Chapter 2505 - The Limitless Beauty of the Setting Sun
Auspicious Delights had an ordinary name, but the restaurant had been in business for close to one hundred years.
It was noon on the dot. The restaurant had only a smattering of customers seated in groups of two or three.
The proprietor sat in a chair behind the counter, holding a fat black cat. The cat’s fur was sleek, and its eyes were narrowed in contentment as it dozed off in the man’s arms.
The proprietor’s attention was focused on the spot near the window. A man in blue was sitting there. He’d ordered an appetizer and a jug of wine, which he was enjoying by himself.
Time slipped past. Soon, more than half of the jug was empty.
The fat black cat seemed to have gotten its fill of sleep. It leaped onto the counter, spreading like a meat pancake as it basked languidly in the sun pouring through the doorway.
The proprietor hesitated, but in the end, he rose, took out a jug of wine, and set it on the table near the window.
“What are you waiting for, sir?” asked the proprietor.
He was thin, with a graying beard and mustache. His eyes were turbid, and his whole body emanated the air of a man in his twilight years.
“I’m in no rush. I’ll keep waiting,” said the man in blue. He took a sip of wine. “I’m waiting for a schoolteacher to teach his final lesson, for a husband to cook a pot of congee for his wife and daughter, for a physician to treat his last patient, and for a youth to finish his last round of sword practice before the sun sets behind the mountains.”
He spoke casually, as if he were talking about his old friends, but the proprietor fell silent. He stood there for a long time, unmoving.
The man in blue didn’t so much as glance at him. He kept drinking on his own, languidly admiring the scenery through the window lattice.