Old Jin City on the Wall

Chapter 14 Su Wangqing's Notebook

"Boss, do you still have any cold noodles?"

"Sold out, please come back tomorrow."

Qin Xiaowan returned from the kitchen, her hands still covered in flour; the third batch of peach shortbread had just gone in.

"Sold out by 11:30?"

"It's like this every day; if you come late, it'll be gone."

"Alright, we'll come earlier next time. Do you have storytelling here? When do you start?"

"This month."

Wu Ling was wiping cups behind the counter.

"Let me know on WeChat Moments when it happens."

The two people at the table by the window exchanged a glance, then took out their phones and snapped a picture of the menu.

He left before finishing his tea.

As Qin Xiaowan was collecting the bowls, she passed by Wu Ling and whispered, "That's thirty-five today. Last month, there were only twenty on the same day."

The afternoon was quiet for a while.

Grandma Zhao sat there for half an afternoon, and when she left, there were still fifteen pieces of money left at the bottom of her bowl. She never allowed Wu Ling to refuse.

There's a shallow mark on the armrest of the chair, the kind that only someone who's sat on it for over a decade could develop.

Qin Xiaowan wiped the countertop and walked around the bronze incense burner.

Wu Ling couldn't persuade her, so she never touched those old things on the counter.

He stopped wiping halfway through and looked at the mural.

"The paintings on that wall look different from the ones from a couple of days ago. Look at that one, isn't the color a bit darker? Don't tell me you had someone repair it after you closed."

Wu Ling did not answer.

Because a long-spouted pot did indeed appear in the mural.

"Fine, I won't ask if you don't want to tell me." Qin Xiaowan draped the towel over her shoulder. "Anyway, you've been acting weirder lately."

Su Wangqing arrived around 2 PM.

Unlike last time, I didn't go straight to the counter after entering the door.

Instead, he sat down at a table by the window, placed his canvas bag at his feet, ordered a bowl of three kinds of broth, and opened a notebook.

Qin Xiaowan refilled her water and then told Wu Ling, "Teacher Su is here."

"I saw it."

"Why isn't she watching the counter anymore?"

"Let's wait."

At 3:30, Qin Xiaowan glanced at the window as she came out with a plate.

Su Wangqing was still sitting in that spot.

He drank two more bowls of tea, flipped through a few pages of his notes, and didn't get up.

"She's been sitting here for almost two hours."

"Um."

"Aren't you going to ask?"

"She'll say what she needs to say. What if she's just here for tea?"

"No, her bag was full of things. It was bulging."

"You have a keen eye for detail."

At 5:30, the last customer paid their bill.

Qin Xiaowan began clearing the table, and Su Wangqing closed her notebook and stood up.

"Boss Wu, have they all left?"

"I'm gone."

"Then I can begin."

She lifted the canvas bag onto the counter and opened it.

A 20x handheld magnifying glass, digital calipers, cotton swabs, and distilled water.

A macro lens was attached to the phone, along with a stack of printed photos and a notebook.

When the photos were displayed, Qin Xiaowan leaned over to take a look; they were taken when Su Wangqing had visited before.

Each photo has a handwritten annotation next to it.

But the handwriting was clearly not Su Wangqing's.

Older, more square.

"Who wrote this?" Wu Ling asked.

"My maternal grandfather." Su Wangqing put on gloves. "These are the photos I took last time I came. I showed them to him when I got back. He looked at them all night."

"You watched it all night?" Qin Xiaowan interjected.

Su Wangqing didn't reply, but instead bent down and brought a magnifying glass close to the bronze incense burner.

"What did he say?"

Wu Ling also leaned over the counter.

"He said three things. First, 'This rust isn't artificially aged.' Second, 'The shape of the furnace isn't from the Ming or Qing dynasties.'"

She used calipers to measure the thickness of the furnace wall and the distance between the three short legs.

I wrote the numbers down in my notebook and compared them with the data my grandfather had marked on the photos.

"It matches up."

"What matches?"

"My grandfather measured the dimensions on the photo. He said this stove shape isn't a common Ming or Qing dynasty style; the distance between the legs and the wall thickness are close to..." She paused, "...close to the specifications of the Han dynasty."

She used a macro lens to photograph the wear marks on the inside of the furnace ears, as well as the rust and layering at the junction of the base and the furnace wall.

Han Dynasty.

Wu Ling looked at the bronze furnace.

When he was a child, he often used the lid of the top to spin it on the ground. Once, it got stuck under the table leg. His grandfather bent down, picked it up, blew off the dust, and put it back.

Something that is at least two thousand years old.

Grandpa watched him spin around, never stopping him even once.

"And the third sentence?" Qin Xiaowan asked.

Su Wangqing straightened up from beside the bronze furnace.

The third sentence is: "Where did you see it? Take me there."

Qin Xiaowan and Wu Ling exchanged a glance.

