Chapter 5

5

Oriental Library. Some might find this name unfamiliar, but upon hearing another name, they would realize immediately.

That was The Commercial Press.

Put simply, it was a publishing house that handled almost all domestic and foreign publications in modern China. Back then, many renowned scholars and writers took great pride in having their works printed by The Commercial Press.

It was even as prestigious as Peking University at the time, hailed as one of China’s cultural lifelines.

And the Oriental Library was a library under The Commercial Press, open to the public for reading. When it was bombed in 1932, it was the foremost library in Asia and the culmination of Zhang Yuanji’s life’s work.

Inside, it housed not only hundreds of thousands of ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign volumes, but unlike some private book collections of antiquity, Zhang Yuanji had no intention of keeping them locked away from the world. He opened this library to students who could not afford to buy books, genuinely educating without discrimination, regardless of wealth or poverty.

At this time, whenever people in Shanghai mentioned the library, they all gave a thumbs-up, praising Old Mr. Zhang for his magnanimity. It was said that even the most wicked mob bosses of the Green Gang showed him utmost respect and deference.

Yet such a library, which embodied one of southern China’s cultural lifelines, would be reduced to ash three weeks later in the bombing, along with tens of thousands of lives of Shanghai’s soldiers and civilians.

The heavy, brutal reality instantly tore Wen Yan’s wealthy-scion trial pass to shreds. It was like a basin of cold water poured over his head, chilling him to the bone. All his excitement, thrill, gossip-seeking, and curiosity were thoroughly extinguished by this dousing.

Wen Yan stood frozen in place, breathing heavily with a blank stare, looking as if his soul had left his body, which instantly frightened Madam Shen out of her wits.

“Goodness! Mama’s precious darling, don’t scare me! What’s wrong with you?”

Madam Shen tugged at his arm, and finding that he did not move at all, she grew anxious. Just as she was about to call someone in, Wen Yan finally came back to his senses.

“I’m fine…”

He was utterly drained. The soup dumplings he had just eaten felt as though they had been digested in an instant, leaving him feeling completely limp and spineless.

Madam Shen said frantically, “How is this fine! I’m calling the family doctor over right now!”

Wen Yan said, “Don’t. I just suddenly heard Grand Uncle’s name and felt an epiphany wash over me. It’s like his venerable self struck me with a palm strike from afar, making me realize the importance of knowledge. Knowledge changes destiny, and I must study! I’ve seen the light! Starting today, I’m going to study hard!”

Madam Shen: “…”

“What kind of fit are you throwing again, child!” Seeing that her son seemed truly fine, Madam Shen let out a sigh of relief and chided playfully, “Since you truly want to pick yourself up, we have an agreement. No fishing for three days and drying nets for two. Your grand uncle is very busy every day and has no time to entertain a junior like you. Tomorrow, I’ll have Zheng Sheng accompany you to the library. He excels in his studies, so feel free to ask him if you have any questions.”

Wen Yan asked, “Zheng Sheng?”

Madam Shen said, “I knew you’d forgotten. He’s your grand uncle’s grandson. You two used to play together as children, but later he devoted himself to his studies while you just wanted to have fun, so you drifted apart. Take my advice: spend less time running around with those fair-weather friends of yours and more time around good boys like Zheng Sheng. It won’t do you any harm!”

Well said, but your actual son would need to be willing to listen to that! Wen Yan muttered inwardly.

He needed time to properly digest the news he had just learned, and was in no mood to keep playing mother-and-son with Madam Shen. Giving a couple of perfunctory replies, he returned to his room.

Closing the door, Wen Yan dropped all pretense. He groaned, burying his face in his hands, and threw himself onto the bed. He wished he could just faint and ignore the outside world altogether, but his mind remained sharp and wide awake, leaving him unable to escape through sleep.

The incident three weeks from now would plunge nearly half of Shanghai into the flames of war. The Japanese did not yet want to trigger an all-out war, so their deployed force was limited. Yet even this limited force caught the Chinese off guard. What was more, the disparity in weaponry and combat strength between the two nations was an indisputable fact. The heavy casualties at the time fell not only on the 19th Route Army, which would become renowned in later generations, but also on civilians whose homes were bombarded, as well as the famous Commercial Press and Oriental Library.

