'"What do you regret, LiYaqin, eh?" I asked, and she started to cry, just like that! Clutching at me and telling me that the happiest moment in her life was the day she fell on the ice and read the note I'd written her. "I was so happy!" she said. "And all these years I couldn't find you, but now here you are, with your big car at my food stall! But it's just too late, and my boy he's so big now." At that moment, I looked down at the pigs' trotters and you know what? They looked just like her hands – dark and fat and stained.

'Aiya, life… you know. Life is just like those stewed pigs' trotters. Sometimes you just have to eat what you're given.'

At this point Comrade Loaded-With-Gold's eyes started to mist over. Huizi and I looked at each other, and neither of us knew what to say. My outline was still on the table, completely abandoned by now.

Comrade Loaded-With-Gold suddenly raised his head from his sentimental past and looked at me.

'Fenfang,' he drawled. 'Tell me, do you find a man like me interesting?'

Huizi shot me a look.

'Sure, really interesting.' I cleared my throat. 'Yes, definitely. I find it really easy to relate to you, especially since you're about the same age as my father. It's not that difficult to understand you.'

I could feel Huizi relax.

'Aiya, you meet me for the first time and already you think I'm fascinating, eh. Well, that Wen Zhou girl, aiya, what's her name… you know?'

'Zhang?' I offered.

'Yes, yes, Miss Zhang. Right, well, I can't chat any more, you see, I should go and ring back Little Zhang.'

And with that, Comrade Loaded-With-Gold walked out of the red-leather office to make his call.

Huizi and I both stood up, perfectly synchronised. I picked up my outline from the desk and shoved it into my backpack. I didn't blame Huizi. We walked out of the office.

Another sand storm was starting, the wind flapped at my thin skirt. There was never any gentleness in a Beijing spring. Huizi and I walked and walked. There was silence between us. A woman passed us on her bicycle, she'd wrapped her scarf over her mouth to stop the sand. Men carrying their evening newspapers and briefcases hastily pushed past us. Comrade Loaded-With-Gold's northeastern accent still rang in my ears, as did those words… 'Dirty, dirty thoughts!' Sand whirled up into my eyes and I couldn't stop rubbing them. My head ached.

Huizi could sense I was a bit low.

'Right, Fenfang,' he said, 'I'm taking you to Jade Pond Park to see the cherry blossom.'

I just said, 'Okay.' Nothing more. Then I followed Huizi. I can't explain why, but I felt like I'd aged five years since walking into Comrade Gold's office. I actually felt lots of sympathy for the man. As I'd said to him: I understood him.

Jade Pond Park, with its famous cherry trees, was packed with tourists. You could hardly move. Parents with their children. Young people with their old parents. Visitors, officials, builders, guards. We climbed up a little hill to get a better view. The trees spread below us were like sculptures made of twisted wire, the pink blossoms were swinging in the sand-filled wind. There was hardly any scent.

I thought of Japan and how popular the cherry-blossom season is there. Then I remembered a sad story I read in the newspaper about a young Japanese girl who had committed suicide by jumping into a waterfall. In the note she left, she explained:

I don't want to lose the beauty of my youth. I don't want to see my body ageing. The cherry blossom chooses to die in one night. I want to do the same.

I looked again at the cherry-blossom trees beneath me and saw that the grass was already covered by a layer of fading petals.

Fragment Nineteen

'LIFE IS JUST LIKE those stewed pigs' trotters. Sometimes you just have to eat what you're given.'

Comrade Loaded-With-Gold's words stayed in my mind. He was probably right.

As for stewed pigs' trotters, I didn't even have those. I hadn't worked for two months. There were no frozen dumplings in the freezer, no rolls of toilet paper in my bathroom, no soy sauce or vinegar in my kitchen, no soap by the bath. I'd used everything up. Worse than that was the loneliness of it. I put the kettle on to boil. I could feel a headache starting again. This always happened when I hadn't had any coffee for a few days. I rummaged around and found a sachet of stale instant. My worst worry was what I'd find in the sugar bowl. I closed my eyes and opened the Taiko sugar tin. Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, sure enough, there wasn't even any sugar in this place. Instead there at the empty bottom were two dead cockroaches, starved to death.

I sat at the table. For half an hour, I just sat and slowly drank the bitter coffee from my big cup. When I had finished, nothing had changed. But my headache was going away.

I started hunting through my clothes for money. I searched my pockets and even my winter coat from last year. The tiniest bit of loose change was enough – anything to get me through the day. Altogether, I managed to find 25 yuan.

I went downstairs and immediately tasted sand in my mouth. The air smelled dusty. I ran into the nearest store and bought one pack of frozen chive dumplings, two packs of instant noodles and a tin of sugar. Five yuan change. As I walked home, I prayed for rain to arrive to help this desert city. 'Please rain,' I murmured. 'Please rain, please rain, please rain.'

Back in the apartment, I wolfed down a bowl of instant noodles and drank another cup of coffee, with sugar this time. Then I sat at my table, contemplating my telephone. Something was bound to happen, someone had to come to save me, I could feel it. 'Please help me, please help me, please help me…' I whispered. Two minutes later, the phone rang.

Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, thank you! It was a call about money. A call from an Underground Director!

The Director introduced himself. It was such a long introduction that I almost fell asleep. He took me through the story of his struggle to be a cutting-edge artist from A to Z. In the beginning, he'd wanted to be mainstream, to be accepted by the state, maybe even get to Hollywood. But when he finished his first feature, for some reason it never got past the censors. So he changed his politics and decided to become an Underground Director. The more films he made, the more underground and angry he became.

Anyway, as I said, I was just about falling asleep when the Underground Director said he'd heard about this film called The Seven Reincarnations of Hao An. He said he thought Hao An sounded very underground and his seven reincarnations pretty intriguing. Could he read the script?

Could he read the script? Underground Director, you are my Bo Le and I am your horse. 1 am 1.2 million per cent happy to give the story of Hao An and his Bloody Mary Li Li to you.

The Underground Director was happy too.

'Great, great. All right, Fenfang. Come and meet me tonight. Nine o'clock. HuaiYang Cuisine on the second floor of the Jiang Su Hotel.'

More than fine! I hung up. The Heavenly Bastard in the Sky never seals off all the exits – there's always a way through. In this world there must be more than 300 different ways to die, but who cares. At least I wasn't going to die of hunger.

At 8 p.m. I set out for the Jiang Su Hotel, script in hand. I could feel a fever growing in my head. My throat was sore and my ears ached. The sand storm outside felt like it was taking me over. I could hear grains of sand hitting the windows of nearby buildings and I felt as if, at this moment, my whole future lay in my hands. I was so terrified, I needed to talk to someone to get a hold of myself. I took out my mobile and phonecard, and called Ben. Thank the Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, this time it wasn't the famous answering machine.