Sparrow had decided to leave. Leave the Liu household? Leave Shanghai? Or was she going to the Kunlun Mountains? Lian couldn’t help but worry. Although Sparrow was immortal, she had no powers. She was as vulnerable as Lian to hunger and cold. To injuries and violence. The only part of the note she understood was that she shouldn’t tell Shao. And by inference, no one else either.

When Lian opened the door to the elevator lobby, her mother called down the staircase. “Don’t come up yet! Go around the corner and buy a yellow croaker fish. I’m making fish soup with noodles. Dr. Mao is coming for dinner.”

Lian sighed and went down to the street again.

Much as she liked Dr. Mao, Lian didn’t like opening up the small, safe circle that was her two-person family. Her happiness was still too precarious, her mother still too fragile to trust an outsider. But whenever Dr. Mao’s cheerful voice filled the flat, she saw her mother brighten, then blush with pleasure at the small gifts he always brought. A bunch of irises, a small basket of oranges.

In his traditional long gown and with his plain, honest face, Dr. Mao looked exactly like what he was, a country doctor. Lian couldn’t deny his gentle manner had a calming effect on her mother. Or that his stories made her mother laugh, loud whooping hoots Lian hadn’t heard in years. Since Harbin.

THE DOCTOR SIGHED contentedly upon finishing the last of the noodles in fish broth.

“Eating fish always reminds me of the tale of Old Quan the Miser,” he said. “A classic. Old Quan was too stingy to buy a real fish for the family New Year’s dinner. So he hung a painting of a fish on the dining room wall and told them to look at the picture instead. There it was, a plump, whole fish laid out on a bed of watercress, slivers of ginger arranged just so over its body, the eyeballs glistening and lifelike.

“So lifelike that Quan’s youngest grandson couldn’t stop staring up at the fish. Whereupon Old Quan landed a sharp slap on the side of the boy’s head, shouting, ‘You greedy brat! Do you think we’re so rich that you can look twice?’”

Lian’s mother laughed until she had to wipe the tears from her eyes. Lian brought out the pastries, egg tarts the doctor had brought. Her mother hobbled to the kitchen to boil water for tea. Dr. Mao cleared his throat.

“My practice has grown very quickly, Lian,” he said. “The Liu family has referred so many people my way I hardly have time to see patients and also keep my appointment diary and patient files organized. I can’t pay very much yet, but would you be willing to work for me?”