Old Jin City on the Wall

Someone will continue the story from Chapter 1.

Wu Ling's last storytelling performance was performed by three people in the audience.

The woman by the window was glued to her phone the whole time, while the old man in the corner had fallen asleep ten minutes earlier, his head nodding slightly, holding his covered bowl with more steadiness than his future.

The third one was the teahouse owner, who sat behind the bar and gave them meaningful glances.

The gavel struck down.

"To find out what happens next—"

The older woman stood up; the delivery had arrived. Passing by the counter, she smiled politely and said, "Young man, you speak well, but it's a bit too long."

The old man yawned. "Let's go, let's go back to pick up my grandson."

The boss came out from behind the bar and offered me a cigarette.

Wu Ling accepted the call but didn't place any.

"Xiao Wu, you did a really good job. But now..." The boss rubbed his hands together, "Next month at this time, it'll be given to a stand-up comedian. They have 300,000 followers on Douyin, they bring their own audience."

"Understood."

"Don't blame me, the rent is eight thousand a month—"

"I said I understand."

He put the gavel into his bag.

Stepping outside, Chunxi Road was packed with people, and the area under the panda statue at IFS was crowded with tourists holding up their phones.

Ten steps away, a girl was live-streaming her dance, surrounded by three layers of lights, Bluetooth speakers, and a DJ version of "Chengdu".

The donation numbers on the screen were jumping faster than his monthly income.

He stood at the edge of the crowd and unconsciously touched the gavel in his bag.

I studied broadcasting at Sichuan Normal University for four years, and started performing at various venues in my second year.

We've tried everything: teahouses, pop-up events in cultural districts, community activity centers, short videos, and live streaming.

After graduation, I worked full-time for three years, moving between seventeen venues of varying sizes in Chengdu and Chongqing.

The best performance was in Kuanzhai Alley, with sixty people in the audience. He felt there was hope for this industry.

Later, the boss changed the time slot to a stand-up comedy show, turning 60 into 120.

He became zero.

Twenty-five years old. Four figures in his bank account. No way out.

In the storytelling profession, going back a hundred years, storytellers in teahouses were more sought after than opera troupes. Going back fifty years, radio broadcasts of storytelling drew massive audiences. Even going back just twenty years, Shan Tianfang on television was a household name.

Then there is no more.

A 15-second short video tells a "story," completes with background music and a plot twist, then you swipe away for the next one.

He took out his phone and saw the last storytelling video on Douyin, which had been posted a week ago and had 230 views and two comments.

One is "a hobby of the grandparents' generation," and the other is his own pinned post.

As I put my phone away, it sounded like a distant gavel striking – *crack*.

He looked back and saw that the flow of people on Chunxi Road was the same as always.

------

Wu Ling returned to Chengdu because his grandfather had passed away.

What happened last month, I called three times and no one answered.

The first person thought it was a nap, the second thought it was grocery shopping, and the third thought they took a taxi directly from Chongqing to Jingxiangzi.

My grandfather never left the area within two kilometers of the teahouse in his entire life. His cell phone was always turned up to the maximum volume. He was hard of hearing, but he never missed a call.

The aerial roots of the old banyan tree at the entrance of Chama Lane droop to the ground, brushing against the demolition notice posted last year.

The notice has faded, but the alley is still there, about seventy or eighty meters long.

The door was open.

Grandpa sat on the oldest bamboo chair, holding a covered teacup in his hand. The tea was cold, and the lid was crooked and not properly closed.

They left quietly.

Grandma Zhao said, "Old Wu had a smile on his face when he left. I came over in the afternoon to make tea, and when I saw him sitting there, I thought he was asleep. I called him twice but he didn't answer. When I touched his hand, it was cold."

Wu Ling didn't cry. It wasn't that she didn't want to. It was just that she reached a certain point, and the tears just wouldn't come.

He arranged the funeral. He burned paper money. He stood at the entrance of the teahouse and smoked a cigarette.

Half of the paint on the four characters "Wu Ji Teahouse" on the door has been worn away. The character "Wu" is still intact, but only half of the character "Guan" remains.

The family flew back from Shenzhen, and the mother cried at the funeral.

Wu Ling was a little surprised because she wasn't very close to her grandfather. Wu Ling was sent back to Chengdu when she was three years old, while she and her father, Wu Jianguo, stayed in Shenzhen to work. Later, they had Wu Feng.

