Chapter 22: Tea Leaves and the Moon Gate
In Qinghe Village, the wind had begun to shift ever so slightly. The air was not colder, but clearer, as if the trees themselves were whispering in anticipation of the season's quiet turn. Early mornings brought mist that clung low to the ground, and the scent of wild tea blossoms grew sharper on the path through the orchard.
Lin Yuan was awake before dawn again.
He stood beside the newly swept stone path that led from the estate to the bamboo grove, watching the mist curl around Da Huang's paws as the big yellow Tibetan mastiff trotted ahead, tail lazily swaying. In his hands, Lin Yuan held a small canvas bag filled with freshly plucked tea leaves—green tips collected from a modest patch behind the studio, shaded and old, overlooked for years.
These weren't commercial leaves. Not suited for big batches or long exports. But they held a scent that reminded him of his childhood—the kind his grandmother used to brew when the house was too quiet and the stories needed a warm companion.
He had decided, quietly, that the next project would be tea.
Not large-scale.
Not labeled or sold.
But something smaller.
Something poured by hand.
---
Later that morning, while the dew still clung to the grass and sunlight dappled through the eaves, Lin Yuan called a quiet meeting with Uncle Sheng, a retired tea master who lived at the far edge of Qinghe.
Uncle Sheng walked with a hickory cane and spoke in poems when the mood suited him. He arrived wearing a faded gray robe, eyes bright and amused.
"You want to bring back the hill tea?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Lin Yuan nodded.
"Only a little. For sharing. For memory."
Uncle Sheng smiled wide, revealing teeth like polished pebbles.
"Then we must begin with the moon gate."
Lin Yuan tilted his head.
"The old one?" he asked.
Uncle Sheng nodded. "Tea must pass through memory before it reaches the cup."
---
The moon gate stood at the far side of the orchard, long forgotten, half-covered in ivy. A perfect circle carved from white stone, its edges softened by time. It once marked the entrance to a smaller garden, now overgrown and hidden beneath years of leaves and silence.
Lin Yuan and Uncle Sheng spent the better part of the next two days clearing the path to it. They used no machines, only hands, small shears, a broom, and buckets of water. As each vine was pulled aside, more of the gate's original carving emerged—a crane etched into the top arch, stars tucked into its wing.
When the last of the ivy was cleared, the gate stood tall and whole, its stone still cool to the touch.
"Through this gate," Uncle Sheng said, "people used to drink tea and recite old poems until the moon rose."
Lin Yuan passed through it slowly.
And behind it, the garden revealed itself—not just physically, but spiritually.
Patches of forgotten tea bushes. Stone benches once used for twilight talks. A bamboo spout long silent, but still dripping a single bead of water every hour.
He stood there in the silence.
And knew they had found the right place.
---
With Uncle Sheng's guidance, Lin Yuan began to tend the tea bushes.
They didn't replant. They revived.
Each morning, he carried warm water in copper kettles, drizzling the roots gently. He crushed dried herbs into the soil to nourish the earth naturally. He clipped only what needed clipping. No pruning for appearance. Just for health.
Xu Qingyu watched from the path one afternoon, arms folded over a rolled scroll of poetry.
"You don't treat it like farming," she said.
He looked up from the bushes, sweat beading on his brow. "It's more like listening."
"To what?"
"To what the leaves remember."
She smiled faintly.
"Then let me help them speak."
---
Together, they built a tea shed just beyond the moon gate.
Not a building.
Just a low pavilion with an open frame of dark wood, a thatched roof, and two floor mats made of pressed grass.
Inside, they placed a small kettle, a single brazier, three clay cups, and a journal tied with red twine.
Above the entrance, a hand-painted sign read:
> "For those who need to pause."
No one announced the tea shed.
But within days, people began arriving.
A grandmother with a sore back sat for a few minutes after picking wildflowers.
A courier from the next village paused to rest, brewed a cup, and left a note in the journal:
> "Your tea reminded me of my father's garden. I thought I had forgotten that smell."
Children sat quietly after playing, sipping warm chrysanthemum water without understanding the ritual—only knowing it felt kind.
And Lin Yuan, sitting nearby beneath the plum tree, simply watched.
Not guiding.
Not owning.
Just present.
---
One day, a young couple from the city arrived by bicycle. Visitors. Curious. Not loud.
They had heard of Qinghe's quiet.
They didn't ask to be guided.
They simply wandered.
Eventually, they found the tea shed.
They sat for half an hour.
Spoke little.
Smiled often.
Before leaving, the woman wrote a single line in the journal:
> "We didn't know we needed this."
Later, Lin Yuan read it aloud to Xu Qingyu by the pond.
She didn't respond with words.
She just poured him another cup of tea and placed her hand lightly over his.
---
That evening, they watched the moon rise through the gate for the first time.
It aligned perfectly—silver light pouring through the round arch, casting a soft halo over the newly cleared garden.
Uncle Sheng arrived just before nightfall, carrying a folded poem and a handful of dried tangerine peel.
He boiled water in silence, brewed a small batch of roasted green tea, and then passed it to them both.
After sipping, he looked toward the moon and said softly,
> "When the tea is hot, the past speaks in steam.
When the tea is cool, it leaves only breath."
No one said anything after that.
They didn't need to.
They drank slowly.
And the silence held everything.
---
The next day, a young boy named Liu Zhi, often quiet and fidgety in the studio, brought a chipped teapot to the shed.
He held it up shyly.
"It used to whistle," he said. "Can I leave it here?"
Xu Qingyu knelt and nodded. "It already belongs."
The teapot stayed.
And from then on, every visitor who brewed tea touched it before pouring, as if it had absorbed something sacred.
---
In the weeks that followed, the tea shed became a living part of Qinghe.
A resting place.
A memory holder.
A pause between chapters.
And always, beside it, Lin Yuan and Xu Qingyu moved like the wind: quiet, unnoticed, essential.
They brewed without price.
They served without praise.
They listened without reply.
Because in Qinghe, that was the way.
---
[End of Chapter 22 ]