The Lost Initial Consonants

I thought my dad just wanted to throw me away.

Twenty-two-year-old Zhao Xiaohui is “dumped” in Beijing by his parents and sent to live with his great-grandfather, a man who barely speaks.

Great-grandfather is strange. Every night at three in the morning, strange sounds come from his room.

Stranger still, his friends start dying one after another...

I thought I'd just stay for two months, then go back to school.

Until I discover that some sounds aren't meant to be heard, but to be...

[A homebody's diary of life in a Beijing hutong. He's seen things he was never supposed to see.]