Snow Flower, Fire Storm

XIII

THIS YEAR, BEIJING

Beijing could be called a nightless city, owing to all the ways electricity was turned to light after sunset, dispelling the darkness that should be there. Every building and every street was lit. Neon letterings spasmed before shopfronts. Bright streetlights turned the streets to ribbons of glowing orange to the pilots cutting through the sky abovehead. Tonight, after a long time, the lights reminded Xie Xiao of the Capital City from his past, the one in which Xun Yuan was imprisoned, and the one in which he killed him. There had been so much light in the city that night too.

A sweet bitterness suffused him. If he remembered, that had been the last normal night of his life, the last night everyone from his first life were still alive. Why did it have to end the way it did? Why had Xun Yuan left him without even a word of explanation? He'd lived the rest of his life like a ship caught in a storm, without a captain or a compass.

There wasn't light everywhere in Beijing. Like in the place where Xie Xiao lived.

About fifty years ago a peculiar spell of indolence and spendthrift had struck him that he burned through every last penny he owned. Fifty years ago he had enough money to pay off the national debts of several countries and then buy them. But fifty years ago he spent it all on villas and cars and expensive clothes and whatever else he could think of. He gave away the lion's share of his life savings to charity foundations around the world. He even literally burnt some of his money, until, after a long long time, he was back to nothing.

Well, almost nothing. Rich men never gave away all of their money.

Xie Xiao walked into the dark, dingy street he lived in. Even in Beijing there were places where the poor lived, crammed away in boxlike rooms in invisible alleyways. Some of them hadn't always been poor; some had just fallen from grace and was doing all they could to grub their way back to normalcy.

He turned on the flashlight in his phone and made his way slowly towards the poster-and-graffiti covered building that made the dead end for this small alley, avoiding all the dubious puddles on the narrow path beneath him. What were those puddles anyways? To his knowledge, there had been no rain today, and the buildings on his sides were built so close together that it would be so hard for rainwater to actually make it down here.

The path widened towards the end and Xie Xiao stopped under the metal staircase that lead to his rented room. He had put one hand on the cold railing when he felt the shift in the air behind him.

Years of fighting and watching over his shoulders told him he wasn't alone in this alleyway. So when the first man leapt for him, Xie Xiao whirled neatly and kicked him hard in the crotch.

The man doubled over with a yelp of pain and swiftly blended back into the night. But there were several more to replace him.

"Quick, get him into the van," ordered someone. Xie Xiao felt someone snatch his phone out of his hand, the torchlight turning off soon after.

He glanced around wildly, at all the shaggy, moving shapes in the darkness. "Who are you people? What do you want from me?"

Someone huffed a laugh of mockery. "Second Commander, should we tell him?"

"What is he going to do if he knew?"

Out of nowhere someone rushed up from behind him and wrapped some kind of cloth over his head, cutting off what little light there was. Xie Xiao tried to fight back but he was simply outnumbered and overpowered, not being able to do well without his sight. He could feel his limbs being twisted back, and he struggled violently.

"Hold him down!"

"How could a scrawny kid be this strong?!"

"Get the chloroform!"