Finally I called Huizi. He was the only person I wanted to see before I disappeared from Beijing.

'Hey, Fenfang. I was just about to call you to say goodbye! Where shall we meet?'

Silence while we both thought about this.

'Jazz Ya!' we yelled at the same time. It was the only old bar left on Sanlitun Bar Street after they demolished the whole area.

I arrived at Jazz Ya before Huizi. It was early evening, there weren't many people around. Behind the bar, a DJ was playing cheerful Japanese pop. I sat at a table and listened to the music. For the first time in ages, I felt patient. I wasn't in a hurry. When Huizi came in, he looked a little sad. Was he sad about me leaving? I didn't ask. Without saying anything, he ordered tequila. A moment later, a glass arrived on the table. Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, it was the smallest glass I'd ever seen in my life. And there wasn't much in it, either. The clear liquid barely wet the bottom.

I scanned the menu: Gold Tequila – 30 yuan.

'Huizi, Huizi, why not just drink ten bottles of Revolution Beer? It would cost the same!'

'No, today I feel like drinking this,' said Huizi.

I had never seen this kind of drink in Beijing before. A slice of lemon perched on the rim of the glass. Huizi went through some bizarre motions. He put some salt on the back of his hand, licked it off, then grabbed the slice of lemon, sucked it and downed the tequila in one. A glistening wet mark was left on the table. Then he banged the empty glass back down.

A waitress walked past. 'Another one!' Huizi called after her.

A moment later the girl slid back with another Gold Tequila. Another 30 yuan – I did the sums in my head. Golden consumption. He performed the whole action again, salt, lemon, empty glass. Another watermark appeared on the table.

As I watched Huizi, I couldn't help thinking of a film I'd seen by Billy Wilder – The Lost Weekend. It's the story of a man who desperately wants to be a writer, but ultimately he's too much of a boozer to write anything. His full-time job seems to be to drink. This drunkard writer never gets further than the title on the first page: The Bottle… The Bottle… The Bottle… Huizi was not like that at all. Huizi knew how to write.

By now, he had finished his sixth tequila. The glass sat back on the dark wooden table beside six watermarks.

We both sat quietly and surveyed the shining wet circles. An abstract landscape. Something was in my throat and in my mind. Ever since I'd known Huizi, I'd wanted to ask him a question. It was now or never.

'Huizi, what keeps you alive? What is it that you care for in life? No, actually, that's not what I mean.' I tried to find the right words to describe what it was that really bothered me.

'Can you tell me, how can you be so at peace, steady as a stone in a forest, while I'm just nervous and desperate all the time?'

Huizi looked at me without answering. Perhaps my question was too big, too vague.

'You know what I mean, don't you?'

'Yes, I know what you mean,' said Huizi. 'But I can't answer. I don't actually know. But sometimes a very small thing can touch me for a long time. Like that poem by Cha-Haisheng, "Facing the Ocean, the Warmth of Spring is Blossoming". It's beautiful. If I don't feel all right sometimes, I will think of the ending of that poem:

Name each river, name each mountain Name them warmly Stranger, take my warmest blessings May your future road be clear and bright May you be reunited with your true love May you find real happiness in this dusty world I will face the ocean, waiting for spring to warm the air and flowers to blossom.

'When I think of those lines, my heart is warm,' said Huizi.

I listened in silence. Then Huizi said something unexpected.

'Fenfang, I need to tell you, I used to love you, and now… I still love you.'

The rings of water on the table glistened. I said nothing.

Huizi left Jazz Ya soon after that. It was not his style to leave so abruptly. But he said he felt drunk and he had to go. Before he left, he reached for my hand and held it hard. It was strange, I realised we'd never held hands before. His fingers were slim and long, but his palm was fleshy and warm. It was a strong feeling.

The last thing Huizi said to me was, 'Fenfang, you must take care of your life.'

The next day, I left Beijing. I bought a one-way ticket to Shan Tou. I wanted to smell the South China Sea. As I sat on the rattling train, Huizi's words echoed in my mind. They echoed through the years I had spent working as an extra, the dead years when I made tin cans and swept floors. They echoed through the streets of a forgotten village.

I am 17 and it is a sweltering summer morning. I open the creaking shutters and look out at the hills. Rows of sweet potatoes stretch into the distance. The silent fields shimmer in the heat. I contemplate the pale clouds collecting in the sky. It's time to leave. The unforgiving sun is melting my youthful body. I tell my 17-year-old self: Fenfang, you must take care of your life.

Acknowledgements

It feels as if I, my translators and editors have run a marathon to bring you this book. It was the first novel I published in China, and I wrote it when I was very young. Ten years later, when I began to collaborate on the English translation with Rebecca Morris and Pamela Casey, I realised there were two major obstacles to turning it into a book in English.

The first was the language. The translation needed to capture the speech of a young Chinese girl who lives a chaotic life and speaks in slangy, raw Chinese.

The second obstacle was that I was no longer completely happy with the original Chinese text. Ten years on, I found I didn't agree with the young woman who had written it. Her vision of the world had changed, along with Beijing and the whole of China. I wanted to rework each sentence of my Chinese book, and fight with its young author who knew so little about the world. Although Fenfang, the heroine of the novel, should still be desperate about her life, I wanted to convince her to become an adult.

To rewrite a Chinese book when it has already been translated is a big burden to place on a translator. The only way to do it was to write in English over the top of the translated text. Fortunately, my editor Rebecca Carter understood what I was trying to do.

So, I have been spending a lot of time with three Western women, chasing a language for the elusive Fenfang. Throughout the process, I have been caught between two cultures, fighting for a common world between two languages. Now that we have crossed the finishing line of this marathon, I want to dedicate this book to two very special people: my editor Rebecca Carter and my agent Claire Paterson, who mean so much for my writing. And to Michael Wester: I hope you can accept this novel as a long-overdue gift from me, wherever you are and whatever you think of Fenfang. An eternal thank you to Philippe Ciompi for his soul and his heart. Then I would like to thank Alison Samuel, Clara Farmer, Juliet Brooke, Rachel Cugnoni, Audrey Brooks, Suzanne Dean, and all the Chatto & Windus and Vintage team in London, as well as Lorna Owen and Tina Bennett in New York and Cindy Carter in Beijing. And finally, thank you to my two youthful translators. We are now coming of age, and I am very grateful to all of you.

Xiaolu Guo

Hackney, June 2007