Lu Dong moves the standing lamp, turns to gauge how far he is from the wall, then goes back to the chair he’d carefully positioned – no, never mind the chair, better to be prone on the floor. Pulling open the glass door, he steps out onto the balcony and extends a clothes-drying pole into the open air. Not heavy enough. That’s the most pressing problem – not the lamp, not the color of the floorboards, not the table in his peripheral vision distracting him from his target, but the pole’s insufficient weight.

His wife Liu Yiduo and their child are in the bedroom playing Lego. He hears his daughter say, Mama, I can’t read the plan, but I know this wheel is wrong. Lu Fan is four and a half, and can already express herself fairly well. Sometimes she uses startling metaphors. During New Year, when their neighbors were setting off fireworks high into the sky, she said, Look, Baba, the stars are breaking apart. Lu Dong keeps his child’s words locked in his heart, a whole string of quotes he’s memorized – not to repeat to anyone else, just for himself. He believes Lu Fan is an extraordinary child who will do exceptional work someday, something superlative. She could be an artist, but not just any kind of artist. No, when she’s grown, some new form of art will surely emerge – maybe she’ll sit among a crowd and spout metaphors, or wear a helmet that allows her to beam the imaginings of her mind directly onto a screen. But this speculation has to be kept under wraps for now, otherwise it’ll be like when you lift the lid off a pot of steaming rice too soon, and it seizes up half raw.

Lu Dong is a fifth-rate actor – that’s by his own ranking system. The first-rate are the big movie stars with burnished reputations who make headlines with every appearance, the ones who earn money as easily as turning on a tap. Second-rate actors are talented enough to support themselves with their craft – they have numerous films or TV series to their names, and reach deep into the human heart with every role. Third-rate actors are youngish and show potential but haven’t been in anything really good yet. People think well of them and with time, depending on personal development and luck, they might attain the first or second rank. The general public would struggle to name any fourth-rate actors, but their faces are familiar from the many TV shows they appear in, playing roles that leave no impression whatsoever. Their features are like a faded backdrop you know you’ve seen before, and as soon as they appear on-screen you feel a sort of reassurance – that’s right, this is the sort of show I’ve always watched, and here are the people who help me pass the time. So what’s a fifth-rate actor? Someone who’s been in quite a few shows, but for whatever reason – whether it’s skill or appearance – he might as well not have done any. He’s spoken many lines and been featured in many shots, but at the end of the day his screen time vanishes as cleanly as water seeping down into the earth. Then a decade passes and he’s still in the profession, never really having been out of work though he’s often just twiddling his thumbs. According to Lu Dong, this sort of actor tends to be once-divorced, and now rents an apartment in an okay location, not too far from where other screen actors live. Sometimes at the supermarket a star he’s worked with will be standing in line behind him in a face mask and dark glasses, but these stars never recognize him. He’s wanted to turn and say, Hey, remember me? That night shoot five years ago – I carried you through the woods on my back, dodging bursts of gunfire, but just as I managed to sling you onto a pony a bullet got me and I died. So far he’s only ever thought these words, paid for his groceries, then left.

It’s a Sunday morning in Beijing, and the May air is full of floating willow catkins. Lu Dong hefts the pole in his hand. His heart feels more arid than ever before. Three nights ago he had dinner with his lover, then they headed to her place. Usually he doesn’t drink much, just enough to take the edge off, but that night he had more than a glass or two because he was getting tired of her, and vice versa, probably. They both needed new partners. Alcohol loosened his tongue, and he began bragging about how he’d always get to the highest point when they played climb-the-flagpole in high school. He’d shimmy down with his legs clamped tight around the slippery pole, pleasurable in a way he couldn’t describe. He never got all the way up to the red flag, even though he was at his strongest then, his legs would always give out a couple of meters from the flag and he’d slide back down. One time it was snowing and he climbed toward the falling flakes, wearing gloves and kneepads, and he almost made it, his hand was reaching out to where the flag met the pole when a girl down below tugged at the rope and sent it flicking out to hit him in the eye. He lost his grip and fell. Broke his arm. Swiping at her phone, his lover asked if he could spend the night, but he said no, which brought an end to their nostalgia-tinged drinking session.

