Li Yuan is a modest eating place in Chungking Mansions where Kaja Solness locates Harry Hole after travelling to Hong Kong to find him. First a lead in her search, it becomes the place where she sees him, follows him, and later shares a late-night meal with him. The small restaurant’s food and open shutters give this encounter a practical, everyday setting: the pursuit of a missing man begins and ends, for the moment, around a table.

Setting and Character

Li Yuan is described as a counter, four plastic tables, and a Chinese man who smiles encouragingly at Kaja. Its furnishings make it a compact, functional stop rather than a grand or private setting. The scene’s details are plain and specific: fried rice, coffee, water, a greasy tabletop, and blue-white fluorescent tubes overhead. The restaurant’s modest scale also places Kaja close to the people and movements she is watching; she can wait, observe, and recognize Harry without calling attention to herself.

Its position within Chungking Mansions matters to the search. A man tells Kaja that he has seen Harry there twice, eating cheap rice, and warns her that Harry is in serious trouble. The information turns Li Yuan from an anonymous eatery into a location to which Kaja can return and keep watch. Her mission is still indirect: she has not yet introduced herself, and she wants first to discover where Harry lives.

Kaja’s Wait and the Sighting

Kaja’s surveillance stretches across six hours. During that time she eats two portions of fried rice, drinks three coffees and two litres of water, then wakes with her head against the greasy table. The Chinese man asks whether she is tired, and she orders a fourth coffee before continuing to wait. Her body has become stiff and painful after the long journey from Norway and the hours of sitting; she shifts her posture and moves her head to ease the discomfort. The stakeout is therefore not presented as effortless detective work. Its duration is registered through bodily fatigue, repeated drinks, and the effort required simply to remain alert.

When Kaja sees Harry, she recognizes him despite the difference between the gaunt man in front of her and the broader figure she remembers from photographs and a television talk show. His close-cropped, angular head, distinctive nose, fine red veins in his eyes, and alcohol-clouded pale-blue irises confirm his identity. The description makes recognition a matter of physical particulars rather than resemblance to an idealized image. Harry scans the restaurant, notices two Chinese men at the counter, and hurries on; Kaja rises, but her leg has gone numb and gives way. She takes her bag and limps after him, turning the hours of stillness into an awkward, urgent pursuit.

From Restaurant to Street

Harry leaves the restaurant and moves through the crowd on Nathan Road. Kaja follows the back of his leather jacket, nearly running to keep pace even though he is not walking quickly. When he turns from the busy shopping street into the quieter Melden Row, she increases the distance between them. The change of streets changes her method: she could approach and introduce herself, but instead keeps to her plan of finding out where he lives first. Li Yuan thus marks the transition from waiting for a lead to actively tailing its subject, while the nearby streets extend the search beyond the restaurant’s small interior.

Harry’s Return and the Shared Meal

Later, at half past two in the morning, the shutters are down over the shops and snack bars in Chungking, but Li Yuan remains open. Harry slips on flip-flops, lights a cigarette, and quietly says it is time to eat. At the restaurant, he shovels glossy glass noodles from a white bowl into his mouth with little elegance but obvious efficiency. The late hour and the closed businesses around it make Li Yuan a continuing point of access in the neighborhood: even when the surrounding food outlets are shut, this one is available to Harry and Kaja.

Over the meal, Kaja asks how Harry reached Hong Kong. He says he flew, asks whether she is cold, and describes being farther from Norway as an improvement. Kaja has read the Schneemann file, so her question about opium is direct rather than casual small talk; she knows she must set aside her usual reserve if she is to complete the purpose of her visit. Harry, meanwhile, points with his chopsticks to the bowl and treats Li Yuan’s glass noodles as a reason to seek local citizenship. The exchange ties the restaurant’s food to their conversation about distance and opium without resolving the questions Kaja has come to pursue. Li Yuan serves as more than a marker on her route: it gives the two characters a shared table at which her investigation can move from observation toward questioning.