The Library of Legends Read online

  Dedication

  To the memory of my father and uncle, who packed up their books and became refugees in their own country, walking more than a thousand miles to safety with their university. The evacuation of Chinese universities during a time of war was emblematic of the Chinese regard for education. It was one of the country’s most remarkable achievements of intellectual and cultural preservation. It’s also a chapter of history almost unknown outside China.

  Epigraph

  Though the country is broken, hills and streams endure;

  And in the city spring comes again to trees and grasses.

  But flowers shed fearful tears,

  And desolate birds sing the sorrows of parting.

  Beacon fires have burned for three months now,

  And letters from home are worth ten thousand pieces of gold.

  From “Spring View” by Du Fu (AD 712–770)

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  The Journey West

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  The Journey East

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Author’s Notes

  Acknowledgments

  Resources

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Read On

  Also by Janie Chang

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  The Journey West

  Map by Nick Springer / Springer Cartographics LLC

  Chapter 1

  September 20, 1937–Nanking, China

  The approaching aircraft were too far away for Lian to tell whether they were Chinese or Japanese. A moment later, she didn’t need to guess. The spiraling wail of sirens churned the air. Then the bombs began falling, like beads slipping off a necklace.

  She had been on her way to the train station. She’d gotten off the rickshaw to buy a steamed bun for breakfast. Now she stood outside the bakery as though rooted to the pavement, uncertain what to do. The nearest air-raid shelter was two blocks away, across from the railway station, its entrance already besieged. Even if she were willing to abandon her wicker suitcase, she would never reach the shelter in time.

  A strong hand gripped her arm and yanked her through the bakery door.

  “Get to the back room,” the baker growled. But she shook her head and dashed out, struggling back with the heavy suitcase. She had to save her books.

  Inside, the baker and his wife were throwing damp cloths over trays of buns. He pointed to a storage room built against the back of the kitchen, sacks of flour stacked against one wall. The couple joined four small children squeezed together against the sacks. Lian hesitated, then slid her wicker suitcase under a worktable. But before she could run to the storage room, a shrill whistling pierced her eardrums, followed by the sound of explosions. The floor shuddered. Next she heard the sharp, rhythmic report of antiaircraft guns.

  There was a roar of sound and then the world went silent.

  LIAN HAD LEFT Minghua University early that morning, spending precious coins from her small cache to ride on a rickshaw that jounced its way through congested streets. Rickshaws and handcarts, handbarrows, wagons, and the occasional automobile. Nanking was evacuating. Every vehicle was piled high with trunks, sacks of food, furniture, and people. Invalids and the elderly, mothers holding children. Their expressions ranged from anxious to stoic.

  Her own appearance, Lian hoped, signaled maturity and reserve, enough to dissuade the attentions of hawkers, pickpockets, and talkative fellow travelers. She’d pulled her hair into a tight knot, the severe style offsetting her least-favorite feature, a small chin that made her seem years younger than nineteen. At least her navy-blue Minghua blazer proclaimed her of university age.

  The Japanese had yet to bomb the city’s outlying districts. Minghua University’s campus lay southwest of Nanking and was a haven compared to the frenzied scene around the railway station. The university had begun emptying bit by bit as nervous parents instructed their children to come home.

  Lian’s home was Peking, where her mother lived. But Peking had been taken by the enemy earlier that month. She’d been frantic for her mother’s safety until a much-delayed letter arrived. Inside, her mother had tucked in money for Lian’s train fare. Peking was already lost when her mother wrote that letter. The Chinese army was in retreat and the Japanese were marching in.

  Daughter, everyone expects the Japanese to reach Peking within days. I’m leaving tomorrow. I will meet you in Shanghai. When you get there, find the Unity Mission School and stay there. Tell them your mother is a former student. Tell them I’m on my way. They won’t refuse you.

  But when her mother mailed the letter, the Japanese had not yet attacked Shanghai. Every day, newspapers printed photographs of Shanghai’s streets, now cordoned off with barbed-wire barricades that separated Shanghai’s International Settlement from the rest of the city. The Settlement was not Chinese territory. It had been ceded to foreign powers decades ago and the Japanese military couldn’t enter. Now refugees streamed into the sanctuary of the Settlement, past gates guarded by Japanese sentries.

  Lian was taking the Nanking-to-Shanghai train, which terminated at Shanghai’s North Railway Station, safely located inside the Settlement. But how would her mother get to Shanghai? What if she couldn’t get past the barricades? It was too late now for second-guessing or a change of plans. Her mother was on the road and Lian had no way of contacting her, let alone in a timely fashion.

  These thoughts and a multitude of other worries spun hazily in Lian’s head and slowly, slowly, she opened her eyes. Sunlight from a back window illuminated motes of white dust hanging in the air. No, not dust. Flour. The baker’s family was sweeping the floor, coaxing snowy piles onto a large cloth, which they tilted carefully into a bin. Lian sat up and leaned her back against the wall.