On the way home, the night breeze carried a vegetal scent. Outside a nightclub a man sat on the curb smoking, looking remarkably sober. The man glanced at Lu Dong’s face, then lowered his head again. A few seconds later, he called out, Hey, where do I know you from? Lu Dong had recognized him: Zhang Yu, a well-known director of arthouse films. Fifteen years ago, he’d made a small film with a budget of 300 grand with Lu Dong as the second lead, a contract killer who kept losing his wallet, a role for which he was paid 5,000 yuan. Lu Dong hadn’t put on much weight since then, though his face was now fleshier, mostly pouching beneath his eyes and on his jowls. The eyelashes that Zhang Yu had hired him for were still as resplendent as ever, reaching out like a pair of quotation marks, though the eyes they framed look smaller thanks to the pouching. It’s me, Lu Dong, he said. I was in one of your films. Oh, right, said Zhang Yu, I remember. Come, sit. Cigarette? Lu Dong smoked two packs a day so he sat down and took the proffered cigarette. It was rather mild, but the tobacco seemed to become a giant finger inside his lungs, and his face went red right away.

It was too noisy inside, Zhang Yu said, and they’re all drunk. I doubt anyone even noticed me leave. Lu Dong nodded. Zhang Yu might have won a Golden Bear and a Silver Lion, but he seemed the same as before – whether on set or in his private life, as soon as a situation bored him he’d go off on his own. He seems as shy as ever, Lu Dong thought, and just like before he gets embarrassed for other people, which causes him unnecessary pain. What are you busy with? Zhang Yu asked. Running around, Lu Dong said, taking on whatever roles I can. You married? Yes, said Lu Dong. My daughter’s four. That’s good, said Zhang Yu, I’ve been divorced twice in the last decade. The second time was like a photocopy of the first – I remember back in the day you weren’t in favor of me getting married, but I didn’t listen. Turns out you were right. You’re a good actor, you know, it’s just that you don’t fit in and there’s nothing special about your looks. But the real problem is that your desire is low and your boiling point is high. With successful actors it’s the other way round.

Lu Dong nodded and said nothing. He was well aware of where he stood, but he loved acting. That’s not the sort of thing you say out loud. True, he’d persisted till now out of love for the craft, but when you say something like that it sounds fake. Zhang Yu shook another cigarette from the pack, tapped it on his knee and said, Walk a few paces. Lu Dong stood and did as he was asked. Go a little farther, Zhang Yu said, up to that streetlight. Lu Dong kept going, suddenly realizing he ought to walk properly, as if a voice from very far away was saying, I’m begging you, take this seriously. A tender voice. Motherly, pleading. As he walked he loosened his belt, and when he reached the streetlight, he let loose a stream of piss that he’d been holding in for some time. Then he fastened his trousers and came back.

Zhang Yu indicated for him to sit again. Come be in my new film, he said. It’s a supporting role, but there’s nothing run-of-the-mill about it, a colorful part, you know what I mean? Lu Dong’s belly churned and he thought he might need to shit. Sure, he said. Thank you, Director Zhang. What’s your usual fee? Zhang Yu asked. I’m very cheap, Lu Dong said, just pay me whatever you think. Let’s go with a round number, a hundred grand, Zhang Yu said. I know that’s not a lot – maybe it’s not commensurate with your ability. I hope you don’t mind. It’s a three-month shoot in Xi’an, starting two months from now. You won’t need to learn Shaanxi dialect, we’ll film in Mandarin. I’m still working with the same crew. You’ve met most of them. They’re still in there, singing karaoke. Come back inside with me in a moment and I’ll reintroduce you. They’ve gotten older just like I have, as you’d expect. The script is adapted from a story by a Xi’an author, Han Chun. I’ll send you a copy tomorrow, along with a contract. You’ll be playing a killer again – a sharpshooter. You like noodles? I can’t remember. Frankly my digestion isn’t great, said Lu Dong, so I’m always eating noodles. Good, said Zhang Yu, go learn to cook noodles. You’ll need to have a relationship with noodles as well as with your rifle. This character treats shooting as a very serious business, like they say, ‘Where the focus lies, there you’ll find the spirit.’ Know what I mean? I’ll start practicing, said Lu Dong. I don’t need you to practice, said Zhang Yu. I need you to become the character. And you’ll need to lose a bit of weight off your face too.