"I didn't bring him," Su Wangqing said. "I told him it was a friend's private collection. He asked me three times, but I still didn't tell him."

"Why did he want to come so badly?" Wu Ling asked.

"My grandfather said... the last similar piece sold for eight million at auction."

The teahouse fell silent.

Eight million.

Wu Ling lowered his head.

The bronze stove remained in its old spot, next to a plate of egg pancakes that cost fifteen yuan, with a small amount of crumbs on the edge of the plate.

Qin Xiaowan's hand rested on the edge of the table, motionless and afraid to move.

"Did I... wipe it with a rag?"

"It's okay, you usually avoid the counter when you're wiping it."

"That's good." She breathed a sigh of relief, then tightened her grip again. "Wait, last month I used a copper spoon to prop up the corner of the table, could that copper spoon also be...?"

She immediately pulled her hand back from the edge of the counter.

Wu Ling's gaze shifted from the bronze furnace to the pottery shards beside it, and then to the cracked bowl at the very back.

Three things.

There were other things nearby: a rolled-up painting, some old papers, and a copper spoon.

He's seen it all since he was a child, just like he's seen tables and chairs.

"These things..." Qin Xiaowan's voice softened, "Are they all at this level?"

"I don't know. I haven't shown the pottery shards to my grandfather yet; I'll take a look at them myself today."

She carefully moved the note aside and turned the pottery shard over so that the smooth side was facing up.

She shone her flashlight at an angle from the side—and a shadow emerged.

"Boss Wu, come here."

Wu Ling moved closer, and several marks appeared slightly to the right of center.

"I've seen these before, aren't they cracks?"

"This isn't a crack," Su Wangqing said, engraving each word clearly. "It was carved by someone."

She traced it in her notebook.

Three marks, winding and twisting.

"What word?" Wu Ling asked.

"It's not Chinese characters. The strokes are similar to those of oracle bone script, but thicker. The carving tools weren't metal."

Wu Ling glanced instinctively toward the back door.

"What era does this pottery shard date from?"

Su Wangqing turned off the flashlight and straightened up.

"This can only be determined by carbon-14 dating. I didn't notice the marking when I took the photo because the angle was wrong; it's only visible under side lighting."

"If I let you guess?"

She paused for a long time.

"The Warring States period. Or perhaps even earlier."

Qin Xiaowan opened her mouth, looking at the grayish-brown pottery shard.

It was dusty and didn't look valuable at all.

How many years ago was the Warring States period?

"Around 2,300 years. As for the other things on this counter in your house..."

She scanned the three items.

"Teacher Su, wait a moment."

When she spoke, she wasn't her usual quick-witted self.

Too slow.

"Are you saying... each of these items is worth millions?"

"As mentioned earlier, the bronze censer is valuable. If the pottery shards have inscriptions, their academic value is higher than their market value. If someone wants to buy them, the starting price is seven figures."

She finally looked at the cracked bowl.

Su Wangqing didn't touch it, or even get close to it.

She spent more time looking at that bowl than at the bronze stove and the pottery shards combined.

The large crack at the bottom of the bowl was stained with dark brown tea.

Wu Ling used this bowl to brew tea, but when he was a child, he didn't understand and his grandfather stopped him.

This is the only thing on the counter that Grandpa doesn't allow him to touch.

"I'm not touching this bowl today. If the glaze and the body are really as I suspect..."

She didn't continue.

Qin Xiaowan looked at Wu Ling, and Wu Ling looked at those things.

His grandfather used these things his whole life, and he looked at them for twenty-five years.

The ceramic shard was pressing down on the note that said "Break tea properly," and when it was windy, he would use a copper spoon to help press it down.

"Boss Wu," Su Wangqing said softly, "haven't you thought about having someone look at these things?"

"Never, because these belong to my grandfather."

Did your grandfather ever tell you where they came from?

Wu Ling reached into his pocket and felt around; there was the gavel.

"No. He didn't say anything."

"You don't know, or you don't want to tell me?"

"have no idea."

"Do you want to know?"

"think."

"I can help you look it up."

She placed the note back under the pottery shard and pressed it down.

The four characters "好好泡茶" (meaning "make good tea") should be facing upwards.

"Could I come once a week?"

"Can."

"Don't tell anyone else about these things. If you encounter any trouble, contact me and I'll help you resolve it."

"Okay, let's add each other on WeChat."

"Teacher Su, how much do you think all the items on this counter are worth in total?"

Qin Xiaowan stood there for a while, then couldn't help but ask.

Su Wangqing thought for a moment.

"If they could all be sold, the total would be close to nine figures."

Nine digits.

Qin Xiaowan took two seconds to calculate.

She's quick at calculating, but this time she got stuck.

A nine-figure sum is one hundred million.

"How many?!"

Her voice cracked.

