Chapter 52

Chen Yuan picked up the envelope he had placed on the table and pulled out a few pages from it. It was covered with densely packed notes, with a few pages of newspaper sandwiched in between.

"What is that?" Xiao Xiao asked curiously.

"He's looking for information about the Eight Banners of old Beijing," Li Cheng said. He picked up another piece of braised beef from the plate, and the rich sauce on the meat dripped onto the rice, soaking it into a tempting dark color.

He opened the newspaper. The edges were already brittle, and under the light of the box, he could clearly see that the fibers of the newspaper were broken in the middle. Chen Yuan said, "I recently wanted to write about the lives of the Eight Banners people, but I haven't found all the information."

He picked up another photo. It was blurry, as if covered by something, making it difficult to make out. Chen Yuan flicked on the flashlight on his phone and held the photo up to the light. White light filtered through the photo, revealing burn marks at the corners, as if it had been urgently rescued from the blaze. The photo showed several young men in mandarin jackets standing at the entrance of a house. The doorposts and screen wall in the background were still intact, though the courtyard wall and the tiles on the eaves looked a bit worn.

Li Cheng chewed and asked, "Didn't your grandfather leave any useful information?"

"Yes, there are," Chen Yuan carefully examined the old photos, "but when the old man was young, the Eight Banners had already begun to decline. Although it still looked impressive, in reality, it was nothing."

Chen Yuan noticed a clearer portrait in the old black and white photo: "Who is this?"

Li Cheng leaned over to take a look. "He's a descendant of a branch of the Plain Yellow Banner, his surname is Na. His ancestors even had a captain, they were quite powerful in the past. Oh, this stack of information was found by him for me. See that house in the back? During the Guangxu period, this house was their ancestral property, but now we don't even know who owns it."

Chen Yuan raised his eyes and looked at him and asked, "Was it sold?"

"It's not really a proper sale," Li Cheng shook his head. "It was a chaotic time, wasn't it? Their family was also disturbed for a while, and then they hid in Tianjin, and then went abroad. When he came back in the 1980s, he went to check the house and saw that it had been divided into several households. With so many people living in the house, it's hard to say who the house belongs to."

Yang Ye put down her chopsticks and saw the old photo he showed to Li Cheng. She narrowed her eyes slightly. She seemed to know where this was, but she just couldn't remember it clearly.

"Is this the one at the entrance of the alley on East Street?" she asked.

"Well, do you still remember?" Li Cheng took a sip of soup and responded subconsciously.

Chen Yuan looked at her and asked, "Boss Yang, do you know this place?"

Yang Ye glanced at Li Cheng, who also realized what he had said just now. He avoided Yang Ye's sight guiltily. Yang Ye nodded slightly, "I know something."

"That's perfect." Chen Yuan's voice suddenly became eager. He put down everything on hand, adjusted his sitting posture, and looked at Yang Ye seriously. "It's like this, Boss Yang. I'm not sure about some details. Can you tell me more?"

The spoon dropped into the bowl, making a noise.

"Oh!" Xiao Xiao exclaimed, and the hot soup that had just been served splashed on the back of her hand. When she hurriedly pulled out the tissue paper, her elbow knocked over the vinegar dish next to her. The dark brown liquid poured onto the satin tablecloth, leaving a wet and spreading mark.

"Are you okay?" Yang Ye said gently, and she pushed her spare napkin over.

"It's okay, it's okay," Xiao Xiao said as he wiped it.

Yang Ye got up, took the glass kettle on the round plate, and added some hot water to his cup.

"Actually, I don't really understand some of them, so I can only give you a general idea," she answered as she sat down.

"It's probably okay. I'll just take it as a reference," Chen Yuan said. "Teacher Yang, you know how the Eight Banners lived in the past. I read in the literature that the rules between the upper three banners and the lower five banners were quite different."

Yang Ye was facing the window, her gaze fixed on the blurred shadows of the trees, their thin branches swaying in the evening breeze. She retracted her gaze, lowered her head and smiled softly, her voice as calm as if she were recounting a story completely unrelated to her. "There are some differences. Even ordinary families of the upper three banners received a fixed salary and food allowance. They usually lived in the inner city, right at the foot of the imperial city wall."

"In an ordinary bannerman family, when they wake up in the morning, they must first pay their respects to the ancestral tablets before they can have breakfast. Unmarried women cannot eat at the same table with male guests, and they have to wait for those who are older to start eating first."

"Manchu women also pay attention to decoration," Yang Ye continued. "Unmarried girls usually wear their hair in two buns, decorated with silk flowers and pearls, while married women wear large la wing hair and embellish it with jewels. Married women must wear it. Clothes must be right-side-open, and not a single button can be buttoned incorrectly."

Chen Yuan listened and nodded silently.

"Boss Yang, when I was a kid, I heard from the elders in my family that the Bannermen usually had two sets of tableware in their homes: one for daily use and the other for entertaining guests. What does this mean?"

"It's not really a saying. It's more of a way of showing respect to the guests. Banquet utensils must be exquisitely clean. At that time, any particular Bannerman family would have a complete set of blue and white or pastel tableware. The table for entertaining guests had to match everything, from the bowls and plates to the chopstick holders. Furthermore, complete sets of porcelain and jade could not be pawned."

