A bone-chilling draft slipped through the cracks in the broken kang mat, pricking Lin Wanqing like countless tiny needles and jolting her awake.
Before her eyes was a mottled adobe wall, its plaster split by finger-width cracks. Wind rushed through them, carrying a damp, musty smell. The dry straw beneath her was hard and gave off an indefinable stench. A few strings of shriveled red chilies hung from the rafters overhead, swaying as if they were about to fall.
This wasn’t her apartment, much less the supermarket office where she had worked overtime before suddenly dropping dead.