The next morning Zhang Yu’s assistant sent over the short story, the script and a contract. Lu Dong hadn’t slept since he got home at three that morning. He still hadn’t said a word to Yiduo. He lay in bed, eyes wide open, not the least bit tired, worrying about all sorts of things. Out of nowhere, he started getting anxious about Zhang Yu’s health – what if he died that very day? His daughter wet the bed, and he got up to change the sheets. Lu Fan was eating candy in her dreams, her jaws working away vigorously, her little hands pawing at his face as if to remove a wrapper. The contract was pretty standard, no obvious pitfalls. After he signed it he showed it to Yiduo, then put it in the mail. For some years now, Yiduo had been running a special effects company which was doing quite well. Mostly she rendered adorable demons and scatterbrained gods. She wasn’t working that day, so she cooked him lunch and dinner, and in between she read the story and script through carefully. Lu Dong’s role was a supporting character who only appeared in one of the subplots, and though he had hardly any lines, he was in twenty-three scenes and had a distinctive personality. Most importantly the part suited Lu Dong: his character was a rather dull, emotional person who somehow kept doing the wrong thing. The story wasn’t too long, maybe 10,000 words, and the character first appeared in the following paragraph:

The gunman lies prone on the ground. Through his scope he can see Old Dong examining the woman’s wound, then studying the drawing on the wall. The gunman studies it along with him. It doesn’t look finished. According to his understanding of art, it’s missing the most important brushstroke. He pulls the trigger. The bullet grazes Old Dong’s throat and sinks into the wall. Now the picture’s complete. He disassembles the rifle and packs it into his rucksack, rolls up the mat, and leaves. He’s Chinese and speaks with a northern accent, but has an English name: Dick.

Dick only works for one man, Boss Chen, whom he met ten years ago while hunting in Africa. In the decade since he’s been given three to four jobs a year, each one lasting about two months from preparation to the actual killing. Afterwards, he leaves the country and goes wandering for half a month before coming back. Ever since Dick shot a person for the first time, he’s never again hunted an animal.

Back when he was in an acting troupe Lu Dong had fired a real gun, loaded with blanks. He no longer has access to it, and it’s illegal to buy even a fake gun online. Which is how, this early morning, Lu Dong comes to be messing around with a clothes-drying pole. In a bid to increase its weight, he wraps a bath towel around it, fastening it in place with a three-finger-wide thickness of clear tape. All morning he lies prone on his balcony. By May Beijing is already very warm. Lu Dong stares at the T-junction below. To the south of the intersection is a huge shopping mall, built fairly recently, shaped like a ship. The ground floor is all advertisements for well-known brands – the Tesla logo like an anchor sunk into a blood-red backdrop. A narrow road runs to the north, only just wide enough for two lanes of traffic, frequently mired in gridlock. To either side are small shopfronts, from hotpot restaurants to pink-curtained sex shops. This used to be a hutong, and from upstairs he can still see a public bathroom tucked away behind the shops. Further along is a gas station, bulging from the narrow road like an Adam’s apple, the main reason it gets so congested here. Lu Dong skips both breakfast and lunch. In the afternoon he lies in bed reading the script. Feeling like his brain lacks oxygen, he roots in the fridge and finds an apple, which he eats. That night he’s so hungry he can’t sleep, and he keeps belching. This contract killer isn’t a famine victim, Yiduo says. You can’t go on like this. I don’t have many lines, so the most important thing is how I look, Lu Dong says. Besides, my face is so greasy, I need to do something about it. Yiduo reaches out to stroke his cheek and says, I understand you, and our daughter does too. Today she told me she’s not going to play with you anymore, she doesn’t want to disturb you. Anyway you can’t just quit eating. Why don’t you exercise instead? I’ll dig out your running shoes tomorrow. Eat a little less, and start jogging – that’s more sustainable.

