Hongmei started clacking away at the keyboard, to say she wasn’t alarmed, though she felt there were too many people playing this game, and she wasn’t interested. It wasn’t hard to guess how he’d gotten her email address. Between her school and the library, her many friends and acquaintances, he could have found it without too much trouble. She got spam trying to sell her plane tickets, phone cards, CDs, books, secondhand stuff—and she’d never asked how they got her email, whether by fair means or foul. She told him that when she opened her inbox each day, nine out of ten messages were from glib strangers like him, hawking high-interest loans or tax loopholes, offering debt evasion or cut-price jewelry, skin creams, X-rated entertainment, male escorts, or hookers. Why should she be alarmed?

She hid her slight attraction to this mysterious man beneath a layer of banter. Then she thanked him for his flattery.

He replied right away, saying it was strange she’d taken his words for flattery. He hadn’t praised her beauty, and actually didn’t even think she was pretty. In English, “fascinated” just meant a single-minded curiosity—that was all. He felt the same thing for death-row convicts and clownish politicians.

Hongmei was surprised. Many people said she was pretty. How dare this person insult her! Her eyes sought out the words “alarmingly sexy,” which had made her heartbeat quicken, but now his tone seemed indifferent, objective, even dismissive. She thought about how his casual humiliation of her abruptly shortened the distance between them. All of a sudden he was believable, solidly present. How cheap she was, wanting to talk to him just because he’d pricked her vanity.

Her fingers started drumming again. Thank you for your frankness, she wrote. Unfortunately, I’m not in the habit of discussing myself with a stranger. She read it over and deleted the second sentence. Better. Cool and composed. He’d read these words and see how she’d turned the tables on him, with the understatement of an old hand. The message was clear: Come on, then. Let’s see who gets under whose skin first.

The stranger’s response was swift, claiming he didn’t regard frankness as a virtue.

You’re not frank at all, you riddle of a woman.

A challenge. She stood up, trying to suppress the excitement she felt in that moment. So she had a combative streak in her. By calling her a riddle, he became one himself. As far as Hongmei was concerned, he was the true secret talker, messaging her from the shadows and keeping his identity hidden while he judged her, exposed her.