The days after the East Market tasting moved like slow water, but something in the current had changed.
When Lin Xun slid the teahouse door open each morning, the same scents met him, the same warm light spilling across the shelves, the same soft creak in the floorboards near the second table. Yet beneath that familiar rhythm, there was a hum, a quiet shift in the air.
The first morning brought travelers. A man and woman from the northern road stopped in just after sunrise. Their cloaks were still damp from mist, and they carried the worn leather smell of the road. They ordered with soft voices, speaking of a tea they had heard of in passing, brewed in the East Market, strong enough to stand beside any sect blend. Lin Xun poured without fuss. The tea was one of his gentler leaves, a brew that warmed without pushing too far.
They lingered longer than they had planned, leaning back in their chairs as though their packs weighed less. When they left, the man offered him a coin worn smooth at the edges, the kind kept as a token rather than for spending. Lin Xun placed it in the jar without comment.
Shen Lan stood near the front through most of the morning. She did not interfere, did not hover, but her presence was a quiet anchor. Her gaze moved to each person who came in, as if weighing them, measuring what they might want beyond tea.
On the second day, Bai Ruyin appeared. She stepped through the doorway without hesitation, her hair drawn back in the same loose knot, her grey cloak carrying the scent of river wind. She greeted Shen Lan with a small tilt of her head before turning to Lin Xun.
"I heard you made the East Market proud," she said.
"I poured tea," he replied, already setting out a third cup.
Her lips curved just slightly. "And well enough for people to remember."
They spoke little after that. She sipped in silence, her eyes half-lidded, as if listening to something far away. When she finished, she reached into her sleeve and left a small pouch on the counter. The leaves inside were a pale green, curled tight like smoke caught mid-twist. The scent was faint, almost impossible to notice, but breathing it made the air feel cooler against his skin.
Shen Lan leaned in when Bai Ruyin had gone. "A gift?"
"Or a message," Lin Xun murmured, though to whom it was addressed, he could not say.
The invitation still sat folded in his sleeve. Smooth parchment, the ink faintly silver in certain light. Only three words, and an address in the southern market. No signature. No seal.
On the third morning, rain had passed in the night. The air was clean, the street stones slick with a thin sheen of water. The first customers were a group of younger cultivators from a nearby martial school. They laughed easily, spoke of the contest as if it had been a minor duel in the street, and left without noticing how the tea seemed to calm their restless energy.
Midday brought a peddler with a wicker basket on his back, selling spools of dyed thread. He drank slowly, spinning the cup in his hands as he spoke of the weaving stalls in the far market and the people who had started asking after "the quiet shop near the river with the strong tea."
It was the kind of attention that could fade in a week... or grow sharper with each passing day.
Between customers, Lin Xun found his thoughts returning to the invitation. Who had sent it? Why wait three days instead of coming straight to the shop? Was it a courtesy, or a test?
Shen Lan noticed his glance toward the folded paper more than once.
"You mean to go," she said finally, her voice steady.
He set the paper on the counter. "If they wished me harm, they would not have waited this long. And if it is an opportunity…" He let the thought trail off.
She watched him for a moment, then gave the smallest of nods. "Better to see for ourselves than to wonder."
They worked quietly through the afternoon. The kettle hissed, steam curling into the beams above. A breeze from the open window brought the scent of rain-washed earth. A merchant from the spice street stopped by, trading a small pouch of cinnamon bark for a cup of strong brew. Two older men from the riverside wharf lingered over their tea, speaking in low tones about boats lost upriver, glancing at Shen Lan's sword when they thought she was not looking.
By the time the sun began to lower behind the western roofs, the street outside had thinned. They closed the shop, covering the jars and banking the fire under the kettle. Lin Xun stood for a moment in the quiet, letting his gaze move over the shelves, the tables, the faint glow of lamplight catching on the polished wood.
He had always liked the feeling of leaving the shop knowing it would greet him the same when he returned.
They stepped into the narrow lane beyond the market's edge. The cobbles were still damp, their surfaces catching the last pale light of the day. The sounds of the market were fading, replaced by the softer noises of cooking fires and the occasional clatter of a cart wheel on stone.
The address on the paper led toward the southern market, a place of side streets and older buildings, where signs hung at odd angles and the air carried the faint scent of roasting chestnuts. Shen Lan walked a half step ahead, her hand near the hilt of her sword, her gaze flicking to each shadowed doorway.
At one corner, they passed a lantern seller packing his wares into a wooden crate. At another, a small tea stall was closing for the night, the steam from its last pot drifting into the cooling air.
Lin Xun felt the shift before he saw it... the way the noise of the street seemed to ease, the way the air felt slightly stiller. The lane they turned into was narrower than the others, its paving stones uneven, lined with shuttered doors and windows dark behind paper screens.
"This is close," Shen Lan murmured, glancing at the paper in his hand.
He nodded. "Just a little further."
They walked until the lane curved, bringing them before a plain wooden door set into a wall of pale stone. No sign, no lantern, no sound from within. Only the faintest trace of tea in the air, a scent he did not recognize.
Shen Lan looked at him, her eyes asking the question without words.
"Ready?" he asked quietly.
Her hand rested on the hilt of her sword. "Always."
Lin Xun reached for the door.
And stepped forward into whatever waited beyond.
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