The morning smells like freshness, another metro ride, and new beginnings. Music plays in her headphones the kind hundreds dreamt of dancing to onstage. But today they chose her. A contract, a new place to live and a path into the agency where dance becomes a show. The doors of the practice hall are slightly open and beyond them, not a stage, but a dance. Precise, graceful, almost unreal. Li Qiao can’t look away. She wants to know who that girl is. But her question is met with silence.