Jiaqi, he said in a rasping voice, You’re so innocent and pure, it makes me feel guilty. Of course I like you, of course I do, you’re adorable, but what can I give you? I’m starting to get old, I’m only going to become more distracted and dull. Sometimes when I argue with Meng Jing, I realize I’m relishing the fight. For a long time now, I’ve had no creativity to speak of, and my poems stink of decay. I know what those young poets think, they think, Ha, this old guy’s past it, but he’s not aware, and so he keeps scribbling away, how ludicrous. Really, your dad might have died young, but that’s no reason to be sad—that way, he’ll always be a fighter.

He looked at his hands, as if wondering if they still grasped anything. After a while, he looked up and said, Jiaqi, you’re very like him, you’re a fighter too. But I hope you’ll take care of yourself. Don’t damage your weapons, and don’t get hurt. Though getting hurt leads to growth, so maybe that’s good too. I said, You mean like now? Exactly, he said, looking over my shoulder at the wall. He mumbled, I’ve hurt you, I know I have.

My last memory of that evening is the stark, clear light of dawn seeping into the room, like the smoke from a bonfire that had grown cold, still smelling of burning leaves. For a second, I imagined him dying in this room many years from now, laid out on the bed behind me, sunken eyes, slightly parted lips, one hand on his chest, reaching for the thing he called his heart.

I didn’t visit him again after that. Summer arrived, and with it the rainy season. I began waking up earlier and earlier, and realized I could hear the dawn chorus even through a storm. The birds seemed to be somewhere else, not in the rain. I sat up in bed and read Fitzgerald. My favorite was Tender Is the Night.

The day after I got my university acceptance letter, I went with some classmates to Qingdao, and we had a barbecue on the beach. I stuck a bamboo skewer into a pigeon’s scrawny carcass, rapt at the rupturing sound of taut flesh being pierced. A stereo blasted Coldplay and everyone got up to dance, pretending they were on drugs. My classmates knew where they were going, I thought, and knew what sorts of people they would grow up to be. That was the greatest difference between us.