The first day, he checked them too often, his eyes drawn to the board as if the sticks might shift when unseen.
On the third day, he found small cracks in two of them. He set those aside, reminding himself: patience.
By the sixth, most remained whole. He bent close to smell them, but their fragrance was muted, hidden beneath resin and wood.
On the seventh, he chose one, lit it carefully, and watched.
Smoke curled upward, pale against the bamboo light. For a moment, it carried the faint sweetness of lilies. But within breaths, the scent wavered, then vanished into bitterness. The stick smoldered unevenly, sputtered, and went out.
The ash left behind was black and heavy.
Qiyao sat before it, silent.
He did not stop.
Another week passed. He tried again with the remaining sticks. One burned too quickly, another broke before it lit. Each left him with smoke that faltered, scents that did not linger.
He returned to the book each night, reading the same lines again and again, as though the fault lay in his understanding. But the characters remained unchanged: Patience. Shade. Seven days.
He had followed each step. Still, the smoke would not stay.
By the third attempt, weeks had turned, and the shrine smelled of failure. Ash clung to the brazier, resin clung to his hands, the faint bitterness of burnt petals lingered in the air.
But Qiyao's movements remained calm. He ground more carefully, rolled more evenly, left more space for air to pass. He tested the weight of each stick, pressing lightly to see if it would hold.
Each failure taught him something, though the success never came.
Nights grew longer. He sat cross-legged, watching each incense rise and vanish, his face unreadable.
Yet within, he knew: the lilies he had gathered from the market had already lost part of their soul. Their scent, though fresh, was not the same as those he remembered in the valley—the ones that swayed under moonlight, carrying the sound of the flute.
The book had given him patience, but the flowers themselves gave no more.
One night, after another stick faltered into ash, Qiyao leaned back against the shrine's wooden pillar. Fireflies blinked among the bamboo, their glow faint but steady. He closed his eyes and whispered into the dark,
That night, after his quiet confession to the dark, Qiyao did not sleep.
The shrine was quiet around him, the air heavy with the mingling scents of resin, ash, and fading lilies. Outside, bamboo whispered against bamboo, a restless murmur carried by the night wind. Fireflies blinked low in the grove, their faint glow rising and falling like slow breathing. Yet within, the silence pressed closer, holding him still upon the mat.
But his body did not yield to rest. Some current moved beneath his skin, subtle yet insistent, drawing him to rise again.
He crossed the floor barefoot, his steps soundless on the worn wood, and stopped before the low table where his work lay. The mortar was dusted with powder. The cloth still bore faint yellow stains. And upon the board lay the sticks he had shaped days before, most cracked or broken, some crumbled to half their form.
Among them, one remained.
It was thinner than the others, fragile in its form, the surface uneven as though it had been shaped by unsteady hands. Yet it had not broken under its own weight. Qiyao lifted it gently between his fingers, holding it close to the lamplight. Its length was crooked, the tip frayed, but something in its stillness held.
He weighed it in his palm as though the outcome already rested there, unspoken.
For a long moment, he only looked at it. Then, with steady motion, he placed it in the small brazier. He struck flint to spark, and the flame touched the tip.
The incense caught.
Smoke unfurled—slow, steady, unbroken. It rose in a pale ribbon, curling upward in the silence of the shrine, twisting in the lamplight before dissolving into the air.
This time, it did not falter.
The fragrance spread gently, weaving with the breath of the night. It was neither sharp nor bitter, neither harsh nor faint. It was the scent he had longed for—not heavy, not forced, but delicate, lingering like breath upon the air.
It carried the sweetness of the lilies as they had been in the valley—those white bells swaying beneath moonlight, touched by the flute's song. It carried the stillness of that night, the hush of the grove, the moment when memory had first taken root.
Qiyao closed his eyes. For the first time in weeks, he felt it.
Not just smoke. Not just ash. But a bridge—thin, fragile, yet real.
He sat before it, unmoving, watching the curls rise and vanish. The air thickened with fragrance, filling the shrine in layers so subtle he could not separate them. He breathed in slowly, letting it settle within him, steadying his chest. His body was still, but something deep within shifted—like a locked door opening to let in a faint draft of warmth.
When the stick burned lower, ash fell gently into the brazier, collapsing inward like soft snow. Still he did not move. He remained until only a small red ember glowed at the end, then faded into darkness.
Silence returned, but it was no longer the same silence.
Qiyao bowed lightly toward the brazier, his hands resting upon his knees. Not in ritual, not in duty, but in thanks. Thanks to the flower, to the book, to the patience that had at last revealed one thread of truth.
But when he lifted his eyes again, his gaze fell upon the rest of the board.
Broken sticks, cracked cones, powders that refused to bind—failures scattered in neat lines, reminders of weeks of effort. Only this one had burned true. Only this one had carried memory.
The lesson was clear.
He needed more lilies—fresh, true, plentiful—if he hoped to succeed again.