Chapter 1 — The Tea House at the End of the Street

At five o'clock in the morning, when the whole Nguyet Tra street was still covered in thin mist passing through the canopy of old crocodile trees, Luu Tinh Nhien sat in front of a small charcoal stove in the kitchen behind the tea room, watching the flames lick around the bottom of the copper pot. She didn't turn on the lights. The only light in the kitchen was the faint orange color of embers, enough for her to see the thin smoke rising from the kettle spout, enough for her to hear the sound her grandfather still called "crab eyes" - the first tiny bubbles of air rising to the bottom of the kettle, signaling that the water was about to reach the most suitable boiling point for a pot of premium green tea.

"If the water boils too old, the tea is bitter, if it boils too young, the tea is bland," he still said, sitting exactly where Nhien is sitting now, holding a paper fan and waving it steadily next to the charcoal stove even though the weather is not hot. "A good tea maker is not someone who knows the recipe by heart. It's someone who knows how to wait for the right moment."

It's been three years since he was no longer sitting there. But every morning, Nhien still maintains the habit of getting up early, lighting coal, and boiling water with an old copper kettle instead of using a quick electric kettle she can buy for only a few hundred thousand at the market. It's not because she stubbornly clings to an outdated form. But every time she sat watching the fire like this, she felt like he was still somewhere very close, in the smoke curling from the kettle faucet, in the soft sound of water ringing before boiling.

Nguyet Dinh tea house is located at the end of Nguyet Tra street, Lam Truc ward, On Xuyen town - a small street, so narrow that two motorbikes passing by each other have to squeeze close to both sides of the sidewalk, but shaded by rows of crocodiles and tamarind trees planted in a time when there was no modern urban planning. The two-story ironwood house is more than forty years old, the roof is slightly curved, the wooden sign above the door engraved with the words "Nguyet Dinh" has faded over the years, the handwriting was handwritten by Nhien's grandfather, Mr. Luu Bach Tuong, who asked a friend to write calligraphy by hand since the opening day.

Nhien opened the wooden door at exactly six o'clock, no earlier, no later, like an unbreakable ritual. She pulled up the bamboo curtain, letting the morning light filter through the barred wooden window, illuminating the row of low ebony tables against the wall, where guests sat cross-legged on rattan cushions instead of high chairs. No background music. There is no free wifi with a sign inviting guests to check-in. There is only the sound of bamboo wind chimes gently hitting each other every time a gentle breeze passes through the door, and the smell of long-brewed tea permeates deep into each wood grain, to the point that Nhien believes that if one day this house collapses, people will still smell the scent of tea lingering in the pile of rubble.

The first customer that day was Mr. Chieu Ba Nghi, the owner of the used bookstore next door. He is sixty-seven years old this year but his steps are still as agile as a middle-aged man. He sat down at the familiar corner of the table near the window, where the morning light shined most beautifully, and placed the bamboo stick against the wall.

"What kind of drink should I make for this old man today?" he asked, his voice hoarse with age but still retaining his familiar humor.

"I still have some Tieguanyin tea picked early from the spring, saving it for you," Nhien replied, his hand starting to rinse the small pot of purple tea with hot water, swirl it around and then pour it away, an action repeated thousands of times to the point that it had become a reflex of the body and no longer a conscious thought.

Mr. Ba Nghi smiled, his eyes following her hand. "My grandfather used to do the same thing. Rinse the kettle three times, no more, no less. He said if you rinse it too little, the kettle won't be warm enough to retain the scent, and if you rinse it too much, you waste precious water."

"Grandpa always tells me that," Nhien smiled slightly, his hands not stopping. She poured a sufficient amount of tea into the pot — not measuring it with a spoon like in an industrial tea making manual, but with the palm of her hand that was familiar with the weight of each type of leaf. Old boiling water is poured through a small tea pot to cool down a bit before pouring into the pot, avoiding burning the young tea leaves. Close the lid of the kettle. Thirty seconds of silence passed, only the sound of bamboo wind chimes and the steady breathing of the two people.

That's what Nhien loves most about this job - that silence. Not an awkward silence that needs to be filled with small talk, but a meaningful silence, where both the brewer and the drinker wait for something to ripen. Grandfather once told me that a good cup of tea does not only come from good tea leaves or clean water, but from the silence people give it.

She poured the tea into two small ceramic cups, pushing one toward Mr. Ba Nghi. The scent of orchids wafts slightly in the rising steam, then gradually changes to a mild astringent taste, with a lingering sweet aftertaste on the tip of the tongue.

