Now – just think! – he would get to see the place with his own eyes, and if he wanted to, he could even stay there forever. Needless to say, Shilin had been feeling restless of late, sleeping poorly and burning with impatience. He found it hard to believe that he would soon be overseas and would be seeing his close kin: his father, his brother, his sister, whom he did not know and of whom he had not dared even think until recently.
Even when he was holding his plane ticket in his hand, Shilin could not get used to the thought that he was going to fly to America. He had only to let the thought enter his head to feel instantly stunned: was he really about to fly off?! He would look over his ticket again as if to convince himself once more that, yes, he really was going, that there was no tr
