“No. I’ve a car outside. I’m going to drive up and down some of the streets, ask if anyone’s seen her.” He paused at the door. “Shanghai has always been dangerous, the way any big city is dangerous. But now with the war, different factions, gangs fighting each other—innocent people can get hurt. That’s what really worries me.”

You will know when I am gone.

Trust in the Wheel of Rebirth.

THAT NIGHT LIAN dreamed there was a procession on the street below. She stood on the balcony watching it go by. The Shanghai City God was leaving and the entire city had turned out to mourn his departure. Dressed in the court robes of a high-ranking Ming Dynasty official, his long black beard hung down to his belt and beaded strings of jade and coral hung from his hat. He sat in a magnificent sedan chair carried by giants. There was music, flutes and drums, cymbals and horns.

And in the entourage walking behind the City God, she recognized Sparrow. She gleamed more brightly than Lian had ever seen her shine. When the procession passed under the balcony, Sparrow didn’t look up. Lian kept watching the procession move along the street, to the next block and beyond, until she could no longer see Sparrow’s light.

Chapter 39

The Shanghai Municipal Police were too stretched to search for a servant, even one valued by the Liu family. The private detective firm Shao’s father hired to search for Sparrow hadn’t found a single clue. The missing persons notice in Xinwen Bao attracted only fraudsters and cases of mistaken identity, and finally ceased appearing.

Shao came to the flat nearly every evening. Morose and restless, he seemed to take comfort in the company of Lian and her mother.

“I should’ve spent more time with my mother before she died,” he said. “Even just to hold her hand a little longer. But I couldn’t face it, Lian. So I went out all the time.”

“No one blames you,” she said. And then, because she knew he needed to hear it, “Sparrow understood.”

“She was a good friend,” he said. “She was like a sister and knew me better than I knew myself. And I never appreciated her as much as I should’ve. My father says we’ll have to give up the search soon, tell the private detectives to quit. Either she’s run away or it’s too late to do anything.”

You will know when I am gone.

What did Sparrow mean by that? There had been a dream, Sparrow leaving for the Kunlun Mountains in the company of the Shanghai City God and his assistants. It had been so vivid and intense, but was it only a dream or had it been Sparrow’s way of saying farewell? How long would it take for the City God and his entourage to reach the Kunlun Mountains?