Chapter 39

39

The bombs had appeared to drop directly overhead, but due to horizontal projectile motion, they ultimately landed a short distance away from where they were.

In this very moment, Wen Yan inappropriately recalled the physics principles he had once studied. The teacher who had used it as an exam question probably never imagined that Wen Yan would one day witness this “experiment” firsthand.

Shen Po pressed himself tightly against a pillar beneath the arcade. Watching the bomb detonate ahead as shrapnel sprayed everywhere, alarm bells blared in his head, warning him to shut his eyes immediately. Yet he instinctively stared at the ball of fire from the blast until flying brick and stone grazed his face and body, leaving sharp, stinging cuts.

【Are you insane? Get behind the pillar and crouch with your head down!】 Wen Yan’s voice exploded in his mind.

Shen Po knew that too; his body just failed to react in time.

A pampered young man who had never experienced disaster was just as slow to react in the face of a massive man-made calamity.

Gritting his teeth, Shen Po squeezed his eyes shut. His nostrils filled with smoke and dust bursting from the pulverized buildings, leaving him no choice but to raise his arm and press his sleeve firmly over his nose and mouth.

The ground, the pillar behind him, the entire world seemed to tremble. The vibrations traveled through his body, sending his heart racing even harder.

【Am I going to die?】

Dizzy and disoriented, Shen Po nearly collapsed to the ground. With his nose and mouth covered, he naturally could not speak, but he kept asking Wen Yan in his heart, and asking himself as well.

He had once thought highly of himself, believing that if he truly set out to accomplish great things, he would effortlessly charm everyone and succeed with ease, and that it was only his family background that spared him the need to strive.

But at this very moment, Shen Po suddenly saw himself clearly. He was just an ordinary person, as ordinary as could be. He merely had a better starting point because he was born into privilege. When faced with catastrophe, his reaction was just like anyone else’s, without any innate coolness or quick wit.

【We’re still some distance from the blast. It was probably just random bombing to sow chaos.】

Wen Yan’s voice turned out to be the best comfort. Shen Po could hardly imagine how torturous these few minutes waiting for the bombing to pass would have been without him.

【My family’s side… they’ll be fine, won’t they?】 he asked anxiously.

Wen Yan thought for a moment. 【Probably. I’m guessing the Japanese have a very clear objective: they want a swift resolution and a quick victory to secure maximum benefits. If they can take Shanghai without bloodshed, even better. By then, no matter how shocked the international community is, they’ll back down and compromise. The Japanese actually don’t want to expand the conflict into the concessions and trigger a backlash from Western powers.】

Shen Po murmured, 【They can’t touch Western territory, so they hit the Chinese sector without mercy, the military, residential areas… After all, they aren’t the ones suffering, and the Western powers will step in to mediate eventually anyway.】

Wen Yan: 【Right.】

They thought the Chinese military would retreat without fighting as before, falling back step by step, never expecting that this time it would provoke fierce resistance and escalate the battle even further.

After the two bombs, the aircraft seemed as if it had only passed by by chance, never appearing again.

But up ahead was already a sea of flames.

Explosions, wails, and cries echoed incessantly.

Seeing the bombing stop, Old Chen hurriedly waved for them to follow.

Everyone gathered under a wall.

“The situation isn’t good right now. We can’t stay in Zhabei. I have to go check on the library before I can set my mind at ease. Young Master Shen, Young Master Zheng, don’t follow us. It’s unsafe. You should head home. The Japanese wouldn’t dare touch the concessions no matter what.”

Old Chen wasn’t surprised to see Shen Po looking dazed. When he had returned to the city back then and witnessed such carnage, his reaction had been even more extreme than Shen Po’s.

No matter how great the grief, it had now settled into composure.

Shen Po wiped his face, brushing away the dust.

“Since my home is safe, heading back earlier or later makes no difference. I’ll go check on the library with you first. Later, I have to find Old Du. I want to talk things over with him and find a chance to move those books at the docks as soon as possible, or they won’t be safe sooner or later.”

Zheng Sheng had been hesitating, but hearing Shen Po say this, he chimed in, “I’m coming with you. My family is in the concession too, so there’s no rush.”

Shen Po shook his head. “There’s no point in all of us sticking together, and it’ll only slow things down. Go find Granduncle first to ask about the situation at the Commercial Press and the library, and see what the old gentleman thinks. If the library is still unharmed for now, we have to find a way to move the books out anyway. After all, now that fighting has started, the Japanese won’t have time to keep tabs on us.”

