Dear readers, if you don't mind, I write two thousand words each time, taking up one of your push notifications. I'll provide my own likes. If there are many people, I'll tell bad jokes; if there are few, I'll pad the content. Does that work for you? I won't interfere with your WeChat browsing...
If I say this, you'd surely think I'm a fool, making unreasonable demands while pretending to be humble and aggrieved. Of course, I certainly couldn't be such a fool (Editor's Note: Really?). This stereotypical template wasn't invented by me either; it comes from the character "Lao Erliang" in the 2019 TV series "The Old Tavern." Due to its outrageous dialogue and plot, "The Old Tavern" has now become a new favorite in Bilibili's roast section, poised to take over from the new "Three Kingdoms."
The original version of this stereotypical template is actually like this:
Keeper, if you don't mind. Each time I come, I'll buy two liang of wine, occupying a corner. I'll bring my own side dishes. If it's crowded, I'll stand and drink; if it's quiet, I'll sit. Does that work for you? I won't interfere with your business.
As the origin point of the 2026 internet "Rules of Horror" memes for "The Old Tavern," at first glance, this passage seems fine, making Lao Erliang appear particularly rule-abiding, consistent, and minimally troublesome to others. However, if analyzed carefully from a modern perspective, you'll find problems everywhere in this statement.
According to the setting of "The Old Tavern" during the Republic of China era, the market still used the old measurement system where 1 jin equaled 16 liang. The two liang of wine Lao Erliang drank each time he visited The Old Tavern amounted to merely sixty-plus grams, gone in just a couple of sips. Moreover, Lao Erliang directly told the owner that he would "bring his own side dishes," meaning The Old Tavern basically earned nothing from him while he occupied space for free.
Since Lao Erliang was the first customer on the opening day of The Old Tavern in the plot, we can temporarily assume that his role was to generate buzz for the tavern. The minimum consumption consisting of only two liang of wine was a preferential condition granted to him—although there was some loss in food and drink revenue, gaining a free, non-seat-occupying atmosphere generator who paid for his own small amount of wine was not a bad thing for The Old Tavern.
This also meant that when "The Old Tavern" first aired, Lao Erliang's story became a beautiful tale, regarded as a model of the older generation's adherence to rules and understanding of human relationships, spawning countless inspirational articles.
However, recently, as more videos explaining and digging into this old TV series have emerged, the persona of Lao Erliang, which once "moved countless people," has begun to reverse. Although the gentleman's agreement between Lao Erliang and The Old Tavern seems fine on the surface, once you compare it with subsequent plot points, you quickly discover the outrageous nature of Lao Erliang's behavior.
For example, one day a group of guests came to The Old Tavern, got drunk, and started boasting—normally, this is a common occurrence in a tavern. However, Lao Erliang, who was drinking by the door, completely forgot his previous promise of "I won't interfere with your business." He insisted on retorting to every statement they made, nearly causing a conflict with the entire table of guests.
Another example: one day, heavy rain fell, and customers were late to arrive at The Old Tavern. The keeper decided to close early for rest. However, just at the moment of closing, Lao Erliang suddenly arrived in the rain. He sat down pretentiously and lectured Chen Huaihai, the keeper, saying, "Can you close early just because no one is here? How can you be so disregarding of the rules?"
Great, now the entire tavern staff has to work unpaid overtime because of this atmosphere group member who isn't worth a penny.
After these two outrageous clips were discovered, Lao Erliang's reputation shifted directly from that of a wise elder who respected rules and understood human relationships to "Lao Erliang," a "Republic of China Rules Eccentric" who said one thing but did another, forcing his own rules onto others. This highly dramatic reversal, carrying a certain rebellious nature against old ideologies, turned Lao Erliang's story into a fertile ground for deconstruction and memes.
Among all the characters in "The Old Tavern," the first to be affected by this meme frenzy was the deaf waiter, "Leizi," who interacted the most with Lao Erliang. In the main content, whenever Lao Erliang appeared, the writers and directors would inevitably arrange for Leizi to appear as well, sometimes even giving him several close-up shots staring at Lao Erliang.