At six the next morning, while Yiduo is still in bed, Lu Dong makes himself a packet of instant noodles, finds the running shoes himself, and goes for a jog around the block. His legs feel so heavy that he doesn’t even make it out of his compound, and has to walk back looking like he’s been dredged from the water. Now he recalls the last time he exercised: six years ago. This was right after he got married to Yiduo, when they were still living on the west side of the city. He was the breadwinner then. On the weekends they’d head to the university to play badminton, then walk back hand in hand to their tiny apartment. Then Lu Fan was born, and he hasn’t exercised since. Yiduo works during the day while Lu Fan is at kindergarten, and normally Lu Dong wouldn’t be up this early. Now he heats up milk for the two of them and toasts some bread. Yiduo eats, but Lu Fan refuses – she wants to have breakfast at kindergarten. Even so, she approves of Lu Dong’s new routine. Baba, she says, this way we’ll get to spend more time together. Lu Dong now wonders why he used to sleep so much – no particular reason, it’s just that he can’t drive, so he’s not the one who takes his daughter to school. Also in sleep he feels clean, safe. No matter what troubles you have in your dreams, you can wake up from them, then ah, you’re in this empty home, everyone performing their roles, nothing goes wrong, no one sees through him, he lies alone in the soft bed as if he’s only just been born. He is afraid of sweet dreams, fears their falseness, fears the moment of waking and realizing he must still endure this happy life, fears understanding that he has committed every conceivable crime but lacks the courage to take responsibility, and that no one even wants him to be held accountable. Before they head out he hugs Yiduo and Lu Fan, lightly grazing his daughter’s face with his stubble, feeling both the rightness and regret within this gesture.

After they leave, Lu Dong eats the rest of the bread, takes up his pole again, and resumes his prone position on the balcony. This time round he finds a rug to lean on – actually Lu Fan’s bath towel from when she was two, now too small for her, but exactly the right size to cushion his elbows so they stop aching. A tripod would be useful, something to rest the rifle on, but there’s nothing like that in the apartment, so he grabs some books from the shelf and places those beneath the barrel.

For the next half-hour or so he keeps his eyes fixed on a woman, probably a nanny, leading an enormous black hound on a leash. Its head is the size of a bucket, brown collar as respectable as a necktie, while the woman is scrawny, short-necked and short-limbed, scurrying along ahead of the dog, which keeps stopping. When it extrudes two thick logs of shit, she wraps them in a Kleenex and, looking around to make sure no one’s watching, quickly trots over to the ornamental pond in the center of their compound and flings them in. A boy about Lu Fan’s age spots the dog, jumps off his skateboard, and insists on clambering onto the dog’s back. The dog goes along with it, even half kneeling to help the boy get on. The boy’s mother arrives and scoops him up. The dog licks her ankle, and the mother shrieks. She takes off running with the boy in her arms. Lu Dong aims his rifle at the mother’s head, keeping his sights trained on her until she vanishes into another building. When he turns back the dog is gone too, and all he can see is the wind shaking the compound’s peach trees, scattering blossoms.

