Mail/A Leisurely Moment at Year's End... (2025-12-31)

• Sender: Zhongli
• Time/Date: 2025-12-31 (During Version "Luna III")

Another year is coming to a close. Lanterns light up every street in the city, and visitors bustle along. Amid all this, the sharp winter chill seems to have lost some of its bite.

A few days ago, I heard a storyteller recite a passage that went: "The officials toil through the nights without rest, while the merchants shiver awaiting the market quest. Yet I rise long after the sun is high, for nothing beats leisure beneath the sky."

Though spoken in jest, there is a certain truth to these words if you pause to consider them, for we are not made of stone, and endless toil can easily do more harm than good. At the close of the year, it is only fitting to pause and review our journey — both to savor moments of past leisure and to bring order to the mind, thereby attaining a measure of serenity.

Another line goes, "Leisure stolen from busy times is the truest leisure of all," and I couldn't agree more.

By now, I'm sure you see where I'm coming from. In such felicitous moments, what better course than to come partake in tea, and share in the quiet pleasures of the season?