On the morning of a routine workday in early August, four months before the new millennium, Chen Yezi emerged from her bedroom wearing nothing but socks. A warm summer breeze stole through the crack in the living room window and skittered up her bare arms and down her bare buttocks. On the rare occasion when she found herself alone in the apartment, she preferred nudity, a return to the primal state. Right away she noticed that something was out of place. Wedged between a bowl of broken eggshells and a teacup was an envelope in a shade of pale purple she’d never seen before—a rare butterfly pinned down on the wooden dining table. Her roommate must have retrieved the letter from the post office before heading out of town.
She held the envelope up to the tube of light slanting through the window. Her name was inscribed in big characters that tilted to the right, as if it had been written in a hurry. In the return address, which was in English, she made out the word Chicago. It was strange. She knew no one in America, at least no one who could possibly have a reason to write to her. She opened the envelope with the same pair of tiny scissors she used to trim her eyebrows, and a small rectangular photo tumbled out. The photo showed a young man who looked around her age, startled and not handsome, with eyes set wide apart and ears comically large. The letter accompanying it read:
Dear Chen Yezi,My name is Li Min. I am a cousin of your college classmate, Dong Yu. Please forgive me if this comes across as brash. I saw a photo of you in his yearbook and admired your elegant aura and sweet smile. I live in Chicago and am looking for a friend to explore America together.
If you are interested, you can write me back at this address.
Li Min
