The wind was gentle that morning, curling softly through the leaves of the old tree in front of Mei Lin's cottage.
The garden she had planted just days ago was beginning to show hints of life—tiny green shoots breaking through the dark soil, fragile but determined.
She stood at the edge of the field, watching a bee hover near a sprout of chive, when a sudden memory brushed against her mind—faint, like a half-heard whisper carried on the wind.
It was the scent of dried chrysanthemum.
---
It had been years ago, in a dim room behind the tea house. While the other girls practiced music or painted their faces, Mei Lin had been drawn to the quiet corner where the old healer-lady worked.
Madam Shen, they had called her. Wrinkled hands, a crooked back, and sharp eyes that missed nothing.
Most of the girls avoided her, unnerved by the jars of dried roots and bitter brews she kept stacked in bamboo cabinets.
But Mei Lin had been curious.
"Do you want to waste your youth with painted cheeks," Madam Shen had asked her once, "or do you want to learn how to stitch a life back together?"
She had learned not only how to grind herbs and boil teas, but how to read the body—the color of a tongue, the heat of a wrist, the way a cough sounded just before it turned dangerous.
She had learned the meaning of names like huang qi and dang gui, bai zhu and zi su ye.
And she had learned that knowledge, quiet and steady, could be its own kind of strength.
---
Back in the present, Mei Lin blinked. Her hands clenched softly at her side. The memory hadn't visited her in so long.
But now, in this quiet village surrounded by mountains, it called to her like a thread tugging loose.
There were herbs here. She could feel it in the soil, smell it in the air. Perhaps… perhaps she had not left everything behind after all.
That afternoon, she sought out the village's only doctor—a thin, stooped man with silver hair tied in a knot and eyes that held the calm of someone who had seen too much to be easily startled.
"Doctor Wen?" she asked shyly outside his door.
He looked up from sorting roots. "Hmm?"
"I was wondering… may I walk with you when you go to gather herbs? I used to assist an old healer once, long ago."
His brows rose just a little, assessing her.
"You know the difference between jin yin hua and shan zha?"
"I do."
He squinted. "And the best season to dig bei mu?"
"Early spring. After the frost but before the flowers bloom."
He smiled faintly, the corner of his mouth barely lifting. "Come at sunrise tomorrow. Wear strong shoes."
---
The mountains were quiet in the early hours. Mist clung to the underbrush like silk, and the sky glowed pale gold through the trees.
Doctor Wen moved slowly, bending now and then to touch a leaf or snap a stem. Mei Lin followed, carrying a small woven basket. He rarely spoke, but when he did, his words were precise.
"This one—zi cao—for burns. But only the young leaves."
"Mu dan pi—never use the root bark unless you dry it first."
"Not everything green is medicine. But everything has meaning."
Mei Lin listened. And remembered.
As the days passed, she began to venture out on her own. She explored the hills near her cottage, learning the rhythms of the mountain—the way certain flowers curled shut before the rain, the low hum of bees near blooming herbs, the glint of mushrooms after a storm.
She returned each day with her basket full and her spirit fuller.
At night, she dried the herbs near the stove and kept a record of everything she found.
She stitched together a pouch of healing salves using oil, ground bark, and camphor, just like Madam Shen had once shown her.
The villagers began to notice. A child with a fever was given her tea and recovered in two days. An old woman with aching joints found relief in a balm Mei Lin prepared. Soon, quiet knocks began to sound at her door at odd hours.
She never turned anyone away.
---
One evening, as the stars flickered above and the moon hung pale and full over the mountain, Mei Lin sat by the great tree near her gate. Her fingers rested against the wooden crane again.
She thought of his hands—rough from war, but strangely gentle when he passed her the carving. She remembered how he once said nothing and everything with his silences.
She had walked far. She had built something new with her own hands.
But still…
Still, he lingered.
Not in a way that consumed her—but in the soft ache of a name left unspoken, a promise half-formed.