TYSUF – Chapter 57 Extra: Man Jiang Hong

The day his fourth younger brother was rescued, the capital had been drenched in rain for days.

Fu Tongwen’s carriage was stranded in the downpour. Impatient, he abandoned it and walked home to the Fu residence on foot, rain soaking him through.

On the way back, he regretted countless times that he had brought Tongchuan onto this path of national salvation. In those years, most who sought to save the nation sacrificed their lives. The road ahead was dark and lightless, and one after another, old friends sent back news of their deaths. He had thought the next one to die would be himself—never imagining that it would be Tongchuan who was abducted.

Since Tongchuan’s kidnapping, rumors had spread all over the capital. They said Fourth Master Fu had offended a local warlord by frequenting brothels and had been taken away for a lesson. Only Fu Tongwen knew the truth: it was because they had offended the monarchists, and this was an act of revenge.

For half a year, no word of his younger brother reached him. His emotions went from rage, to despair, until in the end he was prepared to collect the body. Who would have thought Heaven would take pity, and finally deliver such joyous news?

When he entered Tongchuan’s courtyard, his legs below the knees were caked in rain and mud. With the maids’ assistance, he hastily changed clothes, then stepped into Tongchuan’s bedchamber.

On the bed lay a young figure, frail and wasted. A thin, clean shirt clung to his back, soaked through with sweat. Under the lamplight, streaks of cold sweat were clearly visible.

“Where is Fourth Master injured?” Fu Tongwen asked the physician.

The old physician did not dare answer.

He turned to Tan Qingxiang, who had rushed back earlier than him. “You tell me.”

Tan Qingxiang’s eyes were red, and before he even spoke, large tears spilled down his cheeks. A man who had returned from studying abroad, a PhD, weeping openly in front of others—it made Fu Tongwen’s chest tighten painfully.

On the bed, Tongchuan lay turned away, as though he hadn’t heard his third brother arrive. His fists clenched the bed sheets until they were twisted beyond recognition. Fu Tongwen had seen many young men with heavy opium habits—friends whose families supplied them constantly—but he had never seen the raw torment of true withdrawal. At this moment, Fourth Master Fu was drenched in sweat, with snot and tears streaming, his shoulders hunched, his body convulsing uncontrollably… Fu Tongwen stared at him for a long time, then looked back at Tan Qingxiang.

Tan’s heart twisted with pain. He silently nodded—confirming Fu Tongwen’s worst suspicion.

Fourth Master still lived, but he was now addicted to opium—and dependent on morphine.

That day, the two physicians in the room could not comprehend Tan Qingxiang’s tears.

Nor could they understand Fu Tongwen’s ashen face. All the privileged sons in the capital were addicted to opium, including Fu San-ye himself, who was a well-known libertine. Not only the doctors—even the other branches of the family, including Father Fu, considered it nothing unusual. In a household such as the Fus’, taking concubines and smoking opium were indulgences, not disgraces.

The Fus were wealthy; they were no commoners.

If Fourth Master only craved opium and morphine, the family could simply buy it for him.

But Fu Tongwen and Tan Qingxiang knew—this was aimed at the heart.

Since returning to China, Fu Tongchuan had dedicated himself to helping people quit smoking opium. Fu Tongwen’s goal was to save the nation; Fourth Master’s was to save the people. And now, the man who had returned with such a mission, after being abducted, had been tormented with both. The opium ravaging China, the sedatives fashionable among Western elites—all forced upon him. His life was intact, but what of his spirit?

Fu Tongwen persuaded Tongchuan’s mother to let him move his younger brother to his own courtyard for care—fearing that his painful withdrawal would terrify their still-young sixth sister.

In the east wing, the two brothers each took a room. Tan Qingxiang stayed in the outer chamber of the west wing, tending tirelessly day and night.

In those years, morphine was widely promoted as a cure for opium addiction. Newspapers brimmed with advertisements: “Newly arrived from London, Morphine Powder for Quitting Opium—pure and potent, rapidly effective in eliminating cravings.”

No one knew yet that it was an even deadlier, more addictive poison.

The kidnappers’ perverse amusement lay in watching this rich young master, stricken by withdrawal, crying, snot-nosed, stripped of dignity. Yet they could not kill him. So they forced him to smoke opium, and injected him with morphine as well. To them, it was the perfect balance—poison in one hand, antidote in the other.

But it left Tongchuan with dual dependencies—on both opium and morphine.

Guangxu 30th year, from summer to winter.

The needle marks on Tongchuan’s body grew so numerous they could scarcely find new veins.

