‘ANY LUCK?’

The fresh ink dripped off the cheap parchment, threatening to spill onto the desk.

“I’m afraid not.” Chen’s face contorted into an annoyed grimace for a moment before returning to his usual stoic expression. Was he expecting me to elaborate? 

“You know, making money isn’t as easy as just going down to Nanjing. First, there’s the...” Before I could explain, Chen had already finished scribbling.

‘WHATEVER.’

The broad brush strokes betrayed a barely concealed sense of irritation.

Chen did have a nasty habit of getting increasingly terse as his mood worsened, but dropping down to just one hanzi this early just... seemed odd. Come to think of it, ‘ANY LUCK’ wasn’t much wordier either… Was he just having a bad day at the desk?

“A-ah!”

Whenever I’d space out waiting for him to finish writing, he’d shout, like a babe in need of feeding. Turns out you can still do that just fine even without a tongue - makes you wonder what it is that actually makes the sounds.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to leave you hanging. Anyway, think we should call it a day?”

‘SORRY, YOU’RE RIGHT. JUST KEEP ME UPDATED, ALRIGHT?’

“Sure thing.”

As usual, he calmed down faster than I could get mad at him. Well, we were done for today anyways. Getting up from the desk, I noticed him searching for something in his drawer. 

“Want me to wait for you?”

“Uh-uh.”

He produced a poster, the kind you’d see on an announcement board. Something about a public exhibition? On the top, the title read ‘KUNYU WANGUO QUANTU.’

“Uhh… Something-or-other map of countries? Didn’t take you for the traveling type, Chen. Want me to go check it out?”

‘MAP OF THE WORLD’S MANY COUNTRIES. INTERESTED?’

“Sure am. Thanks, I’ll see if I have the time. Gotta keep myself busy, you know?”

I said that, but I really didn’t have much else to do. For all the talk of merchants’ worldliness, now in this line of work myself, I’ve come to the conclusion that no one else spends as much time pondering abstract matters as we do. 

Did Chen actually want to become a bureaucrat? Thinking back to our childhood, he always was strange in this sense. Us village kids all used to spout innocent nonsense about becoming Great Generals Under The Heavens (do we even still have those today?), but he’d just sideline the question. Then again… Why, out of all of us, was he the only one not to talk? 

With the threat of death in front of you, the naive bravado quickly disappears, leaving only the desperate desire to live - who cares about what happens to some village downstream? Was Chen simply so scared he couldn’t speak? Did he know he’d get away with just his tongue cut off? Did he have relatives living there? Wanted to look cool in front of others? No, I now know him better than that. Even back then, I’m sure the only thing he cared about was bettering the world around him.

Did Chen only become an official because he’s mute, then? For the time being, I was spared from having to address that question.

The commotion in front of the castle gates made it hard to get in; the exhibition must’ve already started. Elbowing through the crowd, I thought to myself: ‘Excuse me’, ‘Passing through’, ‘Make way’ - would Chen have cards made in advance for occasions like these?

The air was filled with the crowd's murmurs; apparently, the map was made by the resident Jidu missionary, on request from the Emperor. Well, even I knew better than to mouth off about politics, but if this turned out to be just another one of Wanli’s random whims, what about it could’ve gotten Chen interested?

Oh. That’s what. 

Advertising it as a map was definitely an understatement. What stood imposingly on the platform was a massive monolith of wood, almost an entire man in height and two in length; I saw a fair share of maps in my days as a traveling merchant, but this... could only really be compared to one of those Riben woodblock prints. What would you even make one this big for?

As impressive as its size was, the more I looked at it, the stranger something about it seemed. Why have I never heard of that huge landmass? I’ve got to travel quite a bit, even as far south as Malujia - I could say without bragging that I know more about geography than perhaps even Chen does. Even as a kid, I couldn’t go a day without hearing of my legendary namesake Zheng He’s famed treasure voyages. The thing is, he only ever traveled west; the Jidu guy speaking on the platform came from the west. Why, the only land to the east I know of is Riben, and they call themselves ‘the Land of the Rising Sun’.

