Taihu stones are born beneath the misty waves of Lake Tai. After thousands of years of erosion by tides and currents, they emerge shaped with jagged, dramatic forms. Slim as a sword pointing to the sky, wrinkled like layered clouds, perforated like hanging galaxies, and hollow as moonlight filtering through trees—within a single stone lies the essence of a thousand mountains.

In Suzhou gardens, rocks are the soul, and the structure of Taihu stones has long permeated every tile and brick. The labyrinth of strange rocks in the Lion Grove Garden and the towering Crown Cloud Peak in the Lingering Garden present mountain-and-water landscapes in miniature form.

These stones, once slumbering in the lake's depths, were brought into gardens by scholars. Their folds breathe with the memory of lake water; their pores flow with the interplay of substance and emptiness. With the bearing of a solitary peak, a Taihu stone can, in a fleeting moment, become an entire mountain.