“Great,” Gao said. “You’re bringing us luck today.”

The next minute, Gao, too, dug the hook out of a half-pound bass with his thumbnail.

Happily, he recast his line with a practiced flick of his wrist. Before he had reeled it halfway back to the boat, something gave his line another terrific tug. The rod arched, and a huge carp exploded into the sunlight.

They did not have much time to talk. Time flashed backward as silver scales danced in the golden sun. Twenty minutes-or twenty years. They were back in the good old days. Two high-school students sitting side by side, talking, drinking, and angling, the whole world dangling on their lines.

“How much does a pound of crucian carp sell for?” Liu asked, holding another one in his hand. “One this size?”

“Thirty Yuan at least, I’d say.”

“So I’ve already got more than four pounds. About a hundred Yuan worth, right?” Liu said. “We’ve been here only an hour, and I’ve hauled in more than a week’s salary.”

“You’re kidding!” Gao said, pulling a bluegill off his hook. “A nuclear engineer with your reputation!”

“No, it’s a fact. I should have been a fisherman, angling south of the Yangtze River,” Liu said, shaking his head. “In Qinghai we often go for months without a taste of fish.”

Liu had worked for twenty years in a desert area, where the local peasants observed a time-honored tradition of serving a fish carved from wood in celebration of the Spring Festival since the Chinese character for “fish” can also mean “surplus,” a lucky sign for the coming year. Its taste might be forgotten, but not the tradition.

“I cannot believe it,” Gao said indignantly. “The great scientist making nuclear bombs earns less than the petty peddlers making tea-leaf eggs. What a shame!”

“It’s the market economy,” Liu said. “The country is changing in the right direction. And the people have a better life.”

“But that’s unfair, I mean, for you.”