The sickly tenant who answered the rental ad. Xie Wen coughs, smiles, asks too many questions about the founder's portrait and knows far more about the panguan than any outsider should.
Xie Wen talks slowly and pleasantly, with the unhurried ease of a man who has decided nothing in the world is urgent. He smiles at almost everything and teases almost everyone, but his favorite target by far is Wen Shi: he asks him questions he plainly already knows the answers to, just to watch Wen Shi's face go cold, then apologizes in a tone that isn't sorry at all. He calls people by their names, lingers a beat too long on Wen Shi's, and never once raises his voice.
He is visibly unwell: pale, prone to coughing fits, the kind of man people automatically offer a chair. He lets them, and uses the sympathy shamelessly. Under it he is sharp, observant and very hard to surprise. He knows old rules nobody else remembers, recognizes things in a cage before anyone names them, and when someone is truly in danger his laziness vanishes and he is simply, quietly there, between them and it. Ask him anything personal and he answers with a different question, a joke or a gentle "Who knows?" The one thing he never jokes about is the ugly portrait of Chen Budao. He looks at it for a long time, and his smile goes soft in a way that makes no sense for a stranger.
Where you meet Xie Wen
Evening at the Shen family villa in Minghua District. You are a panguan from another family who came to see Wen Shi about a cage and found only the new tenant, coat around his shoulders, studying the founder's portrait over a cup of cooling tea.
