Li-yan meets San-pa at the tea collection center after he offers her a bite of his stolen pancake.

Deh-ja gives birth to twins, which Akha law treats as a curse; the babies are killed and the parents exiled.

Teacher Zhang invites the village headman, ruma, and nima to convince Li-yan's father to allow her to attend second-level school.

Li-yan and San-pa fall in love at the Swing Festival and sleep together for the first time.

A man named Mr. Huang arrives at Spring Well Village in a car, the first vehicle the Akha have ever seen.

Li-yan becomes so absorbed in Mr. Huang's tea work that she misses her chance to take the university entrance exam.

Li-yan gives birth to her daughter alone under the mother tree in the secret ancestral tea grove.

Li-yan walks two days to Menghai and leaves her newborn daughter on the steps of the orphanage.

Li-yan and San-pa visit the orphanage and learn that an American family has already adopted their daughter.

San-pa's heroin addiction in Thailand worsens until Li-yan fears for her safety and flees into the jungle.

San-pa follows Li-yan into the jungle and sacrifices his life to save her from a tiger attack.

A-ma arranges with Teacher Zhang for Li-yan to enroll immediately in a trade school in Kunming for a fresh start.

Li-yan is accepted into both programs at the newly opened Pu'er Tea College, beating out two thousand applicants.

Li-yan becomes part-owner of the Midnight Blossom teashop in Guangzhou's largest wholesale tea market.

Li-yan and Haley recognize each other immediately when they meet face-to-face at the ancestral tea grove.

Li-yan's story begins in a remote Akha village where a chance encounter with a boy named San-pa sets in motion events that will reshape her entire life. After falling in love and becoming pregnant outside of marriage, she is forced to abandon her newborn daughter at an orphanage and watch her dreams of education collapse. Li-yan survives a dangerous marriage, the death of her first husband, and years of hardship before rebuilding herself into a successful tea businesswoman. All the while, her abandoned daughter grows up as Haley Davis in Los Angeles, raised by a loving American family. The novel's emotional arc reaches its climax when both women, pulled by fate and the shared bond of an ancient tea cake, finally find each other at the very tree where Haley was born.

Li-yan's defining journey from village girl to reunited mother.

Li-yan successfully lies to her family about her dream, hiding the bad omen of a dog on the roof.

A village cleaning ceremony is performed for Li-yan's family after she ate a bite of San-pa's stolen pancake.

A-ma takes Li-yan to the hidden ancestral tea grove and introduces her to the ancient mother tree for the first time.

San-pa departs Spring Well for Thailand but backs into the spirit gate as he leaves, creating a terrifying omen.

Mr. Huang supervises the villagers as they learn to harvest, kill the green, and ferment their leaves into Pu'er.

While A-ma is away from the village, Li-yan secretly picks leaves from the mother tree and sells them to Mr. Huang.

A-ma notices Li-yan's pregnancy, realizes an abortion is too late, and secretly begins planning a safe delivery.

Baby Haley arrives in Los Angeles severely malnourished and falls critically ill, nearly dying before eventually recovering.

Li-yan unexpectedly encounters the long-exiled Deh-ja in a Myanmar village and hears how Ci-do abandoned her.

After performing burial rites for San-pa in the jungle, Li-yan burns her wedding clothes and headdress.

Li-yan befriends a woman named Mrs. Chang during her daily walks in the Martyrs' Memorial Gardens in Guangzhou.

Jin takes Li-yan to the Shamian Island mansion, presents a traditional headdress sent by her mother, and proposes marriage.

A television reporter broadcasts that counterfeit Pu'er is being sold from Li-yan's Midnight Blossom teashop.

Li-yan recognizes the exiled Deh-ja begging on the steps of the Social Welfare Institute and insists she come live with them.

Haley attends the World Tea Expo, discovers her passion for Pu'er, and meets a tea seller named Sean Wong.

Behind the headline events of Li-yan's story lie crucial secondary moments that drive her choices and define her character. From lying to her family about a childhood dream to secretly selling leaves from her mother's sacred grove, Li-yan's small transgressions accumulate into life-altering consequences. The parallel story of baby Haley—nearly dying after her adoption before finding a loving home—runs alongside Li-yan's own struggle to survive in Thailand and rebuild herself in the city. As Li-yan rises professionally and finds love with Jin, new threats emerge through her best friend's betrayal and the televised collapse of her business. The pool closes with Haley herself taking her first steps toward home, meeting the man who will unknowingly guide her back to her birth mother.

The pivotal secondary moments that shape Li-yan's and Haley's parallel lives.

Li-yan watches Deh-ja's newborn twins ritually killed and resolves she can never fulfill her destined role as midwife.

Teacher Zhang privately tells Li-yan she has exceptional potential and encourages her to seek schooling beyond the village.

Li-yan receives her traditional headdress at the Swing Festival, officially marking her as a woman eligible for marriage.

Li-yan's parents refuse to allow her to marry San-pa, citing their incompatible birth days under Akha tradition.

A-ma secretly helps Li-yan hide her pregnancy and plans the birth to protect them both from Akha Law.

Unable to kill her newborn daughter as Akha Law demands, Li-yan chooses instead to carry her to an orphanage.

San-pa returns to Spring Well, and after Li-yan reveals the abandoned baby, the two complete Akha wedding ceremonies.

Li-yan surrenders her precious silver wedding bracelet to the orphanage director as a bribe to reclaim her daughter.

Li-yan realizes San-pa knew the armed drug traffickers they encountered and has been working inside the opium trade.

Jin reveals his painful childhood secret: he told Red Guard soldiers about his father's hidden philosophy books.

Tea Master Sun interrupts Li-yan's entrance interview and conducts an impromptu tasting that effectively decides her acceptance.

Li-yan returns to Spring Well Village after years away to find concrete houses, Western clothes, and forgotten Akha customs.

Before accepting Jin's proposal, Li-yan confesses her full history—the baby, San-pa, and Thailand—risking the entire relationship.

Mr. Huang reveals he has secretly been Li-yan's business partner and that mother tree tea saved his son from cancer.

A-ma seizes Haley's tea cake and leads her up the mountain by hand toward the hidden ancestral tea grove.

This pool traces the moments of discovery, decision, and emotional reckoning that mark Li-yan's deepest transformations. Beginning with the traumatic night she witnesses the killing of newborn twins, Li-yan's inner life is shaped by a series of wrenching choices—whether to honor tradition or her conscience, whether to kill her daughter or give her a chance at life, whether to endure a dangerous marriage or flee into the unknown. As she rebuilds herself, further turning points arrive: a revelatory tea tasting that unlocks her career, a courageous confession that secures her second marriage, and a long-hidden secret finally revealed by the man who first brought tea buyers to her village. The pool ends with the miraculous final steps of Haley's journey, guided unwittingly toward her birth mother by the very woman who first wrapped her in a blanket alongside an ancient cake of tea.

The revelations and turning points that transform Li-yan from village girl to whole person.