When the two of them landed, a gray dirt road lay beneath their feet, its colors like those developed in an old photograph.
The sound of a suona drifted intermittently from the distance, playing the kind of tune meant for the dead. It sent a chill through anyone who heard it.
Lu Ming had barely steadied himself before he glanced around and quietly asked Wen Ning,
"Where are we? Why is it so creepy?"
Wen Ning did not answer. He merely motioned for him to look ahead.
The gray mist parted, revealing a small courtyard in a northern village.
Earthen walls, a wooden gate, white paper pasted around the gate frame.
A mourning shelter stood in the courtyard, with a coffin in its center. Two white candles burned before it, their flames wavering in the wind.
A boy of seven or eight knelt before the coffin, wearing oversized mourning clothes and a strip of white cloth around his head. His little face was red from crying, smeared with tears and snot.
He knelt on a tattered cushion, kowtowing again and again as he cried out,
"Dad!"
People bustled all around him. Some squatted beside the stove tending the fire, while others stood talking at the foot of the wall.
Yet none of them gave him a second glance. None went over to help him up.
"This is just awful."
Watching the little boy, Lu Ming could not help frowning.
"How can they just leave a little kid crying there?"
Wen Ning's gaze had settled outside the courtyard gate.
A man stood a few paces from the gate, an indescribable expression on his face.
He simply stood there, neither moving nor speaking, like a spectator—or someone who had never been invited at all.
It was Lin Dagang.
Wen Ning and Lu