By the eleventh day, the shrine no longer looked abandoned. The roof no longer sagged, the courtyard soil was turned and planted, and smoke rose each evening from the small brazier inside. Though whispers still circled in the village, the air around the grove felt changed — steadier, less hollow.
That afternoon, when Qiyao returned from the market with a small jar of oil and a bundle of rope, he found Granny Xuemei waiting at the gate. She leaned against her cane, her back bent but her eyes bright. In her other hand she carried a cloth-wrapped bundle and a squat clay jar sealed with wax.
"I thought you'd forgotten your manners," she said, lifting her chin as he approached. "You've been hiding in here ten days, not once showing your face to an old woman who spoke kindly to you."
Qiyao paused, setting his bundle down. His expression was unreadable, but there was no sharpness in his voice. "You were the first to speak kindly. I have not forgotten."
She gave a little sniff, though her eyes softened. "Hmph. Words are cheap. Wine is better." She held up the jar. "I brewed this myself. I thought perhaps the shrine deserves a sip, and so does the fool who chose to live here."
Qiyao inclined his head. "Come inside."
The path crunched softly beneath her steps as he led her into the courtyard. Granny Xuemei stopped short once she saw the rows of seedlings lifting their green heads from the soil.
"Well, well," she murmured. "Look at that. I pass by this place for years and see only weeds, and you… you've gone and made it sprout like a garden."
Qiyao crouched to place his rope and jar by the veranda. "They are small yet. But they will grow."
She gave a sharp laugh. "You sound like a farmer already. Careful, or the villagers will start asking you for tips."
Inside, she lowered herself carefully onto the veranda, settling with a small groan but steady dignity. Qiyao fetched two clay cups, filling them with cool water from the jar. She raised an eyebrow.
"No, no, young master shen. Not water. We'll have wine. Save your water for the plants." She unwrapped her bundle, revealing two cups carved from old wood, smooth with use. She poured the wine herself, steady despite her years, then slid one cup toward him.
"To stubborn men and stubborn shrines," she declared.
Qiyao lifted his cup without hesitation and drank. The wine was sharp, burning down his throat, then spreading warmth through his chest.
For a while, they sat in companionable quiet. Bamboo stirred in the breeze. A bird darted low across the courtyard, wings flashing silver in the late light.
"You've worked hard," Granny Xuemei said at last. "The shrine… it feels different now. Livelier. Almost as though it remembers being sacred."
Qiyao's gaze rested on the incense burner near the wall, a thin curl of smoke still rising from the stick he had lit before leaving for the market. His voice was low. "That is what I hoped for."
Granny Xuemei studied him. "And what do you hope to find here, young master shen? Not just mended walls. Not just seedlings. You're carrying something heavier than wood and nails."
Qiyao was silent for a long time. His fingers brushed the rim of his cup, tracing it slowly. At last, he said, you don't have to call me young master granny xuemei, qiyao would be enough and "I don't know if it can be found. But if it can, then it will be here."
She nodded with a small laugh, as though she had expected no other answer. "People think shrines are for the gods. But they're for us, too. A place to set down what's too heavy to carry. A place to say without words: 'I remember. I wait. I hope.'"
Her words lingered in the air, as steady as the smoke that wound upward between them.
After a moment, Qiyao refilled her cup. She accepted it with a smile, her wrinkles deepening. "You know, the villagers whisper about you. Some say you're mad. Some say you're cursed. But me—" she lifted her cup as if in a toast, "—I say you've given this old place its breath back. And that's worth more than their gossip."
Qiyao inclined his head slightly. "Your words are more than enough."
Granny Xuemei chuckled. "Careful, Qiyao. Keep speaking politely like that and I'll adopt you as my own. Then you'll have to chop my firewood in the mornings."
For the first time, a flicker of something close to amusement passed across Qiyao's face. Not quite a smile, but enough for her to catch it. She laughed, pleased.
As the sky deepened, she rose with effort, leaning on her cane. "Keep the wine. You'll need it more than me, when the nights grow long. And remember—" her tone softened, almost tender now, "—a shrine may be made of stone and wood, but it breathes through the hands that tend it. Don't forget that, Qiyao."
She pressed the jar into his hands. Before he could reply, she had turned, walking down the path with the slow but steady steps of someone who had learned to move at her own pace.
Qiyao stood in the doorway long after her figure had vanished into the bamboo. The clay jar of wine weighed warm in his palms. Inside, the incense still burned, smoke curling upward into the dusk.
For the first time since he had chosen the shrine, the silence around him did not feel entirely alone.