When a merchant tells you "you came to the right place," what he means is: you've got money, and he means to take it. Chen Ke's shopping experience was thin — a lifetime indoors, more comfortable with books than with bargaining. He had absorbed advice secondhand: whatever the boss asks, offer a third. Wu Xingchen had mentioned the Tianjin-to-Beijing fare; a good carriage, fifteen taels at most. Ordinary, ten. The boss was sizing up Chen Ke's clothes and seeing a mark. Chen Ke had opened his mouth to say "five" when the clatter of hooves and iron-shod wheels stopped short outside.

A man in silk pushed through the door like a gust of wind — fortyish, but he moved like a younger man. The carriage boss scurried to meet him, smile already plastered on, steps quick and small. "Master He! What brings you in person? A word would have been enough — I'd have come to your door. Did my brats cause trouble?"

Master He halted. His queue, sliding from his back, slapped against his chest. He caught it between two fingers and flipped it behind him with a practiced swish. "Boss Yang, your people broke our foreign piano. Our master hired your carriage as a favor, and this is how you repay it?"

Chen Ke nearly laughed aloud at the braid-toss. He bit the inside of his cheek.

The boss did not flinch. His humility was a shell; his voice held no give. "We were clear from the start. We provide the carriage. We don't move your things. If something broke, that's not on us."

"Your people did move it. And that piano isn't cheap — it's our young miss's favorite..."

"We have a written agreement." The boss cut him off. "My people don't touch cargo. Breakage in transit is not my affair. The pledge is right here. For you to claim otherwise — there's no justice in that."

The mention of the written agreement checked the steward's momentum. He fumbled. "That piano is very expensive. It's called... called Pi-ai-nuo."

He said it with grave indignation. The boss listened with grave attention. Chen Ke, wedged between them, could hold it no longer. The braid-flip had primed him. Now the steward's solemn enunciation of "piano" — the English word butchered into three Chinese syllables — finished the job. He laughed. Not a chuckle. A full, uncontrolled bark of laughter that bent him at the waist.

Both men turned. Glared.

"Sorry. I have business elsewhere." Chen Ke grabbed Chen Tianhua's sleeve and half-ran through the courtyard gate.

Behind them, the steward and the boss watched him go. Their anger dissolved into bewilderment, then into a shared, involuntary look of curiosity. In their eyes, the young man in the strange clothes had simply lost his mind. Not long after, distant laughter drifted back to them — wild, breathless, unending. The two men glanced at each other, their quarrel momentarily forgotten.

Chen Ke staggered down the streets of Tianjin. "Xingtai — you saw that braid, didn't you? The way he threw it?" He was laughing and talking at once. "Aha — haha — hahahahaha —"

Chen Tianhua walked beside him, face carefully neutral. He checked the distance to the carriage yard. Out of earshot, he hoped. But more and more passersby were staring. Chen Ke clutched his belly, gasping. Their gazes were half surprise, half curiosity, with a thin thread of disgust woven through.

A teahouse loomed ahead. Chen Tianhua pulled him inside.

The teahouse was large. Rickshaws lined the front. Inside, the ground floor was scattered with men walking their caged birds — cages draped in blue cloth, or cracked open an inch, or thrown wide. Thrushes sang. A waiter saw Chen Tianhua half-carrying Chen Ke and hurried over. Chen Ke fished out a silver dollar and tossed it. The waiter caught it mid-air, reflexes honed by years of sudden tips.

"A private room upstairs," Chen Ke managed, voice strangled.

"Alright! Two guests, upstairs!"

The moment the door curtain fell, Chen Ke collapsed against the wall and laughed until his ribs ached. This was the late Qing. What should have existed only on a stage was unfolding in front of him, live and unscripted. The braid. The Pi-ai-nuo. The performance of it all. For five months he had lived in constant tension — gathering comrades, making money, building the Party. He was not naturally shrewd, not naturally fluent in southern dialects, yet he had forced himself to become both. The pressure had been a vise. Now, away from Shanghai, away from the organization, the vise had snapped.

