Chapter One: Twin Showers

On the day Lin Jianwei lost her job, two meteor showers arrived over Linchuan. The news called it a once-in-a-century coincidence. One stream would travel east, the other west, crossing at midnight like stitches closing a wound in the sky. At eleven forty, Jianwei carried a cardboard box out of Serenity Psychological Center. It held a cracked mug, two supervision notebooks, and a mint plant half-killed by air-conditioning. The director's last question still clung to her: “Is it so difficult to change the record to say the client ended treatment voluntarily?” It was not difficult. What was difficult was admitting that the girl who had overdosed was not suffering a “mood fluctuation.” The clinic had delayed her referral to keep collecting fees.