I loped through Snake Alley’s covered market. The crowds were thinner on a Thursday night, but there were still enough people out that I blended in with ease. Brightly lit shops and restaurants flanked both sides of this popular Taipei destination. The air was thick with deep-fried foods, cigarette smoke, and more exotic smells. Large snakes nestled in glass cages for customers to gawk at, their thick bodies coiled, appearing ready to strike. Turtles clambered over one another in red and blue plastic tubs, smelling of brine and rotten eggs, so pungent my flimsy face mask was of no help. Made into soups, both the snakes and the turtles were believed to have strong healing and medicinal properties. Although these days, you were as likely to get seriously sick from eating the reptiles due to filth and disease.

More pedestrians had worn heavy-duty face masks since news of the “super” avian flu broke. The government had ordered the slaughter and disposal of thousands of chickens, but the outbreak had already killed dozens of meis and had moved beyond just the homeless or weak. The fatality rate hovered at 80 percent, just as Arun had predicted. It wasn’t considered an epidemic, though, because no yous had died yet, their lives somehow worth more because they owned more. I realized after my illness that I had survived by sheer luck; having succumbed to a similar strain when I was ten years old, I had built some immunity.

News of Joseph Chen’s illness never broke, and four days after I had seen the men with hazmat suits in the Chen’s home, the property was put up for sale. Perplexed, I took my airped up to the eightieth floor. The entire home had been emptied of furniture, as if the Chens had never existed. It filled me with a sense of foreboding, as if Jin had murdered the family and I had been an accomplice.

I never messaged Daiyu to follow up on her friend. The longer we didn’t speak, the more convinced I was it was better to make a clean break of it.