Amid my musings, someone in the crowd voiced the question before it could roll off my tongue.

“What’s the land to the east supposed to represent?” 

Well, at least I wasn’t alone in being confused. Still, it didn’t look like many people in the crowd were as appreciative of the map’s novelty. If anything, most were probably only there to gawk at the Jidu procession.

“Most astute observation, young man! I take it you know a bit about the world?”

For a Westerner, the missionary spoke surprisingly clearly. The offhanded compliment seemed to embarrass the guy, though - not that the missionary cared or noticed.

“Indeed, for you people of Ming, this discovery must be incredibly confusing, as it was for us more than a century ago.”

The condescending tone made it obvious that the missionary was enjoying himself a little too much.

“We called the newly discovered continent America, and ...”

The missionary went on and on, but I couldn’t make sense of his self-indulgent ramblings; my mind raced with the surreal sight of a whole new world in front of me. How many li away was it? How many, and what kind of people lived there? Did they know about us? What was the weather like? Were there winters? Could you grow rice there? 

I had no idea what Chen wanted me to see here, but I knew that nothing I’d ever accomplish in my life could even come close to this. The scale of it all clearly escaped everyone present, including even the missionary. Did anybody realize how huge of a deal this was? Could they imagine the fields of crops, the trade routes, the wealth it could bring? 

If there was anyone capable of understanding, it would have been Chen.

I was about to leave the exhibition grounds when a faintly familiar voice called me from behind.

“Excuse me, may I have a moment?”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” 

The voice belonged to a young man, whose woolen headdress betrayed in him a fellow merchant.

“Oh, no, you probably don’t. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but you seemed very interested in the map back there. I’m Xin, and I’m-”

“Was there something you wished to discuss?”

“You left before the, erm, lecture… before the speech ended, but really, the important thing to know is that America is indeed quite sparsely populated - especially its west coast.”

“So?”

Funnily enough, it didn’t matter for me now if I wasn’t actually alone in that crowd, or that there was someone sharing my dream with me. Not after Chen had appeared in the picture.

“I was thinking if you were, uh, if you had some connections you could use to pursue the goal of organizing a mission - you know, like the Zheng He voyages of old - again, forgive me if it’s presumptuous to-”

No, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t even about Chen, it was about the radiant dream that appeared to me and me alone, the ephemeral glimpse of glory that slipped through the fingers of everyone around me, and that now was being corrupted by the touch of this plebeian nobody that couldn’t even go a sentence without stuttering. 

“I’m not sure who you’re taking me for, but you’re right in one thing - it is presumptuous for you to think that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have matters to attend to.”

...such as loitering around Chen’s office waiting for his working hours to end. I really was a good for nothing merchant, now that I think of it - no wonder Chen was so upset with me just then. Either way, there was nothing I wanted less at that moment than some stranger’s meaningless sympathy. It was odd, but I would’ve turned Emperor Wanli himself away had he come up to me with an offer to lead an expedition to the New World. 

Things were different with Chen, and it wasn’t just that I knew him for as long as I could remember. Even when we were kids, there was something about him that clearly separated his existence from everyone else’s. In a way, I suppose, he wasn’t all that different from the distant shores of America, considering I barely knew anything about him.

My family were tenant farmers on the northernmost fringes of Chinese civilization, beyond even the remnants of The Great Wall. If you’d stopped to think about it even for a second, a raid by the Wu Hu was an inevitability, a matter of time. As a kid, seeing your parents killed in front of you would come as a shock regardless.

More so than anywhere else in China, us frontier brats had the fear and hatred of barbarians instilled on an instinctual level. Bad kids would be told that a Jurchen’d snatch them in their sleep if they didn’t behave, and pretty much everyone had at least one relative who  had Mongols pour molten lead down their throat. The Wu Hu were seen as demons, gods of destruction, less human and more locusts leaving nothing in their wake - having seen them myself that day, this hardly seemed like an exaggeration.

