My dao to eternity

He learned his neighbors' names before he ever spoke to them directly, the way he learned most things about the people around him — through overheard fragments, a name called across a shared wall, the particular rhythm of comings and goings that told him more about a household than any introduction could have.

The family occupying the courtyard directly east of his own was small — a husband, a wife, a single daughter, and a large black dog that announced itself well before any of the humans did. Li Fan had heard the dog first, three nights after moving in, a low, steady bark answered by a man's voice telling it to settle, and had filed the sound away without particular interest. It was only over the following weeks, as the household's pattern became familiar through nothing more than proximity, that the shape of who actually lived there began to resolve.