Finally, after more than half the journey, the train re-entered the civilized world: farms and small towns dotted the endless plains, stations were built neat and tall, and boarding passengers were better dressed with more “refined” accents. They changed trains once in Chicago, then slowly headed toward New England.

In a small town called Springfield in Massachusetts, the group got off with their large and small bags, ending their eight-day transcontinental train journey—including delays due to bandits, tornadoes, and boiler failures.

This was where Rong Hong had lived during his studies in America. Several people were already waiting at the station: his former friends, teachers, and the hostess of his boarding family, now a white-haired old lady.

“Reverend Twichell! Dr. McLean! Mrs. Bartlett! You’re still so young…”

Rong Hong was moved to tears, dropped his luggage, ran over like a young man with vigorous steps, embracing and greeting each of them.

After years of struggling in Chinese officialdom, he had developed a practiced official manner, but now he suddenly seemed like a different person, talking and laughing as easily and naturally as an American, as if he had become twenty years younger.

The others curiously surveyed this exquisite small station: pointed roofs, brick and wood alternating porches, neat shrubs planted on the ground. There was a fireplace in the waiting room…

A special bulletin board was covered with dense train schedules and various promotional materials. From campaigns for city council to welcome discount menus for a newly opened French restaurant, to citizens’ missing dog notices, and a city government announcement notifying residents that respectable Chinese guests would be staying and asking for a friendly reception; and also…

“Mark Twain’s lecture tour and new book reading!” Lin Yuchan excitedly rushed over to read. “Tonight at City Hall… oh, tickets are sold out.”

She turned around, disappointed, about to bend down when Su Minguan had already picked up her large luggage, giving her a warning look.

Lin Yuchan defiantly rolled her eyes at him, but still pretended to carry a small bag. When crossing a railway track, she deliberately jumped over it.

She was glad her pregnancy was in easy mode, not like TV drama heroines who vomited up everything they ate, just feeling nauseous a few times daily with poor appetite, so much so that she hadn’t gained weight but had lost a little. But after months of travel fatigue, no one in the travel group had gained weight, so it didn’t attract attention.

Now her appetite was gradually returning, and her lower abdomen was beginning to feel tight. Though it didn’t show externally, she could feel that some major construction project was taking root in her entire bodily system.

She thought she could hide it for at most two or three more months. People would find out eventually.

Fortunately, she was in America, where no one would arrest her for pig cage drowning or kneeling in ancestral halls; except for Rong Hong, the other officials all assumed Su Minguan was her legal husband and probably wouldn’t say much, at most thinking privately that they were too showy and lacked restraint…

The key was not to interfere with proper business. She couldn’t let Chen Lanbin and others lose confidence in her female study abroad program.

If there were even half a critical sentence about her project in reports sent back home, everything would be ruined.

This year had to start with success, then there could be next year, next time.

The group walked out of the station and was warmly welcomed by townspeople as usual.

Not just townspeople. Some had even specially taken carriages from neighboring villages to see the novelty.

Some older people among them might have seen Rong Hong over twenty years ago, then still a shy, bashful Chinese boy who would sometimes shyly buy newspapers on the street. The rest were seeing black-haired, black-eyed Chinese people for the first time, happily crowding forward and whistling chaotically.

The quiet New England rural life was bland, but today was the freshest and exciting.

The children were used to being watched and no longer had that bewildered look from the first day, walking calmly and confidently. Lin Feilun grinned showing two small canine teeth, even waving to the American crowd, very much like a star.

Rong Hong, returning to his second homeland, felt like returning home in glory, tearfully introducing the children: this restaurant had once given him bread, the pastor in that church had given him clothes. Then he quietly pointed to that barbershop, saying there he had first decided to cut off his queue…

The crowd of onlookers suddenly had a small commotion. Several Black people ignored segregation, pushing and shoving to the front, causing complaints.

“Chinese people are here! Chinese people are here! Boys, take a good look, these are the Chinese people who got your mama here!” A tall, strong Black woman pushed through the crowd, speaking in a crude Southern accent with a loud voice. “Make way, make way, have you been to China? I have! Everyone there looks like this! Make way, ladies and gentlemen! I need to let my boys see Chinese people!”

Lin Yuchan heard this voice and suddenly turned back, stunned on the spot.

She knew this woman!

—What was her name again?

“Freeman!” A long-forgotten name suddenly rushed to her tongue, flashing through her mind the heavy snow in Hankou. “Fu Liman! Is that you?—Ahh!”

Before she finished speaking, the world spun as Christmas Freeman charged into the delegation group, scooped her up, and lifted her high overhead.

“Ahahaha, God bless, who do I see?”

