Living Alone

The sun was bright, warming his body. The willows by the roadside had already filled out with tender green leaves, swaying gently in the breeze.

The owners of small shops sat in their doorways basking in the sun. Every so often, someone strolled past, their footsteps unhurried.

Xu Wuyi stood by the street, no longer wearing a mask, revealing his youthful face.

More than three months had passed. At last, he no longer needed to wear that thing.

He crossed the street and entered a narrow alley.

More than two months ago, using another false identity, he had bought a small courtyard in Xingjing's western district.

The courtyard was in a remote location, hidden within an old hutong, surrounded by ordinary households.

When he bought the courtyard, he had entrusted the entire process to an agent and had never shown his face even once.

He had paid through an anonymous account and registered it under a forged identity. No one knew who had truly bought the courtyard.

He had already decided then that after leaving the Inspection Department, he would come live here for a while.

Xu Wuyi passed through the narrow hutong and reached its deepest end, stopping before a weathered wooden gate.

A new lock hung on the wooden gate, jarringly out of place among the old locks around it. He took out a key, unlocked it, and pushed the gate open.

The courtyard was small, only around forty or fifty square meters. The main house consisted of three single-story rooms, with one side room each to the east and west. An old locust tree stood in the courtyard, and beneath it was a hand-pumped well.

The whole place was extremely antiquated, an old building from decades ago that stood utterly at odds with this technological age.

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