The early April breeze carried petals of pear blossoms across Longtan Lake, where the still waters mirrored the soft pinks and whites of spring. Under the ornate eaves of the ancient pavilion—built during the Qing dynasty—Liu Qian moved with the quiet confidence of someone intimately familiar with both history and nature. At twenty-six, she held the position of curator at Guangde County Museum, her days filled with researching local archives on the Kaihua green tea trade and preserving the memory of Huangmeixi Opera troupes that once toured Anhui and Zhejiang alike.
That morning, Liu Qian was conducting a ritualic sweep of the pavilion’s threshold: the county’s annual Qingming memorial, honoring ancestors beneath the watchful gaze of Fenghuangling (“Phoenix Ridge”) rising like a silent guardian beyond the lake’s far shore. Her bamboo broom whispered secrets across aged stones, and she hummed an old folk melody in time with her strokes—a song passed down in her mother’s lineage, its words speaking of resilience and renewal.
As sunlight grazed the pavilion, steps whispered behind her. Li Wei, twenty-eight, paused at the threshold. A city planner from Hangzhou, he had come to Guangde seeking inspiration for a riverside revitalization project. With a camera slung over his shoulder and rolled-up maps in hand, he radiated an energy of purposeful curiosity. He observed Liu Qian’s graceful sweep, the way her dark hair caught the spring light, and the deliberate care in her movements. Intrigued, he approached.
“Excuse me,” he began softly, drawing her attention. She paused mid-sweep, offering a polite nod. “I’m Li Wei, from Hangzhou. I’m here to study the lakeside heritage—this pavilion, for instance.”
“I’m Liu Qian,” she replied with a gentle incline of her head. “Longtan Lake has stood here since the early Kangxi era. The pavilion was reconstructed in 1793, under the guidance of local magistrate Yang Shijun. It symbolized Guangde’s connection to both Anhui’s literati culture and the waterways that link our province to Zhejiang.” Her voice was calm yet infused with depth—as though each word had been weighed against centuries of tradition.
Li Wei smiled. “I hoped to speak with someone versed in its history. Perhaps you could show me around?”
Liu Qian considered him with quiet appraisal. His plain linen shirt and eager stance bespoke sincerity rather than mere touristic curiosity. “Give me a few moments,” she said, turning back to her broom. “I’ll finish this, then we’ll walk the lakeshore.”
As she swept, Li Wei noticed the delicate jade hairpin securing her braid—an heirloom shaped like a lotus bud. He sensed that her wisdom extended far beyond her years. When at last she set the broom aside, they traced the edge of Longtan Lake, she pointing out inscriptions on stones placed by Song dynasty scholars, he sketching quick plans of potential public spaces around the water’s edge.
By the time they reached the old ferry dock—where legend held that Li Bai once paused on a moonlit journey down the Qingyi River—the sun had warmed the air, and a bond had subtly formed. They exchanged stories: she, of her childhood in the nearby village of Xinzhou, exploring tea terraces with her grandfather; he, of late nights in Hangzhou assessing flood-control channels for the Qiantang River.
As afternoon shadows lengthened, their first encounter ended beside the jade-green waters, unspoken promises reflected in ripples. Liu Qian offered him a small porcelain teacup. “Kaihua is not native to Guangde, but our Maojian green tea has a delicate fragrance. Here—taste.”
He inhaled the steam, savoring the leaf’s grassy sweetness. “It reminds me of spring rain,” he said. Their eyes met, and something unnameable passed between them—a greeting of kindred spirits.
Days slipped into weeks like petals adrift on a stream. Their companionship blossomed amidst the emerald contours of Guangde’s tea terraces. Liu Qian invited Li Wei to accompany her to Yuntai Mountain, where the morning fog wreathed the slopes in a mystical embrace. The mountain’s trails wound past rhododendron groves and centuries-old ginkgo trees, each bend revealing sweeping panoramas of the Xuancheng basin.
Up a steep incline, they came upon the Huangmeixi Opera stage carved into the rockface—a relic of an imperial troupe’s tour in 1857. Here, Liu Qian recited the aria “Phoenix at Dusk,” her voice carrying across stone and valley. As she sang, Li Wei sketched, capturing the stage’s faded red lacquer and the moss engraving that read “永保安康” (“Everlasting Peace and Well-being”).