Screams erupted around them as Su Minguan immediately rushed to rescue her. A policeman loudly warned her to put the person down and pushed her back.

Christmas hurriedly explained, “I know this young lady! Hell, when I was working like a beast for those Southerners, she found the consul and bought me a ticket, set me free! I escaped from Alabama, carried guns, killed Southern soldiers, and transported flour for General McClellan’s troops! Let me go!”

Lin Yuchan was rescued by everyone’s combined efforts, stood dazed for a while, then quickly nodded, corroborating Christmas’s story.

“Yes… An old friend from many years ago. She’s too excited, she doesn’t mean to hurt me.”

Post-war New England had a small number of Black residents. The town’s white residents were mostly emerging bourgeoisie who detested slavery. Although they also discriminated against Black people and lived separately from them, when they heard this foul-mouthed Black woman was a slave who had escaped during the Civil War and served in the military with distinction, they all looked at her with new respect and very politically correctly cheered.

Christmas held a teenage Black child in each hand, walking proudly with the delegation group, chattering endlessly to catch up with Lin Yuchan.

After settling in the North, she told everyone she met that she had been to China and left the slave master there. Neighbors didn’t believe her, making her so angry that her chest hurt. Recently learning that a Chinese delegation was visiting Springfield, she had specifically walked half a day bringing her children to watch the excitement, just to proclaim to the world: I’m well-traveled, seeing Chinese people is nothing new to me!

Unexpectedly seeing an old friend in the group was a pleasant surprise.

Of course, wages were still not as good as white workers, and in her spare time, she could only go to Black-only churches, shops, and barbershops, sometimes getting eye-rolls when walking on the street. But compared to her previous slave life, it was like heaven and earth.

At least no one would whip her for one mistake, and she didn’t have to worry about waking up to find her sons and daughters sold to another plantation. The only regret was not finding her husband, but for Black slaves, family separation was nothing unusual.

The money she earned, she could save for herself. At first, she was obsessed with repaying Lin Yuchan for the boat ticket, found a Black sailor, but discovered the dollars she sent never reached Lin Yuchan and were pocketed by that person. Christmas beat up that person and never dared send things randomly again.

She accompanied them to the hotel before reluctantly bidding farewell to Lin Yuchan: “I’m now helping at Kai Luoke’s farm! My two boys also work there! Come drink tea with me when you have time!”

Then she very familiarly greeted the Black cleaning lady in the hotel: “Take care of these Chinese girls! Don’t let little rascals take advantage of them!”

The Black lady laughed in agreement. Lin Yuchan discovered with interest that the minority Black population here formed an extremely cohesive ethnic group. Skin color was a passport, with everyone unconditionally helping each other.

Rong Hong had already written to familiar friends and the Yale University president, arranging host families and preparatory schools for the students, promising room and board subsidies and full tuition.

Many loving middle-class families expressed willingness to take in Chinese children, with lists and addresses to be delivered in a couple of days.

The children immediately fell asleep in all directions. Travel by land and water had different kinds of exhaustion. Although it was hard on the ship, at least each day was boring with sufficient sleep; the train had jolted for seven or eight days with daily fresh sights they couldn’t see enough of; after the excitement came accumulated fatigue, and they couldn’t be awakened even when called.

Minister Chen Lanbin had initially arranged to visit Springfield local officials at City Hall, looking for rentable office residences. But halfway through changing his official robes, he also collapsed on the bed and couldn’t be roused. Finally the hotel was filled with snoring.

The Black cleaning lady pushed in quietly, tiptoeing to wipe shoe prints from the floor and covering each child with a blanket.

The Qing Dynasty’s first overseas student delegation was truly settled now.

Lin Yuchan only napped for an hour before energetically getting up.

First, she wrote letters to family and friends back home reporting safety, to be sent later through the legation. Then she excitedly coordinated outfits.

Su Minguan was half asleep, gripping her arm and not letting go.

“That celebrity lecture?” He guessed what she couldn’t let go of, with a slightly wheedling nasal tone. “Didn’t you say tickets were sold out? Better not to go. Besides, he’s not some important person.”

Lin Yuchan was delighted. This person was so ignorant that he didn’t even know Mark Twain!

She pulled out the bestselling book he had bought to pass the time, “The Innocents Abroad,” pointing to the large author name “Mark Twain” printed on it, laughing: “If we’re lucky, maybe we can get an autograph after the show.”

Su Minguan: “…”

He wasn’t very sensitive to Western names, especially those with no financial competitive relationship to him.

Lin Yuchan: “I’ll go out and wander by myself, you keep resting.”

Su Minguan silently got up and dressed, combing his hair.

That looks clearly said: don’t even think about sneaking out alone.

“I… I also need to go out for a haircut.”

