Chapter One: One Million Words

His sister, Lu Xingyao, had supposedly died two years earlier in the ClearSea laboratory fire. The official report said death was instantaneous. But the woman in the vision had spoken in Xingyao's voice. He needed to know whether hunger had made him hallucinate. An old pocket watch sat near the edge of Han's stall. Pretending to inspect it, Chenzhou touched the cold silver case. The world went dark. On a rainy night, a mustached man pressed the watch into a young woman's hand. “The boat ticket is under the twelve marker. Don't let the patrol find it.” Then came a dim hospital. An old woman held the watch and told a boy, “Your grandfather didn't run away. He went back to draw them off so we could leave.”