126: Chapter 126 Two Million Four Hundred Thousand
Jiang Chen was in no hurry to knock.
He stood by the courtyard gate at the alley entrance, his gaze starting from the stone plaque above the lintel.
The plaque was carved with the words "Qi Wu." The stone surface had been smoothed by wind and rain, the characters were faint, and a thin layer of moss grew on the edges.
Moving his gaze up, the wooden windows on the second floor were tightly closed, the brown paint mottled and peeling, revealing the old wood grain underneath.
At the corner, the green brick foundation was mostly covered by ivy, with only a few rough stone corners exposed.
The courtyard gate was left ajar. He peered inside through the gap. The front yard wasn't large, paved with green bricks and swept clean.
That Plane Tree was not in the front yard.
Jiang Chen withdrew his gaze, reached out to grasp the bronze door knocker, and knocked three times with moderate force.
The sound dispersed in the quiet alley, crisp and brief.
The door was pulled open from the inside.
The person who opened the door was a middle-aged man in his forties, of medium build, wearing a dark blue polo shirt with the collar buttons fastened tightly, giving off a somewhat rigid air.
He had little expression on his face. His eyes first landed on Jiang Chen, sizing him up for a moment, then swept over Lu Zheng at the side, and finally returned to Jiang Chen's face.
That look carried a sense of testing, as if he were weighing them up.
Jiang Chen didn't speak, waiting for the other party to speak first.
"Here to see the house?" The middle-aged man's voice had a bit of a nasal tone, neither high nor low.
"Jiang Chen. I have an appointment with Uncle Liu for two o'clock."
The middle-aged man nodded, pulled the door open halfway, and stepped aside to clear the way.
As Jiang Chen stepped over the threshold, he heard the man say in a low voice, "My dad is waiting in the Main Hall."
Lu Zheng followed behind. The two crossed the front yard, passed through the corridor on one side of the Main Hall, and headed toward the backyard.
The corridor wasn't long. The wall plaster on both sides was damp, with a thin layer of moss growing at the base of the walls.
Jiang Chen's leather shoes stepped on the green brick ground, making a dull, rhythmic sound.
Stepping out of the corridor, the backyard suddenly opened up.
Then he saw that Plane Tree.
It wasn't in the front yard, nor was it in the center of the courtyard.
It was tucked against the northeast corner of the backyard, rising from the base of the courtyard wall.
The trunk was astonishingly thick; even two adult men with outstretched arms might not be able to encircle it.
The bark was dark gray, with longitudinal cracks like those repeatedly carved by a knife. The furrows were deep and coarse, possessing the vigor found only in century-old trees.
The canopy spread diagonally upward against the northeast corner wall, its branches crossing the roof ridge, casting nearly half the backyard into deep shade.
The fiercest afternoon sunlight was filtered and broken by the layers of leaves, leaving only some fine golden spots on the ground that shimmered whenever the wind blew.
Standing in the backyard and looking up, the entire patch of sky in the northeast corner was green.
The roots pressed against the bottom of the courtyard wall, bulging and deforming the green brick foundation.
A crack meandered out from the roots, cutting diagonally across the backyard ground and extending all the way to the base of the Main Hall's back wall.
At its widest point, an adult's finger could fit inside the crack.
The green brick ground of the backyard was uneven, pushed up by the root system, making for an unsteady walk.
Jiang Chen's gaze lingered on that crack for a moment before moving to the large tree in the northeast corner, watching it for quite a while.
He didn't speak.
Toward the south of the backyard sat an old stone vat, separated from the tree by half the distance of the yard.
A thin layer of moss grew on the rim of the vat, and a few koi were kept inside.
Afternoon light leaked through the gaps in the canopy, falling onto the water surface as the fish slowly flicked their tails.
Uncle Liu was sitting in an old Grandmaster's chair by the back door of the Main Hall, wearing a faded gray Zhongshan suit with wrinkled hems.
The chair was placed at the doorway leading from the Main Hall to the backyard. The old man sat facing the backyard, holding a cigarette in his hand. The smoke was pulled into a thin line by the draft through the hall, drifting into the backyard.
Seeing Jiang Chen and Lu Zheng emerge from the corridor, he gripped the armrests of the chair, tremblingly trying to stand up.
Jiang Chen took a couple of quick steps forward. "Uncle, please stay seated. No need to get up."
Uncle Liu didn't insist and leaned back into the chair. He fished a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and pulled one out to offer to Jiang Chen.
Jiang Chen waved it off, so the old man put it in his own mouth.
His hands were a bit shaky; it took two strikes of the match to light it.
