Shanghai’s commerce was developed and competition fierce. Any shop of decent scale fought for prime locations, displaying goods on sidewalks, extending signs as far as possible, and having clerks chase potential customers for two li.
Boya Trading House was different, choosing a small Western building with a courtyard in a quiet, elegant location, even hiding its sign among evergreen bushes.
Unsurprisingly, it was deserted.
Several clerks sat by the fireplace warming themselves. The trading house owner—Yale scholar Rong Hong—sat at a window desk, smoking a cigar while seriously reading a copy of the North China Herald.
His expression was serene, with no trace of the embarrassment from being robbed on the street. His brow was slightly raised, his gaze rolling with each line of English, occasionally reciting a few sentences.
He wasn’t wearing a fake braid, styling his short hair with a long robe. Through the misty glass, he looked like an old photograph of a Republican era master.
Lin Yuchan couldn’t help but step back to look at the sign again, confirming it was a trading house, not some old foreign house, a petite bourgeois café.
There were wind chimes at the entrance, making crisp sounds as her hem brushed them.
Hearing someone enter, Rong Hong quickly put on his melon-skin cap with the sewn-on fake braid. The clerks were comfortable by the fire—none willing to move their buttocks, so Rong Hong had to get up to greet guests himself.
“Miss Lin, what a pleasure! I’ve been waiting for you for several days.” Rong Hong exchanged names with her, happily pointing to a green leather sofa by the fireplace. “Sit, I’ll have someone bring tea.”
In just one minute, Lin Yuchan could see that this person’s way of receiving people was completely Westernized, rather rusty with Chinese etiquette. He didn’t even bow, and forgot to have the clerks avoid the female guest, even as a formality.
If it were another Qing Dynasty girl, she would probably be offended.
“No need.” She politely declined with a smile. “I’m here to pass along a message from the Maritime Customs, um… this…”
The other party was also a distinguished gentleman—delivering rejection letters face-to-face was somewhat awkward. Lin Yuchan somewhat understood why Hede had sent her: she was thick-skinned.
Before she finished half a sentence, Rong Hong already understood, laughing: “Didn’t get hired? Normal, normal. I just casually sent that job application anyway, wasn’t serious about going. Thanks for making the trip—speaking of which, when did the Maritime Customs start hiring female interpreters? That Li, Chief Commissioner, I’ve met before—quite a rigid person.”
Lin Yuchan: “Chief Li…?”
She realized he meant Li Taiguo, Hede’s big villain boss. The current Maritime Customs headquarters was in Shanghai, and Rong Hong was also in Shanghai. The English-speaking social circle totaled only a few hundred people—it would be hard not to know each other.
She smiled and found a topic to brush it off. She couldn’t say the Englishman looked down on his credentials.
Thinking of this, she pointed to the inconspicuous “Yale” on the business card, tentatively asking: “Excuse my bluntness, but are you a graduate of the prestigious American university Yale?”
Rong Hong was stunned, his eyes suddenly lighting up. He stubbed out his cigar and said excitedly, “Miss Lin is truly knowledgeable! You’re the first Chinese person I know who’s heard of Yale University! Tell me, tell me, how did you know? Who told you?”
Lin Yuchan: “…”
No wonder he didn’t mention this on his Chinese business card.
With no business around, Rong Hong treated her as a confidant, excitedly beginning to narrate how he accidentally entered missionary school as a child, then by chance went overseas, studied diligently to enter Yale, became the first Chinese person to earn an American university diploma, then how he cared about his homeland and returned to serve his country…
A few brief sentences covered more than a decade of hardship and struggle. Lin Yuchan expressed her complete admiration.
“So you… Just returned to the country?”
“It’s been several years now. Not to embarrass myself, but I’ve changed jobs five or six times, mostly unemployed. Recently started my own business, but find it uninteresting too. If I keep losing money, I’ll close shop.”
Lin Yuchan was speechless, looking again at the Yale diploma covered in Latin hanging on the wall, deeply feeling that the Qing Dynasty was doomed.
This kind of talent would have nations competing with huge sums to recruit him in modern times.
Yet in current China, merely a sleeping lion just opening its eyes—shouldn’t they quickly offer it first-rank honors and worship it? Yet they let him be unemployed?
Probably because he lacked connections. She asked warmly, “Have you tried becoming an official’s advisor?”
Rong Hong gave a weathered smile: “I tried. When they heard I hadn’t even passed the xiucai examination, none would accept my calling cards.”