Gazing into the distance, his eyes land on the metro station outside the mall. It’s surging with people, the dense crowd like churning slurry. A lone man pushes his way out, one of the very few exiting rather than entering. He crosses the road and goes to the window counter of a grocery store, buys a pack of cigarettes, then heads toward Lu Dong’s compound. He is about Lu Dong’s age, a little thinner with a receding hairline that reveals two patches of pale forehead scalp. Light blue jacket and black sweatpants. Lu Dong aims the rifle at him. The man stops outside the compound, rips open the pack and starts to smoke. Seeing him like this through the railings, Lu Dong imagines him as a criminal. What is he here for? Perhaps to steal some rich man’s lover. Quite a few mistresses live in this compound, he knows, alone in large apartments. They wear lipstick even if they’re just going to the supermarket, sleep all day and all night too. But no, Lu Dong reminds himself, he’s meant to be a killer, why would a killer murder a criminal? Outlaws aren’t like actors, who readily turn against members of their own profession. Okay, so maybe this guy is a plain-clothes police officer who’s been tailing Lu Dong for a couple of years now, and has finally tracked down where he lives. Take one more step and you’re dead, Lu Dong whispers to himself. The man drops his cigarette butt and saunters back the way he came.

A strong wind starts up around noon. The old people resting their legs in the courtyard and the nannies with their young charges all disappear. Bereft of targets, Lu Dong dozes off. When he wakes up, he feels despair – how could a professional killer fall asleep at his post like this? He stands up and gets some cold milk from the fridge, then wanders around the apartment. There are no toy guns anywhere. If only Lu Fan were a boy, he thinks. He texts Yiduo: If it’s convenient, could you pick up a toy rifle on your way home? Ideally more than a meter long with a scope. He reads the story again. It’s very short, and lacks detail. After Boss Chen’s death Dick keeps working, and in fact most of the narrative is about this period of his life: after lying low for a while, he begins taking out men who urinate in public. Lu Dong reads the script again, which doesn’t provide any more insight into Dick’s motivation. Shooting public urinators doesn’t earn him any money, and it takes quite a lot of effort. Boss Chen used to tell him the time, place and target, and all he had to do was find a good vantage point, lie in wait, open fire, and escape. It’s not like he can just wait in the same place with his sights trained on a utility pole, because it would be too easy to find him by following the bullet’s trajectory. He’d need to spot an offender, follow him, and take him out when he’s not actually peeing. Maybe he’d be stepping out of a local supermarket or waiting for his kids at the kindergarten gate when the bullet enters his brain from some distant window. Lu Dong texts Zhang Yu:

Sir, I’d like to know more about Dick’s psychology – who are his parents? Who does he love? Does he prefer tea or Coca-Cola? Does he sleep on his back or his side? After killing someone, does he go for noodles or have a shower? Most importantly, why does he shoot people who urinate in public? Is he a radical environmentalist? Or does he have trouble peeing? Sorry to bother you, any tips you can share would be a great help.

Zhang Yu doesn’t immediately reply.

Lu Dong has a shower, then goes through the script and looks at Dick’s lines, all twelve of them:

1. A pack of Esse cigarettes, please. Green, not blue. No, not that one, give me the one third row down, fifth from the left.

2. (on the phone) Okay, got it. What kind of lion? Where did it bite you? Please tell your wife I’m broken up about this. I’ll never contact you again.

3. See where I’m pointing? Walk down this road. After the first junction, you’ll see a Japanese elementary school. Don’t turn, keep going straight. At the second junction, there’ll be a congee shop on your right. Turn toward it and keep going about 500 meters to the massage parlor. That’s the place you want. The masseur isn’t actually blind, he just keeps his eyes shut.

4. I don’t like the noodles you made today. I can tell you’re in a bad mood – they’re all clumping together.

5. This is a you problem, not a me problem. Know the difference. Maybe one day my problems will become your problems, but you should pray that day never comes.