Zheng Sheng struck a fist into his palm, visibly heartened. “You’re right, I almost forgot. I need to hurry and discuss it with Grandfather!”

Shen Po turned to Old Yang. “Uncle Yang, head back with Little Peach first. If your home is already damaged, don’t linger. It’s not safe there either. You can go straight to the Shen Residence on Wuxing Road, tell them you’re my friends, and have Xiao Wu help settle you in. Wait, let me write a note…”

Zheng Sheng stopped him. “Don’t bother with all that trouble. Amid this chaos of war, your household might not have the capacity. How about this, Uncle Yang: come find me directly at my grandfather’s place. There’s a church nearby, and I know the priest there. I can have him take you in. It’s safe there too.”

Old Yang thanked him repeatedly.

Seeing everything arranged, Shen Po said, “There’s no time to lose. Let’s split up. Be careful on the way. It’s better to take a detour than take unnecessary risks. I hope we all make it through this in one piece.”

Zheng Sheng hadn’t felt much at first, but hearing him say this, a solemn chill of parting stirred in him, echoing the ancient sorrow of wind blowing cold across the Yi River^[1].

“Let’s set a time to meet.”

“How about seven in the evening? At Granduncle’s place.”

“All right, it’s a deal then.”

“Take care, comrade!”

That last word had become popular again several years ago. Back then, young people had treated calling each other comrade and making pacts to go to Yan’an^[2] as a trend. Even youths who had never read those famous works would shout it a couple of times whenever they had the chance, feeling as though they were keeping up with the times.

Yet as Zheng Sheng blurted out the word just now, he couldn’t help smiling after saying it, feeling an unusually heavy sense of mission.

As 《Discourses of the States · Discourses of Jin IV》 says: “Those of the same virtue share one heart; those of one heart share the same purpose.”

He expected a young master like Shen Po to mock him for pedantry, but surprisingly, he didn’t.

Shen Po merely nodded, gave his hand a firm squeeze, then turned, called out to Old Chen, and jogged off toward the library.

Zheng Sheng watched their departing figures as a sudden surge of emotion welled up inside him, stinging his eyes.

He blinked rapidly, shaking off his sudden melancholy.

Time was running out. They had to do everything they could, doing whatever lay within their power.

The journey to the library was exceptionally difficult for Shen Po and Old Chen.

The further forward they went and the closer to the front line they got, the more chaotic things became.

Flames soared into the sky. Fires caused by Japanese bombs raged everywhere, engulfing residences in blazing infernos. Many who had narrowly escaped wailed and wept in despair outside, while others who hadn’t managed to flee in time remained buried beneath the rubble, their relatives desperately trying to fight the flames and dig through the ruins.

Wherever they went, the land was filled with the cries of the displaced and suffering.

If the area they had just come from could still be considered somewhat orderly, what Shen Po saw now was nothing less than the chaos of a world torn apart by war.

How had Shanghai, once so bustling and splendid, turned into this overnight?

Shen Po had no time to dwell in sorrow. He was terrified of getting separated from Old Chen, and Old Chen was equally afraid of losing him. Gripping each other by the arm, the two pushed against the flow of the crowd, stumbling as they rushed toward the Commercial Press.

Yet the Commercial Press had long since caught fire. Judging by the flames, it had already been burning for some time. There were people outside trying to put it out, but against such an inferno, their efforts were merely a drop in the bucket.

“It started burning around seven or eight this morning, right after two bombs dropped from the sky!” Old Chen ran into a familiar neighbor and grabbed him to ask what had happened. “It blew up a few buildings, and the fire just took off. Everything around here is connected, and with the wind… sigh, what a sin!”

This old neighbor was among the lucky ones. When the bombs fell, he had been out having breakfast with his little grandson, and the rest of his family had managed to escape in time; they were still over there helping to put out the fire.

“The folks in the buildings hit by the bombs died on the spot. I saw them being dragged out with my own eyes, burned straight to charcoal. Horrible! You’re asking about the library? It looks like it’s still fine over there, but the wind is shifting now, so it’s hard to say!”

The library was actually unscathed?

Shen Po and Old Chen looked at each other in surprise.

Casting everything else aside, the two rushed toward the library.

The fire was indeed spreading, driven by the wind toward buildings that had not yet caught, even threatening to leap across the street.

Fortunately, it had not reached the library yet.

Yet it was only temporary relief. At this rate, if the fire was not extinguished over the next day or two and the wind kept fanning the flames, reaching the library would be a matter of time.

