I met Mr. Dong in the underpass at Xi'an's South Gate. Seven in the evening, July 30.

He sat on the ground with a guitar and sang Xu Wei's Once You, very softly.

Seven was a busy hour at the South Gate. Pedestrians hurried past. They were going upstairs to breathe fresh air and see the imitation antique lanterns and the lights of ten thousand homes. Mr. Dong remained below with his head lowered, like a pebble on a riverbed, mud at the bottom of a well.

He wore a black cap whose brim hid his face. The crowd surged and bustled, and he did not care. He had a guitar case scattered with small paper bills from passersby.

I arrived in Xi'an on July 30 and first passed through the South Gate underpass at seven that evening.

"That's Xu Wei," I told H, who was traveling with me. "But he's singing far too quietly."

Even so, as I passed, I turned and placed one yuan on his guitar case, like all the other strangers meeting only by chance.

I did not yet know his surname was Dong. He told me three days later, when I sat down beside him.

Even today, more than a month later, as I sit on a train to Shenzhen, Mr. Dong's appearance remains printed clearly in my mind.

His skin was dark, with a mole on one cheek. The darkness of his face made his teeth look whiter. His open smile reminded me of a Darlie toothpaste commercial.

Mr. Dong stayed with me. He gave the dull, ordinary Xi'an in my memory a little rebellion and a cry.

White teeth in the night.

Ah, Xi'an. The moment I left the railway station, I knew it would be exactly the city I expected: a vendor snickering inside the mink coat of history, a ruin built upon ruins.

Private tour vans parked every which way, unlicensed drivers smoking, an ancient city wall made new, and mass-produced miniature terracotta warriors all reminded me that Xi'an was like every other city I knew. It wore the makeup of a golden age and lived in a dream.

History was a dying monkey in an exhibition hall, opening the wrinkles on its forehead to beg for coins and applause.

Why did we always carry the dream of a golden age?

As a child, I read history in picture books. The Eastern Han marching against the Xiongnu, the great Tang pacifying all under heaven—I could hardly contain my excitement. Beneath my desk, I copied the scenes and drew wars that had never happened.

Rows of identical soldiers carried shields and swords. A general charged ahead on horseback, commanding them to sharpen their blades against Xiongnu barbarians in sheepskin carrying curved sabers.

To my childhood self, history meant conquering or being conquered. I was the fierce soldier on the conquering side, impatient to complete history's appointed mission.

Later, a teacher told me that our people, the great Han people, had once conquered half a continent and received tribute from ten thousand nations. Our mission today was to restore China.

In the museum, I saw five cheerful sancai figurines of performers. Born in the great Tang, they were vivid and carefree.

Why had history chosen to remember their joyful faces, while everyone else was dismissed with a passing smile?

The galleries also held a consort's golden hairpin. It gleamed as if it had fallen from a beauty's hair yesterday.

Perhaps a hundred years from now, I thought, my belt might accidentally appear in a museum, beside shattered glass from Lujiazui and blackened coins from Sanlitun.

Another idiot's dream.

Like the consort's ornament, only the gold bricks of the rich remain. The rest of us rot in the earth with the multitude, above ruins and beneath broken walls, sprouting and dying with nameless grass.

"Ten yuan? Ten yuan has to be all right!" the unlicensed driver called after us.

We had gotten out near the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang and followed the crowd. The driver had identified H and me as students and pursued us no matter how quickly we walked.

"Wait! Let me explain!" He jogged ahead and pulled a crumpled card from his pocket, like a one-yuan note in a vegetable market.

"The Qin Shi Huang mausoleum has three attractions. The public bus takes you only to Number Three. Numbers One and Two are far from here, and the roadworks make it worse. I'll drive you straight to the ticket office. Ten yuan each—is that still too much? What's that beside the ticket price?"

If it was only ten yuan, we might as well go.

The driver said they were locals from nearby Qinyong Village. Transport was inconvenient, which made it a business opportunity. Every man in the village did the same work.

By the time we got into his car, he had completed three fares that day. Usually, he made around a hundred yuan, about the same as factory work but much easier. Once the high season passed, he would return home and run a farmhouse restaurant.

This place did not produce only terracotta warriors, he added. It also produced Lantian jade.

What he did not tell us was that attractions One and Two were not genuine sites.

Only after entering Number One did we discover that the so-called underground palace of Qin Shi Huang was merely a long, deliberately mysterious tunnel containing a hollow imitation tomb. To offer tourists a glimpse of a bad counterfeit emperor's corpse, the attraction had even opened the coffin.

Tourists packed around the grave while guides shouted, "Follow me!"

Many threw coins inside, as though today's offering might accidentally awaken an ancient spell and bring down a mysterious blessing tomorrow.

At the exit, the guide told us it was a reconstruction. The real mausoleum could still be explored only through remote sensing.

Tourists cried out, feeling cheated. I looked back. Those inside who had not heard were still pointing and discussing.

A few months later, workers would jump into the grave and sweep the coins into a pile. They would carry away the dirty old Qin Shi Huang and replace him with a new one.

A truck would take the old emperor to a rubbish tip several kilometers away. Still posed in peaceful sleep, he would reign over hills of fast-food cartons and plastic bags.

"We're not going to Number Two, since none of it is real," we told the driver when we returned. "We'll still pay the ten yuan."

"All right," he said. "But you definitely want to learn about Lantian jade."

"Not this time. Next time."

"It's part of our promotional assignment. We have to go."

"You didn't say that when we got in."

"I asked only ten yuan to begin with. Help me out. I'm begging you. Five minutes. Walk in, look around, and come straight back out."

Of course we went.

The Lantian Jade Museum was exactly like the underground palace, probably supplied by the same building contractor. Rooms twisted endlessly. Every usable space had become a counter.