The adults of the village were put to the sword at the slightest hint of resistance - though that was hardly required for blood to be shed, as was the case for my parents. As an adult, I now realize my father probably didn’t give a damn about his landlord’s property; for all he cared, they could pillage and burn to their hearts’ content. As a boy, I wanted to scream and shout and kick and bite defiantly at the hands that took everything away from me, despite the pure, unadulterated horror they inspired. As an adult, my father must’ve felt he had to take the fall for me. And as a woman, my mother was…

We all had our roles to play that day, and Chen was no exception. Once the looting was done and over with, they had the survivors - a bunch of orphans and an elderly couple - rounded up for questioning. Unlike locusts or vultures, they still needed to know where the next feeding ground could be found. There were plenty of maps and road signs in the area, and they even had a local interpreter with them, but it was painfully obvious that everything from here on out was just a pointless game. Pointless heroics got my parents killed, and I was smart enough to learn my lesson. 

Still, for whatever reason, out of everyone present, only Chen didn’t speak. The barbarians seemed amused by this, but all I could think was that he’d get the rest of us killed; when the whole thing ended with him having his tongue cut off, all I could feel was a sense of relief. Still, out of everyone present, only Chen seemed somehow satisfied when they finally headed out south. All I could feel was hopeless despair.

A few hours later, the elderly couple gathered everyone together and we marched towards the closest settlement… the one to the south. The ravaged scenery barely changed as we followed the trail of destruction; what should’ve made me sick started to seem normal. Only Chen seemed to have the energy to be appalled. Some started dropping from  exhaustion a few hours in, and Chen would helplessly try to drag their listless bodies along. People would start sobbing quietly or laughing hysterically every now and then, and Chen would voicelessly try to comfort them. 

We arrived at the village after almost a day of travel, and, unsurprisingly, what greeted us was more of the same despoiled landscape we had just left. None had the strength to go on, and frankly, I don’t think anyone (besides Chen) cared to. When the militia patrol arrived at the scene another day later, only Chen and I were still breathing.

Understandably, we’ve since spent our lives bound together. As time went on, I seemed to have put that day behind me, even if the trauma never left. With Chen, it felt like that day’s events became part of him, trauma and all.

When I arrived at the office, a  jolly looking old man came out  with some papers in hand, followed by Chen, his head turning left, then right, then stopping as his gaze fell  on me. 

“A-ah!”

“Hey.”

‘CLOSED FOR BUSINESS.’

Chen flipped the sign on the door, gesturing for me to come in. Was he actually expecting me to come by after seeing the map?

“I’ve been to the exhibition, Chen. Have you seen the map yourself?”

‘YES.’

“Well, I figured as much.”

‘ANY THOUGHTS?’

Despite having known him for so long, I never could tell what he’s thinking. An uncompromising, selfless, sublime existence… What did I think he was?

“I think it’d be a great idea to organize an official expedition to this new land, with the goal of eventually establishing a Ming settlement there.”

I could tell from his expression that this wasn’t what he thought I’d take away from the exhibition.

‘ARE YOU SERIOUS?’

“Would I joke about something like that?”

‘THAT’S WAY OUT OF YOUR DEPTH.’

Rather than disappointed, he seemed somehow in disbelief. Maybe it would have been more characteristic of me to actually be joking. After all, was there ever anything serious behind my sudden enthusiasm? From his point of view, things must not have changed much since then: I simply grasped at the straws  in front of me, leaping at the first thing that seemed right for me, without stopping to think.

“You think I don’t realize that? Listen, I know I’m not the most reliable guy, but me and you - together - could do this; the Europeans made it there more than a century ago, surely with a bit of help from the government  we could-”

‘HAVE YOU EVER DEALT WITH THIS COUNTRY’S BUREAUCRACY?’

I think it was at this moment that, at least in the back of my mind, the fantasy finally collapsed under its own weight. It captivated me, sure, but was there anything real behind this drive?

