Recaps

Nick faced growing suspicion after a rebel note and General Liu’s death, while his relationship with Wan Ning deepened amid the city’s unrest. After deciding to flee China and retrieve his map, he was captured and taken away by boat from Guangzhou.

• Nick returned to Guangzhou with the priest, treated the ailing Admiral, and failed to persuade Cao Xi and the censor to adopt flintlock muskets.
• Nick was questioned and placed under house arrest after Cao Xi searched his room, but the Admiral later invited him to breakfast and included him in the Mazu ceremony.
• Nick recorded the ceremony and heard accounts of the White Lotus Sect, political corruption, ghosts, and historical upheavals from the provincial graduate.
• After a snake threatened the women at a gathering, Nick escorted Wan Ning, who told him she would have little control over her life after marriage and asked whether foreigners practiced monogamy.
• Nick followed a young man he recognized in a bronze mirror, but abandoned the chase when a crowd panicked and chose to investigate the note in his room first.
• Nick disguised himself and attended a banquet with Howqua, then asked the provincial graduate to hide him while he planned to flee to Southeast Asia and retrieve his map.
• Nick returned to the hospital at night, evaded an ambusher, and surrendered when more attackers overwhelmed him.
• Nick’s captors drugged him, covered him with a burlap sack, and carried him by boat away from Guangzhou.

Nick moved from pirate captivity into a guarded encounter with the provincial commander while the Provincial Graduate shared stories of hunger, failed examinations, and Qing corruption. Georgiana and Bonaparte continued their journey, leaving Georgiana reading as the ship paused at Calais.

• Nick was taken to a jungle island, escaped his captors’ attention, and was later brought aboard Guo Xuexian’s ship after Guo recognized him as the painter he sought.
• Nick returned to Dharma Nature Temple, where the Provincial Graduate sheltered him and prepared him to explain the mysterious note to the provincial commander.
• Nick adopted the name Pingxi and gave his account before the commander and Cao Xi, then was placed in a guarded military residence as the investigation turned to General Liu’s death.
• The Provincial Graduate told Nick about his failed examinations, his work as tutor to Yunduan Dorji, and the political scandals surrounding Li Shiyao and Gansu’s false granaries.
• Georgiana and Bonaparte argued over oppression, mercy, government, and the dangers of political upheaval as their ship continued its journey.
• The Provincial Graduate explained how Wang Danwang and Gansu officials profited from fabricated disasters and sold student status, while Nick listened to stories of gu and corruption.
• Qianlong’s investigations exposed fraud in Gansu and Shandong, and he ordered Guo Tai to take his own life after learning of the official’s vast estates.
• Georgiana asked Bonaparte to slow the ship so she could finish reading, and he agreed to stay in Calais for two more days.

Nick traveled through Qing China with the admiral’s fleet, witnessing corruption, pirate attacks, and the hardships of coastal life while Georgiana and Bonaparte read and discuss his account. The stretch leaves Nick exploring the Wuyi tea region as Georgiana turns to a drawing of an old man with a compass.

• Yuan Shoutong investigated corruption and flood cases before dying in office, while Li Shiyao uncovered false disaster reports in Gansu and Liu Yong temporarily took Yuan’s post.
• Georgiana and Bonaparte crossed the Channel, argued over love and fate, and continued reading Nick’s account of Qing society and the provincial graduate’s troubles.
• Yongrong investigated low-fineness silver and illegal jade mining, while the provincial graduate studied memorials and Nick faced suspicion after anti-Manchu flyers appeared.
• Nick traveled through Guangzhou, befriended Captain Yao, and joined Cao Xi’s fleet as Qing and Portuguese forces mounted an attack on the pirates near Lantau Island.
• Nick sailed south with the admiral, witnessed pirate assaults and coastal hardship, and left Guangzhou with gifts and memories of the people he had met.
• Nick continued through Fujian, visiting Haimen and Fuzhou before traveling by boat toward the Wuyi Mountains with Captain Yao and a local official.
• Nick and his companions reached the Wuyi tea region, where he observed tea processing and challenged European rumors about tea while villagers mistook him for a strange creature.
• Georgiana teased Bonaparte about beliefs concerning green things and tea-picking monkeys, then studied a drawing of an old man holding a compass and looking at the sky.

Nick pursued the Jiyin legends and the meaning of Shadow backlash while navigating the Qing court, local politics, and his growing closeness with Wan Ning. As flood preparations and investigations continued, he remained constrained in his search, while Georgiana confronted her feelings about Bonaparte.

• Nick heard an old man’s account of the Jiyin People and Mountain Demons, then received a book about shadow backlash and left with it despite Captain Yao’s insistence that it had not rained.
• Nick’s travels brought him to Huai’an, where a teenage imam began translating the Turkish book and explained the Jiyin history, their flower-born descendants, and the danger of Shadows.
• Nick sent copied material to Beijing, then worried that it could expose his associates to scrutiny as the provincial graduate weighed court politics and tried to trace the documents.
• Nick taught Wan Ning and considered whether to help her, while the graduate recalled Sun Zongyi’s fatal conflict with river officials and Nick weighed the risks of intervening.
• The imam refused to hand Nick the dangerous book and urged him to travel northwest toward Russia, while Nick continued investigating the Lost Valley Tree and possible links between Mountain Demons and the Xiaoyang Kingdom.
• Nick and the provincial graduate discussed pirate amnesty, island defenses, grain fraud, and flood preparations as refugees were put to work on the riverworks and officials revived Atonement Silver.
• Nick accepted that his closeness with Wan Ning should end and wondered where he could travel without attracting attention.
• Georgiana and Bonaparte discussed the Jiyin and other dangers, and Georgiana ended the stretch crying as she reflected on whether flowing water had loved someone other than her.