On the willows there, we hung up our lyres

"On my world, in times of extreme starvation, the son may give his flesh to the father, and it is considered desperate but filial--the highest form of gratitude to one's parents," says Xie Lian. "That's not the situation in Ghost City, of course. But there I think it is lost among many other sins." He smiles a little, nostalgic. "There is a house where one gambles with things dear to one--a year of one's life, a limb, a child--for what one most desires."