When I was growing up, my adoptive father put half a piece of dragon-patterned jade into my hand, saying it would keep me safe throughout my life. Seven years later in Shanghai, the youngest marshal Chen Jianghao pinched the jade hat and told me with a half-smile -
This is the accounting voucher for the adoptive father's smuggling of arms. Every crack is a human life. The deepest one is my brother's blood.
At that moment I understood: my dowry was a burial object, my family was the cemetery, and my marriage was the next sacrifice.
So I took the knife from the young marshal and hid it under the cheongsam, in the files, and at the banquet. During the day, I am the most silent restoration apprentice of the customs, picking up the broken pieces of porcelain with tweezers, and sewing up the knowledge that I was crushed; at night, I am the most dangerous witness in the dark cabin, dismantling the lies and secret letters written in blood in the dim light of the gas lamp.
The adoptive father's account books were hot in the secret room, and the confidential letters of the Oriental Trading Company were sneering in the safe. When Malacca's route overlaps with Songhu's artillery fire, when the young marshal's gun is aimed at my last "relative" - the piece of jade that is used as a talisman, is it the boat that carries me through the dark night, or is it a monument that crucifies me to death?
The dragon pattern can be broken, but can the jade jue be reunited? Can the boat I built with lies carry me through this long night of burning everything in the name of my loved ones?
This is a story about inheritance and betrayal. In Shanghai in the 1930s, some people used antiques to hide corpses, and some used blood as bait. But I will use all the skills my adoptive father taught me to send him to hell with my own hands - even if the price is, I will kneel in the ruins forever and never be able to afford it.
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Word count: 498 words
Purpose: Revenge of an Orphan