Carlton locked eyes for a moment with his sister, and nothing more needed to be said.

4

RIVERSIDE VICTORY TOWERS

SHANGHAI

For many Shanghainese who had been born in Puxi—the historic city center—the glittering new metropolis on the other side of the river called Pudong would never be part of the real Shanghai. “Puxi is like Pu-York, but Pudong will always be Pu-Jersey,” the cognoscenti snidely remarked. Jack Bing, who hailed from Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, had no time for such snobberies. He was proud to be part of the new China that built Pudong, and whenever guests came to his triplex penthouse at Riverside Victory Towers—a hulking trio of ultra-luxurious apartment complexes that he had developed on the riverfront of Pudong’s financial district—he would proudly walk them around the sprawling rooftop garden of his 8,888-square-foot penthouse and point out the new city that stretched as far as the eye could see. “A decade ago, all this was farmland. Now it is the center of the world,” he would say.

Today, as Jack sat on the titanium and Mongolian gazelle lounge chair Marc Newson had custom designed for him, sipping his glass of 2005 Château Pétrus on the rocks, his thoughts lingered on the memory of an afternoon spent alone at the Palace of Versailles at the end of a business trip, where he delighted in stumbling upon a small exhibition devoted to Chinese antiquities in the court of Louis XIV. He was admiring a portrait of the Emperor Qianlong in a small gallery tucked behind the Hall of Mirrors when a large tour group of Chinese tourists crowded into the space. A man in head-to-toe Stefano Ricci pointed at the portrait of the emperor dressed in a Manchu-style fur cap and murmured excitedly, “Genghis Khan! Genghis Khan!”

Jack left the gallery hastily, afraid he might be associated with this group of ignorant Chinese. Imagine these heathens not knowing one of their greatest emperors, who ruled for more than sixty years! But as he strolled along the grand canal that bisected the majestic gardens of Versailles, he began to wonder whether the French themselves might today recognize a portrait of their own king who had built such an impressive monument to his power. Now, as Jack stared out at the curving crescent of golden lights along the Pudong waterfront, counting the buildings that belonged to him, he pondered his own legacy, and how the people of this new China might remember him in centuries to come.

The familiar click-click of his daughter’s high heels soon broke the silence, and Jack quickly removed the ice cubes from his wine and tossed them into the potted tan hua plant nearby. He knew Colette would scold him if she saw them. A couple of ice cubes missed the Ming ceramic planter and skidded across the floor, leaving faint red streaks along the Emperador marble.

Colette barged into his study all a-huff. “What’s wrong? Is Mother okay? Is Nainai okay?”

“Your grandmother is still alive as far as I know, and your mother is at her reflexology appointment,” Jack said calmly.