Status Updates From Тай-пен (Азійська сага, #2)

"Let's talk about you, Tai-Pan. You can't
flaunt your Chinese mistress here."

"She and the children'll be safe aboard ship and that's all that counts."

"Not in our society, by God, and you know it. They'll break you, Tai-Pan, even you, if you go against their godrotting code. They have to. She's Chinese."

"The pox on them!"

“If May-may's kept private, she's no threat to them. What’s not seen does not exist.

When May-may awoke the sun was up. The land beside the river was low and ran back to misted horizons. An abundant land, patterned with numberless paddy fields, green and waving with winter rice. Clouded hills afar off. The Marble Pagoda was just ahead. Beneath it was China Cloud. Four days later she was at anchor in Deepwater Bay, by Hong Kong Island. It was a cold morning with a sky cloud-locked, the sea gray.

“Good sweet Christ! If I were you, Hong Kong, I'd hate me too. You hate the plan! Well, I tell you, the plan's good, by God. Good, you hear? China needs the world and the world needs China. And you're the key to unlock the gates of China, and you know it and I know it, and that's what I'm going to do, and you're going to help!"

Stop it, he said to himself. You're acting like a madman.

1841 🇭🇰