Writer Yang Fei captures the suffocating yet familiar patterns of domestic life in this enigmatic tale
Author: Yang Fei 杨斐
Born in 1994, Yang Fei has a BA in literature from Sichuan University. She started writing in college. Her short story “Van Gogh’s Ear” won second place in the fiction category at the Sixth Global Chinese Youth Literature Award in 2017. Her work has been published in Shanghai Literature, Youth, Young Writers, West, and other literary magazines, as well as on Douban.com.
1.
The three of us ambled in the cold wind by the river, circling this unfinished residential complex.
Our minds were still in a trance, I knew that; we might all have known that. We talked aimlessly as we walked out of the sales office. Within a few minutes, we came across a gas station on the corner. Its red-and-yellow paint shocked us so that nobody spoke for a moment.
I lay awake almost all night, and thought of many things.
Fiction: Our Family Secret is a story from our issue, “Wild Rides.” To read the entire issue, become a subscriber and receive the full magazine. Alternatively, you can purchase the digital version from the App Store.
Yang Fei is a contributing writer at The World of Chinese.
