By MJ
First Edition, April 2025
Chapter One: The Bamboo Haven
Huizhou, Anhui, 1937
The sky screamed that day—Japanese planes slicing through the clouds, dropping hell on Huizhou. I was two, a wiry bundle strapped to Ma’s back, her breath hot and fast as she bolted for the bamboo grove. “Hush, MJ,” she whispered, sharp as a blade, her feet pounding the dirt. The ground shook, bombs tearing through our village, and I clung tight, my tiny fists bunching her shirt. Pa crouched beside us, his farmer’s hands shielding my head, his voice a low rumble: “They won’t see us here.” But I saw the fear in his eyes, dark pools glinting through the bamboo’s green curtain.
We’d lived simple before that—our house a squat pile of mud and straw, the rice paddies stretching wide under a moody sky. Pa, Lee YF, was a man of the earth, his skin cracked from years of sun and toil. “We’re the fifth thread,” he’d say, reciting our clan poem over supper: “Forever flourish, virtue and diligence.” I was the sixth—MJ, bright excellence—born in ’35, a name heavy with hope. Grandpa’s shadow hung over us, a scholar who’d scribbled wisdom on our walls before I ever knew him. But war didn’t care about poems. By dusk, the planes were gone, leaving smoke and silence. Ma rocked me, humming soft, her voice a lifeline: “We’re tough, little one. We Lees don’t break.”
Days later, we fled deeper into the hills, a ragged trio with nothing but a sack of rice and Pa’s stubborn grit. Nights were bitter, the wind slicing through our thin blankets. “Wuhu,” Pa said one morning, pointing to the haze where the Yangtze cut the horizon. “That’s our chance.” I didn’t know what it meant, only that his voice held a promise—a thread I’d one day pull to unravel my whole life.
Chapter Two: The Red Dawn
Huizhou, 1949
Peace crept in slow after the war, like a stray dog sniffing for scraps. I was fourteen, back in Huizhou, our house patched with scavenged brick. Pa rebuilt it with bleeding hands, cursing the years we’d lost. “This is ours again,” he’d growl, slamming a beam down, his pride a fire that warmed us through lean winters. Ma stirred millet over a cracked stove, her smile rare but gold, and I started school—a rickety shed where the teacher’s voice scratched like his chalk.
Pa drilled our history into me, his calloused finger jabbing the air. “Say it, MJ: virtue, diligence, honor.” I’d stumble through the clan poem, the words heavy on my tongue, till he grunted approval. “Your grandpa wrote that,” he’d say, nodding to a faded scroll—ink from a man I’d never met but felt in my bones. School woke something fierce in me—numbers snapped into place, stories bloomed in my head. I’d sneak books under the lantern, dreaming past the paddies Pa tied me to. “You’re restless,” he’d mutter, catching me at it, but his eyes softened.
Then ’49 hit—red flags flapping in the wind, the People’s Republic born. Cadres strutted through the village, shouting about a new China, and Pa’s jaw tightened. “More change,” he said, spitting into the dirt. I watched, heart thumping, the world tilting again. That night, I blurted it out over cold porridge: “I want to be a doctor, Pa.” He froze, spoon halfway to his mouth, then cracked a grin. “Grandpa’s blood,” he said, voice thick. “Go shine, boy.” I didn’t sleep, the scalpel’s call already whispering in my ears.
Chapter Three: The City’s Pulse
Wuhu, 1956
Wuhu slammed into me at twenty-one—a gritty sprawl of smokestacks and river stink, the Yangtze churning brown and restless. I’d made it to Anhui Medical School, two years of cramming anatomy till my eyes burned, and now I was here, a greenhorn in a starched coat. The city pulsed with the Great Leap Forward—mills banging day and night, loudspeakers blaring Mao’s dreams. I rented a cot in a dorm that smelled of sweat and ink, my classmates a rowdy bunch who smoked and argued over politics. “You’re too quiet, MJ,” they’d tease, but I kept my head down, the scalpel my only loud thought.
Classes were brutal—cadavers splayed under dim lights, professors barking orders. “Cut clean,” one snapped, hovering as I sliced into gray flesh, my hands shaky but hungry. Nights, I’d walk the riverbank, the water’s slap against the docks steadying my nerves. “This is it,” I’d whisper, clutching my stethoscope like a talisman. Pa’s letters came sparse, his scrawl blunt: “Don’t waste it.” Ma sent dried fish, her note simple: “Eat, MJ.” I chewed and studied, the dream hardening inside me.
By ’58, I graduated—top marks, a ticket to 127 Hospital. The night before I started, I stood on the roof of my dorm, Wuhu’s lights flickering below. “I’m ready,” I told the wind, but my gut churned. The city didn’t sleep, and neither did I, the weight of what was coming pressing down like the river’s endless flow.
Chapter Four: The First Blood
Wuhu, 1958
127 Hospital loomed like a fortress, its brick walls stained by years of rain and war. I stepped in at twenty-three, coat crisp, heart slamming against my ribs. The Great Leap had turned Wuhu into a madhouse—factories spitting sparks, famine creeping in—but inside, it was worse. “Soldier, appendix,” a nurse barked, shoving me toward a gurney. He was young, maybe nineteen, his face slick with sweat, eyes wild. “Move, MJ!” old Chen rasped, my mentor with a voice like gravel and breath that could peel paint.
The operating room hit me hard—antiseptic sting, a bulb buzzing overhead, tools rusted but sharp. “Here,” Chen said, jabbing a finger at the guy’s gut. I gripped the scalpel, cold metal biting my palm, and froze. “Cut, damn it!” Chen snapped, and I did—skin splitting, blood pooling, a groan ripping from the soldier. My hands shook, sweat stung my eyes, but I dug in, Chen’s growl my lifeline: “Steady, kid.” The appendix popped out, swollen and ugly, and I stitched him shut, fingers fumbling but finding their rhythm. He breathed—slow, alive—and Chen clapped my back. “You’re in it now, MJ.”
I stumbled out after, legs jelly, and slumped against the wall. The nurse grinned, tossing me a rag. “First one’s always a bitch,” she said. I wiped my face, blood and sweat smearing red, and laughed—a raw, shaky sound. That night, I scratched in my journal: “He lived. I’m a surgeon.” The wards didn’t let up—soldiers, farmers, kids with hollow eyes—and I dove in, hands steadying, the fire in my chest roaring loud.
Chapter Five: The Hunger Years
Wuhu, 1960
Two years in, and the Great Leap broke us. Famine clawed Anhui, the paddies empty, Wuhu’s streets ghostly with hunger. 127 became a battlefield—patients flooding in, ribs poking through skin, ulcers bleeding, fevers raging. “No food, no strength,” a farmer wheezed, his gut a mess of sores. I cut anyway, sixteen-hour shifts blurring into nights, my eyes gritty, hands numb. “Sleep’s for the dead,” Chen joked, but his face was gaunt too, the hospital running on fumes.
One girl sticks in my head—eight, stick-thin, her ma begging at my feet. “Save her, Dr. MJ,” she sobbed, the name folk had started calling me. Fever had her burning, her lungs rattling. I operated blind—no X-rays, just instinct—cracking her chest, draining pus, stitching fast. She woke, weak but alive, and her ma pressed a handful of rice into my hands. “For you,” she whispered. I ate it raw, guilt and hunger mixing sour in my throat.
Pa’s letter came that winter: “Hold on, MJ. We’re starving too.” I worked harder, the scalpel my fight against a world falling apart. “This is my shine,” I told myself, stitching through the dark, the hunger years carving me as deep as I carved them.
(to be continued)
