The morning came with the scent of pine resin and the distant rattle of a passing handcart. Light spilled unevenly across the studio floor, catching on wood shavings and threadbare corners of an old rug. Shen Xifan had left the window open by habit, and the wind carried in soft voices from the canal path, blending with the rustle of their half-dried laundry.
Xu Songzhuo stood in front of the unfinished second panel. His carving knife hovered slightly above the wood, poised but still. He had sharpened it earlier with the same steady rhythm he used every day, but this time the blade had not yet touched the surface.
Behind him, Xifan leaned against the wall with her sleeves pushed up. A pencil twirled slowly between her fingers, but she was not drawing. Not yet.
She said nothing at first. Neither did he. The silence between them was not heavy. It simply waited.
Finally, Xu spoke. His voice was quiet, almost absorbed into the wooden walls around them.
"I don't know what to carve."
That startled her, though she did not show it. She tilted her head slightly.
"You, of all people?"
He gave the faintest shrug. Not indifference, but restraint. Like he was holding something in place that had not yet taken shape.
"I mean for the exhibition," he added.
She walked closer, until she could see the unfinished pattern of the panel. The first piece had been shaped by both their hands. This one was meant to follow. But the lines had not yet been drawn.
"Then don't carve for them," she said.
Her voice was clear. Not sharp, not soft. Just certain.
"Carve for the one who stayed when the room was empty. The one who swept the floor and didn't turn the sign around to open. Carve for the hands that knew how to be still."
His gaze turned to her slowly.
"And who is that?"
"You," she replied. "Before anyone asked you to be more."
Xu lowered the knife.
He turned toward the light, letting it fall across the grain of the wood. Then he sat down on the low stool beside the panel and ran his hand over the surface, fingertips brushing against faint knots and ridges. A breath left him that he did not realize he had been holding.
"You don't think it matters what they want to see?"
Xifan stepped closer and crouched beside him.
"Maybe it does. But that is not the part we control."
He looked at her then. The strands of her hair had loosened and fell softly around her cheeks. There was graphite on her wrist where she had touched an old sketch earlier. She hadn't noticed it.
"I want to carve something that lasts," he said.
"You already are."
And she reached out, not to touch the wood, but to press her palm lightly over the back of his hand, grounding it.
They stayed that way for a few breaths.
The wind stirred again, rattling the small bamboo chimes that hung above the window. Xu glanced up, then down again, eyes scanning the wood anew.
"I have an idea," he murmured.
She smiled.
"I'll boil water."
As she stood and walked to the kettle, Xu picked up a pencil. He did not sketch precisely, not at first. Just let the point move where it wanted. Curves. Fragments. The echo of something he had not yet said out loud.
Behind him, the kettle clicked into warmth. The faint scent of chrysanthemum tea filled the space.
And in that quiet moment, they began again. Not for the exhibition. Not for the ones who left.
But for the ones who remained.
The first line he carved was shallow.
Not from hesitation, but intention. Xu Songzhuo never rushed the beginning.
The second line curved differently. A wider arc. He paused afterward and let the knife rest on the tray beside him. Beside him, Shen Xifan leaned over the table, sketching smaller motifs to match the new design, her pencil dancing through lotus petals and plum branches, never settling too long on one idea.
They had worked this way for three days.
No pressure. No talk of deadlines. Just soft exchanges — wood grain, ink, tea, silence.
One morning, as they paused for a late breakfast, a small sound came from the gate.
A quiet knock.
Xu stood to check. By the time he reached the courtyard, there was no one in sight. Only a cloth-wrapped package resting neatly on the stone bench.
He brought it inside without a word.
Xifan was clearing the tea tray. She glanced at the parcel and immediately stilled.
"It's hers," she said.
She didn't mean the handwriting. There was none. She meant the feeling — the careful folds, the pressed corners. A message wrapped in familiarity.
Xu watched her open it.
Inside was a hardback book: The Architecture of Movement. She ran her palm across the cover once. Then opened it slowly.
