The bell tone hung over the square, then thinned and went quiet. Three sticks rose in the judges' hands. One for Zhang Wei. Two for Li Yun. The crowd did not roar. It breathed out in a wave, then drew a quick breath back in, as if not yet sure that what it had heard was true.
The clerk found his voice. "First set to Li Yun," he called. "Second set counted… judges decide…"
All eyes slid back to the table. The middle judge tapped the rim of Li Yun's third cup with a fingernail, very light, as if listening to the porcelain itself. He spoke again to the others. They did not argue long. They lifted their sticks at the same time and set them down with a soft click.
"Li Yun," the clerk said, and this time the square let itself cheer.
Sound rolled around the rope line. Children clapped. Porters lifted their hands. Shy Lin laughed, then covered her mouth, then laughed again. Old Man Willow's eyes shone. Mistress Han did not clap, but the breath she had been holding eased out of her shoulders, and the smallest smile touched her mouth.
Zhang Wei did not bow his head. He looked at the three cups before him, then at the three cups before Li Yun, then at the kettle that still held a little heat. He stepped across the ring and held out his palm over Li Yun's pot, like a man warming his hand at a winter stove.
"Your lid turn on the third cup was clean," he said. "You heard the rope brush and opened with the steam instead of fighting it."
Li Yun inclined his head. "You would have done the same."
"Perhaps," Zhang Wei said, and now he smiled, real and easy. "Today you did it first."
He reached into his sleeve and drew out the pouch of ironroot. He set it on the plank between them and did not pull his fingers back right away.
"Our wager," he said. "And my promise. I will brew in your house. One pot. Your leaf, your water, your rules. I will call you master for the length of that pour, and everyone will hear it."
The clerk stepped up with a wax board to mark the wager as complete. The judges noted the ironroot. The crowd leaned in again. These were not small words from Zhang Wei. He rarely gave anyone his voice in that way.
Li Yun set his hand on the pouch. The bark inside was dry and dense, with a tight scent like stone when the rain first touches it. He felt the pull of it already, the way it could anchor a tea and steady the body… and the way it could tire the mouth if used without care.
"I accept," he said. "Tomorrow at noon. The teahouse will be open. You will choose the seat."
Zhang Wei's eyes brightened. "Good. I like a clean stage."
He turned to the judges and bowed, then to the crowd, then to Li Yun once more. "One more thing," he said softly so only a few near the rope could hear. "Hold on to that old pot. It sings for you. No month from me will change the tune."
He stepped back, and the ring swallowed him again, and he was gone into the crowd in three steps, the way skilled men go when they are done.
Old Man Willow slipped under the rope as if he had been waiting for the space to open. He patted Li Yun's shoulder and looked at the table with a calm delight that made him seem young.
"You held the second pour," he said. "That was where it could have slipped away. Many will say you won by the rope and the wind, but that is not true. You won because you listened to the steam and followed it."
Shy Lin crawled under the rope without ceremony and hugged Li Yun around the middle, then jumped back with a blush. "Sorry," she said, breathless. "I forgot about rules. Do we have rules for hugs in the ring?"
"We do now," Old Man Willow said. "Only short ones. Leave the long ones for home."
Mistress Han stood on the other side of the plank. She did not reach for Li Yun. She placed the small packet of Silver Rain Water back into his hand, then tapped the pouch of ironroot with her finger.
"Use this only when the body in the cup needs a spine," she said. "Do not lean on it for the first sip. People like to feel strong, but they also like to feel light when they stand up. You will balance it."
"I will try," Li Yun said.
"You will do it," she said, and then she allowed herself to smile fully, which made a whisper run through the nearest part of the crowd, because Mistress Han did not often let joy run across her face where anyone could see.
The judges stood and came around the table one by one to offer a word. The middle judge, a thin man with careful eyes, took a single breath as if tasting again, then nodded to Li Yun.
"Your first cup carried clean," he said. "Your second cup carried clean and sweet. Your third cup should have broken when the lid shifted. It did not. You will go far if you keep listening."