At noon, they descended to small farmhouses where pickers plucked Guangde Maojian tea—its tender leaves glistening with dew. Liu Qian showed Li Wei how to judge leaf quality: the lustrous sheen, the shape of the bud, the aroma. He watched as she gently rolled leaves between her fingers, mindful of every crease. She spoke of the Qing dynasty edicts that once protected these highland gardens, and of the Tea-Horse Road caravans that wound through Anhui, carrying tea to distant provinces.
Li Wei, ever the planner, envisioned modernizing the terraces for visitors without sacrificing their ancestral character. “We can create raised boardwalks,” he proposed. “Camera platforms to showcase the view at sunrise. It would draw tourism and preserve local livelihoods.”
She raised an eyebrow. “As long as it doesn’t trample our traditions. The terraces belong to the people—many are small holders who rely on these slopes.” His designs mapped fertile ground for economic growth, but her words reminded him that culture and community must balance progress.
That evening, over dinner of Jianghuai-style river fish in a local teahouse, he listened as she counseled the proprietor on reintroducing old folk songs to tourists. He learned that she had spearheaded the museum’s “Echoes of Huangmei” project, teaching children arias from Liu Hulan and Shanghai’s 1930s opera boom. Her vision wove preservation with renewal; his with infrastructure and flow.
When Li Wei prepared to leave, he hesitated. “I can stay,” he said. “My project timeline is flexible.”
Liu Qian met his gaze, the lantern light dancing in her dark eyes. “I’ll show you more tomorrow—the Dragon Boat races at the Qingjiang River, and the Niangniang Temple fair on Jinxiu Ridge. But there’s no need to rearrange your plans.”
Still, he stayed in Guangde another day, then another—drawn by tea fields, by opera stages, but most of all by the quiet wisdom of the woman who guided him.
Summer arrived in a torrent of rain that filled rivers and saturated the valley’s bamboo groves. Li Wei’s Hangzhou office called insistently; his boss needed finalized blueprints within weeks. Meanwhile, Liu Qian received news of a scholarship to study cultural heritage management at a prestigious university in Europe—a once-in-a-lifetime chance to elevate Guangde’s preservation efforts with global expertise.
One humid afternoon, they sat beneath the swaying timbers of Niulan Mountain Pavilion. The sky threatened thunder as they spoke, the approaching storm echoing the tension between them.
“Your scholarship is extraordinary,” Li Wei said, voice taut with something like fear. “You’ve earned it.”
She traced the grain of the wooden bench. “It’s for six months. Perhaps longer if I pursue a doctorate.”
He closed his eyes. “I’ll miss you.”
She studied him. “And I’ll miss you. But this is my path. I cannot let local ties hold me back—there are archives in Vienna with Qing-era manuscripts I must examine.”
He exhaled. “Then I must return to Hangzhou. The river project demands resolution by next month.”
Silence settled. The pavilion’s wind chimes rattled overhead, muted by heavy clouds. Liu Qian stood, smoothing her qipao skirt. “We could try long distance.”
Li Wei reached for her hand. “Do you know how many rivers are named Qingjiang in China? We’re two currents pulling apart.”
Tears blurred her vision. “I would cross any ocean to stay with you.”
Rain began in earnest—silver threads weaving through pines. Under the downpour, they held each other, hearts turbulent as the storm-swollen streams below.
Their decision: they would part for a time—he to Hangzhou, she to Europe. But they vowed to write weekly letters, to share photographs, to keep their visions aligned like the twin peaks of Fenghuangling reflected across Longtan Lake.
Autumn’s moon festivals brought mid-October nights of lantern-lit poetry readings in Guangde’s Old Town Plaza. While Liu Qian studied in Vienna, she penned letters in perfect calligraphy, dispatching them to Li Wei’s Hangzhou apartment: sketches of Baroque archives, descriptions of city canals mirroring Huizhou’s water towns, photographs of ancient maps annotated with Qing provosts’ seals.
