Chapter 12 Sophomore Year
During the day, a regular customer handed Nanjiu some money, and Nan Qiaoyu took it, chatting and laughing with the customer. Aunt Wu asked Nanjiu to help serve tea, and Nan Qiaoyu was the first to move forward and take the teacup from Aunt Wu. Even though the previous table of customers had just left, the tea table hadn't been cleared, and there was a lot of work waiting, Nan Qiaoyu couldn't see it, but instead he kept to himself, constantly trying to get ahead of Nanjiu in everything she did.
Nan Jiu simply stopped doing anything and just sat at the counter looking at her phone. Nan Qiaoyu pulled a stool over and sat down next to her.
Nan Jiu rolled his eyes at him in annoyance: "Dog-skin plaster."
Nan Qiaoyu lowered his shoulders and leaned forward. "Let me ask you, how much money can a teahouse make in a day now?"
Nan Jiu lowered his head and said in a cold voice: "How should I know?"
"How could you not know? Aren't you holding all the account books now?"
Nan Jiu did have access to the account book, but it only showed the tea money paid by customers. The teahouse also made a portion of its profits from tea sales, a figure only known to Old Man Nan and Song Ting. But she had no intention of sharing this with Nan Qiaoyu.
Seeing that she refused to speak, Nan Qiaoyu sneered, "Do you think I don't know what you're planning? You just want Grandpa to give the teahouse to you?"
Nanjiu scoffed, "You don't want to?"
"I think this is the Nan family's asset, it's not your turn as an outsider."
Nanjiu threw his phone on the counter, turned his head away, and said with mockery, "Go talk to grandpa."
"No need to tell me, you're going to get married anyway."
Nanjiu warned him, "Don't try to be sexist with me. If we really have to divide the family, I won't lose a cent less than you."
Nan Qiaoyu stood up suddenly, his shoulders tense. "Your parents don't even value you, so why are you so arrogant?"
Nan Qiaoyu was usually a foul-mouthed person, but Nan Jiu could tolerate it. However, this remark touched a nerve. She grabbed the account book and threw it at Nan Qiaoyu: "Look! If you can take it, can you keep it?"
Nan Qiaoyu clenched his fists. The guests at the two nearby tables noticed the atmosphere was off and looked over. Song Ting appeared behind Nan Jiu, staring at Nan Qiaoyu with a cold look. Nan Qiaoyu's clenched fists gradually loosened.
"Pick it up." Song Ting's voice was suppressed.
"I didn't throw it, whoever throws it can pick it up." Nan Qiaoyu looked disdainful.
Nan Jiu turned back to sit in her chair, her thin eyebrows suddenly knitted together, her lips set in a stiff line. It had always been like this since she was little. Whenever Nan Qiaoyu provoked her, she'd fight back and the adults would see her, and she'd be the one to get scolded. Nan Jiu sat there frozen, unwilling to pick up the trash, as if whoever did would be the one to be criticized.
"I told you to pick it up." Song Ting's voice contained an unshakable sense of oppression.
Nan Jiu's eyelashes fluttered, and just as her eyes shifted to the account book, she saw Nan Qiaoyu, with a sullen face, pick up the account book, put it on the counter, and ran upstairs. Nan Jiu suddenly realized that Song Ting's words were directed at Nan Qiaoyu.
Song Ting glanced upstairs and said to Aunt Wu, "Take a look." Then he followed her upstairs.
When Old Man Nan came out of the kitchen, he realized that the two children had just had another fight. He walked up to Nan Jiu and said earnestly, "Can't you two just calm down?"
Nanjiu sneered: "If you give him the teahouse, he will be quiet."
"What nonsense?"
Nan Jiu raised his head, his lips slightly tilted: "His mother is afraid that I will take advantage of you by staying with you, so she asked him to come back to look after me, right?"
"That's not true, don't make blind guesses." Although Old Man Nan said this, what he thought in his heart was almost the same as what Nan Jiu said.
After a while, Song Ting came down from upstairs, followed by Nan Qiaoyu with an expressionless face.
Ever since Nan Qiaoyu came down from upstairs, he hadn't picked on Nan Jiu again and continued to do what he was supposed to do. Even when he was blocking Nan Jiu's way and she yelled at him to "get out of the way," he simply glared at her and moved away without yelling back.