The woman at the end of the table did not speak. She held out her hand. When Li Yun gave her his palm she set a small pin in it. It was wood carved into a tiny cup. He looked at it, then at her. She did not explain. She did not need to. He knew a quiet gift when he saw one.
The crowd thinned, as crowds do when the main thing has happened and the body begins to remember that it is hungry and tired. Cooks shouted again. The bell rang for the next match. The square slid back to its noise. The ropes of light swayed a little in the evening air, and a coolness came down from the mountain path.
Li Yun packed his kettle and cups. He wrapped the old pot in its cloth and tucked it into his sleeve with care, then set the ironroot beside it so the two rested together. He bowed to the judges. He bowed to the ring.
When he straightened, he felt a gaze touch the side of his face, light as a feather. He turned toward it without moving his feet.
The hooded watcher stood at the far post again. No one had seen the figure arrive. No one saw it now, not really. The hood was the same pale thread he had noticed in the night market. The stillness was the same. The watcher lifted a hand and moved two fingers as if turning an invisible lid… lift, set… lift, set… lift, set… and then the hand fell, and the shape slid into the moving street and was gone.
Shy Lin saw only the last shadow. "Again," she whispered. "Do they not get bored of watching without drinking?"
"Some people only drink once," Old Man Willow said. "They take the right cup and wait a year for the next. Or a day. Or until the moon says go."
"Do we go," Shy Lin asked.
"Tomorrow we brew," Li Yun said. "After that… we will see."
They walked back through the lanterns. People called Li Yun's name. Some shoved coins toward him, as if victory should mean a free cup on the spot. He smiled and shook his head and told them to come by in the morning. At the corner of the square Copper Bell Jin grabbed his arm and shouted kind things in a voice that could have carried to the mountain temples, then whispered that he would raise his prices tomorrow because the city liked to taste victory and pay for it. Li Yun told him to raise them only a little. Jin laughed and promised he would raise them only a lot.
At the teahouse door Li Yun paused. The night was soft enough to drink. He breathed it and let it settle. Then he slid the bolt and brought the lamps to life inside. The room took the light as if it had been waiting. Tables, shelves, one painted scroll, the old floor. Warmth returned to wood and clay.
He set the kettle on the stove and fed the bed of coals a palm of fuel. No need for heat, only enough to wake the iron a little. He unwrapped the old pot and set it where it belonged. He set the ironroot on the table and opened the pouch. The smell came up and sat in the room like a quiet guest. He closed it again and tied the cord.
Shy Lin laid her guqin on the long bench and began to test a string. Old Man Willow took his chair by the window. Mistress Han set her ledger on the table and wrote three lines without lifting her quill. Work did not end because a bell had rung.
Li Yun washed his hands and took down two cups. He poured a little Silver Rain Water into a small bowl. He did not brew. He let the water sit and made himself notice the way it held the lamplight… the thin sky color inside it… the tiny ring it left when he tipped the bowl and set it down again. He would use it tomorrow, or he would use the well. He did not know yet. Knowing would come when the kettle sang.
He lifted the box where he had left the coin. He had locked it in the morning. He felt the lid and the hinge and the weight. The coin was still inside, but it was not where he had set it. It lay on the far side of the box as if someone had tilted the wood and the coin had slid… except no one had touched it, and the box had not moved, and the coin had not rolled on this wood since he had first placed it there.
He pinched it between finger and thumb. Cool. A little cooler than the room. He turned it. The flower on one side looked the same. The tiny character on the other looked the same too, at first. When he brought the coin closer to the lamp he saw that a second mark had appeared in the thin line around the edge. Not a word. A notch. A promise, perhaps, that he had found the right square and said the right yes.
He set the coin on the table beside the ironroot. The two did not look like they belonged together, but he liked the way they sat. One from earth. One from a place that smelled like sky.
"Tomorrow at noon," Mistress Han said without looking up. "I will have chairs set for fifty. I will set out cups for sixty. We will have a line to the door. After the match I will sell simple cups for a simple coin and one pot of fine tea for a price that is not simple. Smile. Sit tall. Speak when spoken to. Do not speak when not spoken to. Let Zhang Wei show the city that you are worth his word."
