To prevent Chinese students studying in America from neglecting their Chinese studies, the imperial court mandated that at regular intervals, students must return to the Study Abroad Affairs Bureau to supplement their learning of the Four Books and Five Classics and take periodic exams. They also had to attend lectures on the “Sacred Edict of Kangxi,” teaching them to respect the emperor and superiors, strictly preventing students from forgetting their roots.

Additionally, female students had to supplement with courses on feminine virtue, receiving moral and social instruction.

The children sighed and groaned. They’d run to the other side of the earth and still couldn’t escape exams!

Holding food in their hands, they were reluctant to move, looking helplessly at Lin Yuchan for rescue.

Lin Yuchan had no solution either. After all, the imperial court was the financial backer. Though the girls were self-funded, they still benefited from the policy and couldn’t oppose the officials.

For the Qing government, its academic achievements were secondary. Traditional morality absolutely could not be lost. The Study Abroad Affairs Bureau’s regulations clearly stated that anyone showing signs of favoring foreigners and forgetting their origins would be immediately repatriated and banned from civil service for life.

Of course, Lin Yuchan also knew that as the children gradually became accustomed to American freedom and openness, these rigid teachings had less and less effect on them. History’s general direction wouldn’t be wrong. Though they were talents cultivated by the Qing government, many would later join the anti-Qing revolution and even Republican construction. The “Sacred Edict” was completely useless.

So just listen with one ear and let it out the other. Lin Yuchan quietly made an “in one ear, out the other” gesture, urging them upstairs. She also pointed to the fruit pudding on the small table, indicating she’d save it for them.

Only then did the children brighten slightly, each putting on scholarly airs and walking upstairs with measured steps.

Lin Yuchan remained downstairs, taking advantage of her remaining energy to actively socialize.

Those who came for New Year greetings were all local celebrities, including many successful businessmen.

Lin Yuchan had come to America at her own expense, and everything converted to dollars was hard to spend. She didn’t forget her main business, thinking that if she could land a few big deals, she’d at least earn back her travel expenses.

Being pregnant with good news, she was quite the center of attention among the guests. After a few pleasantries, she quickly discovered that many local businessmen had dealings with famous international trading houses, and some had even been to China for short-term business.

“Boya Trading Company Limited,” she skillfully distributed business cards. “Multiple branch offices below, mainly import-export and processing…”

Pregnant women might not look capable in business, but their affinity and credibility were maxed out. Everyone gave her face, accepting her cards and curiously asking a few questions.

Soon they were discussing European and Far Eastern economic conditions and political situations. Lin Yuchan hit her stride, speaking eloquently, shattering all stereotypes about “Chinese women being docile, humble, and not participating in social affairs.”

“So,” she smiled, “if the study abroad affairs go smoothly, I may regularly travel between China and America in the future. I have many local connections in Shanghai’s business circles. If you gentlemen don’t want large trading houses earning extra commissions, you’re welcome to negotiate with me.”

In the nineteenth-century world, long-distance travelers were few, and every traveler was a walking opportunity and resource. American businessmen understood this clearly. Catching a Chinese merchant who traveled between China and America, even if female, was an invaluable connection.

“Do you know Mrs. Bridgman?” An elderly Mrs. Stanton suddenly inquired. “What a coincidence—she and I grew up together in Connecticut…”

Lin Yuchan was also very delighted—the circle of American intellectual women was so small!

She then regretfully said that Mrs. Bridgman had passed away last year and was buried in Shanghai with her husband. Her Bridgman Girls’ School had been taken over and was growing larger.

Mrs. Stanton wept, “Poor Eliza. I still wanted to invite her to visit my girls’ school.”

Lin Yuchan’s eyes widened as she solemnly rose.

“May I ask what school you founded…”

With Mrs. Stanton’s letter of introduction, Lin Yuchan successfully gained access to several girls’ middle schools.

The American Civil War had forced many women out of their homes to manage farms and plantations, handle family businesses, and even join the army, greatly enhancing women’s social influence. After the war, women’s education in the American East advanced by leaps and bounds. Girls’ schools came in many varieties: there were women’s theological colleges training religious personnel, “ladies’ schools” training middle-class wives, and what Lin Yuchan considered more respectable junior high schools teaching literature and science, all mixed and opening in various places.

As long as sufficient tuition was paid, most schools agreed to accept Chinese female students, but there were admission requirements.

Lin Yuchan brought the girls’ English short essays, which the female school teachers felt had room for improvement.

“I believe the Chinese girls have no problems with other subjects, only English literature needs improvement,” said the eighth academic director, finally relenting after Lin Yuchan had been rejected by seven schools. The entrance exam is in August. I hope their rhetoric can advance further. Also, their handwriting needs more practice—learning some Latin would be better, and Greek too…”

Lin Yuchan thought with difficulty—this was too unfriendly to foreigners!

