned against the wall, herbs hung to dry beneath the eaves, and a pot of lilies—already fading—rested upon the windowsill. Their scent was faint, nearly gone, but still present.
Qiyao lifted the latch quietly and stepped into the yard.
A young boy, no older than ten, looked up from where he was chopping kindling. His eyes widened at the sight of a stranger. He dropped the stick and bolted toward the door.
"Ma!" the boy called. "There's someone—someone's here!"
The door opened, and a woman stepped out, wiping her hands on her apron. She was in her middle years, her hair tied back loosely, her sleeves rolled to the elbow. Her eyes, wary at first, softened when she saw Qiyao bow his head politely.
"I came to ask after the flower gatherer," Qiyao said quietly.
Her gaze lingered on him, taking in his plain clothes, the calm way he stood. At last, she nodded and stepped aside. "Then come in. He will be glad of company."