From Love in the New Millennium, a novel that was published this month by Yale University Press. Can Xue is the pseudonym of Deng Xiaohua, who previously worked as a tailor. Her novel Frontier was published last year by Open Letter Books. Translated from the Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen.

Xiao Yuan had left her teaching post many years before. Her current job was somewhere between administration and operations. Concretely, that meant business trips to other regions made up her main responsibility.

Xiao Yuan met Dr. Liu while traveling for work. Dr. Liu, who had opened a Chinese medicine…