卡住的那天

Nine-thirty in the morning. Heavy rain.

When Su Mo lifted the roll-up door, the sound of rain on the tile roof was denser than usual.

From opening until now, not a single customer.

She reorganized all the tea canisters. By region—Yunnan, Fujian, Taiwan, Japan. Then by oxidation level—green tea, white tea, oolong, black tea, dark tea. Then by purchase date—last month's, three months ago, six months ago.

Finished organizing. Took them down. Reorganized in a different order.

The broken leaf dust at the bottom of the canisters formed a small pattern on the counter. She looked at it for half a second, then swept it away with the cloth.

The brass bell had not rung once.

One p.m. The door pushed open.

The bell rang.

The man—the one who took photos—walked in.

He sat at the third table by the window. He ordered White Peony. Again.

While pouring the tea, Su Mo noticed: he was watching—not the tea, but her hands.

She kept pouring. He did not look at the cup. His gaze followed her hands.

This was his fourth visit. Every Monday and Thursday.

He still did not speak.

He finished. He left.

The bell rang.

Two p.m. to five p.m. Zero foot traffic.

Su Mo sat behind the counter, flipped through her phone, closed it, opened it again.

She scrolled to a former colleague's Moments—a new project, huge success, a row of trophies in the photo. Caption: "The power of the team."

A design draft she had once done was now a case study. Credited to a product manager she did not know.

She scrolled past it.

She stood up. She made a pot of tea for herself.

She took one sip. Not sweet, not bitter. A taste she could not name—like being alone in a room on a rainy day. Not unpleasant. But not quite right either.

The tea leaves at the bottom of the cup spread out. Same as always.

Four forty-five.

The old woman had not come.

The rain had stopped. The old woman had not come.

Su Mo wiped the counter a third time. The cloth slipped from her hand. She bent down to pick it up—and realized she was counting the floor tiles by the door.

She told herself: just one less customer. Business was slow today anyway.

But the dianhong on the warming tray had gone cold. She had not made tea for anyone.

No one had called her "Xiao Mo." From nine-thirty in the morning to five in the afternoon. No one had.

Five o'clock. Five-fifteen. Five-thirty.

No one came.

She poured the dianhong from the warming tray down the drain. The leaf bits stuck to the pot bottom—like a tiny dot. Just a dot.

She flipped the chairs up onto the tables. Then flipped them back down.

Seven p.m. Su Mo was washing cups.

She turned on the tap. The sound of running water covered the street noise outside.

She looked down at the tea leaves in the sink.

In every cup, the pattern of leaves looked like a character.

Not just once. The same shape.

Wait.

She crouched down to look closely.

The character was gone.

But she remembered the shape.

She stood up. Her hands were trembling. They were trembling, but she was not cold.

The tea had already gone cold. The leaves in the cups had returned to scattered brown dots. But she remembered what she had just seen—every cup, the same character.

Wait.

If the tea house really did close, she would miss it. Miss something—she could not put it into words. She understood what the character meant.

One a.m. The sound of the dry cleaning shop's roll-up door banging shut had happened three hours ago.

Su Mo sat alone in the tea house.

She looked at the empty room.

"I should not be waiting—"

She did not finish the sentence.

Today, not a single person had seen her.

And she existed.

Chapter 7 · End

To be continued — Chapter 8: The Tea Cultivation Record