There’s a strange hum of energy in the air as we board the train at Beijing Railway Station.
It’s not just because of the enormous crowd moving with us, pushing past and into the narrow compartments: young, sunburnt workers heaving pots and plastic duffel bags over their shoulders, eager to return to their hometown over the weekend; mothers clutching their purses tight to their chests, yelling and gesturing wildly for their children to follow; gray-haired businessmen negotiating deals on the phone at the top of their voices as they fumble around for a charger.
It’s excitement, anticipation, wholly unique to Airington students alone. Everyone knows that Experiencing China trips are where Things Happen. After all, the combination of long train and bus rides, luxurious hotels in a foreign place, and nonschool-related activities completed in close proximity of one another seems almost intended to create drama. Friendship circles are broken and rearranged. Long-time couples split and exes hook up again. Secrets are revealed, scandals are made. Like when Vanessa Liu lost her virginity behind a Buddhist shrine on our Year Nine trip to Guilin, or when Jake Nguyen managed to sneak his way into the hotel bar during our Year Ten trip and got so drunk he launched into an hour-long monologue about how he felt inferior to his brother, while Rainie—who was still his girlfriend at the time—stroked his hair and fed him sips of water.
But the same scandals that shocked me this time last year now seem so small, so trivial. So normal.
Compared to what I’m meant to pull off in the days ahead, they feel almost like a joke.
“This should be our compartment,” Chanel tells me when we reach the middle of the carriage, shoving her giant suitcase through the opened doors with surprising ease. “I travel alone a lot,” she explains, catching the look on my face, and without another word, helps me roll my suitcase inside as well.
“Oh—thank you.”
I wonder if it’s obvious to Chanel that I don’t travel a lot at all. In fact, apart from my plane ride in and out of America, and the previous Experiencing China trips—and only because the school fees cover them—I haven’t gone anywhere outside of Beijing.
So it’s with fascination that I take in our tiny train compartment: the kettle set out on a folded table, the identical bunk beds sticking out from the walls, the space in between them so narrow only one person could possibly stand there at a time.
“Not a great place for the claustrophobic,” Chanel remarks as she squeezes her way through behind me, plopping down on one of the lower beds. “Or for anyone, really.”
It’s still bigger than my parents’ bedroom. A faint pang twists through my stomach at the thought, but I just smile and nod. I was prepared for this to happen, after all; within the Airington school gates, it’s still fairly easy to pretend that everyone’s the same. But out here, well…
“Qiqi! Guolai, kuai guolai—zai zhe’er!”
The loud, rapid Mandarin exclamations cut through my thoughts, and I turn toward the noise.
A short, middle-aged woman is wheeling two suitcases into our compartment, one of which is covered in a bright pink Barbie design that makes Chanel’s eyes twitch.
Seconds later, a little girl no older than six comes skipping into the compartment, a doll clutched to her chest, her high pigtails bouncing with her every step. This, I assume is the Qiqi the woman was yelling for.
“Oh!” The little girl stops short at the sight of me and Chanel. Then she breaks into a wide grin, pointing at us with her free hand. “Jiejie! Da jiejie!”
The woman glances in our direction for the first time and pauses too. I wait for the flash of surprise that usually arises when strangers see our uniforms, but then I remember we’re in casual clothes: Chanel, wearing a lacy blouse that rises just above her pale, flat midriff, and me, in a faded sweater and jeans Mama bought at Yaxiu Market a few years ago.
Instead of surprise, a crinkle appears between the woman’s drawn-on brows, like she’s not sure if Chanel and I are traveling together or not.
“Jiejie hao,” Chanel greets politely, and only then do the woman’s features smooth out, her lips lifting into a smile at the subtle flattery; being called jiejie, older sister, instead of ayi, for older women.
