Tonight, I invite you into a collection of gentle sleep stories following the quiet preparations for the Dragon Boat Festival in Tang Dynasty Chang'an.

Across this extended journey, we move in calm, unbroken rhythm from a silk merchant's inner room to the misty waters of the palace lake, and onward to festival morning itself.

We begin four days before the festival, where a silk merchant's wife twists five-colored cords by the afternoon light of her worktable.

From there, the path leads to Qujiang Pool before dawn, where a lone boatman unties the dragon boat and rows quietly through the mist.

As the journey continues, we settle into a Chang'an kitchen before sunrise, where a noodle shop owner wraps glutinous rice parcels (zongzi) in reed leaves for the neighboring households. Around the same time, there is also a story that ...