Gunpowder Alchemy (7 page)

For a long time, I could do nothing but stare at the foreign ships. My father's duty had been to defend against the Western invaders. He'd given his life to that cause, and here I was, taking on that same battle. But what could one person, one lone woman, do against such immense force?

I slipped back into the shadow of the alleyway; quietly, so as not to not disturb sleeping dragons. Winding through the lanes, I found my way to the front of one of the major trade offices that controlled the warehouse area. The signboard above identified the trade office as one belonging to Hongman Mingqua.

My first knock upon the door was met with silence. Fearing I was being too timid, I tried again. This time, a large, hulking figure opened the door. He stared at me with his mouth pressed into a disapproving line.

“May I speak to Mister Mingqua?” I began.

The man responded with something akin to a grunt.

“I have something to show him. Something of great value.”

He looked down his nose at me. “What can you possibly have that is so important? The imperial crown jewels?”

“I will only do business with Mister Mingqua,” I insisted.

The doorman snorted, his disdain evident in the curl of his upper lip. I held my ground even though I could feel my knees begin to shake.

Proper women did not approach foreign trading houses. They did not make demands or attempt to barter with the head merchants of the city as if the Hong merchants were nothing but lowly pawnbrokers.

The brute disappeared and returned a moment later. With a cock of his head, he invited me to follow him into the front room. Keeping a few paces behind him, I climbed up a set of narrow stairs and found myself in a study with windows that opened onto a view of the river.

An elderly man in an embroidered robe sat behind the desk. His head was covered by a silk cap and, as if he needed to boast of his wealth, there were at least three rings upon each hand. Gold and jewels peeked out at me from his fingers.

In truth, I was surprised to be allowed an audience. I had assumed I would be speaking to some clerk, not the head merchant himself.

Mingqua fixed his austere gaze upon me, taking my measure and then dismissing me all in one glance. He extended his hand out impatiently.

Fumbling, I reached into my bag to fish out the puzzle box. The metal felt cool against my fingertips as I set the box onto the desk. In the dimness of the study, the steel cube glowed as if emitting its own light.

The merchant's eyebrows lifted for the briefest of moments. “What is that?”

“A treasure from the empire of Japan,” I said.

He picked up the cube and turned it over and over. “It opens?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How?”

“I am not certain.” Best to lie here. I didn't know whether Mingqua looked favorably upon the imperial government. “It was left to me by my father.”

He shook the box. “Is there anything inside?”

“I don't know, sir.”

Mingqua ran his leathery fingers over the surface to search for seams. I had done the same so many times. I knew he was met with nothing but smooth, cold steel. The craftsmanship was impeccable. That was the allure of the box.

“Five thousand yuan,” I demanded.

At the first mention of money, the grim-faced businessman returned. The elder merchant lifted his head. Quietly he set the puzzle box down and folded his hands before him as he contemplated me. “A bold price.”

As Mingqua ran his gaze once more over the steel cube, I feared my price was too low. Inspector Aguda had told me that the Hong merchants were some of the wealthiest men in China. What seemed like a mountain of gold to me was nothing to them.

“I cannot part with it for less,” I said when there was no response. There was little choice but to continue the ruse.

“You say this was your father's.”

“A humble man of no consequence.”

Mingqua snorted at that. The beads of his necklace glinted as he leaned forward, and I saw that they were not beads at all, but pearls; an entire rope of gleaming black pearls.

He craned his neck toward me, peering at me with the eyes of a bird of prey. “Leave this place, young miss.”

My heart thudded in my chest. Was I so easy to read? He hadn't spoken out of anger, yet the warning was there. Mingqua fell back into his chair. Raising his arm, he made a sweeping motion with the back of his hand. Sweep, sweep, away now.

Swallowing, I went to the desk to retrieve the puzzle box. His eyes cut once more to me with a sharpness that made me recoil. I shoved the steel cube hastily into my sack and retreated down the stairs.