The middle-aged man followed over and sat on a square stool next to Uncle Liu, his hands resting on his knees, his gaze fixed on Jiang Chen with a hint of scrutiny.
Uncle Liu took a puff of the cigarette, and smoke slowly billowed out from his nostrils.
"Mr. Jiang, you've seen the house. I've lived here since I was a child, for over sixty years."
"No. 17 Wutong Lane. My father bought it in the twenty-eighth year of the Republic. Green bricks to the top, fir beams and pillars—it was the premier house in this alley back then."
Jiang Chen sat down on a bamboo chair opposite Uncle Liu and didn't respond.
The middle-aged man cleared his throat.
Uncle Liu glanced at him, put the cigarette back in his mouth, and said indistinctly, "This is my son, Liu Zhigang."
Jiang Chen nodded toward Liu Zhigang.
Liu Zhigang's mouth twitched slightly in response.
Uncle Liu flicked the ash and continued.
"The house is old, so there are many problems. The beams are fir, and after so many years, several spots have been eaten by insects. The window frame in the west room on the second floor is also aging. Last year, when the rain was heavy, the walls even leaked."
He paused, his gaze turning to the Plane Tree in the northeast corner of the backyard.
"That tree has probably been growing for over a hundred years. When I was a kid, it was already growing there against the courtyard wall. It's so thick, so flourishing. Over the years, the roots have grown wilder, digging down against the wall foundation and arching up the ground. You saw the cracks on the ground."
"A few years ago, I had a master come look at it. He said if we wanted to fix the foundation, we'd have to move the tree. If we move the tree, the entire northeast corner wall has to move with it. If we aren't careful, the house structure could be affected. It wasn't worth it, inside or out, so we just left it."
After Uncle Liu finished speaking, he pressed his cigarette butt into the ashtray on the small square table next to the chair and looked up at Jiang Chen.
Those eyes were cloudy, but there was something undefinable in their depths.
Like he was waiting.
Jiang Chen didn't speak immediately.
He stood up, pretending to look at the house seriously.
First, he walked slowly around the front yard and the Main Hall, his gaze sweeping from the floor tiles to the beams, and from the beams to the corners.
Arriving in front of the back wall of the Main Hall, he stopped and reached out to touch the wall surface.
There was a vertical crack on the gray wall, extending from the base of the wall all the way to the junction with the beams. Its position corresponded exactly to the direction from which the crack in the backyard extended.
The crack had been covered with a fresh coat of limewash, but not completely; it was still visible if one looked closely.
Lu Zheng also followed along to look.
Jiang Chen turned around. "Uncle, let's take a look upstairs."
Uncle Liu nodded. "The stairs are on the right side of the Main Hall. Go up yourselves, and take it slow."
The stairs were wooden. Being old, they creaked when stepped on.
Jiang Chen walked very slowly, making sure each step was firm before taking the next.
When he was halfway up, he stopped, leaned over, and looked at the connection between the handrail and the wall.
The tenon was loose, revealing a visible gap.
Lu Zheng followed his gaze and saw it too.
Jiang Chen straightened up and continued upward.
There were three rooms on the second floor.
Two bedrooms and a study.
The study window faced the backyard. Opening the window, the canopy of the Plane Tree burst into view.
Branches reached out diagonally from the northeast corner. From a few meters away, they were out of reach, but the window was full of green.
There was a large water stain on the wall below the windowsill. The plaster had blistered and would crumble at a light touch.
Jiang Chen looked back at the large tree in the backyard.
The canopy was too dense, making it hard for rainwater to dissipate; the dampness was trapped at the base of the wall.
Especially on the side against the northeast corner; the shade covered it year-round, blocking the sunlight, so the wall had never truly dried out.
He looked around.
There were signs of insect damage on the beams—several holes the size of a pinky finger. In the deepest one, he could see that the wood fibers inside had turned to powder.
He reached out and pressed on the beam.
The surface was still hard, but the inside was hollow.
Coming down from upstairs, Jiang Chen returned to the backyard and walked under the Plane Tree in the northeast corner.
The roots arched out from the ground, meandering along the base of the courtyard wall, deforming the green brick foundation.
The crack extended from beneath his feet, cutting diagonally across the backyard ground, all the way to the base of the Main Hall's back wall.
Jiang Chen crouched down and measured the width of the crack with his finger. He stood up and brushed the dust off his hands.
Liu Zhigang had been sitting at the back door of the Main Hall, his gaze following Jiang Chen's hands.
Jiang Chen walked back and sat down again in the bamboo chair opposite Uncle Liu.
"Uncle, I've looked at the house carefully."