*Click.*
The heavy, cheaply varnished mahogany door of the County Guesthouse suite closed softly. A muffled thud.
No overhead light. Only a dusty, old-fashioned lamp on the nightstand cast a feeble amber halo, barely pushing back the gloom. The air hung thick with the mingled scents of inferior disinfectant and the musty decay of aging furniture.
Yang Xiaochuan sat perched on the edge of the plank bed, its sheet starched stiff and white. He hadn’t changed into the guesthouse’s fresh clothes. He wore the same faded work jacket, its cuffs frayed, stained with indelible grey smudges. His trouser legs were rolled to the calf, revealing cracked rubber boots caked with dried mud, their seams splitting. Crumbled clods of earth, fallen from the soles, littered the floor like grey dust.
