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≠Late spring is when Hangzhou is prettiest, but it is also when the air turns hot, wet and sticky, so that, all of a sudden, going for my daily lunchtime stroll along the West Lake is as exhilaratingly horrible an experience as eating my girlfriend’s pussy Both are long, drawn-out affairs that leave me with sweat in my ears and between my toes, that give me pleasure precisely because they make my mind blank so that, instead of worrying about the work I have not completed for my graduation show, I know only the dryness of my mouth and the sting at the back of my eyes It is a sense of peace I have worked hard to find    On the day that the rain begins, a Monday, my classmate Xiao-Li finds me sitting on the ground alone near the back of the West Lake scenic park, some hundred metres away from the school gate, where I am watching the waters, smoking a cigarette, and thinking about sex He stands in front of me, blocking my view, and ruins my pleasant daze by beginning to ramble about school matters Were it not for Xiao-Li, I might have noticed the little shiver of thunder that everyone else, later, will say occurs around this time   Xiao-Li is the second shortest student in the oil painting department and towers over me When he arrives, I stand up and brush the dirt off my trousers so that at least I can face him when we speak instead of craning my neck to look up at him like a dog I take my time getting up and am rewarded with Xiao-Li waving a photograph in my face that he has apparently been clutching in his hand the whole time   Look, he says, so I do    It is a snapshot of an egg-shaped object balanced on what seems to be a tall table The egg takes up the whole of the frame, warping the space around it so that the table looks frail under its weight The photograph smells like it’s just come out of the developer