In 2019, the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, a small year.
The urban village outside Yanjing East Fifth Ring Road is like an old patch forgotten in the folds of the city's rapid expansion. The air was dry and cold, with a bit of a choking smell of coal smoke and a vague sour smell of garbage in the nose. The sky was gray, with leaden gray clouds pressing low, stingyly refusing to allow any more light to shine through. Lu Shaojie leaned the blue electric car against an old locust tree that had lost all its leaves on the roadside. He rubbed his hands that were stiff from the cold and had red knuckles. The white air he exhaled instantly dissipated in the cold air.
