"It feels humiliating, doesn't it?"
Bruce had been standing in front of the Tang copy of Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies for quite a while, lost in thought, when he suddenly heard crisp, standard Mandarin from beside him.
He turned instinctively.
A young man stood there, a little lean, a little handsome, and very clearly one of his own people.
"It does," Bruce said after a brief pause, smiling faintly. "But that's what happens when a government is weak enough to be pushed around."
"That's the real nature of social Darwinism, isn't it? The strong eat the weak. If China were the strong one and Britain the weak one, these relics would be sitting in the Palace Museum right now."
Bruce nodded slightly.
"If that were true, it probably would've meant another world war somewhere along the way. Since the beginning of civilization, power has always been redistributed through war. Wealth moves the same way."
The young man sighed.
"Looks like I won't live to see these pieces go back home."
Bruce looked at the scroll again.
"Honestly, there's another side to it. Just like the ruins of the Old Summer Palace, places like this are a reminder no one should ever forget."
He paused, then said quietly,
"If you fall behind, you get hit."
The young man nodded.
"So contradiction really can cut both ways. There's a bad side, and there's a useful side."
"You've got to look at the whole picture," Bruce said.
The other man laughed twice before abruptly remembering where he was. This was still a museum.
He shut his mouth at once, looking a little embarrassed, then held out his hand.
"Nice to meet you. My name's Chen Zhen. I'm from Beijing."
"Chen Zhen?"
Bruce's expression turned a little strange.
The young man immediately pulled a face.
"My old man was obsessed with Fist of Fury, and our family name happened to be Chen. So... here we are."
Bruce nodded.
"Got it."
He shook his hand.
"Bruce. Nice to meet you."
"Here traveling?"
"Something like that. You?"
"I'm a law student at Oxford. Just graduated this year. Figured I'd spend a few days enjoying London before heading back and serving the motherland."
Bruce smiled.
"Oxford Law. Not bad."
"Oh, come on. That's nothing. The Chinese students at Oxford are all monsters. I'm the weak one among them."
He said it modestly enough, but the pride on his face gave him away.
Bruce noticed a few people nearby glancing over at them with mild irritation. Even though they were keeping their voices down, in a museum this quiet it was still too loud.
"I was about to head out. You staying?"
"Let's go together," Chen Zhen said.
Bruce nodded, and the two of them left the museum side by side.
By the time they stepped outside, night had fallen.
Bruce looked at the city under the glow of neon and let out a quiet breath.
"It's already evening."
Inside the museum, he had lost all track of time.
Chen Zhen glanced at him.
"How about dinner? Let's grab something."
Bruce hesitated for only a moment before agreeing.
To be honest, ever since Alice had gone back, he had not really had a proper conversation with someone from back home.
"Come on," Chen Zhen said. "I drove here."
He led Bruce to the parking lot and unlocked a black Mercedes.
"Your car?"
"My friend's. I'm heading back soon, so I already got rid of mine."
He started the engine and pulled into the traffic with practiced ease.
"What do you want to eat? Tonight I'll be your free tour guide."
"Chinese food," Bruce said without hesitation. "Where in London can you get the real thing?"
He had gone months without eating the kind of food he actually liked.
The so-called Chinese restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown were mostly hybrids, neither here nor there. Their flavors had already drifted. And in his previous life, Bruce had been from Shandong. He liked garlic, scallions, bold savory food. Sweet and sour excess never did it for him.
"Then you asked the right person." Chen Zhen grinned. "I know a place."
As the car moved on, they gradually left the brighter, more polished parts of West London.
The buildings got lower. The streets got rougher. Graffiti multiplied across the walls. The neighborhood looked poorer by the minute.
Bruce frowned.
"Where are we?"
"East London," Chen Zhen said, catching the concern in his face. "Relax. Yeah, it's rougher here, but as long as we don't go looking for trouble, we'll be fine."
Bruce nodded.
At this point, there was no reason to turn back.
And besides, he could tell Chen Zhen was no scam artist.
