The third time I saw the old gentleman was in the park, where a temporary stage was set up, and a temporary troupe composed of opera lovers was singing Guiju and colorful tunes. The gentlemen on the stage were playing "Farewell to the Stage", and I found a relatively high stone to sit down. The old gentleman happened to be standing not far in front of me, the old man wore a round-brimmed hat, a Mao suit, a pair of black cloth shoes, and a cigarette stick in his hand from time to time to put it in his mouth "bar" two mouthfuls, and his head also shook with the emphasis of the gentlemen. At five o'clock in the afternoon, the troupe dispersed, and the people in the audience also dispersed. The uncle didn't leave, he looked at the gentlemen who dismantled the table, just watched, watched quietly, I looked at the old gentleman, and I looked at the gentlemen like he looked at the gentlemen. The cigarette stick in the old gentleman's hand was fed into his mouth more intensively, and I lit the cigarette more intensively. The gentlemen finished dismantling the platform and packed up the costumes and props, he turned his head, saw me on the stone, nodded and walked towards the community, and I also jumped off the stone and caught up with the old gentleman.

The old gentleman turned his head to look at me, who had caught up with him, took a puff of his cigarette stick, and asked, "Why, young man, you are also here to join in the fun." The old gentleman said, the corners of his mouth showed smoke, and I nodded: "When I was a child, I often went to the park or the theater with my grandmother to watch, and then our theater was demolished, and the group of gentlemen were also old, and no one in the small county town sang anymore, so I didn't watch it anymore. The old gentleman smiled: "Hehehe, you're not that old at this age, it's rare, it's rare." I also smiled: "Where, where, the sun has not yet set, do you want the old gentleman to go to the teahouse to sit?" The old gentleman raised his foot, and the cigarette stick knocked on the sole of his shoe: "Do you know how to play chess?" I replied: "Of course, why don't we kill two or two?" The old gentleman asked again: "Is there any good tea?" I also replied: "This is natural, I went to Guizhou last time with some seven houses, and the store told me that it was the old tea of the mother tree, and I want to invite you to try it." The old gentleman took out a little cigarette from his cigarette pouch and stuffed it, lit it and took a puff, and said to me, "Lead the way." ”

I took out a paper bag from the display case, brought it to the old gentleman, and I put the paper bag on his table with both hands: "Look. He spread his hand on the tea set: "Come, kill two and I'll go back to dinner." I nodded, "Okay." After saying that, I lit some smokeless charcoal and put it into the wind stove, and took out a Choshi water from a mineral water bucket, and put it on the coal stove to burn, the old gentleman smiled and nodded, we didn't speak, and after a while, there was a slight "whirring" sound in the choshi, I used a sandalwood spoon to fill the tea leaves a few times and put them in the choshi, the old gentleman still smiled and nodded: "Come and kill a plate?" I nodded, and when it came to the second boil, we only walked ten hands, I hurriedly took out the cooked bowl, scooped out the foam, and after scooping, I continued to play chess with the old gentleman, and when I was thinking, Choshi "gurgling" sounded, and I hurriedly took Choshi off the wind stove. Then he took out two tea cups with tweezers, moistened them with the tea soup in Choshi, and poured half a cup for the old gentleman.

The old gentleman sniffed the tea in the cup and shook his head: "What kind of old tea is your mother tree, this is obviously a new tree and new tea, you coax my old man." I smiled awkwardly again, and I pointed to the chessboard: "Uncle, let's play chess." At this time, the chessboard had been messed up, and after we set it up again, the old gentleman "snorted" and said: "I won't bully you as a child, you first." I smiled: "Uncle, this rule can't be messed up, you play red chess, you go first." He nodded: "Hmph, you know something, come and take the lead." I smiled: "Hey, uncle, I'll take the lead." ”

After killing a handful, the old gentleman won, and the tea soup in Choshi was also at the bottom, and the old gentleman stood up and stretched, and said to me, "You kid is good, I'll come back tomorrow." I also stood up and sent the old gentleman to the door, and bent down slightly to him and said, "To-morrow I am still waiting for you." The old gentleman nodded with satisfaction and left.

The next day, the old gentleman came as promised, and I gave him a cake of seven sons, and played chess and drank tea as yesterday. He suddenly asked me, "Are you busy with this bar and a teahouse?" I smiled: "I still have two partners, and most of us are in the bar on weekdays, and occasionally come to the teahouse for tea and have a look." The old gentleman sneered: "Boy, the difference is in you, and the second is in things, the teahouse is very good." I smiled a little embarrassedly, and replied: "You don't know, there are no people in the teahouse now, we also need to eat, we are not afraid of your jokes, we are here, just opened, it turned out that when we were in Beijing, the teahouse business was slightly better than the bar's business, but it was only a little bit, at that time there was no need to pay rent, but the water and electricity were also beyond the means, although there was no need to pay rent here, but every month the water and electricity of the teahouse still had to be paid from the bar's books." The old gentleman was a little angry: "That's because you don't care, if you are careful, I will bring my old guys to cheer you on every day." I smiled flatteringly: "Hehe, uncle, then I can't rely on you to eat, no, you can come often, but now there are fewer people who come out to drink tea, who doesn't have a few sets of tea sets." The old gentleman patted the table: "Then should you be like this?" After saying that, he stood up and walked to the other guest table, wiped his hand on it, and then walked up to me and handed it to me: "Look, you are like this, can there be a guest? Where will the guest sit?" I was a little ashamed, because nine out of ten people who came to the teahouse came to buy tea, and left after buying, and the rest of them were either friends or peers, and the landlord and I were naturally not so concerned about the guest tables and chairs in the teahouse, and the landlord regarded those tea leaves as treasures and cleaned them every day, so it was not like this table, chair and bench.

