Beijing Cherry (Chapter 1)
Fei returns to her hometown in rural China and gets dragged into a sordid incident.
The young waitress approaches our table with all the enthusiasm of a slug on tranquilizers. She stops beside me, not bothering to say a word or make eye contact, and slams the bowl of noodles down so hard that a wave of hot soup splashes onto the table-top. “Hey!” I bark, loud enough to get her attention over the war-like clatter of cheap metallic bowls and raging voices all around us. She turns back, tired eyes blinking...