Read Chapter 26: — THE PHOTOGRAPH

Morning sunlight lay across the new restaurant sign: ZHIHE RESTAURANT, the characters based on calligraphy Mufeng had written years earlier when he was still pretending his failed company would survive.

The friends stood with the canal behind them.

"Closer," Yonghe said.

"Dacheng is taking up too much space," Duoduo complained.

"That is your stomach."

"My stomach is cultural heritage."

Daidi pushed them both into position.

Qiu Bin stood beside her, still awkwardly careful with affection even though they were engaged.

Mufeng put an arm around Dacheng and another around Duoduo.

"Ready?" Yonghe asked.

They shouted the Chinese equivalent of cheese and immediately began laughing before the shutter clicked.

The photograph caught none of them looking dignified.

Mufeng loved it.

Behind them, water from the Yantie Canal flowed toward larger rivers and eventually the sea. The old trade route no longer carried fleets of salt and iron boats, but the water continued to do what water had always done: move without asking permission from memory.

Later, back at Cimo Hall, they found themselves singing an old song about past days—the years when they had been poor enough to own almost nothing and young enough to think happiness was the natural condition of life.

Their voices were terrible.

The old beams carried the sound anyway.

Mufeng thought about the boy he had been, the man he had tried to become, and the many versions of himself that had failed along the way.

He had wanted to be free as wind.

For years he had mistaken freedom for having no obligations.

Now he understood it differently.

Freedom was choosing which obligations deserved you.