Lin Yuchan tilted her head to look at him, propping her chin and laughing.

To distance himself as much as possible from the wanted criminal in the portraits, Su Minguan had long ago cut off his queue, pretending to be an overseas Chinese who had always kept short hair. It started as a crew cut, like a just-retired special forces soldier, with short, prickly stubble that was clean and neat, revealing a well-shaped back of the head. Then it gradually grew longer, beginning to cover a little of his forehead, with sideburn wisps that could be tucked behind his ears. So Lin Yuchan used a comb to part it 7:3, used a little hair wax for styling, suddenly bringing out the three-dimensional quality of his features. If lit with textured lighting, he’d have the brooding, wealthy young master air of Republic-era dramas.

But today, getting off the train, he still wore a hat. Because the hair length was awkward. In Lin Yuchan’s aesthetic judgment, unless he planned to go for an artistic decadent look, he should still trim it a bit.

“The barbershop Mr. Rong recommended where he cut his queue,” she actively gave directions, “right across from City Hall.”

Each having things to do, they happily set off hand in hand.

First to the barbershop. Western men’s hairstyles weren’t fancy in this era, not much different from a hundred years later. Lin Yuchan looked at the barber and laughed: “Just cut it similar to yours.”

The old barber was the same one who had cut Rong Hong’s queue years ago. Hearing this, he laughed: “Guarantee it’ll look more handsome than me. Come on, young man, sit inside.”

Su Minguan was still a bit hesitant, but Lin Yuchan laughingly pushed him into the chair.

“Don’t worry.” She said in his ear, “I’ll love you no matter how it’s cut.”

His ears reddened slightly as he vigilantly watched the barber’s scissors in the mirror.

There was another apprentice in the shop giving someone a shave. Hearing the conversation, the customer being shaved turned back.

“Hey, Sam!”

It was Sam, their fellow passenger from the journey, who had also gotten off at this station. Lin Yuchan had only paid attention to the students when getting off and hadn’t noticed other people.

Sam wore a white suit with half his beard disheveled, thanking her: “Thanks to you and your female students for taking care of little Susy all the way, making our train journey less frightening. Otherwise, Olivia probably wouldn’t want to have a second child with me.”

The barbershop staff collectively fell silent.

The shaving apprentice made conversation: “Are you from out of town?”

“We’re considering settling here, or in nearby towns, like Hartford or something.” Sam nodded. “But you’re right, this is indeed my first time here today.”

“Springfield isn’t big, but it has many cultural activities.” The apprentice proudly praised his hometown. “See that poster? Later, the great writer Mark Twain will lecture at City Hall. Your luck is really good.”

Sam: “Hmmm, will you go?”

“Of course. Already had someone book tickets.” The apprentice said. “But today’s tickets are sold out. If you want to go, you’ll probably have to stand.”

“Ah, born at the wrong time.” Sam disappointedly shook his head, twirling his newly trimmed handlebar mustache. “Every time I encounter his lectures, I always have to stand.”

The apprentice had no response and could only chuckle.

But Lin Yuchan’s heart tightened. Sam’s conversation-killing trump card tone vaguely reminded her of someone…

Sam stood up, arranging his beard in the mirror, pacing toward the door.

“Ah, dear Chinese lady.” As he passed Lin Yuchan, he suddenly seriously requested: “I heard you’re looking for host families for those female students… You know, Livy’s health isn’t very good… may I presumptuously apply? As long as it helps care for little Susy, two, three, four—my wife and I are willing to host… our financial situation is fine, we don’t need room and board subsidies…”

Lin Yuchan’s first reaction was delighted surprise. The female student abroad was entirely self-funded; if she could save several people’s room and board subsidies, it would save her a large sum. The Sam couple were middle class and, roughly speaking, seemed well-mannered.

But she didn’t nod, looking up to study Sam, slowly taking “The Innocents Abroad” from Su Minguan’s side.

“Yes.” Her ears reddened slightly, heart beat fast from nervousness. “But in exchange, if you’re going to stand and attend Mark Twain’s lecture, could you help me get an author’s autograph?”

“Again with this silly damn book?”

Sam looked at her slyly, took the book, disdainfully flipped through a few pages, nodded, walked to the barbershop counter, found a fountain pen, and began scribbling on the title page.

The nosy apprentice got anxious: “Sir, this lady asked you to…”

“Hell, I’m going to be late!”

Sam suddenly looked up at the clock, dropped the book, hurriedly ran out of the barbershop, cursing all the way, heading straight for City Hall across the street.

Lin Yuchan’s inner prairie dog screamed as she slowly opened the title page to see a flamboyant signature and a message left for her by the young writer Samuel Clemens, pen name Mark Twain.

“Only fools read this book.”