The traffic jam was not a jam. That was clear by now, when Bao-Bao steered the delivery van right between the waiting cars and Lao Wang opened the tailgate like a venerable serving table.
Cars were everywhere around them. And from every car crawled a face that had exactly the same thing on their phone: "Connection is overrated. – C."
"Quiet in the ranks," said Lao Wang and tied the kitchen apron he had kept for emergencies for twenty years. "Bao-Bao: water. Jun: pots. Meilin: check binding levels. Uncle Tao: polite smile."
"What for smiling?" asked Uncle Tao.
"You are the reception area."
"Until last year I was an exam officer. I WAS the smile." 🕴️
The first guest arrived after about ten minutes. A middle-aged taxi driver with a determined forehead and a look as if he were on his way to a seminar about distrust. He sat down silently on the repurposed tire stack that served as a counter.
"Seven-treasure noodle soup," said Bao-Bao kindly. "Large or large?"
"I'm not ordering anything," said the man grumpily. "I'm just hungry."
"That is literally the definition of a restaurant guest," said Jun. "Welcome."
Bao-Bao served the first bowl. The taxi driver stared at the broth like a man seeing distrust in steam form. Then he ate.
And with every spoonful something visible happened. The forehead wrinkles lessened. The shoulders dropped. And on the phone display in his pocket, a small map with the route home appeared briefly – one he himself hadn’t used for three years.
"This is cheating with soups," he whispered.
"This is early evening business," said Lao Wang, already setting the second place. "Sit down. The man who usually DOESN'T want to pay is coming."
The man naturally meant Chiwang. And Chiwang, as it turned out, had a problem. Finding an elegant solution did not mean that she listened. On the light map under Hangzhou, the dark spot had made enormous efforts to maintain its rhythm – but now, in the middle of the jam, among thousands of phones slowly all photographing the same soup, in glossy, for the family, with benevolent hashtags, the dark spot began to shrink.
"CHIWANG HAS LOST TEN POINTS!" shouted Meilin from her tablet. "He’s eating connection. And we are serving it in soup form!" 📈
"Less talking!" shouted Lao Wang. "More stirring!"
The next half hour looked like the strangest grand opening in Chinese economic history. A mobile fish delivery van, equipped with three pots, a thermos of jasmine tea, and a blaring car radio, fed seven-treasure noodle soup to thousands of stranded drivers. Jun collected orders. Uncle Tao pointed elegantly to the waiting chairs. Meilin monitored the data situation. Bao-Bao simply distributed portions.
And with every portion, the dark spot on the light map shrank. At least
Exactly at that point, the strange happened.
On one of the screens of Meilin’s tablet suddenly appeared an image from a surveillance camera: a car. Rusty. Old. With a noodle bowl drawn in marker on the door.
It stopped in the middle of the jam. And no one was sitting at the wheel. 🚐👻
"Old Feng," whispered Jun.
"Who is Old Feng?" asked Uncle Tao.
"The lender," said Meilin. "Our delivery van was borrowed. But according to the documentation proof from the cousin of the first owner, the vehicle had long been registered to someone else. Someone who had befriended Master Gu thirty years ago. Someone who came into the workshop at night and…”
She faltered. On the screen suddenly lit up the license plate of the delivery van. A date: the day before yesterday.
"And that can’t be," said Jun slowly, "because we only got the van today."
At the same moment, a new message popped up simultaneously on all phones in the jam – short, concise, grammatically flawless, like an official who wants to play for the first time:
"Soup alone does not satisfy appetite. You need the sofa too. Bring the cook to me. – C."
And somewhere at the end of the highway, behind the last cars, the road literally began to move. Slowly, politely, like a carpet that rebuilt itself under the cars into a track. Southwards. Towards Hangzhou. And the cars that followed each other there drove – that is, they glided – straight onto Chiwang’s疆Հンド.
Bao-Bao looked briefly at the wandering asphalt. Then he looked at Lao Wang, who was just handing over a last bowl, and said:
"Uncle Wang. I have to confess: I no longer know if I am driving or being driven."
"Then fasten your seatbelt, Bao-Bao," said Lao Wang, taking off the apron. "We are being driven." 🚐💨