At sea, a human life is worth less than a fish. If you want to live like a person, you must first learn to become a ghost.
In the forty-seventh year of the Wanli reign, a typhoon shattered Dan girl Pu Anqing’s only path to survival.
Her father went barefoot into the county town for a packet of life-saving medicine, only to die in a ditch unseen by the “good official” Lu Zheng.
With his last breath, he left her just one sentence:
“If we never reach the shore, we’ll be vermin forever...”
In just a few short years, the girl who could “read the wind and tell the tides” rose from a “water bug” not even worthy of a name to the fearsome “Sea Queen of the Underworld.”
She monopolized the fish market, forcing the local authorities to answer to her;
smuggled firearms, earning the name “Queen” from the red-haired foreigners;
built giant ships in secret, sending pirates fleeing at the sight of her.
The barefoot Dan girl of old became the fabulously wealthy “Half the Sea of Pu.”
The only thing that never changed was the pair of embroidered shoes on her feet, forever ill-fitting yet encrusted with gems.
Every step felt like walking on a knife’s edge...
In the tenth year of the Chongzhen reign, the coastal defenses crumbled.
County magistrate Lu Zheng had become an imperial inspector, dispatched by the throne.
He boarded her gold-plated flagship, his face gaunt and his official robe washed pale:
“Head of the Pu family, the court is investigating your arms smuggling.”
Barefoot on Persian carpets, she poured a cup of wine over his spotless official boots.
“Lord Lu, you want cannons? You want ships? You can have them.”
“But this time, we play by my rules
Later, the Qing army broke through the passes and the capital fell.
On the night news arrived that the Chongzhen Emperor was dead, Lu Zheng sat alone at the bow of her ship in mourning clothes until dawn.
At daybreak, he pushed open the door to her cabin, his eyes bloodshot:
“Pu Anqing, my country is gone.”
She set a gold hairpin in her hair before the mirror and smiled over her shoulder, looking as though...
