Prologue
1836, Coastal village near Canton (Modern-day Guangzhou)
“Heavens, Wei, that feels good.” On her hands and knees, Chun arched her neck, her hair a river of onyx rippling down her back. “Do it harder.”
Gripping her slender hips, eighteen-year-old Wei Chen obliged his lover. He pushed inside her, groaning at her slick warmth. She pushed back at him and moaned loudly…too loudly.
Wei curved over her and whispered, “Have a care, my love. We cannot risk discovery.”
“This cottage has been abandoned for years. No one is going to find us here.” Chun twisted her head to look at him, her doe-brown eyes gleaming with defiance. “And I do not care if my husband finds us. He’s a useless old fool. He blames me for not giving him an heir, but it is not my fault that his prick is as wilted as a dying chrysanthemum. He cannot even find it beneath the folds of his belly.”
Now five-and-twenty, Chun had been married to Fulin Li, the village governor, for a decade. The union had not produced children, and Governor Li publicly blamed Chun for this. Wei understood her bitterness, yet her husband was a rich and powerful merchant who ruled over their village on the coast of the Pearl River Delta. If he discovered that his wife was committing adultery, it would be within his rights to have her and her lover killed.
Trepidation knotted Wei’s chest. Nearly a year ago, he and Chun had had a chance encounter in the village market. Chun had spilled a basket of apples, and as he’d helped her to retrieve the shiny red fruit, he’d fallen under her spell. She was as beautiful and unattainable as Chang’e, the Goddess of the Moon, and he still couldn’t believe that she had chosen him, the undistinguished son of a soldier, to be her lover.
At the same time, Wei knew the risk he was taking. He didn’t care about himself—he had made his bed and would sleep in it—but his family would also bear the brunt of his dishonor. Shame flooded Wei as he thought of how his father, the righteous Captain Qiang Chen, would react to his illicit affair.
The Qing Emperor had sent Captain Chen to this coastal village to wage war against opium. While the dangerous substance had long been illegal in China, foreigners—especially the British—were smuggling in the drug by the boatloads.
“The barbarians do not care about the devastation they are causing to our people, son,” Wei’s baba would say grimly. “They are governed only by greed. By their insatiable desire for silver to trade for our tea and silk. Yet equally treacherous are the traitors within our borders. Our fellow countrymen who would betray their own people and aid the injection of poison into the veins of their own society…”
The captain’s mission to stamp out opium required continual travel. Wei had resented the upheaval, the constant cycle of having to leave old friends behind and earn the respect of new ones. He’d been an outsider his entire life, and his ten-year-old sister Meiling, known as Ling Ling, was suffering the same fate.
Whenever he complained, his mama would chide, “Your baba follows the orders of the Emperor. It is your duty and privilege to support him in this.”
Wei had heard enough lectures about filial piety to last a lifetime. Yet his resentment was tempered by guilt. He did respect his father; who wouldn’t revere such a dedicated and stalwart soldier? A man who, for meager army pay, fulfilled his duty with unfailing diligence. Who stood strong in the face of bribes and threats, all in the name of justice and loyalty to his country.
Yet the captain was also taciturn and critical. He had one ambition for his only son: he wanted Wei to become a scholar-official. He was determined that Wei would bring honor to the Chen name by studying hard, passing a series of rigorous imperial examinations, and attaining an elite position in civil service.
Easier said than done. Scholarship did not come naturally to Wei, a fact that not even his tutor’s bamboo cane could rectify. Nonetheless, he’d done his best and taken the first round of local examinations this year.
His failure had humiliated himself and his family.
“Wei, darling, let us stop talking.” Chun’s husky words jarred him from his thoughts. “We have far better things to do, don’t we?”
She squeezed her inner muscles, the decadent massage making him grunt.
“You’re so big,” she purred. “Do it to me, Wei. Satisfy me the way only you can.”
While studying had never been Wei’s forte, he’d always been good at physical activities, and lovemaking was no different. By now, he knew what pleased Chun—knew she liked it when he was rough. When he took her hard and used filthy words, she turned wetter than a rice field.
“Want my big prick, do you?” He shunted his cock forcefully into her passage. “Want it hard and deep?”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
Egged on by her mewls of delight, he took her, harder and harder still, his queue whipping against his back with the power of his thrusts. She came with a carelessly loud shriek that echoed through the empty cottage. As his own finish boiled over, he had just enough sense to yank himself free of her spasming sheath. He bit his lip against a shout, tasting blood as he shot his seed onto the grimy floor.
Panting, he gazed at Chun. She’d collapsed onto her forearms, her cheeks flushed, a smile on her lips. Pride puffed his chest that he’d satisfied this beautiful lady, made her happy, and while he knew it was foolish, he wanted to protect her—even from her husband.
“I love you,” he blurted.
She met his gaze, and her lips formed a beckoning curve.
“Then show me again,” she said.
After two more rounds of lovemaking, Wei escorted Chun as far as he dared back to the extravagant governor’s compound. Then he continued his way to his family’s small house. The path took him along the cliffs overlooking the Pearl River Delta. The sky flowed seamlessly into the water, forming an ink-black canvas, but he didn’t risk using a lantern. Instead, he relied upon the crescent moon to light his way.
As he trudged toward home, the pleasure was already fading, replaced by gnawing shame. He knew what he was doing was wrong. While he loved Chun, he knew that their affair could come to no good end. Once, he’d tried to end things with her; she had cried, and he’d tried to comfort her…and the next thing he knew, she was beneath him, her legs circling his hips as he pounded into her.