The enemy’s objective had been clear. Beyond testing our military strength, their limited offensive had the vicious goal of severing China’s cultural lifeline, which was why they targeted the Commercial Press and the library first. And they had indeed halfway succeeded. Although they did not achieve a quick victory to occupy Shanghai in the end, they essentially accomplished everything they intended to destroy and bomb.

Was he supposed to just stand by and watch all of this happen?

True, Shen Po came from a wealthy and powerful background, belonging to a class ordinary people back then dared not offend, but when it came to stopping such a major war, he was far from qualified.

Never mind that no one would believe what Shen Po said as an individual; even if Shen Po’s eldest uncle, in his capacity as deputy mayor, demanded that the entire city prepare for war in advance, would anyone believe him? People would only think he had gone mad.

In truth, the Japanese bombardment would not come completely out of nowhere. In about two weeks, they would stage an incident, using the alleged beating of Japanese residents as a pretext to issue an ultimatum to Shanghai with humiliating demands. And what did the mayor of Shanghai do back then? He backed down. Not only did he back down, but influential figures across Shanghai backed down, and the Nanjing government backed down even more. One concession led to another, ultimately leading to that incident at the end of the month that shocked China and the world.

From top to bottom, almost everyone believed war would not break out. Everyone harbored a mentality of appeasement, so Shen Po alone could not possibly change anything!

Even if Wen Yan wrote an anonymous warning letter right now, how could he explain knowing what should have been Japanese military secrets in advance?

Thinking of this, Wen Yan could not help but groan in despair.

What qualifications did he, a mere volunteer primary school teacher, have to shoulder the heavy burden of saving China’s cultural heritage?

Something this important was better left to the real Shen Po!

Wen Yan turned it over in his mind, and unable to think of a better way, an urge to escape immediately took hold of him.

Besides, this was already history that had happened. It was only normal that he could not change anything.

Then again, this very incident was a resounding slap across the faces of those appeasers, gradually forging the Chinese people’s will to resist. If he altered history, wouldn’t those capitulationists get to keep living in peace and singing and dancing away their days?

Wen Yan came up with all sorts of excuses to comfort himself, and his temper gradually cooled.

His mind was made up. At worst, he would just pull all-nighters playing games tomorrow night and the night after without going to sleep. Problem solved!

He refused to believe he could still travel across time while wide awake!

By this point, the shock of the situation had completely shattered the last shred of romantic expectation Wen Yan held for the Republic of China.

Whoever wanted to come to an era like this could be his guest. He would rather feed mosquitoes in the countryside than ever set foot here again!

Though he had decided to keep to himself and watch history purely from the sidelines, Wen Yan still felt frustrated. Tossing and turning, unable to sleep, he simply rolled over, sat up, grabbed the diary, and vented into it with wild scribbles.

First, he cursed Shen Po for being so grown yet having zero drive, completely ignorant and reckless as he squandered his life. Sooner or later, he would burn through his family’s ancestral shade, and when he ended up begging on the streets, people would probably complain he lacked the professional skills for even that.

Next, he cursed the state of the world. Behind vermilion gates, wine and meat spoiled, while frozen bones littered the roadside^[1]. What Shen Po ate in a single day was enough to feed an ordinary family for half a month. These lazy, pleasure-seeking elites who spent their days wallowing in decadence would all be hung from lampposts sooner or later!

Finally, he cursed the invaders, cursed every foreign power since the 1840 Opium War, and cursed how the wealth and resources they plundered would eventually backfire and become their own death warrants.

Transforming into an intensely radical angry youth, Wen Yan thoroughly vented his pent-up fury through the written word. He no longer cared about Shen Po’s feelings; as long as he felt better after ranting, that was all that mattered. In any case, he was determined never to return to this place.

Tonight might very well be his last night.

What Wen Yan did not know was that, completely opposite to him, Shen Po had already discovered the pleasures of the era he found himself in. Clutching the phone with only 1% battery remaining, he was having the time of his life, not giving a single thought to going back.

The mindsets of the two had completely reversed compared to how they started out.

At first-

Wen Yan: “What kind of godforsaken place is this? Huh, I’m a young master from a wealthy family? Eating, drinking, and having fun every day without having to do real work? Then I’d better experience this properly.”

Shen Po: “Why is there nothing here? A hundred years later and this is it? My god, I want to go back to Shanghai!”

Now-

Shen Po: “This is so much fun! This era is way too much fun! I want to come back again!”

Wen Yan: “Get lost! Get as far away as you possibly can!”