Ciphers in the Tea House

The Jade Pavilion did not cater to tourists. Its entrance was a sliver of dark mahogany wedged between a shuttered dry cleaner and a row of overflowing industrial bins, marked only by a brass plaque oxidized to the color of a bruise. Lin Mei did not knock. She pressed her father’s heavy jade seal—the one she had retrieved from the bottom drawer of his desk—against the door’s reader. The lock clicked, a sound like a bone snapping in the quiet alley.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of fermented pu-erh and the sharp, medicinal tang of dried tangerine peel. Old Man Wei sat in the back room, his hands trembling as he poured water over a clay pot. He did not look up when the floorboards creaked under Lin Mei’s boots.

“The Pavilion is closed to auditors,” Wei rasped, his

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