[2019 “Toward a Bright Future” Realistic Fiction Writing Contest]
Li Sheng, the son of a Shanxi merchant, is persecuted by Huang Maocai, a provincial graduate. His parents are killed, and his wife is sent to the Imperial Music Bureau. With help from Chen Yuan, a veteran employee at the family business, Li Sheng escapes to the Mongolian grasslands.
The Russians push south to occupy Mongolia and the Northeast, Japanese troops land at Port Arthur, and a force of more than 400,000 troops from the Eight-Nation Alliance rampages across China. To the measured beat of drums, the Boxers form neat ranks, turning the land into a wall and the rivers into a moat.
See how Li Sheng draws his bow and plucks the strings amid this sweeping age, pursuing the utopia in his heart.
No one read it. It was pretty good just now. The author is educated.