A Redeemed Sheep Tsering Norbu Arrowhead Potatoes Su Tong The Divorced Chen Ran The Kitchen Xu Kun It's Getting Dark, Close Your Eyes Zong Lihua
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The time is midnight. Everything's quiet. Nothingis stirring inside the bedroom. Lin Zhi is all curled upunder a blanket and already drowsy. She always feels thatwinter starts from her toes up. Her slender bony anklesnow seem bumpier. Chilliness and a feeling of emptinessappear to be climbing upward like some growing vine,spreading up from her smooth bare soles. Then the phone rings. Lin Zhi gives a little shudder. The fh'st thing she added to her room after her divorcewas this expensive imported telephone. She was just notable to stand the old telephone's sudden bursts of noisyringing. Now, she tunes the ringtone to the most pleasingand gentle level, a tone almost as gentle as a cricket's hum. She pulls one arm out from under the blanket andpicks up the receiver. She says, "Hello." There is no response. Lin Zhi is now awake. She knows it must be him, Bu Li. She even thinks shecan hear the familiar suppressed breathing. "Speak," she says in a very low tone. Still there is no response. Lin Zhi hangs up the phone. A few days ago, on the way home from work inthe early dusk, a similar thing happened. That day, shesuddenly felt she could not take it anymore; the urge tofind out what he was doing was so strong she just couldno longer keep it down. She took out her cell phone. Shehesitated a little, and put the phone back, rememberingthat he had call display. She then rushed to a phone boothand abruptly took down the receiver. When Bu Li pickedup the phone on the other end, she too had not uttered anysound. After keeping quiet for a little while, she nervouslyhung up the phone. Lin Zhi has been feeling uneasy. She feels strange, likethey are acting like two detectives hiding from each other,each secretly keeping an eye on the other. However, theyreally now are certain that they do not have any wish toget back together. Not even the slightest. At the beginning, right after they got divorced, it wasnot exactly this way. Lin Zhi and Bu Li just could not getused to the situation. Every two or three days they wouldfind excuses to call each other up. They would talk inoddly forced and unintentionally insincere ways.
