Shi Qiang stopped the car and they got out. The sun, now nearing the horizon, cast long shadows of the two men on the desert. Luo Ji felt the earth beneath his feet turn as soft as his heart. He almost lacked the strength to stand.

He said, “I’ll try my best to reach a sparsely populated area. There’s a city ahead of us, so I’m going to turn this way. You find your own way back, and get as far as possible from the direction I’m going.”

“My boy, I’ll wait for you here. When it’s over, we’ll go back together.” Shi Qiang took out a cigarette from his pocket and looked around for a lighter before remembering that the cigarette didn’t need to be lit. Like the other things he had brought from that distant past, his personal habits had not changed at all.

Luo Ji smiled a little sadly. He hoped Shi Qiang actually believed that, because at least that would make their parting a little easier to take. “Wait if you’d like. When the time comes, you had better move to the other side of the embankment. I don’t know how powerful the strike will be.”

Shi Qiang smiled and shook his head. “You remind me of an intellectual I met two hundred years ago. He had the same hangdog look you’ve got. I remember him sitting out early in the morning in front of the Wangfujing church, crying.… But he got out okay. I checked after I woke up: He lived to be nearly a hundred.”

“What about the first guy to touch the droplet, Ding Yi? I believe you knew each other, too.”

“He had a death wish. Nothing you could do about that.” Shi Qiang looked up at the sky clothed in sunset, as if reminding himself what the physicist looked like. “Still, he was a truly broad-minded man, the kind that could accept any situation. I never met anyone like him in my whole life. Seriously, a great mind. My boy, you ought to learn from him.”

“And again I say to you: We’re just ordinary people, you and I.” He looked at his watch, knowing that there was no more time for delay. He extended a firm hand to Shi Qiang. “Da Shi, thank you for everything you’ve done for me the past two centuries. Good-bye. Maybe we’ll meet again in some other place.”

Shi Qiang did not take his hand, but gave him a wave. “Cut the crap! Believe me, my boy. Nothing’s going to happen. Go, and when it’s over, hurry back and get me. And don’t blame me if I make fun of you tonight over drinks.”

Luo Ji got into the car quickly, not wanting Shi Qiang to see the tears in his eyes. Sitting there, he strove to etch the rearview-mirror image of Shi Qiang onto his mind, then set off on his final journey.