The long hours of walking had sapped their strength. Most of the students complained about blisters. What bothered Lian most was the ache of her hip bones in their sockets. Meirong plodded beside her, humming a tune Lian didn’t recognize. Meirong’s snub nose and habit of tying her hair in pigtails made her look much younger than her classmates. She was outgoing to the point of being occasionally annoying, in contrast to Lian, whose reputation was one of shyness, reserved to the point of being unapproachable. Or so Meirong informed her.

It wasn’t shyness that made Lian keep her distance, though. Her life had been one of wary evasion. She’d followed her mother’s lead, avoiding entanglements with people who might ask too many questions. Silence, discretion. A pretense of shyness, timidity. Her mother had schooled her in caution. She was more skilled at deflecting than befriending.

But that was before the easy camaraderie of Minghua 123, where keeping to oneself was impossible. With only twenty female students in the group, Lian was drawn into their circle. Her fellow students offered drinks from their canteens if they saw she’d taken her last sip and smilingly made room on a cart if there was an opportunity to ride, all without any hint of condescension or expectation of a favor to return.

Then there was Meirong’s frequent and unaffected laughter, her sly humor. “I hope good grades are contagious,” she’d remarked, “because if I walk beside a scholarship award winner for a thousand miles, surely mine will improve.”

The cart in front of them stopped, jolting Lian out of her thoughts. Beside her, Meirong tripped and swore under her breath. From behind came panicked cries, the braying of donkeys being led off the road, the rumble of wagons rolling into the fields. Above it all, they heard an airplane approaching from the east, its engines droning; then it appeared out of the glare of the rising sun.

“Run!” Meirong gasped. She slid down the embankment and sprinted away into the rows of wheat. There was no shelter to be had between the rows of short stalks, but at least if everyone scattered, they wouldn’t give the enemy a single easy target.

Lian raced after her, rucksack bouncing on her back, frozen feet slipping down the embankment. She fell facedown, hard-packed earth slamming the breath out of her.

“Here, let me help you up,” a man’s voice said. Still gasping for air, Lian looked up at Liu Shaoming’s smile. Behind him, Sparrow Chen scanned the sky, one hand shading her eyes as she squinted at the horizon.

Shao pulled Lian to her feet and practically lifted her into the field. He set her down beside an irrigation ditch. Dry stems of wheat prickled her backside and stabbed at her hands.