Early April.
Another morning began.
After the family finished breakfast, Chen Qi put on a set of gray clothes with a cotton shirt underneath, still wearing the black cloth shoes with red soles. He was full of high spirits, getting ready to go sell tea, but his parents looked so miserable they might as well have been staging the Peking opera *The Execution of the Son at the Camp Gate*.
“Look at you! Throwing away a perfectly good job just to drag yourself down through the mud!”
“Don’t I know your temperament? Do you have the thick skin to hawk goods on the street? If people hand you money, you won't even know how to count it!”
Yu Xiuli sniffled, tears and snot streaming down her face. Chen Qi was at a loss for words. “Mom, don't make me sound like a fool! I'm sharper than a monkey!”
“Just be careful out there. If you can’t keep going, let us know,” Chen Jianjun cautioned.
In the end, Yu Xiuli took out a padded cotton cap and tried to put it on him, but Chen Qi flatly refused no matter what. Wearing that thing made his looks wildly erratic—upper limit Edison Chen, lower limit Zhao Benshan.
Huang Zhanying had been waiting nearby all along. By comparison, her parents didn't care in the slightest.
Chen Qi waved his hand, and Huang Zhanying silently trailed behind him, creating a stark contrast. Those in the know knew they were heading out to sell tea; those who didn't might think some simping chump had finally paid an eight-hundred-thousand-yuan bride price to take a wife home.
The gathering spot was at the Qianmen Arrow Tower.
It was only a few hundred meters away. Walking, the two arrived in about ten minutes.
Along the central axis of the capital sat the Forbidden City, Tiananmen, the Monument to the People's Heroes, and the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. South of the Memorial Hall was Qianmen, and south of Qianmen was the Arrow Tower. Measuring from the flagpole on Tiananmen Square, it was barely 1.5 kilometers.
It was right in the heart of the city.
The Arrow Tower had been built during the Ming dynasty. Standing thirty-eight meters high, it looked quite imposing, featuring a massive archway gate at its base through which the People's Liberation Army had entered the city in 1949.
“Huang Zhanying!”
“Chen Qi!”
At that moment, on the east side of the Arrow Tower, the other eleven youths awaiting employment had already arrived, bustling about in circles under Auntie Wang's direction. Spotting them, Auntie Wang hailed, “Hurry over and help! Set out the bowls, get the stove fired up!”
“Right away!”
Chen Qi said nothing more, rolled up his sleeves, and jumped in.
There wasn't much preparation needed to sell tea. Everyone had pooled together forty yuan to buy two large teapots, tea leaves, and fifty coarse porcelain bowls. The tables were borrowed, and they built the brick stove themselves—yes, building a brick stove right in front of Qianmen!
That was nothing; there were even people selling radishes on Tiananmen Square...
The tea was the cheapest *gaomo*—tea fannings—at two fen a bowl. That was no mistake: two fen. A bottle of Arctic Ocean soda cost fifteen fen, which counted as an affordable luxury. As for large-bowl tea, which trailed far behind in taste and class, how much could it cost? Naturally, it went for rock-bottom Pinduoduo-level pricing.
Chen Qi looked busy, but was actually doing nothing at all.
Schrödinger's busyness.
“Whew, I’m exhausted!”
The rascal pretended to wipe sweat from his brow and said, “Auntie Wang, can I have a bowl first to taste it?”
“Come have a taste! Although our tea is cheap, it quenches thirst. Passersby looking for water don't care about flavor, just quenching their thirst. Come on, the rest of you are tired too, take a rest first...”
Auntie Wang was quite a capable woman, pouring out a few bowls for everyone to share.
Chen Qi picked up a large bowl. The rough ceramic felt coarse in his hands. Taking a sip, his taste buds suddenly struck a nerve of memory: back in his previous life when he was still an ordinary corporate wage slave, he had once bought half a jin of Biluochun on Taobao for ten yuan. It tasted exactly like that.
The mouthfeel was best described as: “Ptui, ptui, ptui!”
*Nothing but damn tea dust and stems!*
His companions didn't feel anything off about it; they had grown up drinking this stuff.
What was *gaomo*? In old Beijing, the poor couldn't afford good tea but still loved to drink it, so tea shops labeled the leftover broken tea dust scraps as "high-grade tea dust." Sold under that name, poor people got their tea while keeping their pride intact.
Ha! Truly authentic local flavor!