  One of the baker’s children knelt down and spoke to her. Lian saw the girl’s lips move, forming words. Words Lian couldn’t hear. She shook her head in bemusement. The girl shrugged and went back to sweeping. Lian stood up slowly, still leaning against the wall. She noticed with detached wonder that she was covered in a fine film of white. She took her blazer off and shook it a few times until the fabric shed its dusting of flour.

  Then she knelt beside the kitchen table and pulled her suitcase out. She staggered to the front of the shop, wondering why the suitcase felt twice as heavy as before. Outside, she put it down and peered at Shing An Road, toward the railway station. Murky smoke stung her eyes. All she could make out were large, inert shapes but her hearing was coming back and there was a muted sound of shouting voices.

  Wreckage covered the road. R
ickshaws in splinters, carts missing wheels, a wooden store sign lying broken on the sidewalk. A pile of fallen bricks where a wall used to be. Fragments of yellow-glazed roof tile littered the road like autumn leaves. A middle-aged woman sat up, then steadied herself against what remained of a lamppost. Her plump face streaked with grime, stout figure swaying, the woman stared up at the sky. She burst into tears and limped away, vanishing into the smoke.

  Beside the lamppost, a toppled handbarrow blocked the sidewalk. It was surrounded by bundles, goods that had fallen off. Then one of the bundles twitched and slowly crawled across the cobblestones toward a smaller bundle. And lay still again.

  Lian pushed her knuckles into her mouth to block the scream rising from her throat, backing up until she bumped against the bakery wall. She had to get hold of herself. There were people in need of help. She had to do something. She picked up her suitcase and began walking uncertainly toward the station, into the smoke.

  A mound of rubble heaved up and she jumped back in alarm, dropping her suitcase. Bits of brick and wood dropped away to reveal the undercarriage of an upside-down rickshaw. The two people who had been sheltering beneath it stood up. The young man who had pushed up the rickshaw carriage turned and surveyed the street. He was tall, with the lean frame of an athlete. Streaks of dirt obscured his features but his jacket was a familiar shade of blue.

  The petite young woman beside him wore the tunic and baggy trousers of a servant. She gave the young man a handkerchief and he wiped his face. Then he dusted off his jacket with a jaunty air, not at all as though he’d just lived through an air raid. He smiled when he saw Lian, a grave and courteous smile that made her feel as though he was giving her his complete and undivided attention. In a far corner of her mind, she acknowledged that his smile would’ve been captivating if she weren’t so numb, so overwhelmed by all the destruction.

  He walked toward her, his first few steps a bit unsteady. He pointed at the enameled badge pinned to his jacket, then to the embroidered crest on her blazer with a grin of recognition, as if they were at a school social. The servant girl simply stood on the street, appraising the ruins around them.

  “I’m Liu Shaoming, fourth year,” he said. “Call me Shao.”

  Lian recognized him now. It would’ve been hard not to. Liu Shaoming was at the center of an elite circle at Minghua, all scions of wealthy families connected either by kinship or business interests. Her female classmates considered him the handsomest man on campus.

  “That’s Sparrow Chen,” he added, indicating the girl with a tilt of his chin. “She works on campus.”

  Sparrow’s face was clean of dirt and soot, her features calm. Lian found the girl vaguely familiar, wide-set eyes in a face just verging on prettiness. Yes, of course. Sparrow was the one who cleaned the dormitory floors. How could she not have remembered?

  “Hu Lian. Second year,” she said. It was ridiculous, in this place and at such a time, that she should wonder how she looked, her cheeks streaked with tears from the stinging smoke, hair and clothing dusted with flour.

  “We were on our way to the station,” Shao said, “the ten o’clock train to Shanghai. You too?”

  She nodded and turned away to look down the street. A light breeze was dispersing the smoke and she could see more of Shing An Road. And the railway station. It seemed undamaged, but twisted vehicles and shattered masonry filled the street in front of its arched entrance. The air-raid shelter and buildings across from the station had taken a direct hit and were now in flames. All those people, now buried under bricks and shards of glass.

  “There were too many people trying to get in the air-raid shelter,” Shao said, his gaze following hers. “Sparrow said we should find cover somewhere else. Good thing we did.”

  His next words were interrupted by an explosion from the direction of the shelter, making them both jump. There was a whoosh of sound, and flames rose from another building.

  “Young Master,” Sparrow spoke for the first time. “We must get out of here. Now.”

  “No, no, we should go help,” Lian said, staring at the flames, the smoke. She picked up her suitcase again.

  “That was a gas explosion and there will be more,” the girl said, as patiently as if Lian were a child. “This street will burn to the ground before the fire trucks come. If they even come. We must get back to campus, let them know we’re safe.”

  “Sparrow’s right,” Shao said. “Let’s walk back to campus.”

  He reached down and took the wicker suitcase from her. “Let me take this,” he said. “We left our luggage behind when we ran from the station.”

