Two decades after a sudden departure severed her from her first love, Kai, and the vibrant artist's community they built in the ancient courtyard of "The Inkstone House," Lin receives cryptic, water-stained letter. Kai is gone. The home that once pulsed with creativity, debates under wisteria vines, and the heady scent of wet ink is to be demolished. Its remaining guardian, the reclusive painter Old Chen, has asked for her.