Chapter Two: In This Room, the Dead Are Still Alive

Chen looked back. Xiaoman stood in the water on the ground floor, her red ball floating toward darkness. The child tied to Zhou had become an empty bundle of clothes. Chen charged downstairs in a frenzy. Zhou punched him across the face. “You can't save her!” “Get away from me!” Chen seized his lapels. “I've waited twenty years! I'm here this time. I can save her!” “Then why do you remember the flood but not the rain?” Chen stopped. Zhou held his gaze. “This isn't the day she died. Not all of it. Where were you that day?” The building continued to sink. Water climbed to their waists. Fury slowly broke apart on Chen's face. “At the mine,” he said. “She had a fever and begged me to come home. I promised her a red ball.