胡堡胡同 Huburg Hutong：009 第九章：赵莉俐 Lily

第九章：赵莉俐

因为我在饭店工作过，所以我举得起来箱子，没问题， 回到办公室，我把纸箱从行李车上搬下来，放在我办公室的会议桌上。

我把一个咖啡胶囊放进咖啡机，去了一趟卫生间，然后回到咖啡机那里拿了一杯热咖啡，没加别的东西，又转身回到桌子那里。

我俯身要开箱子的时候，我的短发像鬼一样往前飘。

我把头发别到耳朵后面。当我一年前把长头发剪短的时候，我没有意识到，短发总是往下掉，落在我脸上，挡住我的视线。我的头发终于长回来了，长得够长了，能别到耳朵后面了。

白龙饭店后屋里最近堆的箱子都是标准的白色文件箱。这个箱子有折叠的盖子，这种样式是六十年代用来给饭店运送啤酒的。

我在易贝上查了一下。这些老箱子每个卖五十美元。

我打开了箱子。拿出了第一张纸。是一张收据。

看完五十个箱子以后，我有了一个系统。用第一张收据，我在会议桌上开始整理第一堆。第一堆是要扫描留作记录的文件。我的助理会扫描收据和这堆剩下的文件。第二堆是要回收的文件。第三堆是要捐给白堡历史博物馆的文件。

我一边看箱子里的文件，一边回忆我的太爷爷，胡老板。我也想起了白龙饭店的其他创立人，林经理和王厨师。

林经理是林豪杰的太爷爷，这件事是我不想去想的。

Word List

胶 jiāo glue, gum
囊 náng sack, pouch, capsule
胶囊 jiāonáng capsule
咖啡胶囊 kāfēi jiāonáng coffee pod
趟 tàng (measure word for a trip/journey)
卫 wèi to guard, to protect
卫生 wèishēng hygiene, sanitation
一趟卫生间 yí tàng wèishēngjiān a trip to the bathroom
俯fǔ to bend down, to lean over
俯身 fǔ shēn lean over, bend over
飘 piāo to float, to drift
别到耳朵后面 bié dào ěrduǒ hòumiàn tuck behind the ears
塞 sāi to stuff, to tuck, to squeeze in
剪 jiǎn to cut (with scissors)
落 luò to fall, to land
挡住 dǎngzhù to block
终于 zhōngyú finally
折 zhé to fold, to break, to bend
叠 dié to fold, to stack, to pile up
盖 gài lid, cover; to cover, to build
折叠的盖子 zhédié de gàizi folding lid
收据 shōujù receipt
系统 xìtǒng system
整理 zhěnglǐ to sort, to organize, to tidy up
扫描 sǎomiáo to scan
留作 liú zuò to keep as, to preserve as
剩 shèng remaining, left over
记录 jìlù record, to record
回收 huíshōu to recycle
捐 juān to donate
博物馆 bówùguǎn museum

Chapter 9: Lily

Thanks to having worked in a restaurant, I can lift boxes, no problem. Back at the office, I lifted the cardboard box from the luggage trolley and put it on my office conference table.

I put a coffee pod in the coffee machine, stopped by the bathroom, returned to the coffee machine for a hot cup of coffee, kept it black, and turned back to the conference table.

As I leaned in to open the box, my short hair swept forward, floating like the ghosts. I tucked it behind my ears.

When I cut my long hair short a year ago, I didn’t realize that nothing kept the short hair from falling in my face and blocking my vision. My hair had finally grown back long enough for me to put it behind my ears.

Boxes from the recent stacks in Bright Dragon’s backroom were standard white file boxes. This box had a folding top, a style used for delivering beer to restaurants in the 1960s. I checked on eBay. These vintage boxes sold for fifty dollars each.

I opened the box. I took out the first piece of paper. It was a receipt.

After going through fifty boxes, I had a system. With this first receipt, I started the first of three piles on the conference table. The first pile was documents to scan for our records. My assistant would scan the receipt and the rest of the pile. The second pile would be for documents to be recycled. The third pile would be for documents to be donated to the Brightsburg history museum.

As I read and sorted the documents in the box, I thought about my great-grandfather, Boss Hu. I thought about the other founders of Bright Dragon Restaurant, Manager Lin, and Chef Wang.

That Manager Lin was Harry Lin’s great-grandfather was something I didn’t want to think about.

Notes

Generated by Claude AI, quoted verbatim, accessed 07/13/2026.

This is a vintage Carling Black Label beer box — a folding-top cardboard case originally designed to hold 24, 12 oz. bottles. The box is a faded red with the Black Label logo and gold detailing, showing significant wear consistent with decades of use and storage. Carling Black Label was a widely distributed American beer brand in the mid-20th century, and boxes like this were standard for wholesale/restaurant beer delivery in the 1950s–60s — sturdy folding cardboard cartons that could be reused for storage long after their original purpose, which is likely why this one ended up holding documents in your story’s backroom.

Huburg Hutong 胡堡胡同 is a serialized novel written at the intermediate level in both Simplified Chinese characters and in English. Chapters are published weekly. The novel is written by Anne 安妮 Giles, edited by 侯慧颖 Hóu Huìyǐng “Mary,” and illustrated by Lear.

Huburg Hutong: Start Here
Huburg Hutong: Table of Contents
Huburg Hutong: Background
Huburg Hutong: Places and Characters
Huburg Hutong: Just English