"What's the logic behind this?" Chen Yuan asked.

Yang Ye chuckled, "Actually, there are three levels of rules to follow. The first is face. If a bannerman's family, especially those from the upper three banners, uses mismatched tableware to entertain guests, people will laugh at them for half a year if the news gets out. The second is decorum. A set of porcelain is often engraved with the family name. In their eyes, this is the family's trademark. The last is the bottom line. After all, bowls and plates are mostly the bottom of the dowry. Before the poorest bannerman girl gets married, her parents will prepare blue and white porcelain bowls and plates for her dowry. And as the old man said, I would rather pawn my cotton-padded jacket than touch the porcelain box."

"I saw a set of Yichuntang collection from the Prince Qing Mansion on the market before." People said it was stolen from the mansion by servants during the Republic of China.

Yang Ye shook his head. "Those are all fake, just for show. Manchus would rather smash real old porcelain than let it flow into the market. Especially since it belongs to Prince Qing's mansion. In the 13th year of the Republic of China, the mansion dismissed the servants, and the smashed porcelain alone filled three carts."

Chen Yuan stopped writing and looked up at Yang Ye, his eyes filled with excitement. He praised, "Boss Yang, you know so much."

"I also heard it from the older generation," Yang Ye answered calmly. She picked up the teacup in front of her and took a sip. The hot steam from the cup blurred her vision, as if it was hiding something.

"Boss Yang," Chen Yuan suddenly said, "are you free these days? You've helped me so much, I'd like to invite you to go around Beijing and let me show you some hospitality."

Li Cheng jokingly asked: "Why didn't you treat me when I came to Beijing?"

"Be honest with yourself, I treated you to dinner on your first day here," Chen Yuan replied.

Li Cheng chuckled and put some food into his bowl with chopsticks. "This doesn't count. It would only count if you treat me separately."

Chen Yuan didn't respond, his eyes still on Yang Ye, "How is Boss Yang?"

Yang Ye was silent for a moment, her eyes sweeping over the old black and white photos he placed on the table, and she nodded slightly.

"It's settled," Chen Yuan slapped his thigh. "Li Cheng must have come here for something. So, you go ahead and do your thing. When you're done, let me know when you're free. Besides, I know Beijing well for its delicious food and fun things to do."

"Oh, you're being so attentive now," Li Cheng teased.

"Go away," Chen Yuan said to him without even turning his head.

By the time they finished eating and left, it was completely dark outside. In Beijing during the winter months, darkness always comes quickly. The gray-blue sky that had been visible from the window just a moment ago had turned completely dark. Unable to find a taxi in the alley, they had to walk to the intersection they had entered from.

The streetlight at the entrance of the alley had already come on, its orange glow illuminating a straight, flat path. A chilly north wind whipped up dead leaves from the ground, and the torn scraps of small advertisements taped to the streetlights slapped against the rusted iron poles. The cold wind blew against Xiao Xiao's collar, and she instinctively hunched her neck, burying her face deeper into her scarf. As a native of the south, the dry, cold northern winter was unbearable for her. The chill crept up her ankles and calves, and she stamped her feet.

Zhou Yiheng exhaled a puff of white air from his mouth, "It's really cold today, it feels like two different worlds inside and outside the house."

"It's only minus five degrees Celsius today. It's not really cold yet," Chen Yuan said in front. He just zipped up his down jacket again.

"That's not the time yet," Zhou Yiheng asked.

"These few days are just a transition period. It's cold at night, but quite warm during the day."

The sweet aroma of roasted sweet potatoes and sugar-roasted chestnuts wafted from the corner, and the erhua-like calls of vendors intermittently echoed in the cold wind. An old man, pushing a tin stove, stood under a streetlight. In the black gravel tumbling in an iron bucket, chestnuts cracked into golden cracks.

"How long will it take for the bus to arrive?" Zhou Yiheng rubbed his hands back and forth, standing on tiptoe to look at the moving traffic in front.

Xiao Xiao pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned on the screen. "The navigation says there are still two kilometers to go, but look at the traffic here. I think it will take a while."

She handed the phone to Zhou Yiheng. The screen showed the purple-red route, the almost stopped traffic in front, and the bus trying to change lanes, but the private car following behind honked its horn impatiently.

She put her cell phone back in her pocket and hid her hands in the cuffs of her down jacket. She tightened herself to keep her body warm.

"How about we take the subway back?" Zhou Yiheng said, but before he finished speaking he shivered in the cold wind.

"Come on," Xiao Xiao buried her face in her scarf, her voice muffled, "Think about it, when we first came here, we had to walk such a long way out of the subway station. In this weather, walking for two minutes is uncomfortable. I'd better wait for the bus to come."

"Have you helped me find out about the thing I told you about last time?" Chen Yuan asked Li Cheng while standing under the street light.

"What's the matter?" Li Cheng was shivering from the cold and couldn't stop marching on the spot.

Chen Yuan frowned, lowered his voice, and moved closer to Li Cheng, "I asked you to help me find someone..."