Old Jin City on the Wall

Chapter 10 The Girl Taking Pictures

Old Zhou and Mr. Li were talking about the same thing—less about things, more about people.

To put it simply, he hasn't figured it out yet, so he might as well focus on doing the things at hand first.

When Wu Ling came downstairs, Qin Xiaowan had already set up a blackboard at the door.

The new business license has been issued, so it's not appropriate to use the old cardboard for pricing anymore.

Her chalk writing was crooked and messy. After she finished writing, she took two steps back to look at it, and then squatted down to add another line.

Wu Ling poked his head out from inside.

"What should I write?"

"Three-piece set: egg pancakes, three large cannons, and a covered bowl of three kinds of flowers, thirty-eight. Seven dollars cheaper than ordering them individually."

"Where did the Three Cannons come from?"

"I tried it all night last night. The glutinous rice flour was readily available, and the soybean flour just needed to be stir-fried."

"When did you learn to make three cannons?"

"You think you're the only one who learns from others just because you watched it online?"

She moved the blackboard to the left, then to the right, and finally placed it next to the threshold.

"When customers see that the three-piece set is cheaper than ordering individual items, they think they're getting a good deal. Actually, we sell an extra plate of 'Three Great Cannons,' which only costs three yuan to produce."

"You used to do this when you sold skewers?"

"Anyone who has run a shop knows this. You haven't, so you don't understand."

She then took out her phone from her pocket and showed it to Wu Ling.

The teahouse is already listed on Dianping (a Chinese review platform) with a rating of 4.8 and five reviews below.

"Why do these reviews sound like GG (Goblin) all the time?"

"It's just a cold start. I'll delete it once real customers leave reviews."

"Isn't this fraudulent order placement?"

"That's called operations. You take care of your tea, and I'll take care of mine."

Wu Ling couldn't say whether this was clever or cunning.

More than twenty people came that afternoon, and the three-piece set sold out the fastest.

Around 2 PM, Wu Ling went on stage as per the rules.

There were actually two tables of guests listening in the audience, one of whom was recording on his phone.

It's even more nerve-wracking than in the Republic of China era. Back then, if you messed up, you'd just laugh it off. But here, if you record it and post it online, the whole internet can see it.

Wu Ling was talking about how people in Chengdu play mahjong.

He had seen several versions of this joke online and compiled his own.

"People from Chengdu are born with three things—eating spicy food, drinking tea, and playing mahjong. When do people from Chengdu stop playing mahjong? During earthquakes! But even then, it's just a pause. Once they've run out and are standing still, the first thing they say isn't 'Are you alright?' but 'Who remembered my hand just now?'"

Someone in the audience laughed; the phone that was recording wasn't playing the recording, and the camera followed him.

"There's an old lady named Wang at the entrance of our alley. She's seventy-two. She's hard of hearing. If you stand in front of her and call her, she won't hear you even after three calls. But when we're short one player for mahjong, if you call out from across the street, she'll come running, slipping on her shoes. Her eyesight is also failing; she can't see people's faces clearly and can't tell one from another. But when she sits down at the mahjong table, she can win with a perfect hand of three or six of the same suit, more accurately than a money counter."

He paused for a moment.

"My family told me to go see a doctor. So I went. The doctor said eight words: 'Play less mahjong, go out more.' Grandma Wang nodded after hearing this, left the hospital, and walked for twenty minutes to another mahjong parlor. Two months later, she went for a follow-up checkup. The doctor asked her how she was doing. She said she was much better. The doctor asked if she had played less. She said no, she had played even more. The doctor asked why she was much better. She said: 'I changed to a spot where I had better luck, and my mood improved, so all my ailments disappeared.'"

The laughter grew even louder.

Grandma Zhao didn't turn her head by the window, but the corner of her mouth twitched slightly.

When Wu Ling finished collecting the items, he simply tapped the table twice with his fingers, using a gavel instead of a wooden clapper.

After all, it was just practice, not that formal.

"The story is here, believe it or not."

Five minutes is for practicing rhythm and punchlines, not for rehearsing material.

In the Republic of China era, the training focused on how to quiet people down; in modern times, the training focuses on how to make people laugh.

The techniques at both ends are different, but the feel is the same.

When Wu Ling came out of the kitchen carrying egg pancakes, he noticed that there was another person at the door.

They don't look like they're here for tea.

Standing at the door, I looked up at the plaque for a long time without coming in.

Qin Xiaowan leaned closer and whispered, "That person is a bit strange."

"What's wrong?"

"I've never seen anyone come to a teahouse and just stand there watching."

Wu Ling took a closer look.

The girl at the door looks to be around twenty-three or twenty-four.

Her ponytail was tied high, revealing a section of her slender, white neck.

Thin-rimmed glasses, a plain cotton-linen shirt with sleeves rolled up to the middle of the forearm, no jewelry on her wrists, and very short nails.

He had a canvas bag slung across his shoulder, bulging as if it were stuffed full of things.

She's completely different from Qin Xiaowan.

Qin Xiaowan is always ready to run around in sneakers and jeans. This girl is quiet and reserved, like she just stepped out of a library.