I quickly copy Chanel’s greeting, but the woman is already preoccupied, her gaze fixed on Chanel as if they might’ve met somewhere before. Then, in that same brisk, accented Mandarin, she says: “I’m not sure if anyone’s ever told you this, but you look a lot like that famous model—what’s her name again…”
“Coco Cao?” Chanel offers.
“Yes!” The woman claps her hands together and beams. “Yes, exactly!”
“Oh, right, well…” Chanel tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and with a practiced air of nonchalance, says, “That’s my mother.”
The woman’s eyes widen. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Qiqi!” the woman suddenly calls her child, who’s busy tucking her doll into bed, her little face puckered in concentration. “Qiqi, guess what? This is a real model. Isn’t she pretty?”
“Model’s daughter,” Chanel corrects, but she looks a little pleased at all the attention, the evident awe awash over the woman’s face.
And I’m happy for her too. Of course I am. But as the train lurches into motion and the woman sits down beside Chanel as if they’re old friends and starts gushing about her mother’s latest appearance on Happy Camp, I get that feeling extras must have on large movie sets: like my presence might count for something, but it doesn’t really make that much of a difference.
Watching them out of the corner of my eye, I make a silent vow to myself that one day, strangers like that will notice me as well. I will not stay in the corners, feeling sad and silly and small, my pride eating away at itself.
No, I will do something great, and they will all know my name.
But until then, I decide to put my time to better use than listening to Chanel’s incredibly detailed skincare advice. Retreating to the very end of my bunk bed, I take out the printed, annotated map of the Autumn Dragon Hotel from my bag and force myself to study it.
I’ve already spent the previous two days memorizing every possible route to the twentieth floor—where Andrew She’s men will be waiting—and marking out the busiest spots, the corridors and corners where there’ll likely be the least number of security cameras. And still, I retrace the routes over and over again with my fingertips, try to visualize how the night will go in my head, prepare for the worst-case scenarios—where to stop, where to flee, where to hide.
The world around me starts to fade, as it always does when I enter this zone of intense concentration; in fact, if I forget about the whole illegal aspect of the mission, it’s almost like studying for an exam.
At some point, the air conditioner kicks on at full blast, and I shiver in the sudden, unforgiving cold, hugging the blankets tight around my body with numb fingers. But the cold only grows, the temperature dropping by what feels like ten degrees per second, and as my teeth start chattering violently, I remember, dimly, that it’s late autumn. There’s no reason for the train’s air conditioning system to be on at all…
I recognize the exact moment I turn invisible.
I recognize it, because the little girl, Qiqi, happens to be looking in my direction, and her eyes go rounder than her doll’s. She brings a small hand to her opened mouth, then frantically pats her mother’s shoulder.
“Mama! Mama!” she cries. “Nikan! Kuaikan ya!”
Look.
But of course, there’s nothing for her mother to see. I’ve stuffed the map deep into my pocket and leaped out of bed, erasing all evidence that I might still be in the compartment.
Qiqi’s mother makes a small noise of exasperation. “Look at what? I told you not to interrupt me when I’m having a conversation, Qiqi.”
“Ta—ta shizong le!” Qiqi insists, pointing at the spot I was in just now.
She disappeared.
“Yes, I know, the other girl left the room,” Qiqi’s mother says impatiently, then shoots Chanel an apologetic look. “Sorry, my daughter likes to talk a lot when she’s bored. Says all sorts of nonsense.”
Qiqi’s face scrunches up, her frustration rivaling her mother’s. “Mama, ta zhende… Qiqi meiyou hushuo…”
I can still hear her arguing with her mother as I creep out of the compartment, into the crowded corridor.
Passengers are pacing back and forth, grabbing packets of instant noodles and chocolate pie from the train vendors or filling up their water kettles. After a woman trips over my foot and nearly spills boiling water all over me, it becomes quite apparent that I can’t just hang around here until my invisibility turns off again.
Without consciously making a decision about where to go next, I end up outside Henry’s compartment.
To save the teachers time and energy, our train compartments and hotel roommates have been arranged based on our dorms, which means Henry is in there, alone.
