While PD Xu Cui remained stranded with his housing problem, Su Wanyan, Mo Xingxue, and the children finally reached the borrowed house that would be theirs for the next two weeks.
The door closed behind them in a space that was still mostly empty. As they had left it earlier in the day, the only furniture waiting was a sofa facing a wooden television cabinet and a low coffee table centered on the floor—pieces the original owners had left behind, practical and impersonal.
Their luggage sat in a neat cluster near the wall where the staff had deposited it. Mo Yan's crib had been brought in and assembled, the one deliberate soft structure in a room that otherwise offered nothing to sleep on.
"Oh right—I'll just settle Xing'er on her be—" Su Wanyan started, the sentence already reaching for a bed that existed only in the plan she had failed to complete. Then the word died.