Lin Yuchan was speechless and couldn’t help suggesting, “You could work as a translator.”
“When short of money, I translate books for manuscript fees.” Rong Hong said indifferently. “But no one reads what I translate anyway—quite meaningless.”
She thought again and said: “You could…”
“Miss Lin, I don’t lack job opportunities.” Rong Hong suddenly became excited, pacing around the desk, saying seriously: “I want to truly accomplish something, put my lifelong learning to practical use, make my motherland as civilized and prosperous as the West. Some sought me for missionary work—I refused, because I think religion has no benefit for China’s prosperity. I studied law in Hong Kong, wanting to find areas for improvement in Chinese law, but the Hong Kong Bar Association collectively expelled me because they wouldn’t let a Chinese person sit in court. Trading houses offered high salaries for me to be a comprador, but I wouldn’t even consider it. Now, foreigners view the Chinese as slaves—compradors are just higher-class slaves. As a graduate of America’s leading university, how could I so dishonor my alma mater’s reputation?…”
When Lin Yuchan heard him say “higher-class slaves,” her heart jumped, suddenly moved, the fireplace smoke from the Imperial Maritime Customs corridor flashing through her mind.
It seemed that in this vast Qing land, she wasn’t the only one being difficult.
After leaving the Imperial Maritime Customs, she regretted it for a few seconds, but her past decade of independent personality told her: how could she hang her entire livelihood on a powerful person’s favor?
However, Rong Hong wasn’t short of money. He graduated from Yale with all A’s, spoke English more fluently than Chinese. Just helping foreigners write documents or contracts would cover his expenses for several weeks. And her?
At this moment, a clerk finally shuffled over, head down, handing Lin Yuchan an exquisite envelope.
“Winter is lonely, and I couldn’t help giving impromptu speeches again—so sorry.” Rong Hong smiled kindly. “This is your money back.”
Lin Yuchan opened the envelope—ten silver dollars plus a handwritten thank-you card.
She said hastily: “You remembered wrong…”
“No, no, don’t refuse. Though the amount Miss Lin helped me with was small, it was timely aid in snow, and should be repaid double.”
Rong Hong wasn’t short of money. Ten dollars wasn’t enough for his cigars.
Lin Yuchan didn’t want to argue with him, but accepting it directly would be excessive.
She got up to browse the goods in his shop, laughing: “Then fine, I’ll help you open for business right now.”
Unfortunately, though Rong Hong had a Yale diploma, his commercial taste was quite limited. The Chinese and Western specialties on the shelves were all show with no substance, inspiring no desire to purchase.
Moreover, most were over ten dollars.
Lin Yuchan finally chose a dozen imported toothpastes, canned, and recognized the trademark: Colgate.
Plus a box of Vaseline skin cream. Opening it to smell, limited by technology, the cream had a strong artificial fragrance scent, but it would do.
Price: seven dollars fifty cents. Who among ordinary people could afford this?
She called to a clerk: “Please wrap these…”
Before finishing, ding-a-ling-ling—the courtyard gate wind chime rang urgently.
Rong Hong beamed, hurriedly instructing clerks to greet guests while following out himself.
When the door opened, he and the clerks all froze.
The visitors weren’t one person, but a group.
Leading was a big man in a black jacket, eyes sinister and cold, his gaze making people shiver all over.
A long scar extended from his crown to his cheekbone, splitting his right eyebrow in two. What had been a reasonably heroic face now had three eyebrows—two short, one long—with evil overwhelming good, appearing very strange.
Behind him stood a row of young men, dressed like ordinary shop clerks, but all with unfriendly expressions. They looked around the small garden, laughing as they picked flowers and pulled grass, treating it like their own backyard.
“Boss Chu,” Rong Hong forced a smile and cupped his hands, “why are you here again? Didn’t you find anything suitable last time?”
That three-eyebrowed “Boss Chu” snorted coldly without answering, pushing open the door and striding straight in, plopping down on the green sofa and spreading his robe to open his legs, looking more like the owner than Rong Hong.
“What I’m here for… heh, does Boss Rong still not know? Or are you permanently playing dumb with me?”
He deliberately used a low, threatening tone, his subordinates laughing along.
Lin Yuchan saw trouble coming and couldn’t avoid it, immediately retreating behind the counter, gripping the Colgate tooth powder can, pretending to be a customer.