Old Man Willow chuckled. "He was worth his word today already. I liked how he set the pouch down without pulling his fingers back. A good rival leaves a story for you to tell."
Shy Lin played a line that rose then fell and ended on a note that wanted to go further but did not. "What will you brew for him," she asked. "For the pot in your house."
"Moonbud, perhaps," Li Yun said. "Or Bamboo Mist. I want him to taste the thing that made last night quiet. He will understand it. He will say it out loud. The city will remember that word when they come through the door."
"Soft can carry far," Old Man Willow said again, and then he closed his eyes and listened to the guqin and the stove and the quiet between both.
They did not stay late. The street sighed and shut itself like a book. Shy Lin carried her case. Mistress Han tucked her ledger away. Old Man Willow stood and stretched. He put a hand on Li Yun's shoulder and left it there for a breath longer than usual.
"You will sleep," he said. "People think triumph keeps a man awake. It does not. Worry keeps a man awake. If you let go of worry, sleep will come the way tea comes when water is ready."
Li Yun blew out two lamps and left one. He watched the flame draw itself small and steady. He washed the cups and dried them with the cloth that had belonged to his master. He folded the cloth and set it by the pot. He set the ironroot in a jar and tied the lid. He slid the coin back into the box and did not lock it. He wanted to see where it sat in the morning.
He lay down on the small bed behind the screen. The lamp hummed. The night breathed through the shutter slats. His body felt heavy in a good way, the way a body feels after a day when it has done the thing it knows it should do. His mind walked once around the ring, then once around the table, then back to the coin, and then to a garden that he had not seen yet. Bamboo moved in that garden. There were flowers he could not name. There was a sound there like breathing under leaves.
He slept. It came all at once, like a door closing with a soft click.
In the gray before dawn he woke and did not know why. The lamp had gone out on its own. The room smelled faintly of flowers. Not Moonbud. Not any leaf he kept in a jar. He sat up and listened. The teahouse was quiet. The street was quiet. His heart was quiet.
He lit the lamp again, then smiled at himself for the act, then stopped smiling when he saw the box. It was still where he had left it. The lid was still down. He opened it. The coin lay where he had placed it this time… and beside it was a thread of white silk, no longer than a finger, curled like steam. He lifted it. It was weightless. It smelled like night after rain. He looked for words in it and found none.
He set the thread in the box and closed the lid. He did not lock it. He did not need to. The box would hold the things that wanted to be held.
Morning came. He rose and warmed water and swept the floor. He opened the shutters and let the street in. Old Man Willow appeared at the moment the kettle first sighed, as if he had slept in the shade of the door. Mistress Han arrived with two boys to set chairs and a man to hang a red cloth over the entry. Shy Lin came with a flower in her hair that she said had grown on the fence behind her house all at once.
The door pushed open again, and for a breath Li Yun thought he would see a pale hood. It was only a farmer with a basket of pears and a smile.
"Congratulations," the farmer said. "I watched from the far line, and I could still smell your cup. That means the wind wanted you to win."
"Thank you," Li Yun said. "Sit. You can be the first to taste today. After noon we may not have time to speak."
"After noon," the farmer said, and he sat like a man who had promised himself this cup and would keep the promise.
Outside, the square woke. People set coins in their purses and words on their tongues. The clerk who had read the names last night walked the street with a bell and a list and called the time for the match.
Zhang Wei would come at noon. He would bow and brew and speak the word that the city would carry away. The ironroot would sit in its jar and wait for the day the pot asked for it. The coin would rest in its small wood room, and perhaps the thread of white silk would curl a little more when steam passed by.
Li Yun poured the first cup of the morning. It tasted like clean air. He set it down and felt the old pot's warmth through the cloth where his master's hands had pressed and lifted and pressed again. He paused and listened to the kettle. The song it made was steady and kind.
He smiled at the sound, at the day, at the work in front of him. He did not hurry. He breathed and poured. Noon would come when it came. He would meet it with a calm hand and a full cup… and the city would listen.