  When Lian didn’t move, he took her hand. She followed him obediently and they made their way slowly through the ruined streets. Past crumpled vehicles flung against walls, homes collapsed into small landslides of shattered building materials. Past ragged piles of bloodied clothing, some moving feebly. Lian couldn’t stop hearing the screams and desperate voices calling out for mothers, husbands, children. For help. Jiu ming ah, jiu ming! Save me, oh, save me!

  “This is hopeless, Sparrow,” Shao said after several blocks. “The streets are a mess. I can barely tell where we are.”

  “I know the way,” Sparrow said. “Let me lead.” There was a pure and shining quality to the young woman’s voice, Lian thought.

  “Sparrow and I grew up together,” Shao said. “She was one of our house servants. She claims she got bored with Shanghai and that’s why she came to Nanking. But I’m certain my mother sent her to keep an eye on me. Right, Sparrow?”

  Sparrow looked over her shoulder and smiled.

  Blinking tears from her stinging eyes, Lian thought for a split second that Sparrow Chen’s silhouette glowed, shimmering with a clear light that gleamed through the murk. Lian wiped her eyes with a grubby sleeve and when she looked again, Sparrow’s figure was quite ordinary, a petite shape clambering over the wreckage of a fallen roof.

  All the way back, Shao talked. About his roommate, Pao, who had gone home the week before. About his two older brothers, one running the family’s shipping business, the other working as an aide for a senior cabinet member in the government. About his home in Shanghai, a modern villa with formal European gardens in front, classical Chinese gardens at the back with two goldfish ponds and a pavilion.

  Lian knew he was trying to distract her, but she barely heard his words as she stumbled along beside him, back to Minghua University. Back to the tranquil campus designed after American colleges, its green lawns edged with gravel walkways, and halls and dormitories of warm red brick. Back to a tranquility that could not possibly last.

  Chapter 2

  As Shao and Lian trailed Sparrow through the wreckage, Shao kept glancing down at Lian, trying to place her. It came to him only after Lian’s hair came loose from its matronly bun and hung down to frame her face. Each year, Minghua University awarded scholarships to three students. The school newspaper always printed their photos. Lian was one of the scholarship winners from last year, her fees and expenses fully covered for four years. She was a literature major, if he remembered correctly. He recalled thinking at the time that she looked too young to be attending college.

  They followed Sparrow’s trim figure past neighborhoods blasted beyond recognition, through tangles of people and vehicles, along streets Shao didn’t know existed, until finally the crenellations of Nanking’s city walls loomed above them. They left the city through its triple-arched southern gate. After another hour of walking, Shao began spotting familiar landmarks. They were almost at Minghua University. He knew it would’ve taken much longer if not for Sparrow.

  When they reached Minghua’s gates, Shao insisted they all go to the school clinic. He only had a few cuts on his hands, which the nurse treated with iodine. There wasn’t a scratch on Sparrow, who returned to the servants’ quarters. The school nurse took one look at Lian’s pale face and called an aide to take her into the ward. Lian would stay at the clinic for a night or more to recover from her shock
.

  Shao used the telephone in the nurse’s office to call his father in Shanghai. His father was in a meeting, the secretary informed him, so Shao left a message to say he hadn’t boarded the train. That he was safe and back at the campus. And what would his father like him to do now?

  When the war began, some families had kept their children home, so they’d be together if they had to flee. Others believed their children would be safer at school in another city. Some, like Shao’s father, had changed their minds partway through the semester and sent for their children to come home.

  There was no single correct decision, Shao reflected. Only anxiety, leavened by hope. And now perhaps Minghua University would evacuate Nanking.

  THAT NIGHT, SHAO lay awake on his narrow dorm bed, trying and failing to push away memories of the morning’s horrors. He wished his roommate, Pao, hadn’t gone home. But there was something else that prevented him from sleeping, something that prickled at the edge of his consciousness. Something to do with the letter from his father. It had arrived weeks ago, ordering him to come home.

  But Shao had been reluctant to leave Minghua University. Professor Kang had asked him to lead a tutorial group, the first time he’d been given such a responsibility. The first-year students had been enthusiastic in their discussions and touchingly in awe of Shao, so he’d kept delaying his departure. Until the Japanese began their aerial attacks on the city.

  Giving up on sleep, he lifted aside a corner of the blackout curtains. Overhead, a full moon glowed serenely behind a thin veil of clouds. Enough cloud cover, he hoped, that there wouldn’t be any air raids this night. Dropping the curtain, he reached over to his desk and turned on the lamp. He found his father’s letter and sat down on the bed. His father never wrote actual letters, just appended a few lines to the ones Shao’s mother wrote. It was her monthly missives that kept Shao up to date with every birth, marriage, illness—and sometimes death—in their large clan. He scanned his father’s words again, the handwriting elegant and spare, penned in a deep blue ink that exactly matched the border of his mother’s stationery.