"Still as delicious as when your grandfather was alive," Mr. Ba Nghi said, his eyes squinted slightly, not sure if it was because of the early morning sunlight or because of something else. "I can keep the soul of this tea room, Nhien. Not everyone can do it."

Nhien did not answer immediately. She looked out the window, where sunlight began to filter through the canopy, pouring dappled light onto the old paved road. At the end of her vision, she saw a new iron scaffolding erected in front of an abandoned house next to the teahouse - the house had been closed for nearly two years after the previous owner passed away without any heirs remaining. These past few days, people have come to measure, take photos, and discuss things that Nhien hasn't had time to pay attention to because she's busy worrying about other things.

"Do you know who is going to rent the house next door?" Nhien asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

Mr. Ba Nghi took another sip of tea and was silent for a moment as if he was considering whether to speak or not. "There's a rumor that it's a chain of drinks stores of some sort, with a foreign name. My nephew, who works as a real estate broker, said that they offered a rent three times higher than the market price in this area. No one could refuse."

A cold feeling ran down Nhien's spine, even though the teapot in her hand was still hot. She had vaguely heard a few similar rumors in the past week, from the vegetable seller in the alley, from the delivery boy every morning, but she tried to brush it off, telling herself that they were just exaggerated rumors like every other time. Nguyet Tra Street has had rumors about planning, about clearance, about everything for many years but never once came true.

But that iron scaffolding is not a rumor. It was standing right in front of her eyes, less than a meter from the tea room wall.

The morning passed with a few other regular customers - Mrs. Tu, a grocer, stopped by for a cup of tea before opening her shop, and an old couple living down the street have kept the habit of drinking tea every Tuesday morning for twenty years. Not much, but enough to make Nhien feel that the tea house is still breathing, still a living part of this street, not just a relic preserved for nostalgia's sake.

At noon, when the shop was empty, Nhien took the opportunity to go upstairs and open the small wooden cabinet where his grandfather's notebook was kept - a worn leather-bound notebook with a hand-stitched spine, inside which was meticulously recorded every tea recipe prepared over forty years of practice. She didn't open it often, because every time she turned the pages, his familiar slanted handwriting made her chest tighten.

The first page records the recipe for "Van Coc" tea - Nguyet Dinh's most famous tea line, which has made the tea house famous forty years, named after the image of clouds playing around the high mountain tea valley. Nhien has brewed this type of tea thousands of times, memorizing every ratio, every step of soaking and brewing. But she had never noticed — or perhaps she had deliberately not noticed — that the note about the origin of the ingredients in that page had a strange blank space, as if her grandfather had written and crossed out, written and crossed out again, leaving only a short line: "Alternative tea variety, western hills."

Substitute for what? Nhien has read that line countless times over the past three years without ever really asking a question. To her, it was just a normal technical note like any other line in the notebook. But today, for some unknown reason, her eyes lingered a little longer on that line, as if some invisible string had just vibrated slightly.

She closed the notebook and put it in the closet, telling herself that maybe she was thinking too much about the iron scaffolding next to her. There are still so many things to worry about - there are two more reservations in the afternoon, we still have to check the inventory of tea, and we still have to figure out how to pay this month's electricity bill, which is skyrocketing because of the new electricity price.

Late in the afternoon, when the sunlight had turned dark orange, Nhien stood in front of the tea room door and looked at the house next door again. A large blue tarpaulin had been stretched to cover the facade, with stylized English text printed on it that she could not read clearly because of the distance. Only a few words were visible, and a stylized, modern, sharp dewdrop logo — in complete contrast to the rustic wooden sign above her head.

She took a deep breath, smelling the scent of tea lingering on her sleeve, the smell of coal stove smoke, the smell of old wood - scents she had been familiar with since she was a nine-year-old child whose grandfather took her home to live with her after her parents' funeral. That day, this house became her whole world, the only place she still felt safe.

Nhien did not know that, in just a few weeks, that blue tarp would be pulled down, revealing a bright, bustling store that would completely change the slow pace of life on the street. She also doesn't know that, hidden deep in the short words "like tea substitute, western hills" that her grandfather left behind, is a story of broken friendships, an unfinished love affair, and a betrayal that spans half a century - things that will soon drag her on a journey that she has never been mentally prepared to face.

She just closed the door of the tea room, locked it carefully like every evening, then went back inside to clean up the last cups of tea at the end of the day, her heart still lingering with a vague insecurity that she couldn't name.