When Lou Xiao emerged from the bathroom, a towel slung low around his waist, a profound sense of unreality washed over Jian Huan. In a strange place, it hadn’t felt so jarring. But seeing him here, in her own space, felt like a disruption of her old life. Someone who existed entirely outside her world, a person whose path should never have crossed hers, had forced his way in. It was enough to make