According to the plot explanation, this unusual behavior is because Leizi feels that Lao Erliang resembles his father. But just as Lao Erliang occupying a spot in The Old Tavern for free is incomprehensible to modern people, Leizi's behavior is also hard for today's "youngsters" online to empathize with—you're a waiter, why are you just staring at an old man instead of working in the shop?
Thus, people offered an explanation for Leizi's unusual behavior that aligns better with modern cognition: Leizi is a user of the Maodieba forum with a gerontophilia fetish, and in his eyes, Lao Erliang is like a white-haired loli.
This bold hypothesis not only provided great entertainment value but also explained many bizarre phenomena in the original series—why Lao Erliang insisted on not telling Leizi where he lived was likely to prevent Leizi from following him home to "forcefully lock him up as a man"; why the counter staff member, Lao San, inexplicably shook and poured extra wine for Lao Erliang one day was likely to assist Leizi; and why Lao Erliang never returned after going home on a rainy day was because Leizi finally succeeded...
Of course, if it were only to this extent, "The Old Tavern" wouldn't have stood out in the roast session alongside the new "Three Kingdoms." In addition to the modern-day wild history involving Lao Erliang and Leizi, other characters appearing in "The Old Tavern" also contributed many memorable scenes, with their level of eccentricity being no less than that of Lao Erliang.
For instance, Old Bai, who appeared immediately after Lao Erliang.
In the plot setting of "The Old Tavern," Old Bai was originally a knife sharpener who went from street to street. One day, while looking for jobs on the street, he encountered Chen Huaihai, the keeper of The Old Tavern, who was soliciting customers at the entrance. Chen immediately invited Old Bai to "come in and sit," and allowed him to occupy a spot in The Old Tavern to conduct his knife-sharpening business.
The original intention of this plot point was to showcase the tavern keeper's loyalty and equal treatment of people from all walks of life. But on closer inspection, it shares the same logical flaws as the earlier scene where Lao Erliang seemed to support the business but actually just tormented the staff. Given the city size at the time, a knife sharpener would have to walk through every street and alley, including surrounding villages, just to barely make a living. Now, the keeper has essentially confined Old Bai to The Old Tavern, meaning people several streets away probably don't even know he exists. With so many potential customers lost, how can Old Bai continue his business?
Based on this, viewers quickly crafted an origin story for Old Bai that is no less legendary than Lao Erliang's: the claim that he was "shielded from wind and sun" was merely a lie told by Old Bai and Chen Huaihai, the tavern keeper. The truth is that Hao Han Street, where The Old Tavern is located, is as chaotic as Gotham City, with frequent gang fights. Therefore, Chen Huaihai, whose surface identity is a tavern keeper but actual identity is a street gangster, made up an excuse to take in Old Bai to supply himself with weapons.
Given that Chen Huaihai and his staff were originally tough characters who ventured into Northeast China and panned for gold before opening the tavern, this setting unexpectedly became reasonable.
However, unlike Lao Erliang, who tormented the staff every time he appeared, Old Bai didn't exhibit any other abstract behaviors in the story besides "waiting for customers like a hare by a tree stump." He even had a highlight moment where he used his years of wine-tasting experience to help the keeper discover a problem with a wine vat. He could almost be considered the most normal person in the entire series, aside from the keeper himself.
But the moment you think that, you've already fallen for Old Bai's trap. It turns out that Old Bai's ability is of the same type as "Notorious B.I.G." from "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind." He seems fine normally, but saves up a massive effect to trigger upon his death.
In later episodes, on his deathbed, Old Bai hired two strong young men to carry him on a stretcher to The Old Tavern. He brought a pot of century-old wine passed down from his grandfather's generation, claiming he wanted to share it with his confidant, Chen Huaihai, the tavern keeper.
But what Old Bai didn't know was that the so-called "century-old wine" had developed cracks due to improper storage, basically making it a Plus version of the recently popular "stinky water raising." The microbes inside might have even evolved into a Singer Civilization. However, facing Old Bai's goodwill, Chen Huaihai had no choice but to swallow it. Just as he was about to offer Old Bai a taste of his own century-old stinky water, Old Bai had already passed away, inadvertently applying a "Someone Died Drinking in the Shop" debuff to The Old Tavern.
Moreover, Old Bai, the eccentric character associated with death rattle effects, is by no means the endpoint of "The Old Tavern."
