A cold wind carried sounds from the encampment. Coughing and sneezes. A child’s whimper. With the approach of morning, the full moon was starting to fade, but its image still shone out from the pond, a perfect reflection on that tranquil surface. Three figures moved to the water’s edge. Two were ragged, a man and a woman bundled against the cold. The third, she somehow knew, was Sparrow. Their conversation carried across the waters of the pond.

“Don’t take too long.” It was Sparrow’s voice. A voice that gleamed. “The gates to the Palace will only stay open for a year.”

“We’ll tell the others,” the woman replied, “but not all are willing to leave.”

The conversation made no sense at all to Lian.

Sparrow held the woman’s shoulder for a moment, a gesture of farewell. The man put his hand out and Sparrow gave it a quick squeeze. He seemed to be wearing a fur mitt, badly made. Or else his hand was deformed. Sparrow continued to the front of the Minghua convoy, where the road vanished into the shadows of a bamboo forest. The couple stood motionless at the side of the field, shoulders hunched against the cold. When the cart rolled past, Lian caught a glimpse of their eyes. Yellow and shining with glints of green. The eyes of wolves. Or were they foxes?

She put her head down on her arms and fell asleep.

ON THEIR FINAL approach to the fishing village, Minghua 123 stopped to let a detachment of soldiers march by. Lian and Meirong moved off to stand in the fields while soldiers and military vehicles took over the road. The officer leading the soldiers was on horseback. He looked tired, his chin dark with stubble. The scouts carrying rifles stood at attention as he rode past. The officer saluted them gravely in return, as if they weren’t just students holding outdated guns.

Meirong tugged at Lian’s sleeve. “I wish you’d join the newspaper project,” she said, “then we could work on it together. I know you think Jenmei might slant the articles to favor a left-wing point of view, but all she wants are well-written articles, regardless of ideology.”

Lian forced a smile. “I’m not a journalist.”

“We need all kinds of help,” Meirong said, “not all of it to do with writing. I mean, you could just do the copying. Copy the finished articles onto newsprint. Then we’ll paste up the news sheets on walls.”

“On walls where?” Lian asked.

“Wherever we’re staying, like at the post office in Shiama. Any town or temple,” Meirong said, “wherever people can see it. And we’ll also need copies for ourselves, so that when we’re settled, we can publish our writings. We badly need volunteers to copy two sets of everything. One to paste up on walls and one to keep.”