“No, this hospital is jointly run by several foreign missions,” Sparrow said. “But the problem is that they’ve lost one of their surgeons and the one who’s here is already working far too many hours. Lian’s mother is on a very long list.”

“Have you seen her mother? What’s she like?”

“I didn’t want to intrude on their reunion,” Sparrow said, “so I haven’t actually met her. I just took Lian to the room and looked in. There’s a strong resemblance. A small chin, eyes like smoky brown topaz. Beautiful.”

Lian came out, her face pale and her expression strained, but she managed a smile. Sparrow was right. Lian was beautiful.

“How’s your mother?” Shao said. He held his hand out to her but she didn’t take it, just leaned her back on the wall beside him. Her blunt-cut hair was growing out and hung over her face, like curtains closing her off to him.

“She’s happy I’m not dead,” Lian said, “and I had so much explaining to do. But she’s in pain. A broken leg, you don’t even need X-rays to see that. The nurse says it should be set quickly, but how long a wait, she can’t tell. And there’s some chance of infection.”

Shao looked around. The hospital was cleaner than the one in Changsha, but that wasn’t saying much. Patients sat on benches and corridor floors waiting for care, some with open, weeping sores. There were children with eye infections, adults with large, visible tumors. Too many were wounded.

“There’s so many urgent cases ahead of her,” Lian said. “I understand that. I just want her to come home.” The catch in her voice pinched his heart, a sharp twinge.

“Have you eaten at all today?” Sparrow said. “Can your mother eat? I’ll get something and bring it back.”

“I’d be so grateful,” Lian said. She straightened up. “I’m going to sit with my mother and watch her in case she starts running a fever. Apparently, that’s the first sign of infection.” Lian returned to her mother’s room.

“She looks so fragile and so . . . young,” Shao said. “She makes me feel protective. As though she needs my help.”

“Lian isn’t fragile,” Sparrow said. “Think of what she’s had to deal with on top of the hardships we all faced with Minghua 123.”

Shao mused on all Lian had been through. That business with Mr. Lee. Then being threatened by Wendian. Not knowing where her mother was the entire time they were on the road. That moment in the air-raid shelter when he’d caught a glimpse of the steel in her. With or without him, she would’ve come to Shanghai for her mother, for Meirong.