Hearing Under the Lights

The meeting ran until after dark. No final decision was reached on the spot, but the subdistrict office agreed for the first time to form a joint verification team and suspend the immediate clearance procedure for the row that included the cinema. The word suspend still sounded weak, but it was no longer just a one-sided notice. It had been forced into the official record. When they came out of the room, only a strip of orange still remained in the sky. Lu Chen was standing by the stairwell and took the camera bag from Xu Zhixia's arms. Neither of them spoke right away. "That last part you said," he finally said, "was harsher than I expected." "Are you scared?" "I'm scared you'll get too tired."