The thought scares me a little.
But when another passenger barges right into me from behind, swearing and yanking at my hair with excruciating force as they try to regain their balance, my nerves quickly still. I slide the door wide open and step in.
I was wrong, in a way—Henry is the only Airington student here, but he isn’t alone alone. There are two businessmen snoring on the upper bunks, one using their suit as a blanket, the other half propped up against the wall, his head lolling back and forth every time the train jolts.
Beneath them, Henry is sitting upright, hands folded in his lap, gaze fixed on the opposite wall. It’s strange seeing him like this: out of his school uniform and in a plain white V-necked shirt instead, his dark hair falling over his brows in soft, unbrushed waves.
He looks really, infuriatingly good.
He also looks…tense.
As I draw closer, I notice the uneven rhythm in his breathing, the muscle straining in his arms, as if ready for combat or to jump out of the train at a moment’s notice.
Then he turns toward me, some emotion I can’t quite decipher flickering in his eyes. “Alice?”
He says my name like a question.
“You can see me?” I ask in surprise.
“No. I sensed your presence.”
I frown. “Well, that’s not good. If people can sense when I’m here, I’ll need to fix that before tomorrow. Work on masking my steps better, or moving more slowly, or…”
But he’s shaking his head before I’ve even finished my sentence. “That’s not what I meant,” he says, then pauses, seemingly searching for the right words. “It—it’s only because… I’m around you so often. I highly doubt anyone else would be able to.”
“Ah,” I say, though I’m still unsure what he really means. All I know is that if Henry’s being this ineloquent, maybe he’s even more stressed than I realized—but about what, I have no clue either. “Well, then. Seeing as I came all the way here from my carriage, are you going to be a gentleman and offer me a seat or what?”
“Oh—yes. Of course.”
He moves over to make room at once, and I sit, but alarm flashes through me. I’ve never known him to be this compliant before. Something’s definitely wrong.
Still, we are both silent for a while, listening to the steady snores of the two businessmen and the creak of the train tracks below, before I finally muster the courage to point out the obvious. “Not to sound like the school counselor or whatever, but you don’t seem like your usual self today.”
“My usual self?” he repeats, eyebrows rising.
“You know—your superpretentious, unnecessarily formal, annoyingly arrogant, walking-advertisement-for-SYS self.” The intended insult comes out sounding much more affectionate than I wanted, so I add for good measure, “You even stumbled over your words when you were talking just now.”
Horror clips his tone. “I did not.”
“You did,” I say, mock-serious. Then, with sincerity: “So. Do you see my cause for concern now?”
“I suppose. I just…” He smooths out a nonexistent crease in his shirt, then says, with all the tones of someone making a terrible, humiliating admission: “I’m…not exactly a big fan of enclosed spaces.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, trying hard to think of what to say next. Because if this really is an admission, it means he’s trusting me with something private, something precious. And god help me, for whatever reason, the last thing I want is to ruin it. “Okay,” I repeat. “Do you want to talk about why…?”
“Not in particular, no.”
“Oh.” I clear my throat. “Well, all right then.”
A long, awkward silence ensues, and I’m starting to worry this conversation is over—not that I enjoy talking to Henry Li or anything, it’s more the principle of the matter—when he sucks in a tight breath, the way you would before ripping off a Band-Aid, and says, “It’s…quite silly, really. And it was a very long time ago—I couldn’t have been more than four or five. But…”
I wait.
“At our old house in Shunyi, there was this room in the basement—well, not so much a room as a closet. There were no windows, nothing except a door you could only open from the outside. I remember… I just remember it was always cold in there, and dark, like the mouth of a cave. My mother wanted to leave it for the ayi to store her cleaning supplies, but Father thought it’d be put to better use as a…study space.” His jaw tightens. “So every day, at precisely five in the morning, he’d leave me in there with only a book of practice questions and a pencil for hours.”
