Chapter Two: A Borrowed Childhood

The memory of her mother's death now lived inside both of them, an invisible thread neither could cut. Su left the food outside and spoke through the door about patients who had survived attempts to die. She did not tell the boy to cheer up or live for his mother. She said only that pain was a liar: it convinced you tomorrow would be identical to today. Half an hour later, the door opened a crack. Chen said he had sent no message and did not intend to burn the building. But each night he heard someone knocking inside the wall—three short, three long, three short. No one lived upstairs. Still, at 3:17 a.m., water seeped through the ceiling smelling of ash.