The room was still, the only sound the faint groan of the courtyard gate as a neighbor came and went. Li Ming sat cross-legged on the narrow bed, Zhao Yunsheng's trunk pulled open before him. If he was to move forward, he needed to understand exactly what the boy had left behind.
Shirts patched at the elbows, trousers stiff with old sweat, a bundle of socks so thin they were more holes than cloth. Beneath them, a stack of newspapers folded into careful rectangles. He picked one up, the print yellowed and brittle: Shen Bao, May 1893, boasting of the Beiyang Fleet's strength. Another: September 1894, war dispatches from Korea. Then April 1895, the headline a wound in thick black ink — Treaty of Shimonoseki Signed.
At the very bottom, half-hidden under a loose scrap of cloth, lay a small diary. The leather cover was cracked, the binding nearly gone. Li Ming opened it with care. The handwriting was sharp, deliberate, the strokes pressed deep into the paper.
Entry — 2nd Month, 18th Day:Dock porter: 100 wenErrand for warehouse: 50 wenExpenses: rice 40 wen, lamp oil 20 wen, mother's medicine 60 wenRemaining: 30 wen
Entry — 3rd Month, 4th Day:Practiced English phrases."Sir, do you need coolie?""Boat ready, please pay.""Can carry for you."Still not smooth. Must try again with foreign sailors.
Page after page, the same rhythm: money earned, money spent, always short; scraps of English copied from newspapers; notes on which alleys might yield discarded books or which Russian exile might part with a manual for a few coins. Zhao Yunsheng had been clawing for a way up, but the ladder he built was made of splinters.
Li Ming closed the diary and drew a long breath. Then he opened it again to a fresh page. He picked up the stub of charcoal and, after a moment's pause, began to write — not in Chinese, but in Russian script, the curving letters coming back to him like muscle memory.
Дневник. Апрель 1895.
He had learned this language as a teenager in Beijing, when the shelves of his father's study were still lined with Soviet technical manuals — metallurgy, steam engines, chemicals — the only inheritance left after his father's death in a prison cell. To make sense of those books, Li Ming had begged lessons from an old technician who lived nearby, a retired Level-7 man who reeked of tobacco and loneliness. The Russian had once been a doorway into machines. Now it was his code, his shield, and his last link to his father.
He let the charcoal settle into a rhythm. This was not Yunsheng's world of dockside ledgers anymore. This was his record, his reckoning.
China, April 1895. The empire breathes, but shallowly.
At the heart of it sits the Qing throne: a boy-emperor too young to command and an empress dowager too unwilling to let go. Cixi rules behind silk screens, her word sharper than any saber. Around her, the Manchu princes cling to rituals like a drowning man to driftwood, feasting in palaces while provinces burn, believing that the rites of ancestors will hold back the tide of ironclad ships.
Li Hongzhang, once the proud architect of modern armies, staggers beneath the shame of defeat. The people curse his name, yet even broken, he still binds together arsenals, companies, and governors with the stubborn cords of old loyalty. Yuan Shikai waits in the shadows, his troops bloodied but intact, his ambition already whispering of futures larger than loyalty.
Beyond the walls of Beijing, the world's vultures circle. Britain, patient and calculating, stretches deeper into the Yangtze. Russia eyes the ice-free harbors of the north with the hunger of a winter-starved wolf. Germany lingers near Shandong, restless to plant its cross upon Chinese soil. France gnaws from the south. And Japan—oh, Japan—newly risen, lean with victory, already casting its gaze across seas and continents like a predator that has tasted blood and found it sweet.
Among the people, fire stirs. In teahouses and schools, reformists whisper that only by remaking the empire—by learning from the very foreigners who humiliated it—can China stand again. Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao: names not yet thunderous, but spreading like sparks on dry grass. Sun Yat-sen plots from abroad, dreaming of a China not ruled by emperors at all. In secret lodges and darkened temples, fists clench around rosaries and knives, muttering that only foreign blood can wash away humiliation.
This is the soil in which I now stand. Shattered, dangerous, alive.