And the absurdity of it overwhelmed him. In the twenty-first century, that scene would have been acting. But this was reality. Zhuang Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly. Chen Ke was living inside a play, and the play was real. It is not you in the dream, but you in the play. The recognition detonated something in his chest — hysteria, relief, grief, he could not separate them. He laughed until tears and mucus ran together, until he was on one knee retching, until Chen Tianhua pressed a cup of cold water into his hands and held his shoulders while he washed his face and slowly, slowly, the laughter tapered into ragged breaths.

The red drained from his face. The sharp, focused look returned to his eyes. "Haven't seen these things for a long time," he said to Chen Tianhua. "Couldn't hold back."

Chen Tianhua nodded. During the worst of it, the waiter had pulled him aside to ask if they needed a doctor. Chen Ke, lost in his own noise, had heard none of it. "No hurry," Chen Tianhua said. "Drink tea before leaving."

"Not staying at an inn? After all this, if we don't find one now —"

"We've already been here half a day. A little longer won't matter."

Chen Ke relented. They settled into the cushions. From somewhere outside, a singing girl's voice drifted in, accompanied by the low moan of an erhu. The afternoon was thinly populated on the second floor; the sound carried clearly. Chen Tianhua's fingers tapped the table in time with the melody. He was skilled at tanci — in Shanghai, he had often performed ballads about foreign invasion and corrupt government for the comrades. Now, listening to the northern opera, his body responded without thought.

Chen Ke's spirits were high, almost giddy. When the song ended, he asked, "Does Xingtai want to hear me try a piece?"

"Wenqing sings opera?"

"Can't sing opera. Only know how to make noise."

Chen Tianhua knew Chen Ke never spoke falsely. And after hearing "My Motherland," he had learned not to underestimate the man's taste. "Go ahead."

Chen Ke tapped the rhythm on the table and began "Mistake in the Flower Field" — Hua Tian Cuo. At least it was not another love ballad.

"The night is so deep. Why is there light inside the paper window? That's not the candle you lit for me, waiting all night."

"It was just a chance encounter, a dream in the Red Chamber. My landscape has all faded, as if washed by heavy rain."

"The scenery in the cup is ghostly. I forgot who I am. The mood is like the night, cool as water. Holding the butterfly cup, flying alone, not returning until drunk."

"Made a mistake in the flower field. Agreed to forget before dawn."

"Made a mistake in the flower field. The embrace became torture."

"Made a mistake in the flower field. Made a mistake — like the boredom of being infatuated with flowers in the mirror and the moon in the water."

"Made a mistake in the flower field. Please — forgive my affectionate disturbance."

The melody borrowed from Peking Opera; the rest was direct, unadorned. Chen Tianhua had heard the tanci version and knew the story. Hearing Chen Ke deliver it with such unapologetic feeling, he found it strangely refreshing.

"It really is Wenqing's style," he laughed. "Such a tactful story, sung with the righteousness of a manifesto. I admire it."

A voice came from beyond the curtain. "Guest. Sorry to disturb. Would you like to hear a song?"

"No."

A pause. "Giving a little less is also fine."

"We're leaving. Don't want songs."

The curtain lifted. A thin, middle-aged man walked in carrying an erhu. He was not tall; deep wrinkles scored his face, making him look older than he sounded. He showed surprise at seeing them — a flicker, then gone. He bowed with clasped hands. "I heard the guest singing. I admired it greatly. I have a presumptuous request."

"Since it's presumptuous, no need to say it."

Disappointment flattened the man's face. He bowed again. "Then sorry to disturb." He turned to leave.

Chen Tianhua had never seen Chen Ke refuse anyone so coldly. A look of surprise crossed his face. Chen Ke saw it. His mind turned. "Wait."

The man stopped, apprehensive.

"Courtesy demands reciprocity. We want to go to Beijing, but there are no train tickets. I wonder if there's another way."

The man blinked. He looked them up and down. "The two masters want to take the train?"

"It's fast."

"I know people at the station. There's a train today. I can get you on. But the ticket money..."

"How much?"

