When he got home, Tak-Tam was fast asleep on the front room settee in his singlet and shorts. He looked so thin and pale. Cheung slipped past him into the back bedroom, shed his crumpled day clothes, and crawled into bed beside Yim-Fong.

Up in the mountains above Tai Hang, where Aw Boon Haw, the Tiger Balm magnate, had his beautiful pagoda and gardens, the cicadas scraped their otherworldly tune. Still awake on his plank bed beside his sleeping wife, Cheung tossed and turned. Yim-Fong snored softly. Cheung watched her rib cage rise and fall in the moonlight. He was grateful that there was a solution to his problems, even if it was a modern solution. He was a modern person. He was okay with it. Hadn’t he, after all, worked his entire life in the service of a contemporary kung fu, and learned its convoluted rules while serving its red-bearded masters? There was no dishonour in that. Though he had given up his natal village of Wong Nai Chung in order to relocate here to Tai Hang, he could understand Tai Hang as his home village. Didn’t all Chinese people have to move house from time to time? Even Wong Nai Chung dated back only to the Ming dynasty. But now he was forced to sell the Tai Hang house, all so his family line could be carried on through the blood of his enemy, Morris Mah, rumoured to be descended from—yet disowned by—one of the British taipans, maybe even the terrible Henry Witt-Weatherall himself. Whatever vestiges of commitment to traditional village ways remained in Cheung’s heart dropped to his stomach. He felt nauseous. With Tak-Wing’s marriage to Emily, Cheung had lost that last trace of traditional wealth and honour. In exchange, his line was polluted by barbarian blood, while he descended into deeper servitude to them at the Hong Kong Cricket Club. In the meantime, he would likely lose his honest son, Tak-Tam to another village, Chek Keng, if Ting-Yan would agree. And this would be the best of all possible circumstances. Though Tak-Tam would be head of household there, it was not the same as being head of household in a home passed down the father’s line. This would not be so bad, if his first son had not dishonoured the family so completely. Now his second son’s honour was all he had. It was not enough. And what if Ting-Yan turned Tak-Tam down? Cheung could not bear the thought of more uncertainty.