Even as Shen Po breathed a sigh of relief, he couldn’t help asking Wen Yan: 【Has the history you know changed? The bombing didn’t destroy the library, so we still have time to move the books out.】

Wen Yan also wondered if his hazy historical memory had failed him. Yet he remembered clearly that the library had been destroyed by bombings and fires. Could the flap of the butterfly’s wings from his arrival have caused the Japanese to notice they were evacuating books, leading them to abandon the library as a target and altering history along with it?

While the two were still pondering, Old Chen spoke up: “Young Master Shen, do you think you can contact Mr. Du right now? Have him send two large trucks over so we can evacuate the books first.”

Shen Po shook his head. “Finding Mr. Du is easy, but how will the trucks get through?”

The streets were littered with bombed and burned-out buildings, the roads a chaotic mess packed with panicked crowds. There was no way for vehicles to pass. Even if trucks painstakingly made it through, how to get them back out once loaded with books would still be a major problem.

Were they supposed to just watch helplessly as the fire spread and ultimately set the library ablaze?

Wen Yan had no choice but to remind him: 【Standing here brooding won’t solve anything either. Why not go find Old Du first and move the books at the docks? We should save whatever batch we can.】

Wen Yan’s suggestion was the most rational, but Shen Po could not bear to walk away.

He thought of the past ten or so days he had spent inside this building. Faced with that vast ocean of books, Shen Po had gone from getting a headache just looking at them to eventually being able to stand peacefully before a bookshelf, opening an ancient tome.

Though it was still a case of the books knowing Shen Po while Shen Po didn’t know them, he had gradually come to understand what Wen Yan meant by “cultural lineage.”

Even if he couldn’t understand or enjoy these books, there would always be people who did. This nation had suffered countless tribulations and weathered countless rises and falls over thousands of years, yet its lineage had remained unbroken. What sustained it was nothing other than a shared cultural identity, and those very secrets were scattered throughout these books.

Even if the books in here might not be as rare as the ones they had prioritized hiding away, they were still precious, one of the windows through which this nation could understand its past and look out upon the world.

Shen Po was torn. He couldn’t bring himself to make the decision, because leaving now meant they might have to abandon the library entirely.

“Hurry over, this way, this way!”

The shout came from behind them.

Shen Po turned around and saw an old man leading a few others who were pushing flatbed carts toward them.

Old Chen hurried to meet them. “What are you all doing here?”

Shen Po recognized them as well. They were all neighbors living nearby; some knew Old Chen, while others had worked odd jobs around the library.

When Shen Po had first arrived to help at the library, he still carried the haughty airs of a young master and hardly interacted with people of the lower classes. Only after growing close to Old Chen had he gradually come to know them.

The old man said, “Ah, I thought you weren’t coming back! The fire looks like it’s about to spread over here, so we figured we’d break through the windows and move the books out first. Otherwise, when Old Mr. Zhang gets back and sees his books burned up, he’d probably cry his eyes out! Good thing you’re back so we don’t have to smash the windows. We were just worrying about that!”

Shen Po looked at the small handcarts they each had. “But these won’t carry much…”

The old man replied, “Look at what time it is! We take as much as we can!”

Just six people and five small wooden wheelbarrows, a drop in the bucket.

Yet these people had come of their own accord. No one had called on them, and no one had paid them.

Old Chen said, “Thank you, old friend!”

The old man replied, “What’s there to thank? Back when I broke my leg, if Old Mr. Zhang hadn’t given me a job, my family would have starved. And this place never barred poor folks from entering. When my little grandson wanted to come read, they said all he needed was a card. In the past, only the wealthy could afford books to read. Where else would you find a place made for poor people to read?”

The others chimed in, “That’s right! Who would want the books inside to burn? My son comes here to read all the time too!”

“I’ve troubled you brothers. On behalf of Old Mr. Zhang and the people who wrote those books, I thank you!”

Old Chen cupped his hands to everyone around him and bowed deeply with solemn sincerity.

“Why thank us? Forget the formalities and let’s get to work!”

“Exactly. The sooner we move them, the more we can save!”

Shen Po wiped his face and suddenly said, “Uncle Chen, after you bring the books out, leave them by the entrance for now. I’ll go make a call right away to have Old Du send people over to collect them. Big trucks can’t get through, but cars should make it. If all else fails, he has plenty of men; everyone can carry a bag out on their back. We’ll move as much as we can!”

Old Chen nodded. “Be careful then, and hurry back!”

Before the word “back” had even fully left his mouth, Shen Po had already darted out!