A small knot loosened in Shao’s chest. “I’d like to live in a different city. Meet different people.” Get away from his mother’s melancholy. Away from under his father’s thumb, just a little.

She started on another shoe. “If Pao’s there, you won’t have any problems meeting new people.”

“I’ll miss you, Sparrow,” he said, in a rush of regret. She had never been exactly pretty, but at that moment, he thought the curve of her lips the sweetest he’d ever seen.

After the first few weeks in Nanking, when the excitement of settling in at university had worn off, a sensation of unease stalked Shao, a drifting aimlessness. As though he’d somehow strayed from the path he was meant to walk. Following Pao, he had majored in agriculture, telling himself that he, too, wanted to help China produce better crops. But he floundered.

Pao was sympathetic and unhelpful. He slapped Shao on the back and said, “Let’s go hit some tennis balls and you’ll feel better.”

Shao woke one morning, drowsily aware that someone was sweeping the hallway outside his dormitory room. It was a comforting, familiar rhythm. Three long sweeps of the straw broom and then a short one to push all the dirt into the dustpan.

He sat up. Pao was still sleeping, snoring lightly. Shao pulled on his dressing gown and threw open the door. “Sparrow! What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see Nanking.” She was dressed in the dark-blue tunic and trousers worn by all Minghua servants, from groundskeepers to cooks.

“But why did you leave Shanghai? And my family?” The Liu servants counted themselves fortunate. It was unheard of to leave the Liu household voluntarily. “Did my mother send you?”

“They’re not my family. My place is with you, Young Master.” Sparrow walked down the staircase, broom and dustpan in hand. She paused at the landing and gave Shao a wide, sweet smile that made her look almost pretty.

Shao shut the door and sank back on his bed. The untethered sensation was gone, in its place a feeling that he and Sparrow were part of the same journey, that all was well, now that she was here. When he was a boy, that feeling had come over him frequently when he was with Sparrow. But as he grew older, he’d dismissed it, as he did now, the sensation washing over him quickly and draining away. He told himself it was just because Sparrow had turned up suddenly, reminding him of the first time he’d seen her at his nursery door. It was just because she had always been part of his life.

A week later, Shao changed majors. Whatever he was searching for, he knew it wasn’t to be found in crops or soil, weeds or drainage. Literature and the classics were how he would search for purpose.