We left Jiangnan on a morning that was cold but clear, the sun present if not warm, the river below us catching the light in intermittent flashes as we rode the road north along its eastern bank.
Fang Wen walked us to the gate of his compound. He shook hands with Kaien with the warmth of old friendship renewed, exchanged a few words with Shen Bao about a contact in the capital who might be useful for certain administrative questions, and then turned to me.
"You will come back," he said. It was not a question, and it was not exactly an invitation. It was simply a statement of what he believed would happen.
"When the situation requires it," I said.
"Perhaps before then." He looked at me steadily. "The plum tree blooms in early spring. You would find it worth seeing."
I looked at the tree in the courtyard, bare now but with the contained potential that bare branches have when the season is moving in the right direction. "I would," I said.
He nodded once. We left.