The afternoon light shone on her profile, making her glasses flash white.

Then he squatted down and ran his fingers along the wood grain of the threshold.

Qin Xiaowan nudged him with her elbow.

"She came here last time too."

"Last time?"

"It's the one Boss Zhang told you about. She came to take pictures of the plaque last month. You weren't there then, and she squatted by the door taking several pictures by herself, even shining a flashlight on the door frame. I thought she was a renovation worker."

During their conversation, the girl stood up again, dusted off her hands, and walked in.

After entering, I didn't look for a seat first, but just slowly walked around the left wall.

He walked very slowly, his left hand pressed against the wall.

They would even squat down at the corner to look at the bricks at the base of the wall, and even pick at the mortar in the cracks between the bricks with their fingernails.

Then he looked up at the joints of the beams and pillars and tilted his head slightly.

They stopped at the back wall.

He placed his palm on it, as if listening to something.

Wu Ling's throat moved.

The door in the back wall was less than a meter away from her.

She touched it for a while, then began to examine the grout lines on the wall.

He moved his hand a few inches to the right—closer to the door.

"The bricks on this wall are different from the other three," she muttered to herself.

Qin Xiaowan whispered to Wu Ling, "Why is she touching the wall?"

"I don't know." Wu Ling's voice was also a little lower than usual.

Su Wangqing did not continue to walk to the right.

She took a step back, drew a diagram of the wall in her notebook, marked several locations, and then walked to the counter.

"Hello," Wu Ling greeted him first.

"Hello." Her Mandarin was standard, without any Chengdu accent. "May I ask when this teahouse was built?"

"It was left to me by my grandfather. I'm not quite sure when it was built."

"Is that plaque at the entrance the original one?"

"It should be. It's always been there."

"The calligraphy on that plaque is in the style of semi-cursive script from the Republican era."

She took a notebook out of her canvas bag and opened it; it was filled with dense writing and sketches.

"Moreover, the weathering of the plaque is inconsistent with that of the surrounding walls. The plaque is older than the walls."

"What does that mean?"

"This means either the plaque was moved from elsewhere, or this wall was renovated later. The plaque remained, but the wall was moved."

Wu Ling thought for a moment.

"My grandfather mentioned it once, saying that the bricks on the back wall were replaced."

"When was it changed?"

"I don't remember. He didn't go into details."

"How many years has your grandfather run this teahouse?"

"Forty or fifty years, I suppose. It opened before I was born."

"And before him? Who drove ahead of him?"

"I don't know. He didn't mention it."

Su Wangqing wrote several lines in his notebook, then looked up.

"My name is Su Wangqing. I'm a third-year graduate student in the Archaeology Department at Sichuan University. My thesis topic is the spatial evolution of tea culture in Chengdu's history."

"The Evolution of Tea Culture Space?"

"Simply put, it's about teahouses. When did teahouses first appear in Chengdu? Where were they built? How did their architectural style change? I need to find some living examples."

"Alive?"

"It's still open for business. It hasn't been converted into a guesthouse, and it's not fenced off and charging admission. There are actually people drinking tea there."

She glanced at the customers in the teahouse.

"Judging from the plaque and the beams, your house is probably one of the best-preserved Republican-era teahouse buildings in the city."

"I'm not sure if it's the Republic of China era; my grandfather never told me about it when he was alive."

Wu Ling was absolutely certain that the teahouse had existed for far longer than the Republican era, but his grandfather had never mentioned the history of the teahouse.

What kind of person was your grandfather?

He wasn't a man of many words. He spent his entire life brewing tea. Before he passed away, he told me something: "Teahouses are older than you think."

Su Wangqing gave him a serious look.

"He might be right."

She looked down and continued looking at the counter.

The counter is old, the wood is blackened, the edges are rounded, and you can see the handmade mortise and tenon joints at the seams.

The things that my grandfather left behind are displayed on the inside.

An old covered bowl, a bronze incense burner, a stack of yellowed papers, and a small pottery jar of unknown age.

Su Wangqing's gaze swept from left to right and landed on the bronze incense burner.

"May I take a look?"

Wu Ling's heart skipped a beat.

He didn't know what era these things on the counter were from; he could only guess where they came from.

"...Can."

She picked up the bronze incense burner.

Don't just grab it randomly. Support the bottom with your left hand and hold the side with your right hand, then flip it over to check the bottom.

The technique was very light and steady, as if it had been done many times before.

Wu Ling's hand rested under the counter, and his fingers unconsciously clenched.

She looked at it for about ten seconds, then put it back.

He then picked up the small earthenware jar next to him, turned it around, and gently ran his finger along the rim.

Do you know what era this jar is from?

"I don't know. It's always been there."

"The pinching marks on the rim are very rough. It wasn't made with a mold; it was hand-pinched."

Wu Ling wasn't sure if this was a compliment or a further investigation.

He put the earthenware jar back down and moved his hand to the old covered bowl next to it.

There is a thin crack on the bowl wall, which extends from the rim to the bottom.

She held the covered bowl up to the light and squinted to examine the cross-section of the crack.

"The color seeping into this crack is very deep."

"What is '沁色'?"

