Gunpowder Alchemy

by Jeannie Lin

  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.”

  Chapter Eight

  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 st
eel. “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.r />
  I began sorting through his desk, sifting through journals, ledger books and maps. A route that dotted the coastline and skirted the waters of Japan had been marked upon one of the maps. Another route ventured as far as India. These were places I had heard of, but I had no understanding of where they were located or who the people were.

  There was nothing I recognized as scientific in nature. Certainly Yang wouldn’t have left me in here with anything valuable, but I had to try to seek out some clue. If I returned to Prince Yizhu empty-handed, I’d have nothing to negotiate with on behalf of my family.

  After about an hour, Little Jie returned with tea and a plate of dumplings for me.

  “How long have you been aboard this ship?” I asked him as he set the tray down.

  “Oh no, miss! You won’t pry any information from me.”

  With a devilish look, he was gone. I drank the tea and ate the plump dumplings, which were a mix of pork and shrimp, once again thinking of my family. The last of the rice would have run out by now. Nan was clever enough to perhaps barter away some small household items, but we had little left to trade.

  Once I returned, I resolved to find other means of supporting them. I had become a burden to Physician Lo, and we had no need in the village for two healers.

  The only options left to me were bleak: our family would be reduced to begging, and Tian would be conscripted to work in the mines. I could marry Merchant Hu if he would still have me, but that was hardly a solution.

  After the meal, I rinsed my mouth with tea and lay down on the bed. Blowing out the lantern, I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that could make my problems go away for just one night. Despite the difficulties we faced at home, I still wanted to be there. Safe.

  The bunk was surprisingly warm and not uncomfortable. Before long, I started to drift as the activity of the day caught up to me.

  I thought of Yang conjuring fire out of air. Smoke or fire?

  There had been many questions I hadn’t posed. The remaining ones lingered in my head like the buzz of dragonflies.