Casting a quick look at the front of the eatery, which appeared scruffy, sordid, and little changed from years ago, he walked into a shabby scene inside. There was a bare bulb dangling down from the water-and smoke-stained ceiling, shedding dim light on three or four smeared, dilapidated tables. Most of the customers looked as grungy as the place, having only cheap liquor and dishes of boiled peanuts.

A waitress, a plump and short woman in her mid-fifties, handed him a dirty menu in peevish silence. Ordering a Qingdao beer, two cold dishes – dried tofu in red sauce and a thousand-year egg in soy sauce – he asked her, “Any specials here?”

“The pork intestine, lung, heart, and whatnot, all steamed with distilled rice grain. Our chef still makes his own rice wine. It’s a specialty of the old Shanghai cuisine. I don’t think you’ll have it anywhere else.”

“Great. I’ll have that,” he said, closing the menu. “Oh, the smoked carp head too. A small one.”

She eyed him up and down in surprise – apparently, he was a big customer for this small place. He was no less surprised at himself, for still having such a good appetite this evening.

At a table near the back, one of the customers looked over his shoulder. Chen recognized him as Gang, from the old neighborhood. Gang had been a powerful leader of a Shanghai Red Guard organization in the early days of the Cultural Revolution, but he had since gone downhill, ending up as a jobless drunken loafer, muddling around the neighborhood. About the vicissitude of the legendary ex – Red Guard, Chen had heard from his mother.