Siheyuan: Six-Foot-Two and Built Like a Tank, Nicknamed Mule

The grand East Zhimen Gate towered above its mottled, blue-gray platform. At six foot one, I stood out in the crowd, my patched-on-patched Liberation Army uniform wrapped around a sturdy frame. Uncle Zhang called me Mule. I turned around and told him to address me as Yi Chuanzong. I had spent the first twenty years of my life in a daze, and my father had been gone for five years. I’d survived only thanks to the help of my neighbors. I dusted off my shoulder and decided that the first step on my new path would be to get my bearings at East Zhimen. Once I got into the city, I’d have to pay the Yi family a visit.