Li Wei answered with his own mementos: a pressed leaf from Yuntai Mountain’s ginkgo grove, contour lines from his floodplain designs, an MP3 of children learning Huangmeixi Opera under Liu Qian’s tutelage. In his final letter before winter, he wrote: “I walked the Dragon Boat course alone today. The boats raced beneath heavy grey skies, and I thought of you, chanting the drumbeat at the prow.”
Winter separated them further. The Anhui snows blanketed Guangde in white; Hangzhou’s mist clung to willow-lined canals. They spoke on phone calls, but time zones and work schedules made conversations fleeting. Yet each exchange deepened their bond: she guided him through Erasmus paperwork; he troubleshot her grant proposals.
In mid-January—her first Chinese New Year away—Liu Qian arranged a surprise. She’d purchased delicate blue-and-white porcelain tea vessels from a Viennese antiquarian, replicas of 18th-century Guangde wares. In each letter arrived a fragment: a teapot spout, a saucer rim, a lid knot—until the final piece: a full set, tied with red silk. Her note read: “A cup of home, no matter how far.” Li Wei wept over that letter, then boarded a train south.
He arrived in Guangde just as the Dragon Boat festival approached—a festival she had told him was her favorite, for its dual symbolism of river’s vigor and communal solidarity. On festival morning, the Jingjiang River swelled. Teams drummed and paddled brightly lacquered boats carved with phoenix heads. The air filled with zongzi’s sweet fragrance and incense smoke drifting from Niangniang Temple.
Among the milling crowd, Li Wei spotted her: hair braided with a sprig of osmanthus, qipao of lotus-blue silk. She stood by the riverside, waiting. In that moment their apartness collapsed. Their reunion was silent—two souls exhaling a shared breath—then he took her into his arms and pressed his lips to her forehead, over the jade lotus pin she always wore.
They watched races together, cheering for underdogs and for each other. Afterward, under the temple’s carved archway, he spoke plainly: “I will build my life here, with you.”
Liu Qian, whose wisdom often tempered her heart’s desires, looked out at the rolling hills. “Guangde needs careful planning—modern growth without loss of soul. Will you stay?”
He nodded. “I’ll transfer to Xuancheng’s planning bureau. I’ll make Guangde’s new waterfront a place for both tea farmers and grandchildren chasing lanterns. But only if you remain.”
She hesitated, recalling distant European archives. Then she smiled, the same sweetness that first stirred his heart. “My work can be shared remotely. My needle of inquiry will stitch here and abroad. I choose Guangde.”
Spring returned, heavier still with hope. Together, Liu Qian and Li Wei inaugurated the “Tea & Opera Cultural Corridor,” a riverside promenade that traced Guangde’s heritage: pavilions for public tea tastings, stages for Huangmeixi performers, and an interpretive center designed by Li Wei that housed Frankensträß maps and local artifacts curated by Liu Qian.
The County Magistrate presided at the opening ceremony by Longtan Lake. As lanterns bobbed on the water and Guanzi reed players breathed life into ancient melodies, Liu Qian recited the inscription they had chosen for the new entrance gate:
“古今相融，山水长情”
“When past and present dance as one, the mountains and waters keep their promise.”
Li Wei stood beside her in simple black linen. He offered her a porcelain teacup—one from the Viennese set. She poured fresh Maojian tea, and they toasted the future.
In the months that followed, they settled into married life in the county seat. Mornings found them in the museum’s attic, cataloging Qing-era teapots; afternoons at the planning bureau, drafting flood-resilient parks. On weekends, they led schoolchildren in Huangmei Opera workshops beneath the Phoenix Ridge overlook. Together they wove history into the community’s living fabric.
One autumn evening—nine years after their first meeting—Liu Qian and Li Wei returned to the pavilion at Longtan Lake. The pavilion’s stones had grown mossy, but its heart remained unchanged. She carried a small lacquer box, its cover engraved with phoenix and dragons entwined by clouds.
Inside lay two jade hairpins: one lotus bud for Liu Qian, the other an orchid bloom for Li Wei. They had commissioned them from a Suzhou carver who recalled their story. As dusk cooled the air, Liu Qian pinned the orchid to Li Wei’s shirt and he tucked the lotus into her braid.
