Chapter 4: The Bowl

Xu Zhengyuan had run companies through three storms and a strike.

He could not think of a single thing to say to the man running at him along the river wall.

Mu Qing arrived out of breath, with flour on his sleeve and his jaw set.

"You said Sundays," he said.

"I did," said Xu. "I was going to stand across the road. I was only going to look."

"He saw you," said Mu Qing.

"I saw him first," said Ran. "He was behind the lamp post. He's not good at lamp posts."

The teacher at the gate was a small woman with a clipboard and no patience for any of them.

She held out a pen to Mu Qing without a word.

Mu Qing signed a line on a form, and she wrote Xu's name underneath it.

"Parent one, Mu Qing," she read aloud. "Parent two, Xu Zhengyuan, collection permitted today only. Mr. Xu, I am Ran's teacher. Next time, telephone."

"Yes, Teacher," said Xu, and meant it.

They walked back by the river, in a line of three.

Mu Qing went a little ahead with his hands in his apron pockets.

Ran walked between, holding Xu's finger because it was the nearest thing.

Xu looked at the small hand around his finger, and did not breathe properly until the shop came into sight.

Inside, Mu Qing put a glass of tea in front of him without a word.

It was the cheapest tea in the world, and it was hot.

Xu wrapped both hands around it and looked down.

Mu Qing had reached across him to take a cloth from the shelf, and his sleeve had ridden up.

He smelled of flour and hot oil, and for a moment he was close enough to touch.

Xu kept his hands around the glass and did not move.

On the inside of the left wrist there was an old scar, white and shiny, the size of a coin.

Xu knew that scar.

Six years ago it had been fresh, and wet, and wrapped in a strip of kitchen gauze.

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