The subway carried us back into Chengdu.

We passed beneath a carved wooden gate and into a narrow alley where scooters threaded between pedestrians and women sat beside buckets of turtles. They lifted them toward us as we passed.

Dani blushed and waived her hand away. Then we kept our eyes forward until an opening appeared in the wall.

Inside, the city disappeared.

The first courtyard opened through a round moon gate. Smoke drifted beneath dark timber roofs. Somewhere a bell rang once.

We wandered through.

A round doorway.

A courtyard.

A hall filled with incense.

A Buddha surrounded by bowls of fruit and folded silk.

The next temple began almost before the first one had ended.

Another gate.

Another courtyard.

Another roof curling toward the sky.

A bronze goat stood near the entrance. Farther inside another animal waited, stitched together from horns, claws, scales, and hooves.

I only read about it after.

The last courtyard opened unexpectedly into a tea garden.

Mahjong players cracked tiles against wooden tables.

Steam drifted from clay teapots.

Hundreds of people sat talking beneath old trees.

There were empty seats waiting for us.

Dani looked at them, then at her map.

“If we sit down…”

She didn’t need to finish.

We kept walking instead.

~

The museum entrance was not where we expected it. Instead of doors we found loading docks, hanging plastic strips, and an open service dock.

We stepped through before two guards hurried toward us, smiling apologetically as they waved us back.

One walked us to the proper entrance.

We showered our passports, then an escalator took us to an open atrium where we entered the galleries in order.

Pottery.

Bronze.

Stone.

Silk.

Room after room.

The building stood almost empty. We rarely saw another visitor. Every time we entered a gallery, lights blinked on ahead of us. When we left, they faded behind us.

We kept walking, following the stairs downward.

The galleries eventually gave way to loading docks and restrooms.

Outside the hanging plastic strips stood the same security guards who had caught us wandering in through the back.

We found a bench.

I opened our map. Two historic neighborhoods remained.

This time, Dani folded it shut.