Morning mist blanketed the coffee farm, leaving only the faint silhouettes of the coffee trees lined up in rows.
Phakin had been surveying the farm since before dawn. He noticed a pair of boot prints that didn't belong to anyone in the village.
The tracks began at the roadside... and ended in front of the storage-room window.
He knelt down to examine them closely.
"Someone came here last night."
Pantawan, who had followed him, began to pale.
"Could it be..."
The two of them hurried to open the storage-room door.
The wooden chest was still in its usual place. The lock hadn't been forced.
But when they opened it...
All three envelopes of coffee seeds were still there.
However...
Grandma's letter was gone.
Pantawan stood frozen.
"That's impossible..."
She remembered placing the letter on top of the seed envelopes last night. But now, only an empty space remained.
Phakin glanced around the room before noticing a small scrap of paper caught on the corner of the table.
He picked it up.
It was only a torn fragment from the letter.
Just one sentence remained:
"...The key will open when the coffee blossoms across the mountain bloom together..."
They looked at each other.
"The key?"
"That means there's still something hidden."
Meanwhile...
At the village hall, the same man in the suit was sitting and talking with a local power broker.
"That girl still refuses to sell."
The other man chuckled softly.
"It doesn't matter."
"If money won't work..."
He set his coffee cup down on the table.
"...then we'll use secrets instead."
Outside the window, a mysterious man in a wide-brimmed hat stood silently listening to the conversation before disappearing into the mist.
That evening, Uncle Kham came running to the house, his face frantic.
"Pantawan!"
"Something terrible has happened!"
Pantawan hurried to open the door.
"What happened?"
Uncle Kham was so out of breath he could barely speak before handing her a newspaper.
The huge headline immediately caught her eye:
"Famous Businessman Announces Control of Nearly All the Mountain's Coffee-Growing Land, Prepares to Launch Major Development Project"
And on the map in the article...
There was only one farm that hadn't been shaded in.
Mistveil Coffee Farm.
Pantawan clenched the newspaper in her hands.
She knew now that her grandmother's farm wasn't just an ordinary piece of land.
It was the final piece of something...
something many people were willing to do anything to possess.