After this, Chen Huaihai and his Old Tavern sequentially welcomed:
Mr. Gao, the riddler who remained silent after drinking fake wine, repeatedly hinted at Chen Huaihai to taste the wine himself using various methods, and constantly spoke sarcastically. All his attempts failed until two years later, when The Old Tavern moved, finally letting Chen Huaihai know he had sold fake wine.
The eccentric thief Jin Xiaoshou, who claimed to rob the rich to help the poor but targeted Chen Huaihai, an honest businessman. He continuously stole Chen Huaihai's personal items like hats and shoes as threats and was skilled at pranking people.
And then there's Liangzi, another mute employee at The Old Tavern, who severely criticized the cook for normally adding yellow wine to remove gamey odors from staff meals simply because he himself doesn't drink alcohol, and even incited his colleagues to bully the cook.
And Chen Huaihai, the keeper of The Old Tavern, who accepted this series of unconventional eccentrics and treated each of them with courtesy, naturally became the "President of the Republic of China Eccentrics Association." People speculated that he was either a hardcore player aiming for "full collection completion" or, like Yujiro Hanma, possessed a cognitive filter different from ordinary people.
In comparison, the eccentric characters deliberately created by the "The Old Tavern" screenwriters, such as Na Zhenghong (Master Na), a feudal warrior constantly dreaming of restoring the Qing Dynasty, seem much more normal—at the very least, his motivations are consistent and logical from start to finish.
In fact, all these seemingly abnormal phenomena have proper explanations within the show: Lao Erliang was portrayed as a "rule-bound eccentric" to highlight that although he was poor, he had ambition, sticking to both rules and his true self; Old Bai triggered his death rattle effect before dying to emphasize his close relationship with Keeper Chen Huaihai; Mr. Gao repeatedly tortured Chen Huaihai with riddles because he saw through things but chose not to expose them, leaving room for others to save face...
Such "reading comprehension" questions are easy to answer if you didn't just sleep through Chinese class in middle school. The purpose of "The Old Tavern" deliberately designing these convoluted plots in the script was likely to pose such reading comprehension questions to the audience, thereby highlighting the script's "humanistic brilliance" once the audience solved them.
The problem is, if we discard this "problem-solving mindset," viewers will quickly realize that the plots in "The Old Tavern" meant to reflect human relationships and worldly wisdom actually have extremely strict trigger conditions. They can even be described as products of "shooting the arrow first and drawing the target around it," unable to withstand scrutiny. Once people realized this, the plot of "The Old Tavern" became nothing more than a group of eccentric Republic-era characters with abnormal thought patterns, moaning without cause and pretending to be profound.
Last year, when discussing the new "Three Kingdoms," which was roasted by countless content creators, I mentioned that the idea of popularizing the classic story was good, but the execution was full of loopholes, ultimately leading to good intentions resulting in bad outcomes.
Strangely, in the case of "The Old Tavern," which successfully took over from the new "Three Kingdoms," although the actors' performances were consistently excellent, reversing all the bad drama elements present in the new "Three Kingdoms," this did not make "The Old Tavern" a good drama.
Since the script of "The Old Tavern" contains many elements that don't hold up to scrutiny, the better the actors' performances and the more "lifelike" they appear, the more prominent the script's flaws become. Ultimately, seven years after its broadcast, "The Old Tavern" has faced a reversal in public opinion, transforming from a preachy period drama into a rising star in the meme and parody community.
When summarizing this phenomenon, many people stated that the reversal in "The Old Tavern's" reputation is ultimately because times have changed, and contemporary young people's thinking no longer aligns with the "morals" the show intended to convey. However, I feel that this argument is somewhat unconvincing.
Let's not even mention other things; just look at other old TV series starring the lead actor Chen Baoguo—"The Grand Mansion Gate," "Emperor Wu of Han," "Ming Dynasty 1566," and even "Teahouse," which has a highly similar theme. Each of these is older than "The Old Tavern," yet none have experienced such a reversal in public opinion. Rather than saying young people today enjoy destroying classics, it's more accurate to say that some works, which weren't truly classics, were mistakenly labeled as such in the past.
As long as such phenomena exist, it is only a matter of time before new dramas worthy of roasting emerge after the new "Three Kingdoms" and "The Old Tavern."