When Gu Xuan opened her eyes, she saw a mottled ceiling. A fine crack ran through the corner of the wall, just like the wound in her memory that would never heal.
She sat bolt upright in bed, cold sweat running down her back. This was her middle-school bedroom. Yellowed certificates still hung on the wall, and her eighth-grade textbooks sat on the desk. Her hand trembled as she reached out and looked at her slender fingers. They had none of the calluses left by years of housework, none of the deep and shallow scars.
