The wheels rolled over the wet flagstones with a sticky, squelching sound. Chen Ren dragged his half-worn suitcase and stood beneath the sign for Qishan Town, watching the rickety old minibus belch out a cloud of black smoke before vanishing into the deepening dusk and fog.
The air was thick with a lingering mixture of moisture, old timber, and a faint musty smell. This was the place his mother had repeatedly urged him to return to before she died: her hometown, a small Jiangnan town so obscure it was barely marked on any map.
