The following day, Granny brought a locksmith to install a new lock on Room 317. She and Auntie had the only keys. Then she went to the hospital director and said this so-called volunteer Wang Luhan was actually plotting to murder Granddad, could he please keep her away. In order to get rid of Granny, the director ordered Auntie Yun to assign a different nurse to the room. This new nurse, face like thunder, got the key from Granny, who told her over and over not to give it to anyone else. Still uneasy, she kept coming to the hospital every day. Once, she clocked Luhan pacing near the building, but Luhan walked away quickly when she caught sight of Granny.

Each day I came home right after school, ate dinner early, and went straight to bed. If I couldn’t sleep, I lay there listening to music, wearing out all my tapes. I didn’t let myself think. If I felt a thought forming, I turned up the volume of my Walkman until my eardrums hurt and my scalp went numb. Many years later, Dabin was going through a period of heartbreak—he’d managed to meet Peixuan while they were both studying in the US, but was still so intimidated by her he simply couldn’t bring himself to ask her out—and so I suggested this method to him; he almost deafened himself. After more than a week of this, I woke up with a perfectly blank mind, apart from the single thought: I’ll never see Wang Luhan again. Too late to put on my headphones. A year’s worth of memories flooded in, seeing her every day, carrying out mundane tasks, every little detail. Her sluggish eyes, devoid of warmth, her stiff, mechanical movements, like a thick layer of winter ice on a lake. It may have been wishful thinking, but I’d felt very close to her, almost breaking through the ice to the warmer currents below. Maybe she was still pacing by the hospital. I had to find her, before she disappeared into the crowd.

I skipped school and hung out at the hospital, but she never showed. I decided to go back at the weekend, but on Saturday morning, before I’d set out, Auntie got a phone call to say Granddad had gone missing.

I hurried over there with Granny and Auntie. The nurse in charge of Granddad said she’d found the lock jimmied open first thing in the morning, and the patient was gone. Granny was shaking. She grabbed the bed to steady herself, then ran from the room, followed by Auntie. I stayed put. The room looked strange. There’d always been a person in that bed, as far back as I could remember, lying there in all seasons like an item of furniture bolted in place, part of the room. That’s why I felt so at home here, connected to this place. Now, that was gone. Room 317 was just another hospital room, unrecognizable. Once again the unspeakable horror of the familiar becoming unfamiliar.