Her room above the kitchen was unlocked. She pushed the door open. A strong mixed smell of rotten potatoes, deposited dust, cockroach shit and decayed rat, welcomed her so warmly she had to sneeze then block her nose. There was only a bed, a desk and two layered wooden cases. Mei unavoidably stepped on some of the potatoes spread all over the floor. Being afraid of cockroaches and mice, she tiptoed to the middle and leaned against the high wooden edge of the bed. There she saw the walls were unchanged with the same girly decorations of some old photos, random pictures, yellowed newspapers, absurd posters of superstars, funny covers of textbooks and interesting doodles in charcoal. On the desk, there were two piles of books, notebooks, soft exercise books, and a strange collection of crystal rocks in diff erent shapes. The two cases were beneath a closed window, a corner of the lower one looked as if it had been nibbled by mice. They looked permanently immobile. The window, which had six tiny panes of glass, was wildly webbed by spiders. Looking through the window, there was nothing but a dead wall.