But Boss Chu noticed her immediately, his three eyebrows furrowing as he smiled: “So there’s a beautiful lady for company, sitting by the winter fire, ignoring worldly affairs.”
Lin Yuchan thought this man was blind—when had she become a beautiful lady? Really, to disgust Rong Hong, he’d say anything.
Rong Hong was naturally anxious, shouting: “This is my friend—you mustn’t be rude!”
“Boss Rong, where’s the boat fare?” Boss Chu smiled. “You have time to entertain friends but no time to gather money. It’s nearly New Year—not paying up, do you deliberately not want us brothers to have a good New Year?”
The Boya Trading House clerks had long fallen silent as cicadas. Rong Hong said with a dark face: “I only hired your ‘Wuxi Express’ once—the boat money was already settled. This is extortion—I’m calling the police!”
“How coincidental—the brothers were just visiting the Nanjing Road police station, smoking with Officer Wilson. If you want to call him, I’ll send someone.”
These few sentences left Lin Yuchan dumbfounded, a distorted version of “Shanghai Bund” playing in her mind.
Shanghai having organized crime wasn’t strange, but they dared to collect protection money in the concessions? Did Empress Dowager Cixi learn to declare war on all nations simultaneously from them?
They didn’t carry controlled weapons like knives, guns, or firearms, presumably knowing they must keep a low profile in the concessions. But with superior numbers, one punch from each could flatten all of Boya Trading House’s clerks.
Seeing Rong Hong’s stubbornness, Boss Chu snorted and ordered his minions: “Smash it up.”
The minions were well-trained, silently drawing fire pokers from their waists.
“Wait!” Rong Hong grabbed a passport from the drawer, holding it to his chest, saying urgently: “This is a concession, I’m an American citizen. You are destroying my private property violates international treaties…”
Boss Chu wasn’t intimidated. He stood up, face-to-face with Rong Hong, eyes wide.
“Hahaha, that’s right, we bully the weak and fear the strong, we don’t bully foreigners.” He said softly. “But this person before me has yellow skin and black hair. Though wearing a cross and smoking foreign cigars, imitating foreigners in every move, the more I look, the more he resembles a monkey in foreign clothes.”
“False foreign devils are more hateful,” three eyebrows askew, he coldly ordered: “Smash it up.”
Rong Hong was furious enough to smoke—a patriotic Chinese being called a “false foreign devil” by a bunch of social scum?
Blocked at the door by two minions, he watched shelves of tooth powder crash down, white powder scattered everywhere, and he cursed angrily.
Suddenly, a small head popped up from behind the counter, eyes meeting his through the gap behind two minions’ backs, winking at him.
Lin Yuchan said quietly: “Maybe you should submit. How much money do they want?”
Rong Hong clenched his fists, watching another shelf suffer, shaking his head.
“Give in once, there’ll be second, third, fourth times. I won’t compromise with such scum.”
“Do you have friends who could come immediately?”
Rong Hong thought, regretfully saying: “A few, but they can’t make it in time.”
“Should I slip out and report to the American consulate? Would that help?”
Rong Hong looked at her with some surprise. A teenage girl wasn’t scared by this scene and kept offering suggestions.
He shook his head. Americans were busy with the Civil War—would they spare time for a “citizen” of a different race? Even he couldn’t say for sure.
“Miss,” he suddenly said quietly, “under the counter in front of you, behind the miscellaneous items, there’s a rifle. Throw it to me—careful, it’s heavy.”
The concession was a lawless place where only you could protect yourself, and only violence could counter violence.
Lin Yuchan raised an eyebrow, quickly crouching down.
Now this was right—going to America for study shouldn’t just be about book learning; American “martial virtue” should be brought back too.
Before seeing a hair of the rifle, her arm suddenly hurt—someone pulled her out.
Boss Chu observed in all directions, not ignoring this seemingly harmless little girl.
He sneered, pushing her against the wall. His arm was thicker than her waist; Lin Yuchan instantly couldn’t breathe properly, her face reddening.
“Little girl’s quite wicked and fierce—seems she’s never suffered real hardship.” Boss Chu leaned close, his broken eyebrow focusing as he brazenly examined her face. “Know Shengtong Tobacco Shop? The most profitable boss in South County angered me last year. Now he’s at the bottom of Suzhou Creek, and his eldest daughter receives clients at ‘Spring Meeting Tea Garden,’ three silver dollars nightly. I slapped her yesterday and bargained down to one fifty.”
