Name: Emma Hardy (maiden name: Emma Compton)

Birth year: March 1844

Birthplace: Dartford, Kent

Current address: No. X Leicester Square, Westminster

Reason for arrest: Destruction of municipal landscaping

Guarantor: Mr. Xu, Great Qing London Embassy

…

Xu Jianyin signed a pile of guarantee documents while worriedly asking: “Does this count as interfering in British internal affairs…”

Lin Yuchan: “This kind of upper-class wealthy lady, stepping on a few flowers and plants by the roadside—the police arresting her was just making an example to intimidate people. How could they put her in prison? Give them a way out, and they’ll release her!”

Indeed, before her words were finished, several policemen walked over and politely collected the documents and banknotes. Soon, another door opened, and the disheveled Mrs. Hardy emerged holding up her skirt, a hat with peacock feathers tucked under her arm, striding out.

While cursing the police:

“…bunch of despicable bastards, ignoring thieves and pickpockets all over the city to arrest us defenseless women. What’s the use of my taxes paying for you…”

The policemen laughingly waved at her, treating her words like birdsong.

“A group of arrogant, stupid, and ignorant…”

Mrs. Hardy was cursing when she suddenly saw the Chinese faces before her. The bright Eastern lady was smiling and waving at her.

“Luna?”

“Luna! Did you come specially to rescue me?—Woo woo, they bullied me…”

Lin Yuchan was instantly pushed back several steps, holding an armful of a fluffy lace dress, and feeling her shoulder getting quite wet.

Emma Hardy, suddenly seeing an old friend, lost all composure, even more disheveled than when she was arrested.

Xu Jianyin called a carriage and sent her back to her standalone apartment in the wealthy Leicester Square district.

“Woo woo, how embarrassing to let you see me like this, but it doesn’t matter—tomorrow I’ll take to the streets again…”

Lin Yuchan helped her upstairs while catching up: “I heard you got married, congratulations…”

The maid opened the apartment door. In the living room stood a crucifix and a man’s photograph draped with black gauze.

Lin Yuchan: “…My condolences.”

In 1867, when Mr. Compton, chief editor of the North China Herald, retired and returned home, his troublemaking little daughter, Miss Emma Compton, was forced to end her childhood romance with a Chinese youth and return to England to begin matchmaking. At her insistence, she didn’t marry the wealthy merchant her parents favored, but chose a like-minded lawyer herself. This Mr. Hardy was a declining minor nobleman—poor, but open-minded, supporting women’s voting rights and educational rights, and supporting her continued writing and publishing after marriage.

This was the last news Lin Yuchan had heard about her. Lin Yuchan sent a congratulatory card from Shanghai, not knowing if it arrived. Later, probably because Emma was busy with family affairs, the two rarely contacted each other.

Only now did Lin Yuchan learn that shortly after marriage, a distant uncle of Mr. Hardy, who did business in America, died, and an inheritance fell from heaven onto the happy couple. But people have unpredictable fortunes—Mr. Hardy wasn’t blessed to enjoy it, and three years ago, tuberculosis took him to meet God. Emma Hardy had realized the vision she’d boasted about with Lin Yuchan back then: become a wealthy widow and start a happy life…

However, it was obvious she had deep feelings for her late husband. She didn’t begin a second spring after becoming a widow.

Instead, she actively threw herself into the women’s suffrage movement. She inherited a large fortune, had no worries about food or clothing, and devoted all her energy to writing newspaper columns and advocating for women’s rights to participate in politics, write, and work in law.

After three years of this, the inheritance still hadn’t been exhausted, showing the family’s wealth.

This was also the initial state of the women’s movement in capitalist countries: bourgeois intellectual women awakened first, fighting for political participation rights from top to bottom.

As for the common people, regardless of gender, they all disdained their “moaning without illness.” Police gradually escalated from initial persuasion and watching the show to dispersal and arrest.

The day before, Mrs. Hardy had clashed with police on the street. In the chaos, she kicked over several pots of precious flowers in front of a church and scratched several people, so she was arrested. Out of respect for her late noble husband, the police didn’t make things difficult for her, just invited a pastor to counsel her on womanly virtues, hoping she would see the error of her ways.

Three days passed, five pastors left in anger, and somehow the news was reported by some third-rate tabloid, causing upper-class dissatisfaction—how could they detain a respectable noble widow and publish photos!