Even in later generations, Dashilar's time-honored brand Zhang Yiyuan would still insist on selling this *gaomo*.
While they were bustling about, a crowd had already gathered.
Ever since the Qing dynasty, Qianmen had been a bustling commercial hub. Stores clustered closely together, and transit was convenient, with bus stops, long-distance coach stations, a subway station (opened in 1971), and even a hotel catering to foreign guests, the Qianmen Hotel, where the front entrance was always lined with sedans...
The capital currently had a population of 8.97 million. Adding business travelers from other provinces, overseas guests, and compatriots from Hong Kong and Macau, countless people passed through here every day.
Men and women, young and old, dressed in gray, blue, and military-green clothes, formed three concentric rings around the stall. They looked on with curious wonder like NPCs with question marks floating over their heads, waiting for someone to step forward to trigger the "Drink Large-Bowl Tea" quest.
When Huang Zhanying and the others snapped back to their senses, that was the scene that greeted them.
And then, every single one of them chickened out.
“Auntie Wang, wh-what do we do?”
“Hawk your goods!”
“We have a sign.”
“Even with a sign, you still have to hawk! That's what doing business is! If you don't call out, where will customers come from?”
“H-hawk... h-hawk...”
All twelve of them, including Huang Zhanying, were just like those naïve, wide-eyed college students of later generations. None of them had ever done this before, and they couldn't shed their embarrassment—let alone in 1979, even if you told people to set up a stall and shout on the street in 2024, plenty still wouldn't be able to open their mouths.
Auntie Wang held firm: “Don't look at me. I can help you once, but can I help you every time? You've got to rely on yourselves.”
“Hey, what are you folks doing?”
“What are you selling?”
“Why aren't you making a peep?”
Sensing their awkwardness, the onlookers—bearing neither ill will nor particular kindness, just there for the spectacle—started to jeer.
Huang Zhanying glanced at Chen Qi. Chen Qi had his head down, amusing himself by counting ants on the ground. Gritting her teeth, her cheeks flushing crimson and her teeth chattering, she forced out, “L-large-bowl tea! Two fen a bowl!”
*Boom!*
Even though the wooden sign read "Large-Bowl Tea, Two Fen a Bowl," and even though the crowd had braced themselves for it, the cry still detonated like an explosion.
That single shout was just like China's first bottle of Coca-Cola, the first TV commercial, the first swimsuit poster baring legs, the first disco night, the first Teresa Teng song, and the first red dress... all tiny ripples dissolving into the masses, slowly converging into a vast tide of reform.
Someone a few paces away asked, “Comrade, what unit are you from?”
“The Dashilar Production and Service Cooperative!”
“Do we need ration coupons?”
“No coupons needed!”
Question and answer confirmed their legitimacy.
The crowd stirred with mounting excitement. The man who had spoken seemed to hesitate, but in the end he took a step forward. He looked like a middle-aged cadre, clutching a briefcase, his voice carrying a thick Shandong accent: “Give me three bowls!”
“Coming right up!”
Huang Zhanying hurriedly signaled her companions. The youths stood frozen for a second before snapping to attention, clumsily ladling the tea. The yellowish broth-like tea splashed into white-and-blue coarse porcelain bowls, steam rising into the air.
They lacked experience; they should have poured it out beforehand and kept the bowls covered so the tea would be warm and ready to drink immediately.
The middle-aged man touched the bowl with his hand—scalding hot. So he struck up a conversation: “We've been running around for half the day without finding a drop of water. This tea stall of yours is wonderful. We're very grateful.”
“Just serving the people! Are you here on business?”
“Yes, we're from Shandong.”
“Welcome to Beijing! If you have time, you should look around—the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace are all great places to visit.”
Huang Zhanying gradually found her footing, her naturally extroverted nature beginning to shine.
The middle-aged man had two companions with him. Each downed a bowl, and still thirsty, ordered three more. Then he fished out two five-fen coins and two one-fen coins, neatly lining them up on the table—ah, what a fine choice of word, "lining them up"!
“Thank you for supporting our work!”
“Please come again!”
Huang Zhanying's hands trembled as she took the money, feeling a bit embarrassed yet immensely accomplished. Six bowls sold in one go! Dropping those four coins into the cash box produced a crisp, delightful clatter, and identical beaming expressions spread across the faces of her companions.
Chen Qi was still busy counting ants.
Chapter 5