He treated her as Rong Hong’s family, implying she was in his pocket. That broken eyebrow was right before her eyes. Lin Yuchan couldn’t struggle free, feeling nauseous.
Suddenly, she saw Boss Chu’s belt end, adorned with tassels and jade, and… two crossed copper coins.
Stacked in the shape of the character “yi” (righteousness).
Boss Chu touched her face like toying with prey. On his inner garment cuffs, two characters were embroidered:
“Yixing.”
Lin Yuchan’s vision went black, nearly fainted.
“You’re… Yixing Business Association?”
Boss Chu smiled, correcting: “Yixing Shipping—our legitimate business. Won’t hide it from you—Boss Rong owes me two thousand taels in boat fare. If the young lady plans to pay for him, everyone’s happy, no need for empty posturing.”
“Five people divide a poem, Hong heroes on the body unknown to all,” she panted and shouted, not caring that Rong Hong heard clearly. “You’re Heaven and Earth Society Honghua Hall—when did you switch to being thugs? If Hongmen brothers throughout the world heard this, wouldn’t it be too shameful?”
The minions smashing shelves all lost color. Boss Chu suddenly dropped his sneer, gripping her wrist hard.
“You’re not local—which branch, which hall are you from?”
Rong Hong quietly lay down, crawling toward the counter.
Boss Chu snorted coldly, kicking out several tooth powder cans. Powder flew, drawing a white line right in front of Rong Hong.
“Good skills, boss,” Lin Yuchan assessed the enemy-ally strength comparison, softening her tone and saying quietly: “Today seems like flooding the Dragon King’s temple. For the sake of the Hongmen brotherhood, please, boss, show some convenience. This Boya Trading House’s boat fare, please decide to reduce… waive it. Taking less is fine, too. Fraternal loyalty—we’ll have dealings in the future.”
While speaking, she quickly recalled: no wonder she couldn’t find “Yixing” on the streets—they were in shipping. She hadn’t searched the docks, naturally couldn’t find them.
Also, no wonder the first civilian ships to rescue during the Huangpu River disaster bore “Yixing” flags.
Su Minguan…
He hadn’t boarded Yixing’s ship, but with no relatives in Shanghai, he’d probably still seek the organization.
Only this “organization’s” business scope differed greatly from Guangzhou’s Heaven and Earth Society—who knew if he’d adapt.
But he’d said that as long as one belonged to Hongmen, no matter where in the world, they were brothers and sisters of the same breath and branch, never harming each other.
Boss Chu was disgusting, but when helpless, she had to bite the bullet and claim kinship.
“Guangdong Red Flag Second Branch, Gaoxi, divided into two Hu periods,” she announced her origins. “We’ve come from afar—please show convenience to Dexing Commandery.”
“Guangdong folk?” Boss Chu suddenly laughed loudly, the crack in his eyebrow twitching as he waved his hand, ordering minions to stop. “Haha, that indeed requires showing convenience.”
He looked back at his minions, who exchanged glances and snickered.
Lin Yuchan’s heart gradually sank. She heard no friendliness in this laughter.
Boss Chu pulled Lin Yuchan to a secluded corner by the shelves, his fingertip tracing her facial contours with a half-smile: “What a coincidence. My Yixing shipping house is currently detaining an anti-Qing restoration rebel from Guangdong. Originally planned to turn him over to the authorities for reward money. Since brothers have arrived today, we can show convenience and help him out—two thousand taels isn’t much, right?”
Lin Yuchan was shocked.
“Rebel?”
Heaven and Earth Society calling others rebels, and wanting to turn them in?
Could this plastic brotherhood still be relied upon?
She didn’t dare appear too panicked, took a deep breath, and quietly asked: “Who is this person?”
Boss Chu released her, pulling various items from his chest, extracting a dirty red string.
At the string’s end hung a gold-inlaid jade longevity lock, swaying back and forth in his breath.
Lin Yuchan stared at the small jade lock, feeling dizzy, her lips parting to utter four characters:
“DLLM.” (Damn his mother)
“Also,” Boss Chu studied her expression, laughing even more joyfully, “there’s news I haven’t had time to notify Hongmen brothers worldwide. Our Shanghai Heaven and Earth Society members have decided to break from the Zhejiang rudder, no longer under Hongmen jurisdiction. Now we’re called the Green Gang—law-abiding, helping the Qing Dynasty. See, what a good name.”