The police didn’t dare actually imprison her and were at their wit’s end. Just then came a counselor from the Great Qing Embassy, claiming old acquaintance with this lady and offering to help persuade her.

Although the Qing wasn’t a world power, the British valued etiquette and rule of law, still being quite courteous to these rule-abiding diplomatic personnel.

So as Lin Yuchan predicted, the police station immediately seized this excuse, scolded Mrs. Hardy a few times, and got rid of this hot potato.

With her maid’s help, Emma Hardy reorganized her appearance and gradually calmed her emotions. Coming out of the dressing room, she pulled Lin Yuchan along and talked nonstop.

“Shen Bao? Never heard of it… Does no one remember E.C. Bennett anymore? These fickle common people… By the way, are the foreign residents in Shanghai still horse racing? Is the ‘Rosewood French Restaurant’ still there? Ah, Miss Aldertsy died, God bless her… You’re still doing business? My God, honestly, I always thought you’d go bankrupt… And that one we helped with the lawsuit… Oh yes, where’s Dewen? Oh heavens, what a misfortune…”

Lin Yuchan calmly told her that Gao Dewen had died of epidemic disease. However, under her supervision, the Yude Girls’ School now had two branch schools with over a hundred students, who all bowed to her portrait at the start of each term.

That uniformed rose who had nearly withered young had achieved a lifetime of cultural and educational work.

How many of those who once traveled together remain today? As age advances, familiar people begin to leave, while new friends are constantly made. Nineteenth-century residents were accustomed to this.

Mrs. Hardy sighed for a while, then suddenly realized there was another guest in the room. She quickly stood up and curtsied gracefully to Xu Jianyin, though looking a bit puzzled.

“Thank you, too, sir, for your righteous assistance. Are you Luna’s husband? Quite a change, heh heh heh…”

Xu Jianyin jumped three feet high: “I I I I’m not! I have three children already… I’m an embassy counselor…”

He remembered seeing this foreign girl several times at Lin Yuchan’s residence in his youth. But obviously she had forgotten him.

Xu Jianyin couldn’t help lamenting how time ages people, like flowing water. The foreign girl now had wrinkles around her eyes, was weathered, a bit plump, and had acquired worldly airs.

Mrs. Hardy quickly forgot the embarrassment and turned to smile: “A diplomat? So the Chinese government is planning to support Britain’s women’s suffrage movement? Wonderful, very welcome! We’re planning…”

Xu Jianyin looked back at the door, frantically signaling Lin Yuchan with his eyes.

Mixing with British “rebels”—if he stayed any longer, his counselor position wouldn’t be secure!

“This tea is really good,” Lin Yuchan accepted the tea the maid handed her, calmly interrupting Mrs. Hardy’s train of thought. “Darjeeling from India. Not cheap, I suppose?”

“Indeed not,” Mrs. Hardy laughed. “I miss the days in China, when a few pence could buy excellent tea, and your pastries—light and flavorful, not like the desserts in London restaurants that seem to have a grudge against sugar… Sigh, now I don’t dare spend money carelessly.”

She now lived entirely on inheritance, but with her social circle, she couldn’t lose face. Her so-called “not daring to spend carelessly” just meant buying one less piece of jewelry or keeping one less precious orchid. The money saved all went to her cause, but the income still couldn’t match the expenditure.

Lin Yuchan couldn’t help asking: “Then what will you do when the money runs out?”

Mrs. Hardy smiled carelessly: “Then I’ll write novels to earn manuscript fees.”

Lin Yuchan: “…”

Being an author had no prospects in those days—even Balzac had to depend on wealthy women to avoid starvation. Emma Hardy had rich life experience, had traveled half the globe, been to courts and police stations, but in some ways, she was still an unworldly girl.

Lin Yuchan asked: “Didn’t your husband have a trust fund… um, insurance annuity or something? The kind that provides fixed annual income?”

Mrs. Hardy’s face darkened as she shook her head. “He left suddenly, with no arrangements. Our money is all in the bank. Several guys claiming to be financial advisors wanted to manage it for me, but I think they’re all swindlers.”

