Midnight, beside Tianqiao.
A bowl of steaming hot wontons with pepper, sprinkled with cilantro and dried shrimp, was the best late-night snack in the early autumn.
On regular nights, this hour is usually the busiest. Servants and pimps from the Eight Great Hutongs would rub their hands and run over, hand over a few warm copper coins, take a bowl or several bowls of wontons, and then quickly disappear into the alleys leading to the back doors of various establishments.
In another four hours, the sound of clappers will be heard from the Canal Wharf, and the canal workers and porters will come here in the dark. A gulp of hot pepper soup would warm them up instantly before they went on to pull the heavy cargo ships and make a living.
When the Ning Dynasty was first established, pepper was a rare commodity, brought back by maritime trade caravans from distant places, and was said to be worth a tael of gold for a tael of pepper.