He pauses, rubs the back of his head. Forces out a hollow laugh. “Of course, it wasn’t quite as terrible as it must sound. Not at first. Hannah—my older sister—would sneak me snacks and books when my father was busy working, or simply sit outside the door to keep me company… But then her own grades started slipping, and she was sent off to school in America, and it was—it was just me in that room for hours on end…” His voice grows quieter and quieter with every word, until it’s swallowed completely by the rattle of the train and the shrieks of a baby in another compartment.
And I know I should say something at this point. I know. But all that comes out of my mouth is, “Oh my god.”
“Yes.” He shifts position slightly, so I can no longer see his face. Only the pale curve of his neck. “Indeed.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I honestly—I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been…”
I mean this as more than just a phrase. Despite what everyone likes to assume based on my scores and general personality, Mama and Baba have never pressured me to study. If anything, they’re always the ones to tell me to relax, to put the textbook down and watch some TV, go outside more.
And when I was five, Mama made it clear that she only ever wanted two things from me: for me to be a good person, and for me to be happy. That was also why she and Baba decided to sell their car, their old apartment, and use all their savings to send me to Airington, even if they knew I’d resist the idea at first—they hoped to protect me from the intense pressure of the gaokao.
“It’s fine now. Really,” he says, voice rough. “And I wouldn’t be where I am without—”
“No.” Anger cuts through me like a knife: anger at his father, for doing this to him; anger at the universe, for letting it happen; anger at myself, for assuming his competence was rooted in an easy childhood, a painless childhood. “I hate that. I hate when people justify a clearly inhumane process and use it as some kind of model for success just because the results are to their liking—”
“Is that not what you’re doing, though? With Beijing Ghost?”
“I—” I falter, caught off guard not just by the question, but the truth of it. My stomach twists. “I guess you’re right. But the thing is… I don’t know any other way to live.”
Quietly, he says, “I don’t either.”
Then he turns back to me, the space between us narrowing to only a few dangerous inches. His eyes lock on mine, and something else locks into place in my chest. “You’re visible again.”
“Really,” I say, but neither of us move.
We’re sitting close, I realize. Too close.
Not close enough.
I draw in a shaky breath. He smells expensive, like the unopened boxes of designer shoes Chanel keeps piled up in our dorm. But beneath it there’s another scent, something crisp and faintly sweet, like fresh-cut grass in spring or clean sheets warmed by sun.
We could kiss like this. The treacherous thought floats, unbidden, to the surface of my consciousness. I know, of course, that we won’t. That he’s too disciplined, and I’m too stubborn. But the possibility still hangs thick in the air, in the spaces we do not touch, the thought written all over his face, his half-parted lips, his black, burning gaze.
“Alice,” he says, and his accent—
God, his accent. His voice.
Him.
And I’m about to say something clever, something that will not betray the mad fluttering in my chest or how distracted I am by the beads of sweat on his neck but still make him want me, when a heavy hand slaps my shoulder. Hard.
I jerk back with a startled yelp and look up.
The businessman still snoring away above us has shifted position in his sleep, one arm now dangling innocently over the bed rails.
“Are you quite all right?” Henry asks, sounding a little choked up—not out of concern, but badly suppressed laughter. It’s incredible how fast I can vacillate between wanting to kiss this guy and kill him.
I shoot him a withering glare, rubbing the sore spot on my shoulder. “Could you maybe act a little more concerned? I could’ve gotten hit in the head. I could’ve been concussed.”
“Fine, fine, I’m sorry,” he says, though the corners of his lips continue to twitch upward. “Let me rephrase: Would you like me to fetch some ice for your potentially mortal wound? Perhaps some painkillers? Give you a massage?”
“Shut up,” I grumble.
He grins at me then, and despite my annoyance, despite my throbbing shoulder, I am relieved. I would rather spend the rest of this train ride fighting with him than let him be trapped alone with his thoughts and fears again.
