There was a moderately sized coffee industry exhibition at the International Expo Center over the weekend. Lin Song had long lost his enthusiasm for joining crowds; whether in his daily life or in business, he instinctively resisted excessive exertion.
Lately, however, his business seemed to be turning a corner. As the May weather grew warmer, the coffee shop’s losses narrowed. It looked as if with a bit more diligent effort, profitability was within reach. His wholesale coffee bean business had also picked up. Although the cafés he had personally cultivated as clients were closing down one after another, his distribution channel customers had persevered, with sales volumes and turnover rates actually increasing. And so, on mornings when he was awoken by the sunlight, Lin Song felt a long-lost glimmer of anticipation for the future. This glimmer was just enough to coax him out of the house.
There was a direct subway line from his home to the Expo Center, but this time, Lin Song chose to drive. His Peugeot 508 was just six hundred kilometers shy of its three-thousand-kilometer break-in period. He had been longing to drive it again on the winding mountain road leading to the Wenjin Academy. A warning sign by the roadside—“NO RACING, VIOLATORS WILL BE SEVERELY PUNISHED”—often flashed in his mind. The allure of that prohibition made his heart itch with desire.
At 9:30 in the morning, traffic on the Second Ring Road was heavy. Many fathers, out with their children, drove with meticulous caution. Once on the main loop, Lin Song activated the Adaptive Cruise Control, intending to let the 508 “walk” itself to the destination.
The radio was playing a program in memory of the rock musician Zhang Ju—a segment from New Music Magazine he had recorded on May 17, 1997. It seemed this broadcast was replayed every year around this time. Lin Song enjoyed listening to music while driving, especially jazz on infinite loop. The piano at his home had been sitting there for nearly twenty years. He had it brought back from Shanghai through a friend who sold instruments when his daughter, Xiao Lin, was three. It was, he was told, an American brand. For his entire life, he’d always had a bit of a penchant for foreign things.
The piano was meant for his daughter, but after learning the basics, Xiao Lin lost interest and abandoned it completely. When his father was still alive, Lin Song had considered playing it himself. But his father’s only pastime was watching television from morning till night, the volume turned up so loud that he had broken two TV sets. Lin Song didn’t want to disturb him, so the idea of playing the piano remained just that—an idea.
He and his father rarely spoke. Regardless of how his business was doing, Lin Song stayed out of the house as much as possible. If there were orders, he made deliveries. If not, he would park by the riverfront and watch the Yangtze flow by. If he had even more time, he would sit in his car and play the flute. He had bought two flutes online; the first was stolen when a thief smashed his car window, along with a barely functioning Nikon D80 camera. After that, he stopped parking on the street, instead paying 400 yuan a month to keep his car in the underground garage of the office building across the road.
His father never understood what he had been doing with his life. The two of them seemed to stand on opposite sides of life’s philosophy. Seven or eight years ago, at holiday feasts, his father would still talk about his own grandfather’s dyeing workshop at Three-Eyed Bridge, or the tribulations of his uncles. But after his mother passed away and his father crossed the threshold of eighty, the old man fell silent, losing all interest in reminiscing with Lin Song. Even at family banquets, he would hastily finish his bowl of rice and leave the table to watch his TV. He didn’t smoke or drink; television was his sole companion.
A white car with a green license plate, marking it as an electric vehicle, cut in front of Lin Song without warning. Small red flags were stuck to its left and right taillights. The EV swerved ahead of him, impatiently searching for the next opening to overtake, then darted into another lane that was hardly empty. When it failed to find a clearer path there, it wrenched its front end back into Lin Song’s lane.
Lin Song began to count silently in his head. From passing through the underpass at the train station to driving along the elevated expressway to Yuehu Bridge, a twenty-minute drive, he kept his eyes glued to the lanes ahead. Every restless vehicle was captured by his watch.
