The Anti-Fascist War

In the summer of 1937, an unusual restlessness filled the air of Shanghai, the greatest metropolis in the Far East. The plane trees along Avenue Joffre in the French Concession were still lush, shading the scorching afternoon sun. Rickshaw wheels rolled over the asphalt with a soft hiss. Yet the lazy jazz playing on the gramophone in the cafes could not drown out the increasingly tense headlines: fighting in North China was escalating, and Japanese provocations around Shanghai were growing ever more brazen. The clouds of war hung heavy over the hearts of every clear-eyed person, like the oppressive humidity of the rainy season.

Jiang Ling, a third-year English major at Hujiang University, sat by a library window with a copy of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities open in front of her. But her gaze often drifted outside despite herself. Beyond the window lay the peaceful campus lawns, where younger students laughed and played, their faces still bright with hopes for the future, as if the distant gunshots had nothing to do with them. Jiang Ling sighed softly. Her father, Professor Jiang, taught history at Hujiang University and was deeply worried. Lately, he and his colleagues had often talked late into the night in his study. In their hushed conversations, words like “war,” “resistance,” and “the loss of our country” pricked at her heart like needles.