Those “English rhetoric” textbooks were somewhat difficult even for her to read. As for Latin and Greek, she saw no practical use and didn’t understand why all schools required such subjects.

She didn’t want to return empty-handed again and decided to negotiate: “Many children have basic sketching skills—could that substitute for Latin? Could physical fitness tests make up for rhetorical deficiencies?”

Several girls from the orphanage had received professional sketching training, some had even earned money drawing—at least in Shanghai, they’d be considered artistically gifted students.

As for physical fitness, orphanages and charitable institutions weren’t young ladies’ boudoirs. Especially the charitable institution girls, in childhood, each had lived harder lives than Lin Yuchan herself. Now they were said to handle chopping and splitting wood with ease at their host families, carrying iron pots directly on their shoulders, making their American “mom and dad” exclaim, “My God.”

Western women’s sports at this time were nothing more than running and ball games, aimed at making girls healthy mothers. To Lin Yuchan, it was a piece of cake.

The academic director was somewhat surprised, laughing: “Physical fitness is certainly needed. Fortunately, your girls don’t bind their feet… But being able to draw—what use is that?”

Lin Yuchan thought to herself: it’s more useful than Latin anyway.

Aloud, she smiled: “Very useful! For instance, future doctors need to draw anatomical diagrams, right? Architects and engineers also need drafting…”

The academic director shook her head even more, smiling politely: “Where are there girls who become doctors, architects, engineers? As far as I know, Vassar, Mount Holyoke… No, no, no, no women’s colleges offer these subjects.”

Lin Yuchan said very seriously: “By the time they graduate from your school, there might be. New York State already has women obtaining scientific patents, and Connecticut already has women braving obstacles to vote in the streets—these are all recent developments. Have you ever thought that someday in the future, women won’t be scientists’ assistants but the scientists themselves, ruling laboratories? She won’t be a nurse mixing medicines, but a doctor prescribing and performing surgery? The Industrial Revolution and mechanical technology have compensated for women’s physical disadvantages, allowing them to travel long distances, collect specimens and fossils, design machines, and send them to factories for production… We’re already in the nineteenth century. The twentieth century is right around the corner. When women’s only disadvantage—physical strength—becomes increasingly negligible compared to men’s, what can’t we girls do?”

This bold declaration would likely only earn angry curses in today’s China or even conservative American West and South; however, in New England, the most enlightened region in America, these ideas were already beginning to sprout, already written into slogans and pamphlets by pioneering women, silently seeping into the hearts of intellectual women.

The academic director rested her chin in her hands, listening intently, her eyes unconsciously brimming with tears.

“That’s right. In literature and arts, we’ve already proven women’s talent doesn’t fall short of men’s,” she said slowly. “But mechanics and science… sigh, but hopefully as you say, someday there might be even one woman who can establish herself in those fields… but it’s very difficult, very difficult… It’s not just a matter of talent and effort—there will be much external resistance… at the very least, no girl’s father or husband would be willing to let her…”

“Why not start experimenting with my Chinese girls?” Lin Yuchan smiled. “I guarantee no angry parents will storm into your office complaining that your education has made their daughters unmarriageable.”

The academic director fell silent.

“…So, canceling Latin and Greek subjects and replacing them with sketching and physical education—is that acceptable?”

…

Lin Yuchan talked until her mouth was dry, finally “using her strengths to attack others’ weaknesses,” persuading Maryville Girls’ Middle School to customize exam subjects for Chinese girls under twelve. If they passed, they could enroll this September. The school would provide all academic and life guidance. After completing the corresponding courses, they could be recommended for admission to higher women’s liberal arts colleges like Mount Holyoke.

She signed the contract, stood up, and bowed in thanks.

As she turned, the academic director saw her supporting her lower back and only then noticed the bulging abdomen under her loose long jacket, immediately letting out a small scream.

“Oh my God.”

“Forgot to mention,” Lin Yuchan turned back with a smile, “you must guarantee that during their time at school, the girls can’t end up like me.”

Contacting universities directly for Huang Hu was even more troublesome. Fortunately, Su Minguan returned from San Francisco at this time. Taking Huang Hu with them, he accompanied them on the train directly to the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.

“A’Xian’s case is concluded,” he finally had a chance to update her on the progress during the journey. “Ten months of imprisonment with hard labor, plus compensation paid by Chinatown merchants’ donations. The lawyer said this was the best possible outcome. Also, he’s bought the cemetery plot without wasting money. I’ve seen it—the feng shui is good.”

