11:45, Chinese Restaurant.
After lingering in his room for a while, Ningma went downstairs to the hotel’s Chinese restaurant. As the flagship restaurant of the five-star hotel, it was decorated in a quaint and elegant style, full of artistic conception.
The main entrance imitated the eight-character Chaomen gate style of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, painted vermilion. The lintel was engraved with various styles of queti,Couplets, and hollowed-out flowers and plants. It looked dignified and steady, while also offering a broad view, allowing a complete view of the entire restaurant upon entering.
There was even a small bridge and flowing water surrounding half of the space, and several sets of tables and chairs were also made of solid wood with vermilion lacquer, separated by landscape curtains. These were all imitations of masterpieces, intentionally or unintentionally giving people the feeling of being in a place of the past.
A greeter in an elegant white orchid cheongsam led the guest to a secluded corner. Ningma first ordered a pot of green tea. It was still early, and the faint ancient rhythm played in his ears. He casually flipped through the exquisitely made menu.
After drinking tea and going through the menu, as expected, there were no special dishes, almost all of them were conventional. After all, it was a hotel in a tourist attraction, catering to the tastes of the majority of people.
One meat dish, one vegetable dish, and one soup. Through a glass window, the rain was still pouring down, perhaps a little lighter than in the morning, but still showed no sign of stopping. Directly opposite was the hotel parking lot, and the most conspicuous thing was the large pickup truck that had returned that morning.
There were no other people in the restaurant. He asked a waiter and learned that the entire hotel had three restaurants. In addition to the Chinese restaurant, there was also a Western restaurant and a snack bar, which was where breakfast was served, relatively convenient and quick.
While he was asking, a mother and child appeared at the door. The mother was dressed very fashionably, and the child was about seven or eight years old. He had seen them at the front desk when they were about to check out in the morning. Soon after, two middle-aged men who looked like businessmen also walked in and sat at two other tables.
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The dishes that followed were also very slow to arrive. He didn’t feel full or hungry, and he was using his chopsticks very quickly, spending most of the time aimlessly scrolling through his phone, wondering how long it would take to leave the hotel. Time had become so unimportant.
The other two tables were in the same situation. After eating for a long time, the child ran to the side to play with water, and the mother just stared at him indifferently. The two middle-aged men sitting diagonally across from him didn’t even touch the bowls and chopsticks in front of them, and were staring at their phones intently.
Ningma picked at the dishes absentmindedly, his mood was not good and he could hardly taste the flavors. He clicked on the coordinates on the map that he had browsed many times. The Chiming Temple was near a place called Chawa Village, and the linear distance should not exceed 20 kilometers. He clicked to see if he could reach the village, the unknown mountain roads ahead, and how to persuade a guide who was willing to lead the way.
As he was pondering, a voice suddenly came: “Sir, this is a soup specially prepared by the hotel for each guest, please enjoy it.”
Ningma looked up and saw an extra serving of soup on the table, a large bowl of clear soup that looked like black water, floating with a few dots of green scallions. A black, fluffy object like a snowdrop was submerged at the bottom of the soup. It was piping hot, and the rising steam carried a strange fragrance.
“This is?” Ningma stopped the waiter who was about to turn around.
“Fat paste simmered with Tight Flower,” the waiter explained with a smile, “It’s not easy to collect, and refining it is extremely difficult. The locals call it Tight Zhi, the Tight of Tight Tree, and the Zhi of Lingzhi.”
After speaking, he walked towards other guests with the tray. Ningma watched the waiter’s back, and then looked at the “white flower” submerged at the bottom of the bowl. He tried to scoop out a strand for a light taste – the entrance had a faint pine fragrance and a feeling of curd, indeed a bit mysterious.
“Tight Zhi?”
Interesting…
Ningma quickly drank the soup. The other two tables also seemed very interested in the Tight Zhi soup that was served last. After drinking it in a few mouthfuls, they wanted to ask for another serving but were politely refused. He didn’t expect that this inconspicuous soup was unique and limited.
The mellow fragrance lingered in his mouth for a long time until he replaced it with tea. An ordinary lunch was made very unusual by a small cup of complimentary soup. Nothing could be more important than this.
How to spend the afternoon? Ningma looked at his watch, the hour hand had not yet pointed to “1”. The rain outside the window still showed no sign of stopping, but it was a little softer than in the morning.
He originally planned to go to the front desk to ask if the highway in and out of the hotel had been repaired. As a matter of common sense, if the rain hasn’t stopped, there is still a possibility of landslides, so they would have to wait until the rain completely stopped before they would start organizing construction.
In other words, he wouldn’t be able to leave the hotel today. Ningma stood up from his seat. He thought that the meals and accommodation were free, but he didn’t expect that he still had to pay. He asked and then he realized that only meals in the snack bar were free.
Without much argument, it’s inevitable to make money in business. After leaving the Chinese restaurant and passing by the snack bar, there were only a few people sitting inside, all of them looking listless.
Ningma returned to his executive deluxe suite, which also felt boring. He felt inexplicably thirsty. Generally speaking, if your mouth feels dry after eating, it is almost certain that too much MSG has been added to the dishes, over seasoning. But the two main dishes he just ordered were mainly light and mild, and he didn’t feel too fresh when he ate them, only the taste of the ingredients themselves.
He poured a glass of water and drank half of it. A few minutes later, he still felt very thirsty. He drank the remaining half in one gulp, but he still wanted to find water to drink in less than half an hour.
According to his years of travel experience, he had eaten in many big and small restaurants. In this situation, only tea can quench the thirst. Hotels generally provide tea, let alone top-level suites, with Snowy Tips, jasmine, Pu’er, large bags of black tea, and wheat tea bags, everything is available.
Ningma picked up one and put down another. He spotted the paper bag he brought back in the morning. The bag contained locally picked and baked tea. While waiting for the water to boil, he tore open the seal and pinched a pinch and threw it into the cup.
The white and shrunken tea leaves slowly stretched out in the boiling water. It was a variety he had never seen before. The misty water vapor was mixed with an unspeakable fragrance, not the tea fragrance emitted by ordinary tea leaves, but more like the faint fragrance of Tight Zhi.
He took a sip, and his tongue immediately felt a faint astringency, which gave people an unexpectedly light but sweet and moisturizing feeling after lingering between his teeth and cheeks. At the same time, the pine fragrance also surged up, becoming more mellow and lingering, even like taking a sip of old wine, just without the spiciness.
This inconspicuous local tea made him look at it with new eyes. Ningma couldn’t help but pick up the paper bag and looked at it a few more times, but there wasn’t even an outer packaging, a typical product without any product information. Who would have thought that it would be so extremely delicious, especially after a tiring lunch?
One sip after another, in no time, the cup of tea was empty. He added another half cup and couldn’t help but pick it up repeatedly and drink the tea. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief and leaned back on the sofa.
He was on the sofa, and the indoor temperature was 22°C. After a while, his whole body began to feel dry and hot, like being too close to a fire in winter, especially his heart seemed to be stuffed with a ball of cotton.
Ningma simply turned on the air conditioner. The cold wind slightly alleviated the heat, but there was still a lingering stuffiness, which affected his mood and made him a little irritable. He even had an impulse to rush into the rain, even the Heart Bead held in his hand couldn’t alleviate it.
Unless—
Ningma glanced at the brochure introducing the hotel spread out on the table. The penultimate page introduced the swimming pool located on the second basement floor. The moment he jumped into the cold water might relieve the heat radiating from his body.