The wind came early that morning bending the young rice shoots until they looked like green waves across the paddy. Yi Rong stood at the edge of the field with a woven basket in hand, the hem of her linen trousers damp with dew. Her father had already gone ahead hoe slung over his shoulder, boots thick with mud. He didn't say much at dawn not out of silence but because of his habit,his days began with movement not with words.
Yi Rong liked that It gave her time to think.
The villagers were preparing for the grain festival, a humble celebration to mark the first turning of rice from seedling to stalk. It wasn't grand just a few red banners strung from bamboo poles and the scent of sweet buns steaming in bamboo baskets. But it was the first time since her illness that Yi Rong had felt the village has become lively and joyful.
And for the first time she let herself be part of it.
She worked quietly alongside her mother, helping clean taro and soak mung beans. Her hands moved on instinct half muscle memory from this life, half training from the last. She never told her mother how she knew to ferment the beans with just a touch of ginger or how wrapping the buns in lotus leaves made them sweeter.
Her mother didn't ask she only said, "You've grown quick."
And Yi Rong smiled and said,"I'm trying."
When she wasn't helping at home, she spent her time in the hills, where the spring herbs began to grow. Old Wen no longer asked questions; he simply handed her the collecting pouch and waved her off. In return, she gave him half of everything she gathered angelica root, Solomon's seal, young burdock.
"You've got good timing," he grunted one afternoon inspecting her bundle, "The villagers think the mountain listens to you."
Yi Rong raised an eyebrow and said"Then it should speak louder."
He snorted, half amused, half proud.
It was near the southern ridge on a day when the clouds sat low like a lid over the valley, that Yi Rong saw Lianhua again. The girl was perched on a flat stone, legs swinging above a trickling stream a bundle of reeds tied over her back.
Yi Rong approached quietly.
Lianhua turned with a bright smile,"You again."
Yi Rong nodded, setting her basket down "Looks like we both had the same idea."
"I thought this stream might have better reeds for baskets," Lianhua said, gesturing to her load. "The ones near the village are too soft. My mother says brittle reeds make ugly baskets."
"And your mother's never made an ugly one in her life, I bet."
"She's faster than wind," Lianhua said proudly,"I can't even keep up with tying the ends."
They sat together for a while sharing dried apricots Lianhua had packed in waxed paper. The clouds didn't lift but the silence between them was comforting.
"You don't talk much," Lianhua said.
"I think more than I talk."
"I talk more than I think," Lianhua said with a grin,"Maybe that's why we get along."
Yi Rong found herself laughing quietly but it came straight from the heart.
Lianhua watched her a little more seriously now, "Everyone says you changed since your sickness. Like you woke up a different person."
"I didn't wake up different," Yi Rong said, "I just stopped pretending to be younger than I was."
Lianhua looked at her with interest, "I think I like this version of you better."
The wind stirred the leaves above them and in that moment, Yi Rong felt something click into place not from her old life not from the strange oaths that still whispered in her dreams but from this life.
This village.
This friendship.
When they returned to the village, dusk was already brushing the rooftops. The lanterns had been strung in preparation for the grain festival and children ran barefoot through the mud with streaks of flour on their cheeks.
Yi Rong's father was back from the fields, rinsing mud from his boots at the well. His posture was tired but solid like the ridge itself.
She approached him and handed over a pouch of dried herbs,"This will help your knees."
He looked down at it, then up at her, "You've been busy again."
"I had some spare time."
Her father wasn't a man of many words but he nodded once the kind of nod that meant everything had been said.
Inside, her mother was sorting beans with the efficiency of a woman who had cooked for a family her entire life. When she looked up, her eyes crinkled with warmth,"Lianhua is a good girl. Good to see you have someone your age around."
Yi Rong nodded and took her seat besides the stove.
The fire was low but steady. Outside, the lanterns flickered to life, one by one, golden points glowing in the dusk.
She hadn't spoken a word to her parents about the memories that stirred behind her calm gaze memories filled with sharp, sterile scents and the constant beeping of machines, of long white corridors and cold hospital lights. Images of sutures of metal trays and gloved hands, flickered in her mind like distant echoes from another lifetime. There had been pain there and purpose too, but none of it belonged to this soil, these hands or this quiet village.
And for the first time since waking from her fever, she realized that was something she could give them.
Not with grand gestures.
But with slow, steady presence.
With a girl's laughter echoing by a stream.
With dried herbs left quietly on the table.
With a life built not from memory but from care.
And so, as night settled over the village, Yi Rong sat with her family by the fire. The scent of mung beans filled the room. Her mother hummed a lullaby from her own childhood. Her father dozed lightly arms folded across his chest.
And Yi Rong watched the flames, silent and steady, thinking not of who she had been but of who she was becoming.