“You mean besides yourself? What, are you going to give up just because you’re afraid of a few rotten apples? This is the discovery of a century we’re talking about!”

The inertia of the moment still carried me through. Inside my head, like on that day so many years ago, I felt the world rapidly falling apart around me.

‘HAN HISTORY GOES BACK MILLENIA.’

“Are you some kinda sophist? How can you sa-, how can you keep quiet after what’s happened to us?”

‘VERY FUNNY.’

Looking back on it now, had it been intentional, it really would’ve been funny. What I wouldn’t give to go back and just laugh it all off...

“Take it seriously, will you? Are you going to spend your whole life sitting behind a desk? Whatever happened to the defiant hero Chen, unafraid of even the Wu Hu?”

When was it that I started to see some foreign idol in him?

‘EASY FOR YOU TO SAY.’

“Say, Chen, are you a bureaucrat because you wanted to be one?”

This “say” had to have been intentionally spiteful. What did Chen ever do to have to put up with me? Rather than annoyed, he seemed genuinely sad. He wrote and wrote, while my mind frantically searched for something I could cling to, something to support my addled imagination’s attempt at finding meaning.

‘NEVERMIND. DON’T THINK WE’VE MUCH TO DISCUSS.’

After what seemed to be hours, he turned the page to reveal this. 

“You’re joking, right? Mind showing me what’s on the other page?”

Rightfully or not, I felt slighted. Chen simply shook his head, clutching the paper closer to him.

“Well, you did write something, didn’t you?”

“Hey now, I couldn’t write this much, but reading shouldn’t be -”

With silence as my answer, I didn’t have an outlet for my rage. What was I angry about? What right did I have to be angry?

“You know what? I’m not so weak that a chair-warming pencil pusher could stop me from getting something I want.”

Sure enough, taking the paper from him wasn’t all that difficult, and even reading it with my lacking command of hanzi wasn’t terribly challenging either. 

‘PLEASE, DON’T FEEL CONCERNED FOR ME. SOMEWHERE ALONG THE WAY, YOU MAY HAVE GOTTEN I REALIZE THIS MAY SOUND PRESUMPTUOUS, BUT I’D PREFER IT IF YOU WEREN’T PUTTING ME ON SOME SORT OF PEDESTAL ALL THE TIME. EARLIER, YOU MENTIONED ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO US’, BUT REALLY, THAT DAY WAS JUST OUR OWN BRUSH WITH THE BRUTAL REALITY OF LIFE, AND LESS OF A PERSONAL TRAGEDY. YOU ASKED IF I WANTED TO BE A BUREAUCRAT AS IF THEY WERE SOMETHING BELOW YOU, BUT THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS AN UNWORTHY EXISTENCE. I APOLOGIZE IF I’M BEING UNCHARACTERISTICALLY HARSH I AM BEING HARSH, BUT THIS CONVERSATION REALLY HAD TO HAPPEN FOR A LONG TIME NOW. YOU MAY NOT LIKE IT, BUT YOU WON’T GET ANYWHERE - MUCH LESS TO AMERICA - SHOOTING FOR THE TOP FROM THE START, ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN YOU’VE BEEN DOING NOTHING ALL OF THIS TIME. ’

I thought I had put it behind me, but that day was probably when I resigned myself to living my life day to day, not caring for where I ended up. Trade just happened to be something I could do decently well - well enough to make a living, anyway - but I never once thought it mattered if it was me doing it or literally anybody else. Now America - America was supposed to be different, was it not? So why...

My tears dripped onto the ink-soaked parchment, washing away its contents.

“A-ah!”

‘SORRY.’

What was he apologizing for? What right did I have to barge into his life with my half-baked dream? Unlike me, Chen’s probably been working steadily towards his own, never compromising or settling, from before I even knew him, so why does he feel I’m owed an apology?

“Sorry, I-I’ll see myself out.”

“Ah!”