Nan Jiu suspected that Song Ting had beaten Nan Qiaoyu into submission upstairs after seeing his change of heart. Of course, this was just a suspicion. There were no signs of beating on Nan Qiaoyu's body, and Nan Jiu didn't know how Song Ting had subdued him. In short, he finally stopped hanging around Nan Jiu.
Before dinner, Nanjiu went to the kitchen to serve the dishes. Song Ting poured rice into the bowls for several people. Nanjiu put the dishes down again, leaned against the stove, and looked at his back. "I thought you would scold me." After all, it was she who threw away the account book.
"I saw that he was the one who started it." Song Ting closed the rice cooker and picked up the bowl.
Nan Jiu's heart was swirling, sinking deeper and deeper. Nan Qiaoyu was right; her parents had never paid her much attention. While her aunt might protect her son regardless of right or wrong, her parents would never do that. He even slapped her aunt on the buttocks in front of the family to stop her from arguing. Only Grandpa would mediate, but for Grandpa Nan, everyone was his. He wouldn't take sides, only doing what he believed was fair, even if it was Nan Qiaoyu who had instigated the incident.
Nan Jiu's throat tightened, bitterness swirling back and forth. Her gaze lingered on Song Ting's back. The sense of security he had built up was like candy coated in arsenic; even though she knew it was poisonous, she couldn't help but want to touch it.
As soon as the braised chicken for dinner arrived, Nan Qiaoyu unceremoniously grabbed a leg and placed it in his bowl. He threw away the bone, unsatisfied, and seeing the other leg untouched, he reached for it with his chopsticks. Song Ting pushed the plate aside, leaving his chopsticks empty.
Old Master Nan said to him, "Can't you just let your sister go? What did your family teach you?"
"She is only two months younger than me, and she is still my younger sister? I think she is so strong that she wants to be my older sister." Having said that, he still moved his chopsticks and picked up the chicken breast on the side.
Nanjiu picked up the other chicken leg and put it into the bowl: "Thank you, dear brother."
Nan Qiaoyu stuffed the rice into his mouth angrily.
......
On the weekend, the teahouse was flooded with visitors. They were all curious about everything they saw, but Mr. Nan, true to his motto of treating everyone as a guest, welcomed them with a smile.
During Sunday dinner, Mr. Nan said, "I'm not busy tomorrow. I'm going to visit Old Qin. He's going to be hospitalized again."
That being said, the next morning, all eight tables in the teahouse were occupied, with several people queuing on bamboo chairs outside. Nan Jiu stopped hunkering down at the counter and ran to the door, handing out numbers with a handwritten number plate.
The tiger stove in the teahouse has now become a decoration, but young people have never seen a tiger stove, so when they come to the teahouse, they take a few photos of everything they see.
Mr. Nan didn't make it to Old Qin's house. He was surrounded by a group of young people the whole day and took photos with them like a mascot.
After closing the shop at night, Mr. Nan finally sensed something was amiss. He asked Song Ting, "Where did you find these people?"
Song Ting took out his cell phone, opened it and handed it to Grandpa Nan.
Old Man Nan leaned back in a recliner, a soothing, classical sound emanating from his phone. The camera panned from the bricks to the leaves of Mao'er Alley, extending all the way to the depths of the alley. The mysterious sense of depth drew the eye along, until it stopped on a dated plaque. The camera zoomed in, freezing the frame as a sun slowly rose from behind the plaque, its inscription "Mao'er Teahouse" illuminating it from darkness to brightness.
The sun rises high in the sky and then slowly sets, morning goes and evening comes, seasons change, and Maoer Teahouse is engraved in the torrent of history, washed by layers of light from different periods, but it still looks the same as it did at the beginning. Under the gaze of the camera, it becomes clearer and more profound.
The melody shifts, the camera zooms in, and the various scenes of the teahouse are framed on the tiny screen. Creaking bamboo chairs, a stove covered in white mist, a copper kettle belching steam... The bustling teahouse feels like a condensed version of society, a blend of bittersweet joys and sorrows. The camera transforms into a stream of water, flowing into the covered bowl, blending and swirling with the tea leaves. The fragrance of tea lingers across the screen, enveloping the nostrils.
