Chapter One: The Fixed Diet

Zhiwei hid in the upstairs linen room and sent Lu Yao their prearranged message: if she did not reply before midnight, he was to request a search warrant. At eleven fifty-seven, chair legs scraped the floor below. Through a vent beside the dumbwaiter, she saw a long table where there had been ten smaller ones. Twelve people sat around it, wearing clothes from half a century of fashion: an old-fashioned qipao, tailored suits, a teenager's hoodie. Zhiwei recognized the boy in the hoodie from a missing-person file. He had been seventeen when he vanished five years ago. He was still seventeen. Gu emerged from the basement pushing a silver cart with thirteen covered plates. Zhiwei counted twice. There were only twelve guests.