Zhong Wanbing- Xia Qingzi - The Crow- The Tiger... -

Zhong shoots the lock off the cage. He does not shoot the Striped Mother. He walks away.

The dynamic between Zhong and Qingzi is not romantic in the traditional sense. He is 47; she is 24. He smells of gunpowder and mothballs; she smells of osmanthus. In the novel’s most famous (and fictionalized) scene, they sit in a bombed-out zoo. The only surviving animal is a malnourished tiger in a moat. Zhong Wanbing- Xia Qingzi - THE CROW- THE TIGER...

His world is one of concrete overpasses and rain that tastes of lithium. For ten years, he has lived in a state of watchful silence. He does not speak; he observes. This is the first law of the Crow: To see is to possess. Zhong shoots the lock off the cage

The tiger stops. It does not attack. Here is where Zhong Wanbing & Xia Qingzi subverts every expectation. The dynamic between Zhong and Qingzi is not