When the salty sea breeze, carrying the smell of coal smoke, crept into his nostrils, Long Xingyao woke with a start from the cold.
It was not the dry chill of a modern air-conditioned room. This cold was damp with moisture, seeping into the spaces between his bones. It was early spring in Hong Kong in 1906. The morning mist had yet to lift from Victoria Harbour, and he was curled up beneath a pile of coarse burlap covering cargo by the wharf. The only thing wrapped around him was a short tunic, stiff from washing, its fabric rubbing his skin raw.