With his own body, he confirmed a cruel truth: morphine was more toxic and more addictive than opium. By winter, he refused further injections of morphine. Instead, he asked Tan Qingxiang to tie him to the bed, forcing himself through withdrawal. The torment of quitting morphine was no different from stepping through the gates of hell. At the peak of agony, he lost all control—crying, begging Fu Tongwen and Tan Qingxiang to release him, cursing and condemning his brother through tears, stripped of reason and sanity.

In the end, Tan Qingxiang forced him to swallow a sedative, plunging him into heavy sleep.

But even in his dreams, he wept.

This was Fourth Master Fu—a man of seven feet, a Western-trained physician with a doctorate, who had returned home only to help his countrymen quit opium… Yet in his dreams, he cried, calling for his mother, calling for Fu Tongwen…

He was crying for help, and Fu Tongwen could do nothing.

In those endless days and nights, Fu Tongwen often thought of giving up. He had the wealth to supply his brother with morphine until old age and death. “Third Brother,” Tongchuan whispered weakly after the sedatives wore off, fixing him with a gaze, “I am a doctor… a doctor who wants to help people quit opium…”

Tan Qingxiang, holding a syringe, looked at Fu Tongwen, uncertain.

Fu Tongwen had once personally chosen Tongchuan’s first birthday gift, the foreign tutor for his studies, and even his school in England. But this—this one profession—was Tongchuan’s own choice. His life’s calling. He had no right to take that away.

The cycle of curses, tears, and desperate pleas tortured Tongchuan—and tortured Fu Tongwen as well.

Fu Tongwen did not know if, during those six months of captivity, Tongchuan had begged his kidnappers in the same way. They would not have bound him to a bed, forcing restraint. What they wanted was to see this lofty young master dragged into the mud.

That night, snow blanketed the capital.

Unable to endure the torment any longer, Tongchuan finally gave in and asked Fu Tongwen for morphine.

Without a word, Fu Tongwen stepped out of the warm chamber. Not long after, Tan Qingxiang came in and administered what the man on the bed craved. Then, Fu Tongwen himself carried in a basin of hot water, soaked a towel until steaming, wrung it out, and carefully wiped his younger brother’s face and hands.

Since Tongchuan had been tied to the bed, no servants had been allowed in. The only ones to tend to him were Fu Tongwen and Tan Qingxiang—two grown men.

Tongchuan’s eyes were half-closed, his head leaning against the bedside, finally gaining a brief moment of relief.

Fu Tongwen changed him into a clean shirt and trousers, teasing with a smile: “Third Brother is a little taller than you, so the pants will need rolling up.”

Tongchuan also laughed from the bed, his voice hoarse: “Third Brother, do you remember when I had my head shaved like a monk on that cruise to England?”

“How could I forget?” Fu Tongwen sighed deeply as he held the towel. “That was our lowest point.”

Tongchuan smiled but said nothing.

If they were speaking of “lowest points,” then surely tonight was it. He had lost to himself—his pride defeated by his addiction.

“Rest,” Fu Tongwen urged.

“Third Brother…” Tongchuan whispered, “let me have a pipe of opium.”

A brief silence fell.

All three—Tongchuan, Tan Qingxiang, and Fu Tongwen—froze at once.

At last, Fu Tongwen was the first to chuckle. “Didn’t you and Qingxiang already agree that compared to morphine, opium was nothing? You shouldn’t need it anymore.”

“Just one last time,” Tongchuan insisted.

Fu Tongwen looked him in the eye for a long while before finally nodding. He tossed the towel into the copper basin and carried the water out.

He ordered the servants to prepare the opium and pipes, summoning a maid skilled at preparing the smoke.

Outside, snow flew. Inside, smoke curled and lingered.

Both brothers wore white shirts. Fu Tongwen draped his own suit jacket over Tongchuan’s shoulders, then wrapped himself in a black fox fur from the couch, reclining beside him. Tongchuan smoked the entire pipe before his eyes, puffing greedily, and even scraped the residue at the end, savoring the last dregs with obvious enjoyment.

Fu Tongwen watched, feelings mixed.

“Shameful, isn’t it?” Tongchuan smiled thinly.

With a joking tone, Fu Tongwen replied softly: “All the young masters who stayed with Third Brother ended up like this. It’s nothing unusual.”

He was right. To someone addicted to morphine, opium no longer counted as any kind of rare delicacy.

Tongchuan set the pipe down on the window sill and gazed out at the swirling snow.

Tan Qingxiang entered, face dark as iron. Fu Tongwen pretended not to notice; it was left to Tongwen, the elder brother, to smooth things over. He brought up Yanzhi Alley, then inevitably mentioned Su Qing.

Fu Tongwen raised a cup in apology: “Qingxiang, countless words can’t say it. Let this cup settle it all.”

