Shu Wei's Revenge: A Young Man's Journey Into The Depths Of The Underworld [Paperback]

This is a story about strength of family and friendships, heartbreak, perseverance, and personal tragedy. The setting is 1898 in the sleepy village of Sanhou, China. Seventeen-year-old Shu Wei, in his role as Town Scribe, makes a disastrous mistake, raising the ire of some crooked town counselors. His fathers business is burned to the ground by one of the villainous counselors in retaliation. To make matters worse, a tribunal of these counselors is called that summarily banishes his family from the town, including his father and sister. Sensing their lives are at risk, they decide to emigrate to San Franciscos Chinatown. On the trip over, Shu Wei encounters the counselor-arsonist on board the ship who threatens his life if he doesnt meet his demands to investigate his suspicions about his co-leader of a Tong in San Francisco. The intrigue, mystery, and tension that follow grow deeper as Shu Wei wrestles with a hostile world. Meanwhile, various members of the community rally by Shu Weis side, trying to stabilize the fragile remnants of his confidence and honor. A Chinese American newspaper offers him a job as a cub reporter where he collaborates with a woman colleague on the paper. She befriends him, tutoring him in the ways of reporting and photographya very suitable arrangement in his eyes. But now, Shu Wei finds himself struggling to satisfy both the demands of the newspaper and the Tongeffectively serving as a double agent. His reporting and fragile allegiance to the Tong require him to assimilate into the ranks of the underground. His life constantly in danger, Shu Wei uses his new skills as an investigative reporter and photographer to attempt to root out the web of evil in the Tong. Meanwhile, his sister, Shu Lan-lan, is hired by a woman who runs the Occidental Home, a refuge for girls who have been abused by their captors. One of the rescued girls becomes a cause c?l?bre after Shu Weis story appears in the newspaper. This only rankles the Tong further lã—