6. People envy birds because they can fly, but I don’t. I can shoot them out of the sky anytime I want. I envy the flowing river. You can’t stop a river. Even if you build a dam, you haven’t stopped the river, it’s just waiting.

7. Wrong number.

8. There seems to be a misunderstanding. I hope that’s a business issue, and nothing personal. If I’ve accidentally attracted your attention, that’s because you’re too sensitive. People die in this world every single day. You need to be less sensitive.

9. And another thing, where’d the noodle shop go?

10. Peeing in public is a dangerous business. I’m telling you this because you have two kids. Look up. That thing is called the sun. It shines down on you and fills each day with warmth. You shouldn’t be living like this. Build yourself a nice bathroom in your house, and go enjoy it whenever you feel the urge to pee. Pass this habit on to your children.

11. Go ahead, study me, put me under the microscope. Your hearts are dead. What good could a microscope do you?

12. Could the person who shot me step forward? Hi, my name’s Dick, what’s your name?

Lu Dong goes through all these lines, underlining them in pencil, reciting them three times each. Dick’s dialogue is odd – a series of non sequiturs that mostly go unanswered. Not really dialogue at all. Dick doesn’t do conversation. Right at the end, the person whose name Dick asks for – an anonymous foot soldier – doesn’t even get the chance to step out from his hiding place and speak before Dick dies. Naturally a vigilante who goes around shooting public pissers has to die, but it makes Lu Dong sad to see him end this way. It feels tragic. Hi, my name’s Dick, what’s your name? He reads it twice more, finds the rhythm of the line. No sorrow at his life ending. He just wants to understand this man. What’s your name? Lu Dong stands before the mirror, staring at his own face. What’s your name? He makes one corner of his lip twitch up, keeps his eyebrows level, tries to look composed. This is how he’ll do it. All of a sudden, he feels he can do the performance justice, or at least this line, his interpretation makes sense, and if someone were to call action right now, he’s confident everyone would be satisfied with the take.

His phone pings. Zhang Yu:

Just back from swimming. These questions aren’t easy to answer. You know me, if I could think clearly I wouldn’t make movies. Forgive me, but actually I’m not sure these questions are important. If you think they are, then please take responsibility for them. I’ll give you a tip though: you don’t hate your target, but rather you’ve thought about it rationally and have decided that the world would be a better place if he didn’t exist. You’re not a foot soldier, because foot soldiers always take the country’s side. You’re someone who rearranges the world all by yourself, like the great Lei Feng, not bound by ethics, a small-time intellectual. Take care.

Lu Dong responds with an OK and thumbs up emoji. He thinks he understands.

That evening, Yiduo comes home bearing a toy gun with a scope, though no tripod, and the scope is merely decorative, all he can see through it is gray plastic, while the bullets are plastic orange pellets. You could shoot someone in the face with these and not injure them. In other words, the gun is as harmless as a ping-pong ball dispenser, but at least it has a trigger. A little later, they take Lu Fan out for pizza. She loves Western food and can polish off half a nine-inch pizza and a fillet steak all by herself, but she’s not fat. It’s as if she was born with the ability to transform Western food into water and carbon dioxide. Back at home, Lu Dong tells his daughter the story of the tyrannosaurus rex, a carnivore who falls into a deep gully where there’s nothing to eat. A fox falls in love with him and gathers fruit for him each day, and he survives. When the T-rex finally gets out and returns to the forest he goes back to eating other animals, but whenever he encounters a fox he hesitates and flips a coin to decide if he should eat it. Most of the time, the coin gives him the outcome he desires.