"The color seeps into the cracks. Tea stains, limescale, grease—it all seeps in over time. The longer it's there, the darker the color becomes. This depth..."

She didn't put it down, but turned the covered bowl over to look at the bottom, running her finger along the inside of the foot rim.

His expression changed.

It wasn't the kind of dramatic change; his pupils contracted slightly, and the corners of his mouth tightened, as if he wanted to say something but held back.

Wu Ling saw it, and his palms became sweaty.

She gently placed the covered bowl back on the counter, even more carefully than before.

The placement was exactly the same as when it was picked up.

"Did your grandfather use this bowl to drink tea?"

"It's been sitting there all along."

"Um."

She drew another page in her notebook.

The side profile of the bronze incense burner, the rim pattern of the pottery jar, and the direction of the cracks in the covered bowl.

He draws very quickly and his lines are accurate.

Then she took out a small ruler from her bag, measured the width of the countertop, and then measured the distance between the countertop legs.

"Why are you measuring this?" Qin Xiaowan asked curiously.

"It depends on the style. Counters from different eras have different standard dimensions. Those from the Qing Dynasty are narrow, those from the Republic of China are wide, and a batch was standardized after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Yours..."

She stared at the numbers on the ruler and didn't continue.

"What's wrong?"

"It's not the standard size from the Republic of China era. It's narrower."

She put the ruler back into her bag.

Qin Xiaowan brought over a bowl of tea and placed it in front of her.

"Sanhua. Please have a seat. You've been standing for ages."

"Thanks."

Su Wangqing sat down next to the counter. He took a sip of tea and smacked his lips.

"This three-flowered variety is quite good. The proportion of jasmine is higher than in other varieties."

"You know anything about tea?" Qin Xiaowan sat down opposite her.

"I don't know. My maternal grandfather loved drinking tea, so I picked up a little bit of his knowledge."

"Did you come here specifically to see these old things?"

"I came to see the teahouse. The architectural structure, the spatial layout." She paused, "but these things on the counter... are more interesting than I expected."

"What do you mean by 'interesting'? Is it valuable?"

Su Wangqing glanced at Qin Xiaowan.

The two looked at each other for a second.

One speaks fast, the other slow; one speaks Chengdu dialect, the other Mandarin.

"I don't do authentication. That's not my area of ​​expertise."

"Can your orientation tell you whether it's valuable or not?"

"You can tell the age of it. Whether it's valuable or not is another matter."

She finished her tea and closed her notebook.

He stood up and walked around half a circle in the teahouse again, this time not touching the walls, but just looking.

Observe the location of the windows, the angle of the courtyard's lighting, and the way the blue bricks on the ground are laid.

"Is this the original ground?"

"That's probably it. It was like that when my grandfather was alive."

"The staggered paving method for blue bricks is rarely seen nowadays."

She stood directly under the roof beam and looked up for a while.

"My grandfather used to work in the cultural relics system. Before he retired, he told me something: 'The worst thing for old things is not that they get damaged, but that they get moved. If they stay in their original place, they are alive. If they are moved and put in a display case, they become specimens.'"

She slung her canvas bag over her shoulder, walked to the door, and glanced back at the seams between the beams and pillars.

"The things on your counter—"

Wu Ling waited for her to finish speaking.

"May I take a closer look next time? Bring some tools. It won't damage anything."

"Sure. You can come anytime."

"Thanks."

gone.

After Su Wangqing left, Qin Xiaowan went to clear the table.

Fifteen yuan was placed next to the bowl.

"We agreed to invite her."

"They follow the rules."

When closing time came, Qin Xiaowan flipped through her notebook and found that she had sold eleven sets of the three-piece bedding, with a daily average of over six hundred.

"The gross profit margin of the three cannons after cost allocation is 67%, which is not as high as that of egg pancakes, but it wins in terms of volume."

She wasn't in a hurry to leave.

Instead, he walked to the counter, to the spot where Su Wangqing had just been, and examined each item one by one.

Bronze incense burner, small earthenware jar, crackled covered bowl.

Today, after Su Wangqing flipped through my hands, touched me, and drew on my clothes, I suddenly felt that something was wrong.

"Wu Ling".

"Um."

"Her expression changed when she looked at that covered bowl just now. Did you notice?"

"I've noticed."

"She didn't say. People like that are scarier if they don't talk. Have you never had anyone look at these things your grandfather left behind?"

"No. Grandpa said not to move, so I didn't move."

"That girl will definitely come again."

How did you know?

The way she looked at your old things was the same way she looked at the back door.

Wu Ling did not respond.

After Qin Xiaowan left, he sat alone behind the counter.

The teahouse fell silent.

He picked up the cracked bowl and, imitating Su Wangqing, turned it over to examine the bottom.

The inside of the foot was dusty and grayish; he couldn't make out anything about it.

These things were passed down from my grandfather, who never said how much they were worth.

Now, an archaeology graduate student says, "Bring your tools next time."

Wu Ling put the covered bowl back on the counter, next to the bronze incense burner.

He doesn't yet know which era these objects come from, but he knows one thing.

We can't let anyone move them out of here.

Because Grandpa said not to move.

Then let's not move.