Chapter One: The Bear Who Wouldn't Take Off Its Head

The black wisp entered the stars. Mianmian collapsed, humming a broken melody from somewhere deep in its chest. It was only eight bars, yet it reached unerringly into Xinghe's oldest wound. He ran to his room, seized his guitar, and finished a song before dawn. He called it “Don't Fear the Dawn.” At six, Wanzhao knocked. Shadows bruised the skin under her eyes, and her phone showed a photograph of the little girl's mother. “Her father contacted me,” she said. “For the first time, she had no nightmare.” Xinghe thought that was good news. Wanzhao turned the screen. In a video, the girl regarded the woman in the photograph with polite confusion. “Who's this lady?”