For the first time in my life, I felt as though I could tell what Chen wanted to say. Still, I couldn’t just stay there, expecting things between us to somehow work out. More than anything else, I wanted for the earth under me to collapse and swallow me whole; for the first time in my life, existence itself pained me, I wanted to disappear entirely...

Where was I going to go? Needless to say, I’d have to erase the memory of today, as if it never happened. If anything with enough flair to it is qualified as a dream for me, I could go for something more manageable, like a trading company, or a factory, or just about anything else that’s closer to my usual line of work. After all, aren’t dreams supposed to  be somewhat feasible?

Through muscle memory or simply force of habit, I soon found myself walking slowly towards the dock, where my vessel was moored. In the short term, that meant... back to the old life, I guess? At that point, I just went where my legs took me. It was getting hard to think straight, but I was already back at the dock. Still, it was getting late; it’d be good to unfurl the sails before it got too dark to see.

Back to my old life… The life I’d been leading up to until now. I don’t mind being a merchant, but it was obvious things couldn’t stay the way they were… right? What would Chen say? In the first place, isn’t it because of him that simply maintaining the current pace stopped being an option? Unlike me, Chen doesn’t settle for half-measures - and I’m fine with just getting by. Why must I care so about him being part of my life?

Until today, I’d been under the impression that Chen wasn’t like me or other people, that his alone was a special existence, someone above the banality of our lives… and as nice as it would’ve been for that to be the case, this idolization almost cost me a friend today. I say “friend”, but who was he for me personally? 

Before we were made brothers, Chen and I were hardly the closest of friends. It’s not that there was a mutual dislike, but rather that his personality never stood out from the rest of the kids. Obviously, that day’s events must’ve shaken me up mentally; obviously, Chen’s behaviour back then must’ve left a deep impression on me, and yet today, after all that’s been said and done, do I only know what Chen isn’t?

During our orphan youth days, you’d be hard pressed to find anything about him that said “I’ve had my whole life destroyed through no fault of my own.” In my case, it took a while - an embarrassing amount of time, really - to get past the brooding stage, open up to people, pick up an apprenticeship and start actually living. For Chen, it often felt like he was born mute and parentless. Despite that, I never really thought of him as being mute, at least not communicationally impaired - if anything, between the two of us, it was always me who struggled with expressing myself properly. Was that, too, something I just took for granted about him?

As I kept thinking, all sorts of questions began pouring in, as if a floodgate had burst open. “Is a half-baked dream not good enough to pursue?” “Does a dream have to be feasible?” “What was my “old life’, anyways? Hauling goods from Beijing to Nanjing?” “Was America even different in any way other than scale?” “What do the distant consequences of a mission even matter for the person who carries it out?” 

The questions I ought to have asked myself before have finally caught up with my racing mind. Why, then, did the American dream seem more alluring now than ever before? Deathly tired of thinking, I couldn’t answer that question myself. Still, I went where my legs took me. 

In the dead of night, dark moonlit waters surrounded my flimsy boat as far as the eye could see; the harbor’s lighthouse had long vanished behind the horizon. It seemed I had slept for a while, gentle waves rocking my wooden cradle. For a second, I wondered if it wasn’t too late to turn back and row. Even if it wasn’t, like on that day all those years ago, I no longer had any desire to. What would the militia patrol’s counterpart be in this case?

Back when I was still an apprentice, when we were being shown the ropes of sailing, older sailors would often caution newbies against looking at the water, especially at night. Ostensibly, it’d draw you in, like a quagmire. Superstitious folk talk aside, the mirror-like sheen did seem more welcoming than whatever awaited me ahead. Do I even have it in me to make it to the next shore?  

If I were on a trip to Nanjing, provisions wouldn’t really matter that much. Stick close to the coast, stop by the fishing villages as needed, get to Yangtze Delta and you’re good - just the thing to get beginners accustomed to sea travel. From what I remembered of the map, though, Nanjing lay in the opposite direction. To get to America… I guess my best bet would be to cross the Bohai sea and stop by Goryeo for a refill. 

