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room. In a spill of light from
     the hall, I saw a silhouetted figure hovering in the doorway. Then I heard Mr Chen’s sharp voice saying, ‘Come away, Yimou,’
     followed by the shutting of the door. Was it the boy I was supposed to marry who had stood there? I leapt out of bed, desperate
     to lock myself in, but there was no key. I got back into bed, pulled the blanket right up to my chin, and lay there listening
     to every sound, eyes fixed on the door, heart thumping wildly.
    At home I had shared a bed with my mother and Li-hu, so it was strange all of a sudden to have a bed to myself, a bed with
     a proper mattress and pillow. As the room grew brighter I looked around. The walls were painted white, the curtains were decorated
     with white cranes flying across a pale blue background, the same colour as the blanket, there was a small wooden table with
     a lamp on it, a sink in the corner with a mirror above, a low chest of drawers, a wooden chair, and on the floor was a beautiful
     silk rug.
    ‘This is your room,’ Mr Chen had said. It was a pretty room, a clean room, a finer room than any I had seen before. ‘This
     is my room,’ I tried out, rejecting the idea even as I said it.
    I was beginning to swelter under the weight of the blanket, and curiosity was getting the better of my fear of intruders.
     With one swift movement, I thrust the blanket aside, leapt across the room and peered out through the curtains.
    We were miles up in the air! I’d had no idea. A dull mist clung to the dozens of bright white apartment blocks on either side,
     and hovered eerily below. It was thin enough though for me to be able to make out the decrepit tops of older apartment blocks
     on slopes further down. Around and beyond them lay a vast, desolate, rubble wasteland. Where was this place? I wondered. Not
     a hint of colour punctured the loud whiteness of the new apartment buildings, the mottled white of the mist and the blotchy
     greyness of the older landscape. I felt as though I were looking out on a ghost city where some unimaginable catastrophe had
     occurred.
    A loud knock brought me to attention.
    ‘It is eight o’clock, Lu Si-yan,’ called a woman’s voice. ‘Come and have your breakfast.’
    However much I was anxious about what I would find outside my room and beyond, I was hungry enough to allow my stomach to
     lead. I opened the door slowly and peered into the hall, which disappeared round a corner in one direction. It was deserted,
     but a delicious assortment of smells wafted by, and noises were coming from the other direction, not too far away from my
     room. I walked cautiously towards them, skirting round two other doorways in case they opened. When I reached the end of the
     hall, I hesitated outside a half-open door, waited for a loud banging to stop, then knocked gently.
    ‘Come in, child,’ said the woman’s voice.
    I stepped nervously into a brightly lit kitchen. It was full of the sort of equipment I had only ever seen before in shop
     windows. On a table in the middle of the room, a porcelain bowl and soup spoon and a pair of chopsticks were waiting expectantly.
     Mrs Chen, for I assumed that was who she was, appeared from behind a cupboard door.
    My jaw dropped with astonishment when I saw her. She was extraordinarily beautiful, immaculately dressed in the finest silk
     and pearls. She seemed to have stepped straight out of the pages of a magazine.
    She looked me up and down, her steady gaze making me feel thoroughly shabby. But she suddenly smiled and said, ‘You are like
     a fragile reed. One puff of wind and you will break in two. We need to feed you up, Lu Si-yan. Sit down and eat.’
    She gave me a hot, moist towel with which to wipe my hands and face, then brought a bowl of soup followed by dishes of chicken,
     vegetables and rice. So much food, and all for me, since it seemed that I was to eat alone.
    While I filled my bowl with soup, Mrs Chen sat down in silence at the other side of the