This is Nanjiu’s childhood memory. She used the camera to record the traditional culture of the teahouse.
In the final segment of the video, the camera zooms out to reveal a man sitting by a hanging window. His back is broad yet lonely, his slender fingers gripping a tea bowl. As the sun sets outside the window, the camera pulls back to reveal an elderly man in the spot where the man once sat. His withered fingers repeatedly stroke the bowl, the fragmented moments of his life slipping away as the camera dims.
Old Man Nan stared at the screen, his eyes gradually becoming cloudy, as if he could see through it his own busy life. He handed the phone back to Song Ting and closed his eyes. "Xiao Jiu is almost twenty, and I still treat her like a child."
Song Ting smiled and put away his phone.
Old Master Nan slowly opened his eyelids, glanced at Nan Qiaoyu, who was standing outside the door, laughing foolishly while talking to someone on the phone, and sighed.
......
The teahouse's handwritten bills will be kept for a period of time before being destroyed. Grandpa Nan asked Nan Jiu to sort out the previous bills.
Tea customers came in an endless stream that morning. One elderly customer stared at Nan Jiu at the counter and asked Song Ting, "Is that Old Nan's granddaughter? She's already this old?"
Song Ting glanced back at her. Nan Jiu sat at the counter, legs crossed, flipping through the accounts. An orange halter-neck vest defined her collarbone, her shoulders were straight and flowing, her skin had a cool hue, and her platinum-blond side braid hung loosely over her shoulders.
His gaze lingered for a moment, then retracted: "Yes, you are a big girl now."
As Mr. Nan passed by the counter, he said, "I saw what you made."
Nan Jiu raised her chin when she heard this. "How's it going?" She glanced at Nan Qiaoyu, who was slacking off in the distance, a smile in her eyes. "Would you consider letting me inherit the teahouse?"
Old Master Nan glanced at her and said, "You may be young, but you have great ambitions." Then he walked away.
While looking through her bills, Nan Jiu discovered that she had to pay extra for the tea Song Ting brewed. She pulled out the bill and asked Aunt Wu, "Does our teahouse offer this service?"
Aunt Wu glanced at the bill and replied, "Manager Song has a senior certificate."
Nan Jiu laughed when he heard this: "What advanced certificate? How advanced is it?"
"It's a certificate for making tea. He took the test seriously."
Nanjiu understood: "Senior Tea Master Certificate?"
"Yes, that seems to be the case. But he's usually busy. Unless someone he knows invites him or he's entertaining someone, he generally doesn't have time to sit down and make tea for them."
Nan Jiu put the bill away and said with a smile, "There are only these few people. He is the store manager, my grandfather is the boss, and Aunt Wu, what is your position? The head of housekeeping?"
Aunt Wu waved her hands and said, "What's the use of being a manager or not? I'm just here to work." After serving the tea, Aunt Wu wiped her hands and teased Nan Jiu, "So what kind of cadre are you?"
Nanjiu held a pile of documents in his hand and replied without hesitation: "CFO, Chief Financial Officer."
Aunt Wu laughed heartily. She didn't understand the difference between officials and laughed at Nanjiu for insisting on getting her one.
Nan Jiu glanced at Nan Qiaoyu: "He can only be a fisherman."
Aunt Wu didn't understand: "Why?"
"Just slacking off."
Aunt Wu and Nan Jiu both stared at Nan Qiaoyu and smiled. Nan Qiaoyu turned his gaze away and gave Nan Jiu the middle finger.
After noon, seeing that the peak of the crowds had passed, Old Man Nan returned to his room for a short nap. Song Ting received a call and was out on business. To prevent the two young people from causing any more trouble while he was away, he called Nan Qiaoyu away and went with him on the errand.
Not long after they left, three men came into the teahouse. After they sat down, they looked around, then raised their heads and stared at the beams of the teahouse.
Aunt Wu handed them the tea order. The man with the tattoo was called Li Wei. He spoke in a foreign language to Aunt Wu, who looked bewildered. Nan Jiu, sitting at the counter, raised her eyes and looked over there. Then she walked out of the counter and took the tea order from Aunt Wu.
The three of them looked at Nanjiu, looked him up and down, and exchanged glances with each other.
The author has something to say:
----------------------
This chapter drops a random red envelope
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com