Lin Yuchan put down her teacup and said seriously: “If you trust me…”

…

Evening came, the weather turned cold, and the sky and industrial district grayed into one color. Lin Yuchan set down a thick stack of financial plans, hugged Mrs. Hardy goodbye, each leaving their current addresses and agreeing to correspond regularly.

Xu Jianyin rode the carriage with her back to No. 49 Portland Place, the Great Qing Embassy to Britain.

“Miss Lin, I admire you, you-you have friends everywhere.” Xu Jianyin dismissed the Indian guards and sighed. “These British ladies are something, not even afraid of police… But I don’t understand—Britain even has a female monarch, yet they say women have no political rights. I don’t know what they’re fighting for. Nothing better to do, no sense of propriety.”

Lin Yuchan smiled, not picking up on this topic. Seeking common ground while reserving differences—if she judged everyone around her by twenty-first-century standards, friendship boats would explode all over the sky.

At least Xu Jianyin, under her brainwashing persuasion, had gone against popular opinion and not bound his daughter’s feet, which satisfied her greatly.

The embassy had a guest suite with spring beds, charcoal braziers, carpets, and even a recently installed telephone. However, its function was quite limited—it could only be used within the embassy building’s upper and lower floors, for calling people down for meetings and such.

Xu Jianyin had reserved this room for her earlier. Lin Yuchan took out her key and first retrieved mail from the mailbox.

“Your daughter is ten this year, right?” She suddenly looked up with a smile, temptingly saying, “How about sending her to study in America…”

Xu Jianyin shivered, awkwardly waving his hands and modestly saying: “Oh my, how could that work? She’s no good, can’t even count her New Year money properly, doesn’t take after me at all. I worry about her constantly…”

Changing concepts wasn’t an overnight matter. Lin Yuchan wasn’t in a hurry, continuing to tempt while opening letters: “Life in America is very pleasant. There are permanent foundations now, so she wouldn’t lack for food or clothing. I take them skiing every year…”

She proudly pulled out a photograph mailed from far-off America and showed it to Xu Jianyin.

Now that she traveled between China and America, she and Su Minguan had a standing agreement: whoever had the children must send a photo every month, no economizing allowed.

She’d only been in London a few days, and this month’s photo had already arrived.

However, after just one glance, her smile froze.

The black and white photograph’s background was the lush forests of New England. Su Minguan stood tall with starry eyes, wearing a Western jacket and hunting outfit. A splendid double-barreled hunting rifle was slung over his shoulder, with a small camping tent behind him.

Beside him stood three children in a row. The tallest was her son Lin Youhua, struggling to hold a hunting rifle as tall as himself, with a pheasant at his feet. Next to him were two smaller mixed Chinese-American boys, also excitedly holding small pistols and carrying a dying rabbit!

The children were in high spirits. Even across the English Channel, you could almost hear their laughter—they had gone wild with fun.

And the one laughing most heartily in the photo was older than all three children combined. It wasn’t hard to see who had led this hunting trip and who enjoyed it most.

Lin Yuchan’s ears buzzed as she immediately flew into a rage.

“You. Taught. Them. To. Play. With. Guns?!”

When the tiger’s away, the monkeys rule the mountain—taking advantage of her absence to go to heaven!

This domineering CEO of California Yixing Company, this dragon head boss of the North American Zhigong Hall—wouldn’t it be better to use this time on some criminal enterprise?

She didn’t expect her child to be doing Olympiad math or programming at eight, but at minimum, he didn’t need to start preparing for revolution so early!

Turning it over, there were a few brush-written characters on the back.

“Staged photo. Empty chamber guns.”

She held her breath, not knowing whether to release it.

She wasn’t quite sure, so she sought the opinion of the person beside her: “Does it look staged to you?”

Xu Jianyin quickly said: “Definitely staged, staged. I could tell right away.”

Lin Yuchan put away the photograph and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

She supposed he wouldn’t dare harm her babies, hmph.

However, when she mentioned sending daughters to America again, Xu Jianyin’s attitude became notably firmer, obviously still traumatized by that hunting rifle.

“No, no, it’s better to hire home tutors. I… I can’t bear to part with her, heh heh. Girls can’t be too wild at heart…”

Lin Yuchan gave him a withering look. He had run off to foreign countries and forgotten about home, yet said he couldn’t bear to part with his child?

It was all that Su’s fault. She thought she’d settle accounts with him when she returned.