Seeing that I didn't speak, the old gentleman sighed: "To do business, you have to be like doing business, no matter what you do, you have to have no distractions." I bent down and arched my hand: "Remember, boy." ”

On the third day, when the old gentleman did not come, I went to the park to try my luck, and it happened that a group of people gathered in one place, and I walked over, and the people gathered around a table, and the old gentleman was spreading wool felt with another old gentleman, and another old gentleman was standing by and grinding. The old gentleman laid out the wool felt and looked up and saw me crowded into the crowd, and waved his hand at me, and I walked over, and he pointed to the inkstone: "It's just in time, you come." "I took the ink ingot from the old gentleman who was grinding ink and sharpened it in the inkstone. The old gentleman looked at my hand and nodded, and then asked the old gentleman who had laid wool felt with him to cut the rice paper and lay it out. At this time, I found that the old gentleman's paperweight was a two-sided golden silk nan. He looked up at me and said, "Okay, give it to me, I'll give you a message today." I took the inkstone with both hands and brought it to the old gentleman, who said to me again, "Look at it, boy." ”

I watched the old gentleman dance on the paper, and I read it word by word: "Mi." The old gentleman turned to polish his pen, looked at me and said, "Not bad." The old gentleman continued to write, and I continued, "No." "The old gentleman didn't talk to me anymore, he kept writing, he put pen down, he put pen down, he kept writing. After a while, eight big characters appeared: "There is no beginning, and there is an end." I kept muttering this sentence, walked to the other end and the old gentleman raised it flat, put it on the other end of the table, and pressed it with an idle paperweight, and kept looking at these eight words, and some people around also came to watch, and the crowd also kept hearing voices such as "good words" and "good writing".

I accompanied the old gentleman to write a word for an afternoon, he sent out all the words written, and the people who got it were overjoyed, but everyone had a doubt, that is, there was no word that was settled, and the people who got the word asked the old gentleman, but the old gentleman shook his hand: "The name is just for others to call, it doesn't matter if there is one." ”

The crowd had dispersed, and I helped the old gentleman pack up his things, and was about to fold up the painting that the old gentleman gave me to take away, but the old gentleman stopped me: "Wait, you can't take this painting away." I was a little puzzled: "Didn't the uncle say that he wanted to send me?" The old gentleman walked up to me and took the letter: "It's true to send you, but not now, you go back and wait." ”

After about half a month, I was looking at the ledger at the bar, when suddenly an old voice came from outside the door: "Eh, slow down, slow down, yes, come, put this, wait first." I looked up and saw that it was the old gentleman, I hurriedly walked out to greet him, there were two masters standing behind the old gentleman, a flat cardboard box stood on the ground, the old gentleman looked at me: "Come, boy, I didn't know when you opened here, so I should give it to you." I was a little puzzled, pointed to the cardboard box and asked, "What is this?" The old gentleman replied to me, "You should hurry up and open the door of the teahouse first." I walked into the bar to get the key, and motioned for Lin to take three cups of hot water and bring them to the teahouse.

After the two masters brought the flat cardboard box to the teahouse, the old gentleman looked around, pointed to the empty wall on a display case, and said to the two masters, "Come, hang there." When the master opened the cardboard box, I saw a plaque, which was "There is no beginning, there is no end", the old gentleman said with a smile: "How can a teahouse not even have a plaque except for the signboard, what is this like?" I smiled: "Boy, thank you, sir, I don't know how to repay you." The old gentleman shook his hand and smiled: "When I come to drink tea in the future, you kid will give me a cheaper." I replied: "In the future, you can come, and you can bring any tea you like, and you can torture me by talking to the boy about money." The old gentleman smiled: "Business is business, I won't send you as much as I want, don't make me eat and drink for nothing like a robber." I smiled, "Yes, yes, yes, sir." ”

After sending off the two masters, the old gentleman sat down to drink tea with me, and he asked me, "Do you know why I gave you these words?" I shook my head. The old gentleman raised his head and looked at the four words, and sighed a little helplessly: "I'm sad." I poured hot tea on the old gentleman, and he continued: "I was still watching plays and dramas in the theater a few years ago, and over the years, I could only have a good time in the park, or when there were any activities or festivals, I could see the real stage, the real play, just that day, remember, that day, those gentlemen, this was in the past, how could any gentleman tear down the stage by himself." With that, he patted his chest and took a sip of tea, and I hurried to add it to him.