IT WAS close to six, still raining, still hot, and Hom’s guards still manned the front entrance. David and Hulan wandered back to their room in the fourth courtyard. They were wet and muddy. Hulan took the first shower, and by the time David was out of his she’d made tea from the hot water in the thermos. He sat down and took a sip. The closeness he’d felt to Hulan just yesterday seemed very distant now.“I have to ask you something, Hulan. Why were you so hard on that old man?”“Sometimes you have to be tough if you want a straight answer. You know that.”“He lost his son. That woman lost her husband—”“And they’re both cult members.”Suddenly her obsession with the group became clear to him. She used it as a barrier against her feelings—against facing her grief over Chaowen’s death, against connecting to him because she knew he was opposed to China’s religious policies, against dealing with Lily’s murder or even that old man’s anguish. That wall may have protected her emotions, but it was blinding her to the facts of the case.“I’m sorry we came out here,”
