A bang brought me back to the room. Dad had smacked his teacup down hard on the table.

“What are you doing?” Grandpa glared at him.

Dad glared back. I’d never seen them look directly at each other. Most of the time, each preferred fixing his gaze as far from the other as possible. Dad wrenched the red packet from my hand and flung it on the table. “Thank you for your good intentions, but I can still afford to keep my wife and child.” He stood and said to me and Mom, “Get your coats, we’re leaving.”

We walked out of the front door and across the compound to the garage, where we’d left our bicycles for fear of having them stolen. The sky glowered down at us, no longer snowing, although it was still cold. I followed behind my parents, shivering as I buttoned my coat. It was very close to midnight, and trails of blazing light were already shooting from many of the balconies around us. People in the street lit the fuses on snakelike coils of firecrackers, then ran off with their fingers in their ears. As we passed through the smoky streets, fireworks went off above us, turning the sky green then red. The watchman had his hands stuffed into the sleeves of his padded jacket as he listened to the variety show on a portable radio. The crosstalk was over, and the host was now reading out New Year greetings sent in by border troops in a quavering voice.

“Aren’t you going to finish watching the show?” the watchman asked.

Mom grunted something in response. Dad jumped onto his bicycle, and Mom hoisted me up behind him, then got onto her own bike. We cycled through the compound, now strewn with red debris from the firecrackers.

The area around Southern Courtyard was still quite desolate then. Apart from the family quarters, there were no other residential buildings. Looking up, I could see a smidgen of the fireworks, but they already seemed very far away, in a different sky altogether. The two bicycles sailed through the deserted streets. Dad went very fast, and Mom had to pedal with all her might not to get left behind. Against the wind, she turned to say to Dad, “They’re such bullies.” She sounded like she wanted to cry, a sort of provocation. Dad said nothing. Sitting behind him, I suddenly burst into tears.

If only I’d waited a little longer to tell Dad about the red packets. Just a few more minutes, and we’d have made it to midnight, my crucial scene: as the clock struck twelve and the firecrackers were at their loudest, I’d have covered my ears and buried my face in Dad’s chest. On all those New Year’s Eves, it was only in those minutes that I could forget I was only pretending.