She was the daughter of a Canglan tea merchant. When her family fell on hard times at eight, she followed her mother to the tea mountains of Motan, where she put down roots again with her own two hands and a family heirloom notebook.
He was the only son of a wealthy merchant in Motan. In public, he was a delicate young master born into privilege; in private, he lived alone in the shadow of his father's abuse.
He met her when he was six. Bright and sunny, she became the only light in his life.
The times were turbulent, and the tea industry rose and fell. They endured separation, reunion, hunger, and catastrophe. In the hardest years, she secretly saved a handful of tea seeds for him. In the darkest nights, he struggled alone, inching closer to her one step at a time.
A wisp of tea fragrance, from Canglan to Motan, then to the tea gardens covering the mountains of Yanzhou.
A lifelong obsession, from the bandage she wrapped around him when he was six to their reunion on a mountaintop eighteen years later.
“Look at this tea tree. In winter, it looks dead, but when spring comes, it comes back to life.”
“People are like that too.”
She was his one and only spring, and he was the flutter in her heart that would never fade.
This is the story of a heroine's fall and rebirth, and a hero's salvation as he goes from “a boy in the depths of the abyss” to “someone illuminated by a ray of light.” Their meeting, separation, reunion, and life together are all deeply entwined with the changing fortunes of tea culture.