Back out in the street, I could once again breathe. Before fear could take over, I found the next trading house. Then the next.

At one office, I was forced to wait outside for a long time before being summarily dismissed. Most of them shook their heads at me the moment I started to speak. Their business was with other merchants and traders, not girls trying to pawn off a trinket. For a few establishments, I was allowed inside where an appraiser of some kind looked over the puzzle box.

“It's worthless,” one of them remarked before offering a mere fifty yuan in a careless tone.

I shook my head. Pleaded that my family was desperate and wouldn't the
Yangguizi
be interested in such an exotic piece?

Be clumsy about it, Inspector Aguda had instructed. Spread stories. The steel cube had been smuggled from within the Ministry of Science. It held secrets inside. The box and I were so out of place that gossip would spread into the concession.

There was no charity to be had. When I left the last of the trading houses, the afternoon was fading into evening. The foreign quarter appeared more menacing in the dark. I had heard stories about the
Yangguizi
with their pale skin and yellow hair. Did they truly look like ghosts? Were they large and barbaric and overbearing?

If Yang was really hiding on the other side of the wall, among foreign traders and smugglers, what kept Prince Yizhu from sending in the secret police to arrest him? Was it truly possible for an outcast to hide so carefully within the empire that even the imperial court could not touch him?

I retreated back toward the city proper, just reaching the outskirts of the warehouse district. A food runner was working the street, selling duck noodles. A portable cook stand was hoisted over his shoulders, attached to him like armor. When I hailed him, he came running.

“One bowl,” I ordered.

He set down the stand and a stool and small table spun out from a bottom compartment.

“One bowl, duck noodles!” he cried out dramatically, then beckoned for me to sit. Perhaps he was hoping to draw more customers now that he'd hooked one.

With a few twists of the levers and knobs on the bamboo contraption, a pot of water started simmering over the cook stand.

I sat down to rest my feet. They were aching from wandering through the warehouses all day, and I hadn't had anything to eat besides a steamed bun from a street peddler at midday. Prince Yizhu had sent me out as bait, but they'd given me little instruction on what I was to do beyond the first day. Was I supposed to find my own place for the night? Would Aguda send me some secret message telling me what to do next?

It was hard not to be frustrated. I was carrying out the crown prince's orders, which meant I was to bite my tongue and obey. If His Imperial Highness had commanded me to walk barefoot over coals, I, as his most humble subject, was to do so happily.

They made it clear to me I was nothing but a lure, cast out to dangle prettily in water.

I knew I couldn't trust the prince or his retainers. I certainly couldn't trust Chen Chang-wei now that he was with them, wearing the imperial insignia. Our family had already given one life at the whim of the imperial throne.

For so many years, the story of the empire's defeat had remained fresh and jarring in my mind, the shame of that defeat having caused my father's death. I knew that the Emperor wasn't godlike and divine. After seeing the war machines of the West, I also knew our land had been invaded by forces beyond the Emperor's control.

We were no longer the Middle Kingdom. The center of the world around which all other nations revolved. Perhaps we never were.

As the noodles steeped, I pulled the steel puzzle box from my sack to look it over once more. Its appearance was cold and foreboding, but there was a terrible beauty to its flawlessness. I had attached so much mystery to this little contraption over the years, but apparently it was worthless aside from its sentimental value. I was able to hold on to my keepsake after all.

The thud of the cleaver broke me out of my reflection. The noodle man had a duck breast on his butcher's block, crunching through bone with each precise chop. Soon a steaming bowl filled with egg noodles and glistening slices of roasted duck was set before me.

The vendor's gaze flickered to the puzzle box in my hands before turning back toward his cook stove. I quickly stowed the cube back into my pack.

My stomach growled as the smell of food reached my nose. The dish reminded me of the soup Nan would make in the kitchen back at home. She would stew bones along with a mixture of dried mushrooms and herbs from sunup to sundown.