He had long felt his eyesight was not what it used to be. Whenever dusk fell, his vision couldn’t immediately adjust to the dark. The cars in front of him would blur into indistinct blobs of light. It would take him nearly half an hour to refocus the city’s dark contours on his retinas. Only when he could clearly make out the numbers on the license plate ahead did he regain the confidence to drive. He remembered the summer after his high school graduation, working as a mover at the Heji Egg Factory. Every time he stepped out of the sub-zero cold storage, his glasses would instantly fog over, and his vision would blur as if covered in bristles. The factory had been demolished over thirty years ago for real estate development, but a retired journalist had once told him that 120 years ago, its eggs, along with tea from the docks, were sold all the way to Europe.
Another car changed lanes without signaling, cutting in front of him. The forward collision warning flashed red on his 508’s dashboard. Lin Song gently tapped the brake, creating a little more distance from the green-plated EV. This was the 65th driver to change lanes erratically.
During the six consecutive months his coffee shop was losing money, Lin Song had fallen into complete despair about his business prospects. Looking back at a lifetime of bleak ventures, he felt he had no desires left, like a monk guarding a ruined temple—resigned and without ambition.
Ever since his daughter, Xiao Lin, went to study in Guangzhou, Lin Song had insisted on driving her to and from the station or airport. He didn’t want her to have to drag heavy luggage onto the subway. In his mind, these trips were a profound ritual, a precious bond that connected him to his daughter.
After this record-breaking hot summer, Xiao Lin would graduate from university. When she first enrolled, she had rejected his plans for her, refusing to major in finance to get a CFA charter. Instead, she spent four years singing in a department with no academic pressure. Since high school, she had dreamed of becoming a musician standing center stage, and she worked relentlessly toward that goal. Having sold magazines for many years, Lin Song knew how hard a life in the arts could be. He didn’t think singing was a sustainable career for his daughter. But from the moment she set foot on campus, Xiao Lin was determined to keep singing, refusing to listen to his nagging.
Just yesterday, Lin Song had picked her up from the airport. He had turned off the car radio in advance. After she got in, he reminded her to fasten her seatbelt. She said nothing, put on her headphones, and fiddled with her phone for the entire ride, apparently with no intention of sharing anything about her trip. Lin Song didn’t ask. He just drove in silence, his mind preoccupied with the difference of a few sharps and flats between a minor harmony and a minor melody. They existed together in the same space, yet lived in separate worlds, cordoned off by a mutual silence.
As they neared the Expo Center, a black Mercedes in front of him signaled right and turned smoothly onto the exit ramp. It was the 18th driver he had seen signal properly on his entire journey.
At the foot of the escalator leading to the exhibition hall, a woman approached him. “Hey man, need a ticket for the coffee expo?” “No, I have one.” “Well… got any extra tickets? I can buy them.” “I do.” “How much for one?” “Ten yuan.” “Deal.” Lin Song took off his backpack, pulled out the bundle of twenty tickets the organizers had sent him, counted out fifteen, and handed them to the woman. He then deftly opened his payment QR code. With a ding, 150 yuan arrived. He had made back his gas money, Lin Song mused to himself.
Inside, the liveliest spots were, as always, the booths giving away freebies and samples. Pretty hostesses guided passersby to scan a QR code for a woven tote bag, while uncles and aunties formed long queues at the chocolate tasting stand. In the four corners were barista competitions, where contestants tried all sorts of tricks to elevate a job with little inherent technical skill to the level of high craftsmanship. Lin Song stood in the corner of a pour-over station, watching a stylishly dressed competitor, unable to tell if they were a delicate-looking young man or a handsome young woman.
The barista steeped the ground coffee in a beaker for 50 seconds, filtered the liquid, and then diluted it with an equal amount of water. How is this any different from a regular Americano? Lin Song felt a sense of absurd foolishness. He couldn’t bear to watch any longer.
Time to go home. His wife had reminded him that morning to be back in the afternoon to make Xiao Lin a slow-cooked pork bone and daikon soup. He had set out on what he hoped was a main road of opportunity, only to end up back on his own, solitary, single-plank bridge.