A photograph slipped out between the pages.
She caught it before it fell.
The image was grainy, but she recognized the moment.
Backstage, barefoot, caught mid-spin. Arms outstretched, hair mid-flight. She was laughing.
Behind her, blurred in the shadows, stood a younger Lin Na. Just outside the spotlight. The camera had caught them both — the seen and the unseen.
Xifan turned the photo over.
One sentence in neat handwriting.
You looked free.
She didn't smile.
Not yet.
But she set the photo down beside her cup, placed both hands flat on the table, and exhaled.
Xu sat opposite her.
After a while, she spoke.
"This is the version of me I thought I wasn't allowed to be again."
"Because she wasn't curated?" he asked.
"Because she didn't know how to protect herself."
She traced the photo's edge.
"But now," she said, "I think I can carve as her."
Xu leaned back slightly.
"Not for them," he said, echoing her earlier words. "But for you."
"No," she said, lifting her gaze.
"For us."
He stilled.
And then nodded once.
"I'll adjust the composition of the panel. Make space for more movement."
She smiled faintly. "Then I'll start over on the motif. Something with wind."
Xu stood and reached for his tools again. As he did, he caught a glimpse of the photo on the table. The girl frozen mid-laughter.
"She didn't disappear," he said quietly.
"No," Xifan replied.
"She just had to wait."
Outside, the wind picked up.
Inside, the second panel began to take shape.
Not as a memory.
But as a return.
By the fifth day, the studio smelled of camphor and linseed oil.
The second panel was no longer just a draft. Xu had carved the outline of a sweeping mountain path, open at the center, as if inviting something in. Plum blossoms threaded their way through the upper half, carved so delicately they almost looked like ink instead of stone. At the lower edge, Xifan's design had taken root — a series of interwoven ribbons shaped like wind and memory, folding gently into the grain.
They worked in rhythm now.
In the mornings, she made congee and boiled chrysanthemum tea. In the afternoons, he cleaned the tools and she swept the corners. In the evenings, they sometimes forgot to eat until the lamp oil burned low and one of them noticed how long the shadows had grown.
It was during one such evening, with brushes still soaking in water and a sketch half-dried on the windowsill, that the second knock came.
This one was softer than the first. Hesitant.
Xifan opened the studio door to find a boy — maybe twelve, maybe younger — standing with his hands behind his back.
"You're Shen-jie, right?" he asked.
She nodded slowly.
He glanced behind him, as if to make sure no one had followed. Then held something out with both hands.
A folded note.
"Someone said to give this to you. From the city, I think."
She crouched slightly to take it, her voice gentle.
"Did they say who they were?"
The boy shook his head. "Just said you'd know."
She thanked him and handed him a wrapped bun from the counter before he darted off.
Xu watched from behind the worktable as she unfolded the paper.
Her eyes didn't widen.
But they didn't soften either.
She read the note once.
Then again.
Then set it down carefully beside her brushes.
"Someone from the past?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"From the part you left behind?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Then:
"No. From the part that never quite left."
He didn't ask what it said. Not yet.
Instead, he joined her by the open window.
Outside, a few villagers passed by, carrying woven baskets and folded stools, nodding politely as they caught sight of the studio's light.
"They're starting to talk," he said.
She turned toward him. "About what?"
"You. Us. The panel."
He didn't sound worried. Just observant.
"And?" she asked.
He gave a small shrug.
"I think they're waiting to see what comes of it."
Xifan leaned on the windowsill, watching the water shift beneath the bridge in the distance. The sky had just begun to tint lavender.
"They used to wait for me to fall," she said softly. "Now they're waiting for me to return."
Xu looked at her then, quiet but sure.
"Then let them wait. We're still carving."
She nodded, a little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
She didn't pick the letter back up. Not yet.
Instead, she stepped away from the window, tied her hair back again, and dipped her brush into the ink.
And in the soft light of the lantern, they returned to their work.
Not because the world was watching.
But because they had learned how to see each other.
And that, now, was enough.