For the next few days, Lu Dong rehearses by himself, taking care of his daughter at night so Yiduo can finish up her work. He wakes up at six each morning to make breakfast for his wife and child. At night, after Lu Fan has gone to bed, he goes downstairs for a jog around the compound in an attempt to reduce the excess flesh on his body and face. Dick only smokes half a pack a day, so Lu Dong does the same. Never more or less, ten cigarettes exactly. Now and then he feels a surge of desire for his lover, but the task ahead of him quickly tamps that down. For the first time in five years his feelings are more or less pure. A week later, he knows all Dick’s lines by heart, he has a plan for the blocking of each scene, and he’s come up with a gesture that isn’t in the script: before he fires his gun, Dick sticks his right index finger into his ear, then touches that same finger to the trigger. At least two of his meals each day are noodles, sometimes takeout, sometimes homemade. After the first week, he notices a tiny new restaurant by the T-junction that serves Shanxi noodles. Their cleanliness is only so-so but the noodles are tasty, and so he begins going there at lunchtime for a bowl of knife-cut noodles. On the tenth night, he dreams of Dick lurking behind a window in the distance, taking aim while he pees by the side of the road. Dick touches his finger to his ear and shoots him dead.

A beautiful nightmare.

On the twenty-third day, as if making a daily visit to church, Lu Dong lies prone on his balcony. The man in the blue jacket appears again at the compound gate. Lu Dong aims the toy gun at his head. A nanny returns from buying groceries and uses her keycard to enter the compound, and the man slips in behind her. Today he is carrying a red rucksack. He walks over to one of the benches by the pond and sits down, gazing around, staring at the koi in the water. It’s a sunny day and the pond is glittering. The man sits there quite a while, then seems to remember something, and reaches into his rucksack for a baseball cap, which he puts on, casting a shadow over his face. Lu Dong points the gun at the center of the cap. The man folds his arms and stares into space. A few residents bring their children to play by the pond. The kids point at the water and seem to say something. One of them sticks a leg in and his mother smacks him. Someone tosses breadcrumbs to the koi, who surge over to snap them up, like petals on a flower. Lu Dong is getting thirsty but stays put. He thinks to himself, if you don’t move, neither will I. A half-hour passes. A nanny in her forties pushes a stroller up to the pond. In the stroller is a set of twins, each sleeping in their own little seat. Lu Dong has never seen this nanny or this stroller. Probably the family just moved in, or the babies were born recently. Not talking to anyone, the nanny parks the stroller by the water and settles onto a bench to bask in the sun. Time passes. A boy drops his water pistol into the pond and the wind blows it into the center. Several parents come over but they aren’t able to retrieve it. The nanny stands and seems to be suggesting something. At this moment, the man in the baseball cap quickly walks over to the stroller, places something onto one of the seats, and briskly leaves through the gate.

A bomb? Lu Dong is about to shout down at them but shakes his head. What if it’s not a bomb? What if it’s a flyer for an early education center? Shyness and anxiety do battle in his heart. Finally he gets up, changes into a clean shirt, and takes the elevator down. By the time he gets to the lake there is no sign of the nanny or the twins. The little boy’s father is scooping up the water pistol with a pool skimmer. Lu Dong looks up at his balcony, where the gun is still propped up and pointing in this direction. He leaves through the gate and makes a round of the perimeter, but there is no sign of the man. Could he have dozed off ? Maybe everything he just saw was a dream. At the supermarket, he buys a pack of cigarettes: A pack of Esse cigarettes, please. Green, not blue. No, not that one, give me the one third row down, fifth from the left. The clerk says, What? Lu Dong thinks maybe he didn’t hear and repeats the entire line. The clerk says, Sir, we’re out of Esse. Look, the shelf’s empty. Lu Dong nods and gets some chewing gum instead.

Back home he sits in the study, puts some eyedrops in his eyes, shuts them, and has a rest. Time for noodles, he thinks, but he’s a little tired, and all of a sudden he misses Lu Fan. If only she could show up now and say she’s back early because something happened at kindergarten. Now he understands that concentration equals loneliness. He opens his eyes and returns to the balcony. The nanny and twin stroller are back by the pond. He senses the tick tick of a timer. He ought to have eliminated that man earlier, he realizes. What a slip-up. This could be a micro-bomb, no thicker than a human hair. Or something even more advanced, a see-through bomb. You’d never spot that before it exploded, yet it might be powerful enough to decimate an entire building. He should have known, from the first moment he set eyes on the man, that he was the sort who brings wickedness to the world. Lu Dong was the only one who noticed, and now he’s let him get away.