I couldn't help missing my family as I ate alone here on this street corner. By now, Tian would be wondering what had become of me.

There was a generous amount of duck in the bowl, and between that and the richness of the broth, I was unable to finish. I felt ashamed considering how scarce food had become in our village.

“How much?” I asked the vendor.

“One yuan.”

I reached for my purse, but my fingers paused on the frog clasp. “Only one?”

“Yes, miss.” He stood beside the table with his hands clasped behind his back. One yuan for such a generous portion? Canton was supposed to be wealthy compared to the dusty village where my family made its home, but did all the inhabitants of the city live in such excess?

I took the coin from my purse and placed it politely onto the table when the man spoke again.

“You're from out of town, miss?” He glanced once again at my travel pack and I nodded.

“There's a boarding house three lanes down.” He gestured with this hand in the distance. “You'll see a lantern in the front. An old seamstress lives there.”

That was when I realized how unusual it was for a noodle seller to haul his stand around in such a deserted area. More business would be found at the other end of the warehouse zone where the dock laborers congregated.

Aguda had claimed he would have his trackers following me. I looked to the lone beggar at the corner, then back to the noodle seller. Neither one appeared to be an imperial spy, though I supposed they would have been poor ones if I was able to detect them.

I thanked the vendor and started in the direction he'd indicated. The lanes and alleyways of the city appeared more ominous as darkness fell, and I began to walk faster. Despite Inspector Aguda's assurances, I didn't feel protected. I had my needle gun and bladed war fan tucked into my sash, but they couldn't do more than momentarily stun an attacker.

While I was watching the shadows for some hulking monster, I didn't anticipate the tiny figure that scurried toward me when I turned the corner. Small hands yanked my pack from my arm and started running down the lane.

“Hey!”

Instinctively, I ran after him. The thief was merely a child, even younger than Tian and certainly scrawnier. But his cricket legs carried him swiftly through the backstreets. After several twists and turns, I finally grabbed onto his shoulder.

“Keep running,” he instructed as he turned to look at me. His eyes were clear and devoid of any fear of being caught. The rascal was barely breathing hard while I was panting. “Don't stop.”

He looked beyond me to the end of the alleyway as if to see if there was anyone else chasing us. Shrugging his shoulder from my grasp, he darted toward a towering stack of refuse. Shipping crates had been piled on top of one another. The little thief slipped into an opening at the base like a mouse into the wall.

I hesitated, staring at the hole. The boy was no ordinary street urchin, and I had no idea where he was leading me. I couldn't be certain that he had been sent by Yang, but this could be my one chance. Taking a deep breath, I fell to my hands and knees and squeezed through crates.

“Careful, don't knock everything down.”

The boy was crouched inside, waiting for me. Without another word, he turned and started scrambling through the maze of rubbish. Aguda's agents wouldn't be able to follow us. Even I could barely fit inside.

“Who sent you?” I directed the question at his feet as he wriggled in front of me. It was dark inside the heap and I started to doubt my decision to follow him, but there was no going back now.

“Talk later, miss.”

We reached a wall and I was finally able to stand, but only barely. I flattened myself against the stone and crept alongside it. It was a lifetime before we were free and I could once again see the sky above me. I was standing in the corner of just another alleyway, staring at the back of a shop. We could have been anywhere in the city. I was completely at the mercy of this raggedy child.

He didn't look or sound like a child as he addressed me. “Those
guanfu
monkeys don't know the streets like I do,” he boasted.

“You're with Yang Hanzhu, aren't you?”

“I don't know who you mean, miss.” He adjusted my travel pack over his shoulder and beckoned for me to follow with a toss of his head. “But the captain wants to see you. Come on.”

The boy called himself Xiao Jie and did appear to know every twist and turn within the backstreets. At some point, we dropped beneath a bridge and pressed ourselves against the base of it as a foot patrol passed by overhead. Little Jie waited until after the last footfall passed by before beckoning me into a drainage tunnel. I tried not to think of what was in the black and dank water beneath my feet as I crouched in after him.

