AOI 1

Xu Minghai had already circled the bustling area around Qianmen three times in his white Wrangler. Spotting a Cherokee finally pulling out from the curb, he immediately cut the wheel to the right, maneuvering the car back and forth until he’d squeezed into the spot with barely an inch to spare.

“Let’s go,” Xu Minghai commanded, then strolled with Zheng Xiaojun toward the Zhengyang Market on West Street.

The weather in Beijing these days had been spectacularly good. The “Olympic Blue” sky stretched over the ancient city like an enormous palm, sealed tight. It was so clear it seemed ready to smoke, sunlight falling bright and sharp onto Xu Minghai’s bare summer skin, stinging like a dusting of chili powder.

“Bro,” Zheng Xiaojun shaded his eyes with one hand, taking mincing little steps as he panted, “couldn’t you have dropped me off at the door first before looking for parking? Look at my delicate skin—how’s it supposed to withstand this sun?”

Xu Minghai couldn’t be bothered to answer. He strode ahead, turned left at the intersection, and reached their destination.

The place had long since lost its former glory, the three-story “Kentucky Home-Style Chicken” now reduced to just one floor. But that white-haired old man, chipper and smiling, was still there, watching the passersby from north and south, silent and wordless, keeping vigil for twenty years.

Xu Minghai silently greeted the old mascot in his heart, then pushed open the door and walked in. The blast of freezing air conditioning inside, pumped out as if it cost nothing, hit him so hard he shuddered.

It was past the lunch rush, so the cavernous dining room wasn’t too crowded. Xu Minghai went to the counter and ordered two combo meals, while Zheng Xiaojun, trailing behind, rattled off a long list of extra sides. After paying, Xu Minghai carried the food toward a window seat, Zheng Xiaojun following, still chattering away about something.

Xu Minghai set the tray down, took a seat, and gave a slight nod of his chin toward the other chair. “Sit down first. Catch your breath before you start running your mouth again.”

Zheng Xiaojun plopped down, wolfing into his burger and guzzling iced Coke in huge gulps. Only after a long while did he free up his mouth to complain. “I, I’m never bumming a ride from you again. Almost starved to death halfway here.”

“Weren’t you the one crying and whining that you were craving KFC?” Xu Minghai slowly scooped at his sundae. “Don’t take free food and then complain about the quality.”

“But there are KFCs everywhere. Why’d we have to come all the way from Xizhimen to Qianmen?” Zheng Xiaojun pointed an accusatory finger. “This is straight-up child abuse!”

“What, did I stuff you with good food and drink just to abuse you?” Xu Minghai said irritably. “Besides, is there such a thing as a child your age?”

“Please answer the question directly.” Zheng Xiaojun grabbed a piece of original recipe chicken and bit down hard.

“I just like it here,” Xu Minghai said, his handsome face impassive. “No particular reason.”

Zheng Xiaojun, seeing this obvious attempt at concealment, asked with a sour edge to his voice, “Could it be… you used to date that ‘someone’ of yours here all the time?”

Xu Minghai let out a soft scoff. “You little punk, pretty good at jumping to conclusions. Back in our day, we didn’t have it nearly as good as you kids do now.”

“Ah, ‘back in the day’—when exactly was that?” Zheng Xiaojun dipped his curiosity into a vat of vinegar to fish for intelligence.

Xu Minghai unconsciously rubbed the bite-mark tattoo on the web of his left hand, did the mental math on the years, and then, with rare patience, offered the post-90s kid a history lesson. “About eighteen years ago, more or less. What you’re sitting on right now is officially the very first KFC in Beijing—and in all of China. The McDonald’s over at Wangfujing didn’t come until later.”

“So it’s got that kind of significance…” Zheng Xiaojun twisted his neck around in every direction, taking it all in, then clicked his tongue. “Well, does the fried chicken and mashed potatoes from eighteen years ago taste the same as it does now?”

Xu Minghai didn’t know how to explain the concept of “things remain, but people change” to someone he still saw as half a kid. He straightened up and also surveyed the restaurant, his gaze involuntarily snagged by a large Black man wolfing down food in the distance.

Probably a basketball player here for the Olympics, Xu Minghai thought.

“Bro?”

“Better than now,” Xu Minghai pulled his eyes back and urged him. “Hurry up. Eat so I can take you home, save your mom from nagging you.”

“At my age, your mom must’ve nagged you a lot too, right? We really are fellow sufferers.” Zheng Xiaojun finished speaking, then fixed Xu Minghai with that particularly hazy, moony look of his and said, all syrupy, “Bro, since that ‘someone’ of yours is probably off who-knows-where anyway, you could just consider me, you know.”

“I’ll consider your ass,” Xu Minghai frowned. “Are we leaving or not?”

“All you ever do is bust my chops, never even a hint of a smile. What a waste of such a handsome face…”

Zheng Xiaojun pursed his lips and muttered under his breath, looking deflated as he wolfed down his last bite and quickly stood up. Then, while Xu Minghai was placing the tray on the disposal counter, he pulled out the latest Sony Ericsson X1 and snapped a selfie right there in Beijing’s very first KFC.

The moment the two of them walked out of the restaurant, the big man wiped his mouth with a napkin and rose. As his towering, iron-tower-like frame suddenly vanished, the person who had been sitting alone behind him was revealed in full.

He had his arms crossed, head turned to gaze through the floor-to-ceiling window at the ninety-nine-span-tall Qianmen Gate Tower outside. The man had a refined, clear face, but since it was devoid of expression, his aura seemed cold and forbidding, difficult to approach. Yet his gaze was tender, his narrow double eyelids, like thin chive leaves, seeming to hold a softness that hinted at mist and rain.

After a long time, he finally finished the coffee into which he’d mixed far too much sugar and cream, then slowly made his way from the restaurant out into the bustling street beyond.

From the sky came the sound of wind-borne whistles, now swift, now slow. Qiu Shi instinctively looked up, searching for this long-missed sound of pigeon flutes. The scorching sunlight made him feel momentarily dizzy. Squinting through the overlapping coronas of light, images from memory slowly sharpened into focus, like negatives in an acid fixing bath.

He saw a teenager pedaling furiously, cutting through obstacles, weaving through streets and alleys. The washed-out, nearly transparent white tank top hung on his frame, the muscles of his back rippling rhythmically, displaying strength and beauty under the blazing sun. And sitting on the back of that dark, gleaming, classic bicycle—the Forever brand—was his own ten-year-old self.

The rider hurtled forward like a shooting star, all the way to the courtyard gate, then clamped down hard on both brakes, planted one foot on the ground, and turned his head back to look at Qiu Shi. His thin, sharp lips curved up at both corners, and immediately a dimple appeared on his angular, well-defined face.

“Guozi, we’re home.”

Qiu Shi didn’t get off, deliberately stalling the moment before going inside.

“Little ancestor,” Xu Minghai wore a look of utter exasperation, “would you do me the honor of gracing this humble servant with your leave, dismount your sedan chair, and return to the palace for our meal?”

Standing on the streets of his hometown, recalling Xu Minghai’s tone and expression when he called him “little ancestor,” Qiu Shi felt as if he’d taken a full magazine of bullets to the chest, his limbs trembling, his heart a roaring sea of turmoil.