One Lifetime Is Never Enough

1.20 Summer Dream at Lotus House

There was a large piece of manicured land housing a famous tea house, just outside the border of Ming town. Despite not being enclosed within the vicinity of the protective stone walls circling the town, this tea house was considered one of the safest places in the Empire - constantly guarded by higher ranked town guards. Reason being, this place was highly popular with nobility and those of the wealthy. Sometimes, members of the Imperial Family and their important guests even made special trip to the tea house.

The tea house boasted connections to the best entertainers and scholars from every corner of the Empire - who would sometimes grace the guests with their performances or knowledge. It was not a strange occurrence to have famous scholars and personages congregating their meetings inside this place, exchanging poems  or entertaining each other with their talents. Some martial artists from neighbouring towns or even from the pugilist world also sometimes would meet for friendly matches inside the expansive estate.

It was called Lian(1) House.

The Lian tea-house, looking deceptively plain from the outside, had an expansive man-made pond filled with lotus flowers and red koi fish freely swimming underneath the clear waters.

At the center of the pond, there was an open pavilion suspended over the water, only connected to the main building via a small bridge. At the moment, the pavilion was adorned with hanging long fabrics of white, swaying gently in the summer breeze. The tea-house was awfully busy today, with all smaller pavilions and even the normally unused main building were elegantly decorated with tea tables and low cushions for seats. Streams of people continuously came through the main gate and sat at the tables assigned for them. The workers and the managers served small condiments and of course their best tea to the seated guests.