We emerged with a view of the dock. There were vessels of all sizes crowding the waters as well as the floating airships above the harbor.

“They're not allowed to fly over the city,” Jie said when he saw me staring at the hulking shapes in the clouds.

How long would that edict last? There was no force in the entire Middle Kingdom that could hold the foreigners back if they wanted to invade. Sadly, the last war had proven that beyond question.

Jie moved fearlessly toward the waterfront with me trailing behind. It was unsightly to be led around by a child, but I was afraid of the iron-clad vessels that towered over the water.

“They are faster than our war junks,” I remember Father saying. “They are stronger. There was nothing that could be done.”

Of all the things I could remember of my father, I hated that his defeat was the one detail that loomed largest in my mind.

The guttural sounds of a conversation floated from the other side of the dock. The words were alien to me.

“Is that
Yingyu
?”

“They call it ‘Eng-rish,'” he told me.

“Do you understand it?”

Little Jie shook his head and kept on walking. At the end of the far pier, tucked in the shadow of two massive steamships, was the familiar site of an ocean junk. Its sails were masted and the wooden vessel floated restfully upon the water. Next to these Western boats, the junk looked ancient, yet proudly defiant. Its kind had survived a thousand years upon the seas.

“Our captain is aboard. He wants to see you.”

“What is your captain's name?”

The little devil continued his habit of answering only when it pleased him. He hurried toward the ship. At the edge of the pier, he gave a sharp whistle and immediately a plank was lowered from the deck.

The boy stood back as I climbed the walkway. It was surprisingly steep, rising several stories off the ground. Little Jie scurried up much faster than I. On the deck, he took the lead again. I tried to take a quick look at the crewmen aboard, but Jie tugged my sleeve impatiently.

As we disappeared below deck, the men began to pull the gangplank back from the dock. I was trapped on a strange ship in the foreign concession, surrounded by strangers. At least they appeared to be my countrymen, but that didn't make me any less anxious. My hands were shaking as I stepped down into the hold. No matter what Prince Yizhu and Inspector Aguda had promised, there was no way they could protect me here.

But this was the way it had to be. Uncle Hanzhu had always been resourceful. If the ship's captain was the same man who had worked under my father, he had successfully escaped the purge that had swept through the Ministry. He had outwitted the secret police.

Little Jie rapped on a door to what I assumed was the captain's quarters. I held my breath.

When we were bid to enter, the sight that greeted me stopped my breath.

At the far end of the cabin was a writing desk. The captain stood in front, hands propped back against the surface. His posture, though relaxed, was rife with challenge.

I recognized Yang's eyes immediately; that hint of knowing laughter that always sparked within them. His look was a shrewd one, and I recalled his keen intelligence in the way his gaze analyzed me from head to toe. There was a hardness to him, however, that I didn't remember.

His face was the only part of him that was familiar to me. He was dressed in Western clothing. His shirt was white, a color not worn by our people except in mourning. It buttoned up the front and was left open at the collar. A vest was fitted around his torso with two rows of buttons adorning the front, and he wore trousers that revealed his legs, which were crossed at the ankles. More shocking than his foreign garb was his hair.

Yang had cut his queue completely off. What remained of his hair hung just above his shoulders. It gave him a reckless, dangerous look.

A man's queue was a quintessential sign of his loyalty to the Qing Empire. To remove it was to sever all ties with the Emperor. The act was irrevocable, and I felt a pang of sadness knowing he had willingly turned his back on his homeland.

“Uncle . . . Uncle Hanzhu?” I stammered out the honorific, though it sounded strange on my tongue. I didn't know how to address him other than with the name I had always used.

“Uncle?” His smile widened. “That makes me sound outright elderly coming from a young lady such as yourself.”

My tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth as he pushed off from the desk to come toward me.

“Soling,” he acknowledged with a wink of one eye, an odd gesture I'd never seen before. A strange look flickered in his eyes. “Little Ling-ling. Not so little anymore.”

His gaze rested on my face, and I could feel my cheeks heating. I was starting to think that some demon had stolen Yang's face. It was difficult to look at him.

I affected a stiff nod. “It has been a long time, Uncle. Are you well?”

“Uncle again.”

I tried to clear my throat. “Mister Yang,” I amended.

“So formal,” he chided, shaking his head.

Yang Hanzhu was one of the youngest in Father's circle and a frequent visitor to our household. He had always been kind to me, but now every word out of his mouth seemed a challenge.

“How do you wish me to address you—”

“Why are you here?” he interrupted, his tone just on the edge of remaining pleasant.

“I—”

“This was what she was trying to sell to the Hongmen,” Little Jie piped up. He fished through my pack, found the puzzle box and ran it eagerly over to his master.

Yang took hold of the box and waved the boy out of the room, leaving the two of us alone. He glanced once more at me before bending to inspect the gleaming steel.

“It belonged to Father,” I said, my chest pulling tight.

“I remember.” A heavy look crossed Yang's face as he inspected the marks on the steel. “Other than its craftsmanship, this piece has little value in and of itself. Worth perhaps a tael or two in silver to a collector.”

His hands traced over the metal. Unlike Chang-wei, he knew how to find the panel that triggered the opening sequence. The box came to life, gears whirring as the panels shifted to reveal the secret compartment. “What it held inside, however . . .”

He looked to me, but I shook my head. “It's always been empty.”

Why had I lied to him? Perhaps it was because his appearance was still a shock to me.

I didn't know if he believed me, but Yang peered at the empty compartment for another few seconds before setting the cube aside.

“You were always so curious when you came to the Ministry, wanting to know everything.” His tone grew fond as he regarded me. “You look as if you have a thousand things to ask me now.”

I started to open my mouth, but he stopped me.

“Three questions; do you remember, Ling-ling?”

It was a game we used to play. I could ask any three questions, but only three. It wasn't that Yang was impatient with my inquisitiveness. He wanted me to learn how to choose my words with care.

“Why do you look like this?” I couldn't help staring at his Western clothing and the shorn hair that marked him forever as an outcast.

“I hate the Flower Empire,” he answered simply, using the archaic name for our kingdom. The little crooked smile never wavered from his lips. “It forsook me long before I turned away from it.”

I started to protest but bit my tongue. Hadn't I felt the same on nights while I lay awake, missing Father? Missing the life we once had?

“So you've turned yourself into one of them? One of the
Yangguizi
?”

“No.” If possible, his smile became colder. “I hate them, too.”

Yang uncrossed his legs and straightened, waiting patiently for my final question. He was full of secrets now, with more hidden levers and compartments than that puzzle box. Whatever connections or loyalties he'd once held were long gone.

I licked my lips, my heart pounding fiercely. “Am I in danger here?”

For the first time, I noticed a crack in his hard exterior. A look of shock crossed his eyes. “I would never hurt you, Soling. Why would you even ask that?”

I allowed myself to breathe easier, but not much. “You must have some idea of why I was sent here.”

“I know who sent you,” he acknowledged.

“The crown prince thinks you have Father's gunpowder formula.”

His mouth twisted. “We worked on a thousand different experiments, a hundred different combinations.”

“The empire needs that formula to power its warships to fight against the foreigners.”

“The imperial court denounced our work and now they seek it like some elixir.” With a snort, Yang uncrossed his legs and straightened, turning away to deposit the puzzle box into a drawer in the desk. “You have more reason to hate the empire than I. The imperial navy failed because of pride and ignorance, yet Master Jin was the one who paid with his head. Why do you want to help them?”