I only see him once or twice a year. Every time he comes back, he's very polite, saying things like, "Dad, I hope you're in good health," or "I brought you some fruit from Shenzhen." After that, he doesn't say anything more.

She cried so hard that day, and as she wiped away her tears, she said, "Your grandfather raised you very well."

Just that one sentence. But twenty-two years of estrangement cannot be made up for with just one sentence.

After the funeral arrangements were completed, the mother returned to Shenzhen first. Only Wu Jianguo and his younger brother Wu Feng came to the teahouse.

Wu Jianguo, dressed in a suit and leather shoes, stood out awkwardly on the bluestone slab at the entrance of the teahouse.

He squatted down and looked at the threshold—the threshold was worn down in the middle by people walking on it for at least several decades.

"This teahouse isn't making any money." He glanced around at the crooked bamboo chairs and the blackened counter. "Just close it down. Come with me to Shenzhen, I'll find you a job."

Wu Ling did not respond.

Wu Jianguo took out a cigarette and lit it. The two men squatted on the doorstep, one in a suit and the other in a T-shirt.

"You're just like your grandfather. Stubborn."

He paused for a moment. He flicked the ash twice.

"Tell me if you don't have enough money."

"You still have money?"

Wu Jianguo looked around; there was only a tree and a cat nearby. He lowered his voice: "Don't tell your mother about my secret stash of money."

Wu Ling felt a lump in her throat and almost burst out laughing.

Wu Feng leaned against the wall, scrolling through his phone the entire time. A kid raised in Shenzhen, he had no particular attachment to this teahouse. Before leaving, he said "Take care, brother," politely, like sending a WeChat message.

Wu Jianguo had already gotten into the taxi and rolled down the window:

"Wuling!"

"Um?"

"Your mom asked me to ask you if you have a girlfriend."

"...No."

"Then hurry up." The window was rolled up.

The taxi disappeared at the alley entrance.

Wu Ling shook his head, not paying any attention, and returned to the teahouse to continue packing his grandfather's things.

Soon, he pulled an old gavel from a drawer in the cabinet.

You can tell the difference as soon as you hold it. The wood grain is smooth as jade from being rubbed, and the bottom corners are rounded. The whole piece of wood looks like it has been held in someone's hands for a lifetime.

He put away his light, new gavel and replaced it with this one.

Turn it over and look at the bottom. There is a line of small characters engraved on it, worn so badly that they are almost illegible.

Upon closer inspection, I could only recognize the character "唤" (huàn).

Next to the gavel was a yellowed notebook with a leather cover and hand-stitched binding.

The pages were filled with things I couldn't understand.

Maps, portraits, symbols.

The handwriting is messy and not entirely in simplified characters.

Wu Ling flipped through two pages and then put it down.

When I put it down, a note that was tucked inside the notebook fell out and was folded twice.

"The teahouse is older than you think. Brew the tea well."

It was incomplete and disjointed. Grandpa always only spoke in half-sentences.

At the very back of the drawer was a packet of aged Tuocha tea. It was a paper packet, with no brand or date, tied with cotton thread.

Behind the counter was a box of my grandfather's old things: old teacups, old calligraphy and paintings, and a bronze incense burner.

Grandpa said, "I made it just for fun, it's not worth much."

But Wu Ling had always felt something was wrong because the teacup was too wet.

The topmost teacup has a chipped rim and a thin crack at the bottom, stained with dark brown tea.

That color couldn't have seeped in for decades.

When he was a child, he reached out to take it once, but his grandfather slapped his hand away, saying, "You can't touch it."

When asked why, Grandpa didn't answer and continued wiping the cup.

There were also a few thin sheets of paper next to it. They were yellowish, so thin that they were translucent, with faint patterns on them and a few lines of illegible ink writing.

He flipped through it but couldn't understand it, so he casually placed it under his teacup.

The teahouse is family property, and it hasn't been properly open for business for half a year.

After Grandpa passed away, a layer of dust settled on the bamboo chair. But a few old tea drinkers still came.

Grandpa Zhang carried the birdcage, Grandma Zhao stared blankly for two hours, and their chess partners, Old Zhang and Old Li, played from morning till afternoon, only saying three sentences the whole time: "Checkmate," "Take," and "Again."

He pushed open the door himself, rummaged through the tea canister himself, brewed himself a bowl, and sat down. Wu Ling didn't chase him away. With someone sitting there, it wasn't so deserted.