A woman welcomed us with a smile at each one. Their uniforms were identical, and so were their smiles.

As we approached:

"Take something home for your family."

After we passed:

"If you have no money, don't travel."

Perhaps the palace women buried in the mausoleum had been like them: unable to see daylight or hope. Some force drove them. Anxiety filled them, but they could only bow and comply.

Outside, their sharp voices vanished. In the street, I saw a couple kissing, holding each other and exchanging sweet words.

"See? I told you it would be quick," the driver said.

"Once we complete the assignment, they give us two parking vouchers. If we reach a quota for the month, they also give us a container of oil and a sack of rice."

After dropping us at attraction Number Three, he drove away.

Perhaps he would complete another fare that day. At the end of the month, perhaps he would happily carry home a container of oil and a sack of rice. His wife would embrace him. His children would sit obediently at the table.

Number Three held the genuine pits, thoroughly developed now. A lively commercial pedestrian street had even risen alongside, with a two-story KFC and McDonald's.

People streamed beside the pits. Guides held flags high so their tourists would not become lost, though a few always stayed behind for more photographs.

In a corner, a bearded vendor called out miniature terracotta warriors.

"Ten yuan each!"

"Five!"

"Ten yuan, no bargaining!"

A horse with a broken leg lay in the pit. Qin soldiers stood without heads.

Beside these guards ruined and disfigured by time, I felt more like the cheap imitations in the corner: whole but vacant-eyed, glossy and without a soul.

Five yuan. Ten yuan. Five yuan. Ten yuan.

In the cries of the vendors, I was reborn.

When Mr. Dong looked up to say thank you, I finally saw his eyes.

Clear. Awake.

"Can you sing An Unforgettable Day?"

He smiled.

"You like Xu Wei too?"

"Yes. An Unforgettable Day is my favorite."

When he began the introduction, I sat down beside him.

He wore black. His arms were lean and rough, the veins clear like lightning in rain. Threads had come loose from his guitar and were crawling outward like vines. One day, they would cover the tunnel.

Halfway through, he scratched his face in embarrassment.

"I haven't listened to it much. I may not sing it well."

"Keep going. Keep going. It's already wonderful."

The world became new when I sat down. The hurried pedestrians looked like rhinoceroses going to water. The tunnel was no longer a long, narrow, middle-aged intestine. It became a secret desert.

A secret desert without sun.

At seven on the evening of July 30, I saw Mr. Dong for the first time. He was singing Once You.

On the thirty-first, I saw him again. He sang Love, much better than the first time.

On August 1, I found him in the tunnel singing Time, just as well.

Our eyes met briefly as I passed, but I looked away.

At noon on August 2, he was still there, singing Story. I thought he must never rest, day or night. To avoid an awkward scene, I walked quickly past.

At the end of the passage, pedestrians hurried upstairs as sunlight poured straight down. I turned back.

He had lowered his head over the guitar, the cap hiding his face.

Suddenly, I wanted to speak with him.

When he finished the song, I turned around and placed three yuan on his guitar case. He looked up and thanked me.

"Can you sing An Unforgettable Day?"

Mr. Dong was thirty and came from Ankang, Shaanxi. He lived near the underpass and worked from ten in the morning until eight at night. Originally, three friends took shifts. Today, he was alone.

He had been here for a year. This was his profession. He would keep singing here, he said, for several more years.

"What's romantic about singing? Everyone who comes here is forced by the need to survive."

But he would not sing in a bar or work in a factory. Here he was free. He liked it. He was happy.

He sang Xu Wei only because Xu Wei's songs were easy. Yet even Xu Wei no longer had good songs.

China might never produce another good song, he said.

"Why?"

"Because there is no suffering."

He stressed it again.

"Suffering."

Ancient city wall. Golden hairpin. Lantian jade. Terracotta warriors. Ten yuan. A container of oil and a sack of rice.

"Unless another war comes and everything returns to the beginning, there will never be good work again."

"Do you write songs?"

He did. He wrote every day after returning home.

But he could not write a good one.

"Aren't you afraid your talent will be buried here?"

"Very few people have talent. I don't."

"What do you plan for the future?"

"Keep singing. Keep begging."

"Stay here?"

"Yes. Now, if you sing in a big city, even wandering musicians need a permit. Otherwise, the city officers drive you away."

"Are you lonely here?"

"Lonely. Of course. But you have to be lonely. And there's nothing to do about it."

I sat beside Mr. Dong for ten minutes or so. I asked; he answered.

His voice was friendly and firm, but every answer was bleak and self-mocking.

While I sat beside him, pedestrians looked at us as they passed. As though a wandering musician should never stop or talk. He should sing without pause, like a beckoning cat with its raised arm.

Like themselves.

Fortunately, none of them had time. There was still so much road beneath their feet.

During the rest of the journey, I met many people. None was as free as Mr. Dong.

Everyone was on the road, but he alone walked his own.

Before leaving, I asked his name.

"My surname is Dong."

"Dong as in Miss Dong?"

I meant it as a joke, but the moment I said it, we both felt awkward.

"I'll come see you again in a few days."

"All right."

When I returned, he was still there.

But I had to leave.

"Old Dong, I'm going. To Gansu."

"The Mogao Caves?"

"No. Lanzhou and Huining."

"Have a safe journey."

"Goodbye."

No unnecessary words. I walked upstairs.

The air was fresh. Ten thousand homes shone.

Bars beside the city wall dazzled, and imitation antique lanterns filled the streets. Xi'an had just entered the night.

Night swallowed the lights. Swallowed the earth. Swallowed the ruins. Swallowed the ruins to come. Swallowed the song. Swallowed the people of past and future, living and dead.