Noodle Shop in the Back Alley of Fusi, Beizhen

In the autumn of the fifth year of Yongle, outside the back wall of Fusi, Jinyiweibei Town, Beijing, there was an alley so narrow that only one person could pass through. There is a noodle shop without a sign at the end of the alley, which only sells Yangchun noodles for three pennies a bowl. Sister-in-law Zhao, who is in charge of the ladle, is a widow. Her husband, Lao Zhao, was originally a cook at Fusi in Beizhen. He died two years ago. Neighbors said that Mrs. Zhao had a hard life. She was widowed at a young age and had to work from dawn to dusk selling noodles to make ends meet. But Sister-in-law Zhao doesn't feel bitter herself. She gets up early every morning to knead the dough, opens the door at 10:00, and sells it until the sun sets in the west. She didn't know that among the Jinyiwei guests who came to eat noodles late at night, some were silently paying off an old debt of twenty years for her. A bowl of thin noodles in clear soup strung together the fates of small figures such as the royal guard, the postman, the medical woman, the blacksmith, the actor, the Hu merchant, and the veteran guarding the city. This is not a story about swords and swords, but a story about "remembering" - remembering the taste of a bowl of noodles, remembering the favor of a steamed bun, remembering that someone once left a lamp for you, remembering that you are never alone in this huge capital. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.