As they drove farther in, more and more storefront signs started showing up in Chinese characters, both simplified and traditional. It was obviously an immigrant district with a sizable Chinese community.
The moment Bruce saw those familiar words and more familiar faces on the streets, the tension in him eased.
"We're here."
He looked up.
Across from them stood a small restaurant that looked a lot like the kind of family-run place you'd find in an old neighborhood back in China. The sign above the door was old and slightly worn, made from cheap board, and carried four characters:
Hua's Restaurant
Chen Zhen got out first, so Bruce followed.
Inside, the place had a cement floor, white-painted walls, and only nine tables. The building was old enough that dust had darkened the corners and stained parts of the walls. Some soccer posters were still hanging up, yellowed with age, featuring players Bruce did not even recognize.
The place looked old, but it was clean.
Clean enough that it did not hurt the appetite at all.
"Old Master Hua, customer's here!" Chen Zhen shouted the moment he stepped inside, completely ignoring the other two tables already eating.
A moment later, an elderly man came out from the kitchen area. He was wearing a traditional white Chinese jacket, a white apron tied around his waist, and had a full head of gray hair.
When he saw Chen Zhen, he smiled immediately.
"You again? Weren't you supposed to be heading home soon? What brings you back?"
"If I left without eating your cooking one last time, I'd regret it."
The old man chuckled, then turned to Bruce.
"This your friend?"
"Yeah. Just met him not long ago. Name's Bruce."
Bruce smiled politely.
"Nice to meet you."
The old man nodded with the same easy warmth, then grabbed a menu from the counter and handed it to Chen Zhen.
"Order whatever you want. Just call me when you're ready."
Then he turned and went back toward the kitchen.
"Sit," Chen Zhen said, waving Bruce over.
He handed him the menu.
"Take a look. Order whatever you want."
Bruce did not stand on ceremony.
The menu was bilingual, Chinese and English, with prices clearly listed beside each dish. Most of the offerings were Shandong-style dishes, though there were some Sichuan dishes mixed in too.
He ordered mu shu pork and kung pao chicken, then passed the menu back.
Chen Zhen added red-braised pork, a spicy chicken dish, and two beers before handing the order off.
Because there weren't many customers, the food came quickly.
Less than ten minutes later, Bruce's mu shu pork hit the table.
"Try it," Chen Zhen said proudly. "This place is way more authentic than the stuff in Westminster Chinatown. Over there it's not Chinese enough to satisfy anyone, and not Western enough to impress anyone either. Just bad all around."
Bruce smiled and said nothing.
He picked up his chopsticks, took a bite of egg from the dish, and chewed slowly.
Then he nodded.
"Yeah. This is the real thing. Tastes just like back home."
"I told you," Chen Zhen said, instantly looking pleased with himself. "You came with the right guy."
Then he looked at Bruce with curiosity.
"By the way, Old Chen. Going by your accent, you're from Shandong, right?"
Bruce was just about to nod when he caught himself.
He was not the man from Shanghai anymore.
He was Bruce.
He had grown up on Guo Farm in Santa Rosa.
So he answered slowly, with a trace of something heavier in his voice.
"I grew up in the States."
Chen Zhen froze and stared at him.
"No way."
Bruce shook his head.
"Why would I lie to you?"
Chen Zhen looked at him for a long moment, then said, still unconvinced,
"But if you grew up there, how is your Mandarin this good? And honestly... you don't carry yourself like that at all."
"My adoptive father was from China," Bruce said. "He taught me Mandarin from the time I was little. Most of what I know about China came from him."
That landed.
"Ah. I see." Chen Zhen paused, then asked more carefully, "Adoptive father? So you...?"
Bruce nodded.
"I was an orphan."
The mood shifted immediately.
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Bruce said, shaking his head. "He treated me like his own. I wasn't short on love growing up."
Chen Zhen nodded quietly.
Just then, the rest of their dishes started arriving one after another, and the conversation naturally broke for the food.