On the night of the meetup, she finally laid her …

Ye Qian crouched at the airport arrivals gate and smoked half a pack of cigarettes. On his phone screen was the profile picture he’d been chatting with for three months online—a Black girl with honey-toned skin and colorful thread woven through her braids, her smile like the Caribbean sun. In the flesh, she stood a full head taller than him, striding toward him wrapped in nothing but a thin silk dressing gown, her hips swaying in a way that dimmed the whole neon-lit street. Her name was Evelyn, a model from Jamaica. Forty-two years old, never been in love, and she had sunk her entire life savings into this trip to China. Ye Qian had no idea what she was really after, only that from the very first second they met, this real-life encounter was destined to end in anything but calm.