“By wagon, donkey cart, handbarrow,” he said. “On our backs if necessary. We’re not leaving such a treasure behind.”

Chapter 4

The army officer organizing their evacuation had advised the university to leave the campus after dark, when there was less risk of aerial attacks. The entire school couldn’t all leave at the same time, so they divided into groups with students, professors, staff, and laborers in each. Army vehicles looped between Minghua’s campus and the ferry terminal on the Yangtze River. From there, barges carried staff and students to docks on the other side of the river. Waiting riverboats and barges took them farther south and west, where they would continue the next leg of their journey.

The next evening, another group. Five nights, five groups.

If all went well, the professor hoped all groups would meet up within the week and from there, the entire campus could continue their journey together. Due to the war, only a third of Minghua’s students remained. This made evacuation simpler, but it was still a daunting challenge to move some five hundred people.

Kang was leaving Minghua University with the fifth and final group. As the most senior member of faculty traveling with the group, the professor was in charge. He was also responsible for the university’s most important possession. While every group included wagons with crates of library books, the fifth group would be bringing the Library of Legends with them. To his shame, sometimes the professor caught himself worrying more about the Legends than his students.

Out on the playing field, carts and wagons waited for the army trucks. The students would get into the trucks, the wagons would fall in line, and Minghua’s last convoy would leave the campus. Inside the auditorium, nervous excitement rippled through the ranks of students. The professor paused for a moment to touch the crates before stepping out to the middle of the stage. He signaled his assistant, a graduate student named Shen, who hurried over and blew three times on a whistle.

“Attention,” Shen shouted. “Attention. Professor Kang has something to say.”

Kang regarded his audience with gentle, myopic eyes. “We begin a very long journey tonight. We have many miles of walking ahead of us and our country is at war. I cannot predict all the hardships we will face, but I know there will be more than we can imagine.”

“We don’t mind, sir!” a voice called from the audience.

“I want you to know our group bears a special responsibility,” the professor continued, “because we carry with us something as valuable as your lives and just as irreplaceable.”

He turned to Shen, who handed him a book. It was bound the old-fashioned way, a plain blue paper cover stitched to pages of soft rice paper. When Professor Kang held it up, some of the students nodded knowingly.