It was an old-fashioned, medium-sized lane accessed through a black iron grillwork gate, possibly a leftover from the French Concession years. Its location was unfashionable, and the neighborhood had been going downhill in the last few years. As new buildings appeared elsewhere, the lane had become something of an eyesore.

Yu decided to take a walk around the area first. He would be working with a neighborhood cop, Old Liang, who had been stationed nearby for many years. Old Liang was to meet him at nine thirty in the neighborhood committee office, close to the back entrance of the lane. Yu was fifteen minutes early for their appointment.

The front entrance to the lane was on Jinling Road. At the intersection of Jinling and Fujian Roads, two or three blocks away, he could see the Zhonghui Mansion-the high-rise once owned by Big Brother Du of the Blue Triad-standing on the corner. The back entrance of the lane led into a large food market. There were also two side entrances along Fujian Road, lined with tiny shops and stalls. In addition to the main lane, he saw several sub-lanes crisscrossing each other. Most of the houses were built in the shikumen style, like his own home, a typical Shanghai two-storied house with a stone door frame and a small interior courtyard.

Looking into the lane from the front entrance, Yu saw an elderly woman pushing open the black-painted door of a shikumen house with one hand, carrying a chamber pot in the other. It was an eerily familiar sight, as if he had been transported back to his own lane, except that Treasure Garden Lane was even shabbier, its winding tributary lanes more full of twists and turns. More full of noises too. Near the front entrance, a green-onion-cake peddler hawked his wares loudly, clanging on the large flat pan with a steel ladle. A little girl of five or six stood alone in the middle of the lane crying her heart out, for reasons Yu would never discover. Conducting an investigation here would be difficult, he realized. With the constant flow of people, and all sorts of ceaseless lane activities too, a criminal could have easily sneaked in and out without being noticed.