He swept an arm around her. “Two currents, one river.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “Forever entwined.”
Beneath the waning moon, the lake held their reflection: two figures framed by history, gazing toward a horizon they would shape together—wise keeper of tradition and the visionary builder—united in love, guiding Guangde’s future as they had found each other at its storied shores.
The summer monsoon arrived with a roar, drumming on tiled roofs and swelling the Qingjiang’s emerald currents until they spilled over ancient embankments. Beneath the rising grey skies, Guangde’s terraced slopes and willow-lined streets became a study in water’s power—its promise of life entwined with peril. In the midst of it all, Liu Qian and Li Wei found their shared world tested.
Early one dawn, before lanterns had banished the night, Li Wei roused Liu Qian. Outside their courtyard gate, the river water had crept to knee-height, dark and swirling with willow branches, bamboo stalks, and floating joss-paper offerings torn loose from riverside shrines. The new embankments that Li Wei’s bureau had built—stone walls quarried from Fenghuangling—held firm in most places, but here on the lower terrace, a small breach seeped water into narrow lanes.
Li Wei slipped into rubber boots and a rain-slick jacket. “Stay inside with the baby,” he urged, though neither of them wanted to be apart. Their daughter, Liu Yun, barely eight months old, slept in a cradle of maple wood under starch-white mosquito netting. Her chubby hands curled like lotus buds; her breathing was steady.
“Send the volunteers home,” Qian replied, tightening her silk braid. “I’ll finish the records at the museum. Then I’ll join the inspection team.”
He shook his head. “No—your place is safe.” But she met his gaze, merging the strength of her ancestors with unwavering resolve. “I’m part of this community. If you’ll let me come.”
So at sunrise they moved together—he directing emergency crews to lay sandbags, she coordinating volunteers from the opera guild, whose painted masks and embroidered costumes had been sheltered in the Cultural Corridor Center. By mid-morning, the breach had been patched, and villagers evacuated to higher ground.
That afternoon, rain slackened to a murmur. Qian guided the last of the troupe’s grandmothers—but no less formidable—back across the boards to stage their performance of “The Phoenix Returns.” The opera’s mournful flute and rising percussion echoed off swollen pines, a prayer for safety, a vow of renewal. Li Wei watched her from the shoreline, drenched yet radiant, as she led the singers in impromptu rehearsal, her clear alto carrying above the torrent.
When the final notes faded, the audience—farmhands, shopkeepers, schoolchildren—broke into spontaneous applause, their spirits buoyed. And only then, when the village’s heart had been steadied, did Qian allow herself to collapse into Li Wei’s arms, rain flushing her tears away.
Weeks later, summer waned into a golden haze. Drying terraces released the scent of earth, and tea pickers returned with their baskets of Maojian. The flood, despite its ferocity, had left Guangde’s culture intact—and in some ways more vibrant. News of Li Wei’s embankment success spread to Hangzhou’s planning bureau, earning him commendation; Qian’s quick coordination of heritage performers drew acclaim from Anhui’s cultural ministry.
Yet with triumph came tension. Li Wei was offered a fast-track promotion in Xuancheng—one that would relocate him to the prefectural capital. Qian, meanwhile, had been approached by Sichuan University to lead a field study on tea-culture resilience in the upper Yangtze basin. Both opportunities promised to elevate Guangde’s profile, but both threatened their fragile harmony.
One evening, beneath lanterns swaying among the willows by Longtan Lake, they confronted the choice. The lake mirrored the full moon, round as the year’s hope and fraught with longing.
“I can’t bear to leave you,” Li Wei said, voice low. “But I must—this promotion will let me protect more than just our river.”
Qian took his hand. “And I must go—so our tea farmers can learn from upstream communities about flood-adapted cultivars.” She paused, listening to the water’s hush. “Perhaps we can split our time: six months here, six months there.”
He shook his head, sorrow in his eyes. “Our daughter needs one home.” Yun, now toddling and babbling, stalked the lotus blossoms at their feet, too young to understand distance but too eager to claim her world.