This was the first time Wu Ling had heard her voice crack in the twenty-five years he had known her.

"Can't be sold."

Wu Ling was not blinded by the number.

Why?

"Without proof of origin, if you take it out, the first thing people will ask you is where it came from, and if you can't explain it clearly, it'll cause trouble."

Su Wangqing put the tools into his bag.

"It's not just a matter of origin. These things lose their context if they leave this teahouse. A bronze incense burner is an antique worth eight million at an auction house, but on your grandfather's counter, it tells a story that has never been interrupted for three thousand years."

She zipped up her jacket.

Qin Xiaowan handed over a bowl of tea.

"Teacher Su, have a bowl before you go."

Su Wangqing took it and stood up to drink a sip.

"So you're helping me because this paper is about our teahouse?"

"Your teahouse is one example. At present, it's worthy of a whole article."

"Okay, come every week from now on, the tea is free."

Su Wangqing put the covered bowl down.

"Thank you, Mr. Wu. I'll be going now. I'll come back next Wednesday to collect samples; I'm a little short on tools this time."

"it is good."

Outside the teahouse, the sunlight had turned orange.

Qin Xiaowan turned her head.

"Wu Ling".

"What's going on?"

"Congratulations to the poorest billionaire in Chengdu."

"Stop talking."

"I'm serious."

She gestured towards the counter; the bowl of tea Wu Ling had poured that afternoon was now completely cold.

"You use an eight-million-dollar bronze incense burner as a table decoration, use Warring States period pottery shards to hold paper strips, and use bowls that might be worth even more to make tea every day. What kind of person was your grandfather, anyway?"

"..."

Why aren't you saying anything?

"I'm thinking about the number you mentioned."

Which number?

"Eight million."

"What are you thinking? We can't sell it anyway."

"I'm not trying to sell. I'm wondering how long these things have been sitting on this counter? Grandpa kept them his whole life. And before that?"

Qin Xiaowan looked at him without saying a word.

She couldn't answer that question.

She folded her apron and placed it on the table, then took her bag and went to the door.

He stood there for two seconds, then looked back at the row of things: a bronze stove, pottery shards, and a cracked bowl.

The junk I remember sitting on the counter turned into eight million in just one afternoon.

There's cold noodles in the fridge. I'll heat them up myself.

The sound of electric scooters in the alley faded into the distance.

Wu Ling stood alone behind the counter.

The stove was still warm, and there was a smoky smell in the air.

The last rays of sunlight slanted in through the window and landed right on the handles of the bronze incense burner.

The friction marks that Su Wangqing mentioned were in that spot.

A person repeats the same action for decades: picking up and putting down.

It's Grandpa's hand.

Wu Ling had been brewing his own Three Flowers Tea for an afternoon, and he picked it up and took a sip.

Cool and astringent.

The door was locked, and the phone lit up.

Su Wangqing sent a message: "Samples from the bronze furnace will be sent to the lab next week. I took a picture of the characters on the pottery shards to look up at the library. I have a question: What was your grandfather's full name?"

Wu Houde, he typed three words and sent them.

Here comes another one: Do you know when the plaques of teahouses were carved?

Wu Ling thought for a moment, and finally said: I don't know, it's always been here.

The phone went dark.

The bronze censer gleamed with a bluish light in the darkness.

About ten minutes later, the phone lit up again.

This time it's not text, it's audio.

He clicked on it.

Her voice came through the phone.

It's not the usual way of speaking, slowly, word by word.

almost.

"Boss Wu, I'm at the library. I was looking up the characters on the pottery shards when I came across a local gazetteer from the 1930s. There's a chapter in it specifically about Tea Horse Lane."

Seven seconds.

The second one followed immediately.

"There is a photo in the book, which is the facade of a teahouse, with four characters on the plaque: Wu Ji Teahouse."

Wu Ling looked up at the doorway.

The plaque hangs outside; it's made of wood.

He passes under the four characters "Wu Ji Teahouse" every day when he opens and closes the door.

Twenty-five years have passed, and I've never thought about when this plaque was hung up.

Surprisingly, this plaque was even found in a book from the 1930s.

Article 3.

"The date the photo was taken is marked below it: 1935."

He did not reply immediately.

My grandfather was born in 1935.

Soon, the fourth voice message came in.

The rhythm of the fourth voice message has slowed down.

The kind of slowness that's deliberately suppressed.

"There's a person standing at the entrance of the teahouse in the photo. He's wearing a long robe, so you can't see his face clearly. He's standing directly below the plaque, so he looks like the owner."

Wu Ling picked up his phone.

"who's that person?"

I waited for a minute.

"I don't know, the name isn't written in the book. The scanned copy is too large to send, I'll bring it to you next time."

Wu Ling put down his phone.

It couldn't have been my grandfather in 1935.

Who is that person standing at the entrance of Wu's Teahouse?