Republic of China Life Simulator · Chat

The sky over Beiping is ever grey, like a layer of grimy old cotton that can never be washed clean. Along the foot of the city wall, a coal-briquette peddler draws out his mournful street cry; the wind sweeps his voice deep into the alleyways, bouncing it back off the mottled brick walls. Inside the tea house sit old men who still wear queues alongside young men with cropped hair, the two factions separated by an eight-immortals table, neither looking at the other. An old man's teacup clatters against the tabletop with a dull thud; a young man rustles his newspaper, a sharp rip of paper that sounds as though something has been torn apart. Newsboys shout headlines at the street corner, the papers stamped with words like "President," "Restoration," and "New Culture"—the print large, the ink still wet. The patrolman on the corner has donned a new uniform with a polished cap badge, yet the baton tucked into his belt is still the old model. In the dead of night, distant gunshots echo now and then; sparse, but enough to keep one awake. Come morning, the sun rises as usual, the tea house opens its doors, and the gongs and drums in the opera house strike up on cue, as if nothing had ever happened. Beneath the archway of Qianmen, a hawker carries shoulder poles bearing candied hawthorns, the bright red fruit strung in neat rows, gleaming in the sunlight like chains of tiny lanterns. Beside him stands a traveling barber's stall, steam rising from a brass basin; the barber's razor is ground to a mirror shine, whispering with a soft scritch-scratch as it strops against a strip of cloth. Passing pedestrians sometimes linger and sometimes hurry on, none knowing whether a different flag will fly tomorrow. Deep in the alleyways drifts the hollow tock-tock-tock of a tofu vendor's wooden clapper, one beat after another, like an ancient pulse. In the courtyard, a woman sits on the threshold shelling vegetables; a barefoot child scampers across the dirt, ringing out with clear laughter. Yet just beyond the compound wall, a military truck rumbles by now and then, its wheels grinding over flagstones with a thunderous roar that shakes this fragile tranquility to its core. The storyteller in the tea house smacks his gavel, reciting tales of the Three Kingdoms, of the Water Margin—stories from long, distant ages. Yet the listeners below have their minds elsewhere. Someone sits with head bowed, tallying accounts; someone cocks an ear to eavesdrop on the neighboring table; someone stares blankly out the doorway. When the storyteller declaims, "The realm, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide," someone in the crowd lets out a bitter chuckle, but no one takes up the thread. Night falls over Beiping, and now and then the glow of a lantern bobs through the alleys. It is the night watchman on his rounds, lantern in hand, chanting, "Dry winds and parched timber, mind your candles and hearths." The words trail out long and low, echoing through the desolate lane. A few dog barks drift from afar, quickly swallowed by silence. The moon rises from behind the gate tower, casting its light over grey tiles, withered branches, and this ancient, exhausted city.