He checks the time on his phone and sees a text from Zhang Yu’s production manager:

Director Zhang Yu drowned while swimming at three o’clock this afternoon. The film has been canceled, and your contract is now invalid. More details to follow. We are all shocked and saddened. Legal proceedings against the swimming pool have begun. Our condolences. Be well.

It’s six o’clock. Lu Dong calls Yiduo but she doesn’t pick up. Then he remembers she’s taken Lu Fan to her piano lesson, and is having dinner with some of the other parents. His heart judders like an airplane plummeting, plummeting, still not reaching the ground. He thinks to himself, This is a you problem, not a me problem. Know the difference. Maybe one day my problems will become your problems, but you should pray that day never comes. And another problem, the timer in his head is still going tick tick, not pausing for a second. He steps out onto the balcony. The sun is beginning to set, and there are more people gathering downstairs – children, adults, dogs, people with kites, skateboards, water pistols shaped like animal heads. He sees the nanny sitting next to the twin stroller, one leg hoisted onto the other, snacking on melon seeds from her handkerchief. The man in the baseball cap is on a nearby bench, still wearing his red rucksack, hands clasped, head lowered. Lu Dong goes into the kitchen and gets a knife, a couple of handspans long with a sharp point. He wraps this in newspaper, tucks it under his arm, and gets the elevator down. By the time he’s reached the pond the man is nowhere to be seen. Whirling around, he spots the man walking out of the compound gate. Lu Dong swats the handkerchief out of the nanny’s hand and says, There’s something in your stroller, get the kids out quick. With that he chases after the man, but there’s no sign of him. He remembers that he first saw him approach from the T-junction and heads that way, pausing a few seconds when he reaches the noodle shop, or rather where the noodle shop used to be, it’s gone now, in its place a roller shutter with a microscope painted on it.

Lu Dong sprints through the crowds surging up from the subway station and catches up with the man in the middle of the intersection. He knocks him to the ground. Lu Dong puts the point of the knife to his throat and says, What did you put in the stroller? The man says, What stroller? The twins’ stroller, Lu Dong says, And another thing, where did the noodle shop go? What noodle shop? Lu Dong says, There used to be one on the street back there, where’d it go? Oh, you mean the Shanxi noodle place, the man says, I’ve been wondering that too. Lu Dong sticks a finger into his ear with his free hand, allowing the knife point to skate across the man’s throat. Don’t change the subject. What did you put in the stroller? A rag doll, the man says. What’s inside it? Lu Dong says. Rags, obviously. An Audi speeds by, honking loudly. Why did you put the rag doll in there? I miss my children, the man says. That’s why I did it. I have two daughters, but I know something’s wrong with me, something unforgivable, and I’ll never see them again. Go ahead and stab me dead, solve all my problems, though you’ll only be creating problems for yourself. Lu Dong abruptly feels air swirling up from his chest, leaving through his mouth, his nose, his ears, while at the same time his flesh creeps downwards. A weightless distant spirit takes hold of his legs, and he can’t stop himself from falling over. He drops the knife and sits beside the man amid the flowing traffic, and he looks up into the distance where perhaps someone is taking aim at him, judgment for all the wrongs he’s done since he was born. But so what? The man pats him on the shoulder and says, You take life too seriously, don’t you? Lu Dong says nothing. He can see a river not far from here, rippling beneath the thronging twilit crowds, the water completely clear, fish darting through it, lush with aquatic plants, no thought of sluice gates, no fear of bullets, flowing all the way to the vast ocean.

Artwork by Teresa Eng, Walkway from China Dream, 2019