Wu Ling sat on his grandfather's bamboo chair. The bamboo strips dug into his legs, leaving red marks after sitting for a while.

He took out his phone and checked his balance. A little over 30,000 yuan. The money he received for his grandfather's funeral was over 10,000 yuan, plus the 20,000 yuan transferred from Wu Jianguo.

He's hiding quite a bit. He talks about having secret savings, but he doesn't even blink before handing over 20,000 yuan.

Wu Ling smiled and put down his phone.

After thinking about it for a while, he still felt he had to stay in Chengdu.

Wu Jianguo offered him a way out: go to Shenzhen and get some work arranged. But if he left, the teahouse would truly be gone.

It's not closing down—it's disappearing from the world.

The Jingxiangzi area is bound to be changed sooner or later. Strangely, when my grandfather was alive, the city plan was revised three times, and each time it bypassed Chamaxiang, as if something was blocking this area.

Grandpa guarded this place his whole life. Now that he's gone, all his guarding has been in vain.

That's all. We can't leave.

That night, Wu Ling couldn't sleep.

Chengdu at the end of March is humid and warm, and the teahouse is filled with the aroma of old cedar wood and aged tea mixed together, a smell he has smelled since childhood.

This reminded him of what his grandfather had written on the note: "Make good tea."

Wu Ling went to the counter and tore open the package of old tuocha. The tea leaves were tightly packed, so he broke off a few pieces and held them under his nose.

It's different. It's not the burnt aroma you get in supermarkets. It's a deep, rich scent. Like the foundation of an old house. Like a mountain path no one has ever walked on.

He took out his grandfather's purple clay teapot from the cabinet. The teapot was covered with tea stains, and the lid stuck on itself when placed on it.

Grandpa used this teapot for decades, and it's become even more lustrous than jade.

Boil water.

Following the method taught by his grandfather, Wu Ling held the teapot high and poured the tea over it, rotating the pot three times to let the tea leaves turn over on their own.

"Don't rush, wait for it to wake up."

When he was twelve, his grandfather squatted beside him, supporting his wrist with one hand to correct the angle, while slowly sipping from the covered bowl with the other.

Grandpa was unusually talkative that day.

"Brewing tea is like storytelling. You can't rush it. If you rush, the tea will taste bitter. If you stay calm, the tea will taste sweet on its own."

Fourteen years. I remember it even with my eyes closed.

Discard the first infusion to rinse the tea. Pour in water for the second infusion. Cover. Wait.

Remove the soup from the pot.

Amber color. Clear and bright.

Wu Ling picked up the glass and took a sip.

Hot. Bitter. Then a sweet aftertaste rises from the back of the tongue. Lingering. With a hint of sweetness that doesn't quite taste like tea.

The taste of grandpa.

It seems he's still sitting across from me, wearing that faded, hand-buttoned shirt, holding a covered bowl, his eyes half-closed.

"Hmm, the technique is alright."

Wu Ling put down the cup without saying a word, took his grandfather's gavel out of his bag, placed it on the table, and then straightened the covered bowl.

Just then, the old wooden door in the corner suddenly creaked.

He knew the layout of Wu's Teahouse very well. The counter was on the left, the bamboo chair area was on the right, and the front and back walls were opposite.

On the back wall is an old mural that is not clearly visible, and the small platform in front of the mural is the storytelling stage.

There is an old wooden door in the left corner of the platform.

He used to push it when he was a child. In the back alley. Narrow, smelly, with the neighbor's garbage can piled up beside it.

Now the door has opened a crack by itself.

Moreover, the light coming through the seam is not right.

It wasn't the white of the back alley streetlights, but a warm yellow, like an old light bulb. Warm, slightly flickering, as if a fire was burning inside.

There were voices, a buzzing sound, many people talking.

Laughter, the clinking of bowls and cups, and the creaking of bamboo chairs—many people were sitting on bamboo chairs.

and also--

A gavel! Someone is telling a story.

It was exactly the same sound as that one from Chunxi Road.

His hair stood on end, and he instinctively reached for his pocket—his grandfather's gavel was still on the table.

I picked it up when I got back and put it in my pocket.

I walked to the door.

It was pushed open.

The hall was full.

The same teahouse, the same layout.

But everything is new, not refurbished, it was always new.

Dozens of bamboo chairs were filled with people.

