The poorest year of her life, Chi Xiaoman was twenty. She was living in a basement apartment in an urban village, sharing it with another woman. The place was wretched, its low ceiling mottled with mold. They survived on the cheapest instant noodles, kissed on a creaking bed frame, and in the darkness could never tell whether the other was laughing or crying. Chi Xiaoman was stingy. Every bowl of noodles she made for the woman came with a single poached egg, while she ate hers plain. The woman she lived with was generous. After spending a sweltering day working as a stunt double only to be cheated out of her pay, she still stopped by a secondhand market and bought a shoddy speaker, because Chi Xiaoman loved drifting in and out of sleep to music on lazy afternoons. Back then, they had nothing. They were broke, and they were young. Chi Xiaoman can no longer remember how she left that tiny apartment. She only remembers making the woman one last bowl of noodles before they parted. This time, she added two poached eggs. The woman looked at the bowl for a long moment before finally raising her eyes and saying quietly, "Chi Xiaoman, I wish you a brilliant future." And later, Chi Xiaoman got exactly what she had wished for—