"Tianjin Old Dragon Head to Beijing Zhengyangmen. First class, five yuan. Third class, one and a half."

"How much do your people at the station want?"

"He puts you on the train. You pay him directly. No extra charge."

Another one, Chen Ke thought. Lining his own pockets. He glanced at Chen Tianhua, who was watching with barely concealed excitement. "Then should I teach you the song first and go to the station after, or teach you after we buy the tickets?"

The man said nothing. Chen Ke read him. "Teach the song first."

The man's face brightened. Chen Ke taught it three times, wrote the lyrics. The man passed the paper through the curtain. A moment later, a clear female voice began to sing outside. The difference was immediate. What Chen Ke had sung with stubborn directness became gentle and lingering in a woman's throat.

"There is specialization in skills," Chen Ke said. Listening three times and reproducing it so closely — he admitted to himself he could not match that.

"What about the train tickets?"

"I'll arrange it. Please wait. I'll take you to the station when I return."

After he withdrew, Chen Ke called for the bill. They had spent almost nothing. Chen Tianhua asked, "Wenqing, aren't you worried he'll run off with the song?"

"He can't take the girl to the station with him." Chen Ke's voice was generous, but his thoughts ran darker: if he didn't care about the impression he left, he would have driven them both out five minutes ago.

The man returned. They walked toward the station.

The streets of Tianjin were indistinguishable from old photographs. Pedestrians, shops, cigarette stalls, peep shows, acrobats. The closer to the station, the more beggars — ragged children with sallow faces, extending desperate hands, while older ones with darting eyes pressed close to passersby like pickpockets. Chen Ke took Chen Tianhua's pack and carried it himself, walking behind the middle-aged man. Chen Tianhua followed Chen Ke, so someone had eyes at his back.

Outside the station, the man produced a steward. The steward looked Chen Ke up and down and said, in the tone of a man granting a favor, "First-class seats still available. Pay now."

Chen Ke took out the prepared money and let it gleam in his palm. The steward's eyes locked onto the silver dollars. Chen Ke pocketed them. "After we board."

The steward read Chen Ke's grin and knew: this one would not part with money easily. But he had seen the cash. That was enough. "Follow me."

They sat in first class. The carriage was not full — Chen Ke suspected tickets had been withheld, hoarded for exactly this kind of arrangement. Two foreigners sat opposite, cigars in their mouths, looking at Chen Ke with surprise and contempt. Chen Ke did not flinch. He produced his cigarette case — hard cardboard, printed exquisitely, wrapped in plastic that caught the light. He lit one for himself, one for Chen Tianhua. The foreigners stared at the case, their contempt fading into uncertainty.

The train ran smooth. At Beijing Station, Chen Ke bought proper tickets for the Beijing-Hankou line. By evening they were aboard, heading toward Xingtai.

They arrived in the morning. Two mules, hired cheap. They set out for Nangong County. Hebei was flat land. Chen Ke had grown up on the Central Henan Plain — in his memory, sentinel rows of poplars and paulownias divided the fields into patches, dirt roads lined with trees connecting villages, irrigation canals running alongside. This was his idea of home.

But in Xingtai, he saw sand. Little grass, occasional shrubs. Nothing like the Hebei of the twenty-first century. The closer to Nangong County, the more sand. In September, the harvested fields were bare. He remembered what the old people used to say: back then, only one crop a year. Not like after liberation, when two were planted. On this barren land, one crop was barely enough to keep people alive.

"Tianhua," Chen Ke said, "when we're liberated, we'll make this place grow two crops a year."

The muleteer laughed before Chen Tianhua could answer. "Two crops, sir? You must be joking."

"Old brother," Chen Ke said, "don't you want two crops?"

The muleteer smiled and said nothing more.

The mules were slower than trains. The two had ridden rails for a full day; now the mules jolted them into a groggy doze. By evening they reached Gaojiazhai, Nangong County.

They asked for Pang Zi. Everyone knew him. Their strange clothes drew stares. A child led them to a courtyard gate. A young man of medium build stood in the doorway, watching them with suspicion.

"I am Pang Zi," he said. "Why are you looking for me?"