The morning mist still clung to the crooked rooftops of Garden City, pale ribbons drifting between weather-beaten chimneys like ghosts reluctant to leave. Damp air carried the metallic tang of resting railway tracks, and small puddles shimmered with oily rainbows on the cracked pavement. Somewhere in the distance, a battery-starved radio sputtered out half a verse of an old pop song before dying in static, the sound swallowed by the sigh of a passing freight train. Empty shop-fronts crouched behind roller shutters, their faded signage the last testimony of a time when the streets had thrummed with machines and music, before rust seeped into steel and weeds split the concrete seams.
In the hushed centre of it all stood Lin Kai. Not yet thirty, he wore the expression of a man who had shouldered years in silence. He was tall and fine-boned, his eyes sharp as awls, his skin the colour of toasted almonds. A few wind-tossed strands escaped the careful sweep of his hair, lending him the restless air of a visiting artist or an architect freshly landed from Shanghai or Seoul. Yet every step he took matched the rhythm of these streets; he had been born here, and unlike most of his classmates, he had never packed a suitcase to leave.
His office in the municipal building smelled faintly of lemon polish and old paper. Threaded through it was a sharper odour: stale smoke mixed with damp wool; the smell clung to the heavy drapes like a stubborn memory. Heavy oak desks from the nineteen-seventies squatted beneath mismatched ceiling fans that wheezed in uneven circles. A dog-eared wages ledger lay open on the credenza, its brittle pages listing long-closed blast-furnace shifts; Kai sometimes ran a thumb across the faded ink as though greeting the ghosts of former neighbours. Behind him hung a rust-stained oil painting of the city's founding, its river rendered in flaking blue. The sole burst of colour came from the potted orchid he had set on the windowsill, petals of insolent violet glowing against the grey backdrop like a promise no one could break.
"Mr Mayor," said Meilin, his aide, gliding into the room with a tablet hugged to her peach-silk blouse. A hint of citrus perfume followed her. "The provincial delegation's train has been delayed again."
Kai arched an eyebrow, unsurprised. "And the water main on South Hill?"
"Still burst. Third day running. The old pipes are crumbling faster than we can patch them."
He let out a slow breath and rested his fingers on the desk's edge, feeling the worn grain beneath the varnish. His knuckles whitened. The same faulty pressure had scalded his mother's bathwater years ago, leaving her lungs scarred and her nights stitched with coughs. Today, his suit was dark navy, cut lean with quiet precision. Last year, he had sold his motorbike to pay for it; the consultants had insisted that image rules in politics. Even so, a tie had not touched his collar since the inauguration.
"Tell Xu from Works to divert the flow along Ridge Avenue, even if it's only a stop-gap. Then ring Mr Chang at the East Temple. We'll need volunteers for hot meals and water."
Meilin's lashes fluttered. "You reckon they'll come back? After the backlash?"
"They always do," he answered softly. "If they don't, no one will."
From the tall window, he watched the old garden square, now half-strangled by vines. Once it had been the pride of the city, a place where cherry blossoms snowed pink petals every spring. A rusted civic billboard still clung to its fence: NEW URBAN HAVEN in flaking vermilion, the slogan half-spray-painted over with the words Never Heaven. His mother's laughter had echoed there while he chased kites between statues and koi ponds, before the factories shuttered and hope was rationed like bread.
Yet Lin Kai was not here to reminisce. He was here to rebuild, stone by stone, breath by breath. Population down forty-three percent in a decade, tax base down sixty-eight; the numbers ticked behind his eyes like a metronome he could not silence. Water, Jobs, Trust. Break any one and the city bleeds out.
Even if the effort burned him down to cinders.