Chen paraphrased ‘Kunyu Wanguo Quantu’ as ‘the map of the world’s many countries’ back then, but I can’t help but feel that he had put it too simply. ‘A Map of the Myriad Countries of the World’… sounds more fitting for something to offer your life to. Well, not that it really mattered anymore. Heavens, I hope Chen doesn’t trouble himself with searching for me…

Goryeo is still a fairly familiar destination, what with the yearly Heavenly tributes and all. Now that I think about it, the only reason I made it so far as a merchant was because Chen kept hooking me up with his Korean contacts… Guess that’s also in the past now.

It must’ve been a few days by the time I made it to Pyongnam, but I still figured it wouldn’t hurt to send a letter to Chen from there. Asking for forgiveness, wishing him luck, bidding him goodbye - all sensible things, and yet… A sense of conviction welled up within me, leaving no room for teary farewells. Was this how he felt that day, refusing to talk and getting his tongue cut off for no good reason? Now, even he was left in the past for me. Was there anything left in the present?

Fortunately, a Chinese merchant’s word still carried weight in Goryeo, and I was allowed to stock up for my next destination - the land of Riben, the easternmost outpost of civilization. Beyond it, dragons lived. I say that, but it’s not like my path would be strictly due east; my rickety boat would never be able to endure the waters of the open seas. Instead, I’d make my way north along the Riben mainland, continue along the barbarian-held shores, and I would be closer to America at the northernmost tip than I would be here in the south. 

Not like I could do better without a proper map. While I’m there, why not get myself one of these Riben woodblock prints?

Unfortunately, Riben’s never been part of the Ming tributary system, so my status there amounted to pretty much nothing. I could still barter for a single woodblock and a carving knife, though.The Whale Sea route proved largely uneventful, and by the time I arrived at Hokkaido, the block had already been transformed into a crude two-part relief map. I suppose it was only proper that on my last journey I would be accompanied by the one that inspired it.

With the new Kunyu Wanguo Quantu at the fore, my sloop braved the untamed northern waters. Days came after nights and nights after days, and soon the starting point of the journey was already lost to my mind; the wooden block alone served as a guiding hand. Alone with nature, weeks must’ve passed since I last had contact with another human being. 

The cold sun occasionally showed itself from behind the ash gray clouds, its pallid beams carrying with them no warmth or light. Most of the time, it stormed, and the sunless days lost all distinction from the moonless nights. I slept and ate whenever, and before long, what little provisions I had in store had come to an end. I couldn’t tell if months or weeks had passed, or if it was all just a long and convoluted fever dream; throughout all of it, the only thing that stayed true to course was the battered wooden map on the boat’s pulpit.

On one still day, or evening, I had the idea of retelling the story of how I ended up where I did. Whether I spoke to myself, the seagulls in the skies, or the woodblock mattered very little; truth be told, I couldn’t even be sure at times if I was talking of events that had happened to me or someone else. The bizarre sequence of events made sense, but the acting figures hardly seemed human. There was continuity to it all, but no real causality; what happened before did not precede what happened after. They saw the map and went on a journey; did they go on a journey because of the map? Was it even a journey?

Having reached the point where the person started talking of the events leading up to that point to himself, I decide to go over the sequence again. At times, we would argue about the scene order or character motivations: was it really a coincidence that we went over our tragic childhood just after learning of the New World, or were we deliberately trying to establish a connection where there was none? 

Our self-indulgent ramblings went on and on and on, lording over the crashing waves and the roaring gales; our disheveled visage, reflected in the water tenfold and then hundredfold, led the debate, and the raging elements played our accompaniment. The argument looped onto itself, twisting and turning, each scene playing out on its own and out of order, and each reflection contributing individually to the cacophony.

As our voice became one with the storm, so too did it come to a stop along with it. A sloop’s battered keel, and a man still clinging to a wooden block at the keel’s end eventually washed ashore in an unknown land, where an unknown sun shone.