Long gowns, cheongsams, and steam rising from covered teacups under the lamplight.

An old man leaned against the wall, half-reclining in a bamboo chair, his face covered by a newspaper, snoring softly.

Two people were playing chess opposite each other, with two bowls of tea next to the chessboard, but no one drank them after they got cold.

Someone, engrossed in their storytelling, slammed their fist on the table and shouted, "You son of a bitch, you're talking nonsense!"

The people around them were laughing so hard they were doubled over.

The waiter carried a long-spouted copper kettle across the tables, his left hand holding a stack of covered bowls with his fingers spread wide, walking with a brisk pace.

The spout, over a meter long and gleaming with copper, passed a table. The tea lid rested diagonally on the rim of the bowl. The waiter didn't even look; with a flick of his wrist, a jet of water cascaded from a meter high into the bowl, without a single splash outside.

"Add tea—"

A flower girl carrying a bamboo basket walked between the tables; the gardenias were white, and their fragrance overpowered the aroma of the tea.

There was a storyteller on the stage.

Saying "there is a person" is inaccurate. Only the outline is real.

He wore a long, double-breasted gown, held a gavel in his hand, and his face was blurred, like an overexposed old photograph, his features blended into the halo of light.

The performance is coming to an end. The gavel is raised—

Snapped.

"To find out what happens next!"

Cheers erupted, people slammed their fists on the table, banged on the lids of their bowls, and even the chess players stopped playing.

Four characters above the door.

"Wu's Tea House".

The paint is new. Not a single one is missing.

Wu Ling turned to look out the window.

Rickshaws, long gowns, cheongsams, and barefoot rickshaw pullers run by, bells ringing.

The faint sounds of Sichuan opera drums and gongs could be heard in the distance.

His legs went weak.

It's not fear, it's that my mind and eyes can't align. My eyes say it's real, but my mind says it's impossible.

When the two sides are fighting, the legs surrender first.

He steadied himself against the doorframe, reached into his pocket with his right hand, and grasped his grandfather's gavel.

His palms were sweaty, and the gavel was burning hot from being gripped so tightly.

The figure on the stage saw him.

He put away the gavel, placed it on the table, and nodded to him.

It wasn't a greeting; it was like someone who had worked a long night shift, and when the next shift came, they could leave.

Give up the stage.

Then... it fades from the edges, the outline gradually losing its weight, like the mist rising from tea soup, blown away by a non-existent wind.

The platform was empty, the gavel rested on the table, and the person was gone; it was as if no one had ever stood there.

The tea drinkers didn't care; they continued drinking tea and playing chess as usual.

It seemed like it didn't matter whether there were people on stage or not, yet it also seemed like they had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

An elderly tea drinker in a gray cloth gown waved from the corner.

He was in his seventies, thin, and in good spirits, holding a covered teacup with the lid resting diagonally on the rim.

"Manager Wu?"

He smiled, his teeth stained a yellowish-brown with tea stains.

"Please sit down. Have a bowl of Sanhua (a type of steamed bun)."

Wu Ling opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

He glanced back; the door was still open.

Over there was his teahouse—LED white lights, an electric meter, and a half-cup of tea that had gone cold on the table.

Quiet and still, the kind of quiet that comes with the dead of night.

But this side of the door was packed. Lively. Full of life.

The steam from the gaiwan tea floats between two worlds.

"Your grandfather said you would come."

Wu Ling froze.

"My grandfather..." His voice was hoarse, like a rusty door hinge, "...passed away last month."

The old tea drinker paused for a moment while holding the bowl.

He sighed. A long sigh. A sigh that came from a very deep place.

"No wonder he said last time he came that he hadn't finished half of the book. I told him to come next time. He said..."

His gaze fell on the gavel stick sticking out of Wu Ling's pocket.

He said someone else would take over the story.

The bells of rickshaws are ringing outside the window.

Two old men were still playing chess in the corner.

The waiter passed by him carrying a long-spouted teapot, his face reflected in the copper pot. A young man in a T-shirt stood out awkwardly among a room full of long gowns and cheongsams.

He looked out of place, just like his father standing at the entrance of the teahouse.

Wu Ling took his grandfather's gavel out of his pocket and held it tightly in his palm.

Grandpa has been cremated; the white porcelain urn is in the seventh compartment of the third row at the funeral home. He counted them.

But the people on this side of the door said he had been here before.