In truth, there isn’t much of a story to tell about William Grant—he’s basically a left-behind child whose parents died young, raised by his grandfather through a tough life.

His grandfather wasn’t a local; he only settled here in the 1980s. He didn’t know how to farm, but he was a master at making incense. Besides selling it himself, he also supplied it to Ziyang Temple on Phoenix Mountain.

Later on, as the temple’s commercial development took off, handmade incense couldn’t keep up with demand, so they switched to a factory. Those big, long, thick incense sticks—they dared to sell one for nine hundred yuan.

William Grant learned the craft from a young age and genuinely loved it, becoming quite skilled. He studied hard, was sensible and diligent, and got into a university in the provincial capital. But after two years, his grandfather suddenly fell seriously ill.

Without much hesitation, he dropped out and returned home to care for him. Unfortunately, after spending all their savings and even incurring some debt, his grandfather still passed away, leaving behind only this small courtyard and a room full of incense recipes.

The only bit of luck was that he didn’t run into any messy disputes and inherited everything smoothly.

Given William Grant’s situation, it was actually quite awkward. A college dropout is less practical than someone from a technical or vocational school. Baicheng is a small place with few jobs, and he couldn’t get into any decent ones.

After much thought, he steeled himself and simply became a mountain peddler. With local protection, costs were low, but it was a hard life.

He wasn’t afraid of hardship and toughed it out—climbing the mountain by day, doing odd jobs at night. It’s been over a year now. Not only has he paid off his debts, but he’s even managed to save a little money.

“Tick, tick, tick!”

The wall clock sounded like a machine running out of oil, its hands moving reluctantly. William Grant turned off the computer, fetched a basin of water in the kitchen, and began to wash his hands.

His fingers were long, his nails neatly trimmed. Without using soap, he slowly rubbed his hands in the water, as if determined to clean every inch of skin.

Only then did he push open the door to that room.

As the light came on, it was as if another world was illuminated—neat, compact, and tinged with a unique sense of mystery. Three walls were lined with large wooden shelves, covered with bottles and jars, each labeled, easily over a hundred kinds. Two big boxes were stacked in the corner, and in the center stood a square table cluttered with all sorts of strange tools.

This was William Grant’s workshop, and no one else had ever set foot inside.

Xiao Zhai had ordered some “refreshing incense,” and he needed to make it as soon as possible. So-called “refreshing incense” clears the mind and helps with focus—a kind of medicinal incense.

It’s best to make incense at night, so as not to disturb others and not be disturbed. It’s said that incense has ten virtues: moving spirits and gods, purifying body and mind, making friends in stillness, finding leisure amid dust, dispelling filth, and so on.

Stillness is the foundation.

William Grant circled the shelves, took down a few bottles and jars, and sat down at the table. As he sat, his whole demeanor changed—calm, focused, with a hint of something free-spirited.

Ah, free-spirited as in drifting a light boat on tranquil waters.

According to the internet, making incense is just burning money, since almost every recipe uses agarwood and sandalwood. Both are outrageously expensive, and often not even genuine.

But what he inherited were his grandfather’s recipes, apparently from a very unique school, further improved by the old man. These recipes rarely used agarwood or sandalwood, relying mostly on common ingredients. For example, “refreshing incense” is made from calamus, atractylodes, mint, night-blooming vine, white cardamom, borneol, plus a kind of round-leaf herb from Phoenix Mountain.

Aside from the extremely tedious preparation of incense powder, the process of making incense is roughly divided into five steps: mixing the paste, shaping, refining the shape, air-drying, and aging. The jars contained ready-made incense and binding powders, so he could go straight to mixing the paste.

Simply put, you mix the binding powder with the incense powder, kneading it like dough until it’s uniform. The binding powder is usually made from elm bark—odorless and sticky, but you can’t use too much.

Many of the stick incense in temples, with ashes that curl endlessly after burning, use too much binding powder—this is inferior incense.

William Grant first took a porcelain bowl, put in the prepared powder, added water little by little, and stirred bit by bit. When the water was absorbed, the powder became a dough-like lump. He then used a spoon to fold and press the dough from all sides toward the center, thoroughly mixing it and increasing its density.

Up to this point, it was all simple. The next step was the key—shaping.

If you’re making stick incense, most people nowadays take the shortcut of stuffing the incense paste into a syringe and squeezing it out in strips. This actually produces inferior incense, because the extruded sticks aren’t dense inside, so they smoke a lot when burned.

The proper way is to roll them by hand. Blending the ingredients and hand-rolling the sticks—these are the true skills of incense making.

“Whoo…”

William Grant sat under the lamp, took a deep breath, and became even more composed. He tore off a small piece of incense dough, placed it on a wooden board, and began to roll it vertically with one finger.

Never roll horizontally—rolling vertically lets you control the direction and thickness of the stick.

He was completely focused, his whole being in that finger—not watching, but feeling. He felt the little lump of incense dough slowly stretch, thin out, and lengthen… as if he were controlling it with his mind.

It was a subtle sensation. Anyone who’s practiced Tai Chi knows about “listening energy”; rolling incense is similar, letting the skin of your finger “listen” to the force and feedback from the dough.

There’s a saying: rolling incense is tuning the heart.

Ultimately, it all comes down to stillness.