This is the third chapter of "Directions," the sequel to "Beliefs." Earlier chapters can be found here.

Lovely, lovely banner by roc_abs. Beta brilliance by testdog65. Comma -- or, in this case, hyphen -- fine-tuning by vlredreign. And help with Chinese proper names and language in this and subsequent chapters by the very gracious cryforwhat. Thank you all!

And thank you also to each of you for reading and letting me know you're enjoying the story -- I truly appreciate your comments, and they keep me writing!

( Directions, Chapter 3, by Xie... )