He paused, the charcoal smudging his fingertips, his breath uneven. Then, slowly, he set down his resolve:
My path begins with China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company. Their ships thread every port, their telegraphs hum with news from every province. Through them, I can watch how the country breathes.
The charcoal scratched softly as he wrote, the Russian letters firm across the thin paper.
Save and prepare for October, when I will seek admission to Tianjin University. There, I must study Western science and technology — Yunsheng's dream and now my necessity.
Meet the pioneers of learning: reform-minded scholars, engineers, translators. Understand their ideas for change, how they hope to rescue the nation by knowledge instead of swords. Seek like-minded companions within the academy. Together, map what future might be possible after defeat.
And with whatever I earn, I must buy time for my family. Mother's medicine must not fail again. Meiling deserves a chance at learning, not a life bent over torn clothes. Even my younger brother — still a child — should one day read books instead of hauling burdens. Knowledge is worthless if those I love cannot survive to see it.
He let the charcoal rest. The words blurred for a moment as he stared at them, his father's face flickering in his memory — the way he had bent over his Russian manuals, lips moving silently as if every diagram was a secret key. Perhaps, in some way, this was continuing that broken line of study, but bent now toward survival.
Li Ming closed the diary and slid it under his thin pillow. Then he crouched near the window, pried up the loose floorboard, and retrieved the bundle wrapped in oilcloth. Five hundred taels of stolen silver. He held it in his hands, feeling its weight press into his palms like judgment. This silver could feed his family, could buy medicine, could secure new lodgings. But it was also a beacon — a signal to the smugglers he had crossed, to the warehouse managers who might already be whispering. Sooner or later, someone would come asking.
He rewrapped it tightly and tucked it under his arm. Decision made. They would have to move.
When he stepped into the courtyard, Meiling was sitting in the corner, her small frame hunched over a shirt, the needle flashing through fabric. She looked up quickly, eyes widening at the sight of him.
"Brother, you're awake."
"I've been awake," Li Ming said, crouching beside her. He spoke softly. "Listen, we can't stay here. It's not safe anymore."
She froze, the needle hovering in midair. "Not safe? What happened?"
"I've found an opportunity," he said quickly, choosing his words with care. "China Merchants Steam Navigation Company needs clerks. They're desperate after the war. If I can read their papers and handle foreign words, I can get in. But they won't take me seriously if I live in an alley like this. We need to move."
Meiling frowned, suspicion tugging at the corners of her mouth. "And where will we get the money for that? You've barely brought in enough for rice."
"I saved more than I told you," Li Ming lied smoothly. "The dock work, the errands, they paid better than I let on. I didn't want to give you false hope. But now — now there's a chance to rise. If I can join the company, earn properly, then in October I can go to Tianjin University. Once I'm there, I'll make sure you and our brother have chances to study too. Mother can have real medicine, not herbs from the back market."
Her needle trembled slightly in her fingers. She looked at him hard, as though trying to pierce through the mask. At last she set her sewing aside. "If you're lying, you'll drag us all down with you."
"I'm not lying," Li Ming said, holding her gaze. "This is the only way forward. Trust me."
Meiling lowered her eyes. "I'll speak to Mother."
That was enough. Li Ming stood, the silver heavy under his arm, and walked toward the courtyard gate.
When he stepped outside, Tianjin greeted him in full. The morning sun spilled across streets choked with motion — rickshaws rattling over stone, vendors crying out steamed buns and sesame cakes, children darting barefoot between wheels. The smell of coal smoke drifted from the foreign factories by the river, mingling with the stench of horse dung and frying oil. Down the avenue, he glimpsed a banner of the British flag fluttering above a warehouse, while a Manchu bannerman in faded silk leaned drunk against a tea stall. Missionaries in broad-brimmed hats hurried past, clutching books to their chests. A pair of Chinese students strode by, their heads bent together over a slim English primer.
It was all here — empire and ruin, ambition and humiliation — colliding in one restless city.
Li Ming tightened his jacket and stepped into the crowd. Each footfall carried the clink of hidden silver, the weight of choices he could no longer escape.