“I don't care about the Emperor's war. I care about my family,” I told him truthfully. If we don't do anything, the foreigners will take it all.”

My impassioned speech failed to move him. Lifting a long coat from the wall, he worked his arms into it. The seams were crisp and the material heavy in appearance. Buttons gleamed along the front. Nothing like the loose-fitting clothing of our people.

Yang moved away from me, toward the door. “Our land is already dying from within. All that matters to anyone anymore is profit.”

“That can't be true. There's still honor and loyalty. Family.”

“There is no secret elixir, Soling,” he cut in sharply.

When I set out to find my old friend, there had been one last flicker of hope inside me, but it died as Yang regarded me sullenly from the doorway. In Father's workshop, he had been brilliant, always the one with new theories and experiments. He never gave up on any problem. He was convinced there was always a solution.

Like everything else from my past, Yang had changed. That spark of ingenuity and optimism inside him had burnt away.

“You've asked quite a few questions already, Soling. More than three.” Yang regarded me with a grave expression. “I have a few questions of my own.”

I swallowed, finding my throat had gone dry. “What do wish to know?”

“Did they promise you something or did they threaten you?”

The hard edge of his voice raised the hairs on my neck. I didn't know how to answer.

“To make you come after me, did they threaten you or did they bribe you? Whatever it was, I don't blame you, Soling. Under the rule of the Emperor, you are all his slaves—as I once was.”

I shook my head. “I just wanted to help.”

He returned and took my hand in his, the first time Yang Hanzhu had done such a thing. My heart beat faster.

“I was loyal to your father to the end. The Emperor's minions knew that and knew they could use you to draw me out. There was no other way for them to control me. I'm no longer their puppet.”

“Then you won't give them the formula.”

His lip curled. “Even if I had it, I wouldn't give it to those bastards.”

“Then I was wrong to come.” I slipped my hand out of his grasp and he let me go. “If you'll release me we can forget all this.”

“The Empire won't let us forget,” he said bitterly. “I won't let them exploit you.”

I looked at him in shock. “You can't mean to keep me here?”

“It's the only way to keep you safe. I owe it to your father.”

I thought of my family. For a brief moment, I considered pleading on their behalf to Yang. Maybe he could take us all in. Bring us to somewhere new, somewhere Mother wouldn't waste away breathing black smoke and despair into her lungs. Somewhere Tian might have a chance outside the factories.

But Yang was a traitor. He might even be a madman. He had bought his safety among the foreign devils in some illicit manner that I didn't yet know of. What I did know was that Yang belonged nowhere. This ship was his only haven, and he'd chosen that desolate path.

“Uncle Hanzhu.” I used the honorific on purpose. “My father's execution devastated our family. For years, I felt betrayed. Lost. But this is my chance to redeem our name. It's your chance as well.”

He stared at me long and hard. For a moment, I thought he might be considering my words, and I tried to imagine what it would be like if the Ministry of Science hadn't been purged. If the engineering corps had remained intact. What if my father and his most gifted disciples had been hard at work all these years, designing a defense against the foreign invasion? Chen Chang-wei, Yang Hanzhu, all of the others.

My hope was allowed to spark for only a brief moment. Yang straightened without a word and looked down at me.

“I have no need of redemption,” he said before turning to go.

He closed the door quietly, leaving me alone in his quarters. For a long time, I stood where I was while the ship rocked beneath me, in exile within its mother country. When it was apparent Yang would not return, I tried the door and found it unlocked. There was no guard posted outside, either.

I shut the door once more and retreated toward the desk. It was nighttime and I was in a strange port. Even if I had dared to navigate the foreign settlement by myself, I wasn't certain I wanted to go. Was I any better entrenched in Prince Yizhu's enclave than I was here?

What I did next didn't come without reproach, but I did it all the same. Yang had left me in his private cabin with his books and papers right before my eyes. He trusted me, and perhaps I should have valued that trust by not going through his belongings, but I had come here with a purpose.