<p>Two former college friends run into each other on the morning train and find themselves reflecting on the very different paths their lives have taken...</p><p><br></p><p>A counterfeiter, forever living outside the law, starts to envy a friend who’s managed to get out of the game and establish a normal life... </p><p><br></p><p>A security officer in a futuristic version of Beijing West Railway Station chases down a passenger who the screens say is ‘intentionally lost’...</p><p><br></p><p>Beijing may be known to us, in the West, as the political powerhouse of the most populous country in the world, but to the characters in these stories it is a protean city, forever changing, evasive and difficult to read... It turns close friends into strangers, up-ends carefully thought-out life choices, and leaves next-door neighbours completely unaware of each other’s true identity. The stories collected in this anthology show people in all contexts – from wannabe protestors to future users of facial expression reading tech – desperate to stake their name on the city, as well as surprised by it at every turn.</p><p>Featuring translations by Eric Abrahamsen, Paul Harris, Jack Hargreaves, Hongyu Jasmine Zhu, Christopher MacDonald, Carson Ramsdell, Florence Taylor, Alison Sharpless, Katherine Tse, and Helen Wang.</p><p><br></p>