Chapter One: The Man She Could Not Hear

Lin Wan did not tell her that the previous night, Xubai had gripped her hand in his sleep. His lips had moved for a long time. She had leaned so close, yet heard nothing. Rain began abruptly at six. Tang Li left, and Lin Wan had just turned off the display lights when the brass bell above the door rang. A man in a black coat entered. No rain marked his shoulders. He looked a little over thirty, composed, carrying an ash-white book. “We don't take walk-ins today,” Lin Wan said. “I didn't come to write a vow.” He placed the book on her desk. Its cover was blank, its edges singed, its pages unnaturally white. “I came to return this.” “Do we know each other?”