When the salty sea breeze filled with the smell of coal smoke entered his nose, Long Xingyao woke up from the cold.
It was not the dry cold in modern air-conditioned rooms, but the damp cold that was filled with water vapor and could seep into the bones. In the early spring of 1906 in Hong Kong, the morning fog in Victoria Harbor had not yet cleared. He huddled under a pile of burlap covering the cargo at the dock. He was only wrapped in a starched dagger, and the fabric abraded his skin.