Lin Yuchan nodded. From her brief impression, though A’Xian was young, he was indeed the most courageous and decisive among the Chinese workers. Given time, he’d likely become a leader like A’Fu. But his personality was impulsive, and this time he’d seriously injured someone, so he should accept punishment—serve time in prison to temper his character.

As for serious intentional harm, receiving only ten months… never mind. This time, she had to help her own people regardless of right and wrong. Who told the capitalists to bully Chinese people for so many years?—Karmic backlash, they deserved it.

Huang Hu suddenly came to her seat, silently giving her a paper package filled with shelled roasted pumpkin seeds.

Lin Yuchan quietly divided the pumpkin seeds in half, putting them back in her hands.

This child’s habit formed since childhood—always taking care of others and forgetting herself.

But Huang Hu insisted on refusing, her eyes suddenly reddening as she cried.

“Sister,” she sniffled, “I’m afraid I won’t pass the exam and disappoint you.”

Su Minguan got up to change seats, letting Huang Hu sit beside Lin Yuchan. He wasn’t good at giving pep talks.

Lin Yuchan smiled, putting her arm around her shoulder.

“If you don’t pass, there are backup schools. If you don’t pass any, you can go to nursing school or first find work helping at a hospital. If that doesn’t work, you can return to Shanghai, work as a nurse at Renji Hospital, or as a clerk at Boya. There are plenty of fallback options—the sky won’t fall.”

This was naturally comforting talk. She felt Huang Hu’s professional level was quite good. She even had internship experience at the mission hospital.

But Huang Hu shook her head, saying quietly: “Without you, I’d probably have been sold somewhere by that terrible grandfather long ago. These years, I’ve spent so much of your money—if I don’t succeed again…”

Lin Yuchan recalled those dark flower streets and willow lanes on Fuzhou Road. There, she’d first publicly used a gun, pointing the barrel at local thugs and traffickers, forcing them to hand over the girl sold by her grandfather.

And that broken-down wheelbarrow with three raggedly dressed girls rescued from the tiger’s mouth… One of them, freckle-faced, was wooden and cowering. That face gradually became clear, overlapping with the freckled young woman before her.

Her eyes still held a trace of timidity, but it was the natural nervousness when facing the life peak she was about to climb.

Lin Yuchan hugged her, saying seriously, “Without you and your grandfather, I couldn’t have earned as much money as I have now.”

Though she’d been thoroughly swindled by Old Huang initially, she now had the confidence to say this. Everything that hadn’t managed to crush her—her thorns and beasts—had become nourishment on her path of struggle.

She patted Huang Hu’s hand: “Go study.”

The New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children was located in Manhattan’s East Side. This future global top-tier prosperous super metropolis was still under construction. Many high-rises were already tentatively emerging from the ground, carving out a skyline of varying heights.

Hospital director Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was over fifty, unmarried, originally from England, and America’s first woman to obtain a medical degree and the first female member of the American Medical Association. It was said that when she resolved to study medicine, no school would accept her application. Doctor friends she knew suggested she disguise herself as a man to quietly enroll like European pioneers, but she refused.

Finally, one school broke ranks to accept her as a student. She studied alongside one hundred and fifty male classmates, becoming one of the outstanding ones among them.

Thereafter, she established hospitals and schools in various places across Europe and America, pioneering American women’s medical education.

Lin Yuchan had collected some newspaper clippings about Dr. Blackwell, with mixed reviews, but all without exception affirmed this “isolated and stubborn old woman’s” professional qualifications.

“Four years of general curriculum, plus strict clinical training.” In the spotless corridor, Dr. Blackwell kept a stern face, walking extremely fast, showing no consideration for the heavily pregnant woman beside her. “These books—see them? These instruments—see them? How much can you master? To enter my school, you must be better than male students with the same education level; otherwise, no hospital will hire you. This is reality. How old are you? Eighteen? How many years of nursing experience?—Taking care of brothers and sisters doesn’t count. I mean professional experience…”

Lin Yuchan finally couldn’t keep up. She pushed Huang Hu’s back, letting her chase the principal herself.

Today wasn’t her turn to be a nursemaid. Given Dr. Blackwell’s character, Huang Hu had to fight for her opportunities—no one else could do it for her.

She found a bench to sit and rest, watching uniformed young female students carrying books come and go. There were also many older male doctors moving among them, apparently invited instructors. She could faintly smell disinfectant.

It was March, and New York was still experiencing the last cold of winter transitioning to spring. She’d worked up a sweat and used her handkerchief to wipe her forehead.

Su Minguan sat beside her, producing from somewhere a cup of hot coffee with milk.

“Are you alright?”

Lin Yuchan accepted the coffee, nodded, then looked longingly at the bulletin board in the medical school, half-jokingly saying: “I really want to go to university too.”