Before Su Qing turned fourteen, she had written a heartfelt letter, pleading with Fu Family’s Fourth Master to purchase her first night. But Tongchuan, who already had the woman of his heart back in England, could not accept another poor girl’s devotion. Helpless, he asked his closest friend—Tan Qingxiang—to be the one to take her virgin night, hoping that even if he couldn’t fulfill her love, at least she would have someone sincere by her side.

Tan Qingxiang, though born poor, was brimming with talent and ambition, far surpassing many sons of noble houses.

But in the end, the man loved while the woman did not, and it was Tan Qingxiang who became trapped in heartbreak.

“It was just fate—my destined calamity of love,” Tan said, more open-hearted than Tongchuan himself.

The two old classmates clinked cups and drank, smiling faintly at each other.

That night, soothed briefly by morphine and opium, Tongchuan reminisced with them about their years studying abroad in England. When he spoke of his betrothed, he always smiled helplessly, recounting her spoiled habits as the daughter of an overseas Chinese family—
“Even when eating baked biscuits, she had to spread peanut butter. So delicate.”

Inside, the candlelight flickered; outside, winter snow danced.

“Third Brother…” Tongchuan, lit by the candle glow, looked at him. “The things I said these past days under addiction, cursing you—they weren’t from my heart. Don’t take them to heart.”

How could Fu Tongwen? He only smiled it away.

“Sing me Man Jiang Hong,” Tongchuan suddenly pleaded like a child.

Fu Tongwen chuckled softly: “You’ll have to wait a moment. I’ve watched over you for hours without even sipping tea.” He called to the boy waiting outside: “Brew some tea.”

The servant quickly returned with tea and snacks.

Fourth Master Fu resembled Third in every way but one—Third Brother loved opera, while Fourth had a ruined voice. Tongchuan nibbled at the snacks, humming along despite his broken voice. Halfway through, his eyes blurred with tears.

He hummed: “Thirty years of fame, nothing but dust; eight thousand miles of clouds and moon. Do not idly waste your youth, only to grieve in vain.”

And also: “With great ambition, dine on the flesh of invaders; in jest, drink the blood of the Xiongnu. Wait until we reclaim our rivers and mountains, and present ourselves before Heaven’s Gate.”

Tongchuan clapped, praising loudly: “That’s the best line! ‘Wait until we reclaim our rivers and mountains, and present ourselves before Heaven’s Gate!’”

That night, after his younger brother had fallen asleep, Fu Tongwen drank a few cups alone, singing until he grew carried away.

His heart was heavy with sorrow, relief, and wistfulness. He wondered—what of tomorrow? Would Tongchuan keep struggling against his addictions, or would he abandon the fight, living the same life as countless other noble sons—starting the morning with a pipe, rising late, dozing again within two hours, smoking pipe after pipe to while away the day?

As he pondered, he laughed bitterly at himself. He had drunk too much and forgotten—Tongchuan’s body had long grown past opium; what he needed was morphine. How long could those scarred, needle-worn arms last?

It wasn’t dawn that woke him, but a gunshot.

Of all the outcomes he’d imagined, he never thought Tongchuan would choose death.

When he saw his younger brother lying in a pool of blood, Fu Tongwen finally understood why Tongchuan had smoked so brazenly before him—he wanted him to see a body so revolting that even Tongchuan himself despised it, a body he wanted to discard, abandon.

He lay there in blood, upon the suit jacket Fu Tongwen had draped on him the night before. The gun in his hand was also Fu Tongwen’s, stolen while he slept.

That morning, the Fu household fell into chaos. Servants came to carry away the body. Their mother wept until she fainted again and again, her heart broken beyond repair. Their father lashed out, blaming Fu Tongwen for forcing his younger brother to quit, for pushing him into death.

Fu Tongwen did not defend himself.

When the courtyard grew quiet again, he sat alone on the steps outside, as if detached from the world.

In the frozen snow, he sat motionless, hands clasped under his nose, staring blankly at the courtyard of snow. It was as though Tongchuan were still beside him, passionately declaring the road to saving the nation…

If he could start over, he would rather be selfish—leave that filthy, pale, lice-ridden Tongchuan on the Bund pier, order men to tie him up and send him back to the Fu household in Beijing, where he would be just another spoiled rich son, crushed under his family’s shadow. He would eventually submit, marry, have children, squander wealth, and waste his life.

“Wait until we reclaim our rivers and mountains, and present ourselves before Heaven’s Gate.”

Wait until we start over.

…

On stage, when the gongs strike, every opera begins as a chance to “start again.”

But offstage, there is no chance to begin anew.

Tongchuan—may you walk slowly on your road beneath the Yellow Springs.

Leave the sacrifice for the nation to your Third Brother. May you be reborn into a prosperous China, into an age of peace.