They fell silent. Moonlight turned the lake to mercury; a lone pipa player’s melody drifted from a distant pavilion. In that moment, they recognized that love’s currents could carry them apart as easily as together.
Autumn arrived with rice-gold skies and a newly forged resolve. Rather than uproot, they opted for a shared vision: Li Wei would remain in Guangde, taking on a dual role as deputy planner and flood-resilience consultant for Anhui’s riverine counties. The prefecture approved his transfer on condition that he spend three months each year on itinerant projects—an itinerancy accommodated by Guangde’s understanding magistrate. Qian declined the Sichuan post, instead negotiating with Sichuan University to co-sponsor her research remotely, traveling only during critical field seasons.
Their tandem careers blossomed. Qian spearheaded an initiative—“Tea & Tides”—partnering Guangde tea masters with Yangtze-valley agronomists to cultivate tea varieties that thrived under variable moisture. She taught villagers traditional withering and pan-firing alongside modern agronomy, all while archiving their oral histories in the museum. Li Wei, in turn, designed modular flood barriers that blended stone, bamboo, and tensile membranes—structures that could be deployed upriver to protect terraced foothills before monsoon’s swell.
Their home became a nexus for scholars and officials: scholars comparing tea chemistries beneath the vaulted beams, officials mapping watershed models in the study, and children—both local and from afar—playing hide-and-seek among lacquered cabinets of porcelain treasures. Yun, clutching her mother’s jade hairpin, learned to sing “Phoenix at Dusk” from the opera troupe’s matriarchs; at five, she sketched embankment cross-sections alongside her father’s drafting table, her crayons mimicking his fine instruments.
In the tenth year of their marriage, Guangde celebrated the restoration of the Old Town Wall—a Ming-era relic that had languished in disrepair. The project, overseen by Li Wei, wove archaeological preservation with community revitalization: craftsmen reconstructed turrets using traditional mortar; street vendors returned behind scalloped archways beneath songful banners of crimson and gold; Qian curated an exhibition on the wall’s history, from its founding in 1541 through the Taiping Rebellion to land reforms in 1949.
On opening night, beneath lanterns strung like constellations, Qian took the stage. In her hand, she held a porcelain cup of freshly brewed Maojian, steam rising in the cool evening. “This wall,” she told the crowd, “has watched over Guangde for nearly five centuries. In its stones we find our stories: of resilience, of renewal, and of the river’s unbroken song.”
Li Wei stood at her side as the audience cheered, their applause echoing off the ancient bricks. In that moment, he slipped his arm around her waist and felt the steady warmth of her presence—the wisdom that had shaped his dreams, the courage that had tempered his own.
Afterward, beneath the moonlit ramparts, they released sky lanterns floating heavenward, each bearing a wish: for Yun’s unbounded curiosity, for safe waters in every monsoon, for tea leaves evergreen in flavor and in memory. The lanterns drifted beyond the city lights, like stars charting a course through history—from past to present, from river’s source to delta’s mouth.
And as they watched the lanterns fade into the vast night, Qian rested her head on Li Wei’s shoulder. The world was wide, and their journey had taken them far beyond Longtan Lake’s tranquil shores. Yet here—in the shared cadence of tea and tides, in the laughter of their daughter, in the steadfast stones of the wall—they had found their home. The monsoon’s trial was past; ahead lay new seasons to greet, side by side, in the city that had first witnessed the meeting of two kindred hearts.
If you want to read other stories from China click here.
If you want to read stories from other places click here.
For more information check these posts:
- The Melodic Charm of Huangmei Opera: A Journey Through History, Art, and Culture
- Xinyang Maojian and Himjian; exceptional quality green teas
- A Deep Dive Into Beigang Maojian
- Duyun Mao Jian and Meitan Cui Ya Shougong green teas
- Discovering Anhui, China’s Smallest Province
- Traveling to Anhui: Province of the Yellow Mountain (Huang Shan)
- Guide To Anhui Province
- Huangmei opera 黄梅戏
- Village life, or city life?
- Why You Should Travel China by Train?
- Part 2: Hefei Highlights: Embracing the City’s Charm as a Solo …
- A non-typical trip in China
- Hui Cuisine. The Wild West Cuisine of China
Leave a Reply