Chapter 12: October 1st 1899

He was reborn as a girl. It took him time to adjust. Fureax was at first shaken up as he realized what he was and how his world was made upside down now. His new name was Daiyu, born from a medium wealth family. The home was dilapidated, having two rooms, one for her and her sister and the other for his family. It was a struggle for the mother to take care of the place while raising a family. Daiyu lived in the outer edge of Peking outside the main wall that led inside to the European controlled areas. The walls led to another series of walls that was the Forbidden City.

“Seven years old,” Daiyu quietly said to herself. “I might not have forgotten who I was, but there are times my brain can’t make sense of everything. I look at my body, and I see that of a little girl. I remember the day that I was shot and the day that I died, but how does one make sense of reality anymore? I had to learn the Chinese language, and I still am learning it. I feel that I am seven years old, but I am not. How does one identify themselves through such a change as this? My name is Daiyu, and I am determined to learn more about my surroundings and possibly make my escape from my family.”

Daiyu had one sister, and that was Biyu, an annoying older sister that often made fun of her wherever she went. Her mother was named Lanfen, and her father Liu that lived in this place you would be called home. The home consisted of a small living room connected to a kitchen and two bedrooms. Toilets were in outhouses in the street or worse there were bedpans.

“Nǐ shì shén​​me ... doing sister?” Asked Biyu. Daiyu was posing in front of a mirror as she took a good look at herself.

Daiyu ignored her sister as she continued to look and spin around. She wore a simple dress that she spun around to see what it looked like around her. She had a devious smile on her face as she knew that she was annoying her sister. She often got aggravated if her sister ignored her for too long.

“Like being in front of that mirror, huh? ... well, it is my mirror, and you can’t stand there forever.”

Biyu grabbed Daiyu by her arm and shoved her to the side. That was more than enough that Daiyu needed. Biyu being seven, started to look at herself in the mirror as Daiyu gave a staunch deviant look at her sister.

She nodded as she charged at her sister and tackled her to the floor. Daiyu went and grabbed the hair of her sister and forced her head down.

“Mom!” she tried to call as Daiyu was holding her down.

“Ha, ha...” She thought to herself. “I may be younger than her, but I still have control in the end. I am more powerful than her. I also have something she doesn’t, and that is intelligence from my past adulthood.”

Daiyu holding her sister’s hair like a leash inflicted a massive amount of pain on Biyu. The little girl held lifted her head as she was slamming her fists down in pain and frustration. Daiyu said a few words as Lanfen was in the kitchen making food.

“In the end, sister, I always win,” She whispered to her. “I am smarter than you in every way possible.”

“Mom! ... Mom! ... my sister is beating me up,” Biyu yelled.

“Ha, ha,” he thought to himself. “Even if I get punished, I got to stick it to my sister. She means well, but she is still too young to make a friend of.”

Lanfen sighed as she put her utensils down. She left the kitchen and walked to her bedroom to see Daiyu and Biyu fighting each other physically.

“Daiyu, let go of your sister this instant!” their mother replied.

Daiyu gave a mischievous smile to her mother as she slammed her sister’s head to the floor and released her as she got off of her. Biyu grabbed the back of her own head in pain. A small tear ran down her head. She might have been almost nine years old, but she had to admit to herself that Daiyu was a capable fighter.

Lanfen shook her head. “Ugh ... get out the house. Go outside Daiyu and think about your actions. I should punish you heavily, but I feel that it isn’t working.”

Daiyu smiled, “I am sorry, mom, I will go outside.”

“I want you to stay outside until your father returns,” Lanfen continued. “Do you understand?”

She nodded as she looked at her sister, “Ok, mom. Biyu, come after me again, and I wi...”

“Daiyu!” her mother interrupted.

“I am going, mom...” she responded.

Daiyu grabbed her head cover and put it on as she walked to the door. She took a quick look at her home, seeing the wooden table in the center of the living room and kitchen from a distance. She then rotated the door handle, opened the door, went outside, and closed the door behind her.

She went and grabbed her sandals and put them on. She went and had a seat by the porch of the house as she looked from her home.

Her home was situated not far from the outer wall of Peking. She could actually see the walls from where she sat. Other houses lined the sides of the wall. Peking has initially been a city fortified to withstand attacks in the past, but due to overcrowding and an ever-growing population, it eventually spilled over. She was ever happier not to be in the walls, although she had some curiosity about seeing it for once. Inside the fortress walls of Peking were the outer city and the inner city. The inner city consisted of the Forbidden City that had only become open up with the arrival of the Europeans and Japanese.

“The Japanese...” she thought to herself as her legs swung from her sitting spot. “I was born at a time when the Chinese tried to fight against the Japanese just to lose. It was like watching the Franco-Prussian War all over again. Even at the age of two and three, I heard of the troop movements from Peking as Chinese soldiers left to go fight in a war that they were destined to lose. The War of Jiawu, as we called here, although the Japanese soldiers that walk around here now call it the Qing-Japanese War, was a war that sealed my home countries fate against other nations. The Japanese Navy decimated our fleet and we were wide open to invasion. China lost the Korean Peninsula as the Japanese laid claim to it.”

Daiyu examined her surroundings as she kept her thoughts to herself as she analyzed the situation. To her family, she was an enigma of mystery. She exhibited reliable intelligence that they did not know but demonstrated time after time. She grew up differently, remembering her past life. It was a difficult adjustment for her going from man to girl in such a short time. She had to go through the change of being unable to walk with memories of her past strong in her mind as she had to wait for her body to grow and accommodate the basic functions of normal living adults. She had to use her cunning to make sure she did not attract too much attention or risk causing panic to her family. She was seemingly disobedient at times, even risking her own honor to the family but making sure that she did not overdo it either.

She sat on the porch as two young women walked by the home. They paid no attention to the girl that sat on the porch starring at them as they walked by. They were dressed in the typical Chang Pao clothing of a singular dress that outlined their whole frame. They did not wear any covers, nor did they wear any extravagant hair altering modifications that some women did to themselves.

Daiyu was always intrigued by Chinese women. She loved their looks. No French woman in her past ever had a look that these women had. If she had lived as she formerly was, she might have considered courting one as a gentleman.

“Mmmm,” she commented to herself quietly, thinking of lustful thoughts incurred by her past life of being a man of the women. Before she could think of it anymore, she took a look at herself and was reminded of herself that she was a girl now. It would be problematic to pursue a relationship with another woman and to be the age that she was.

“Damn,” she said quietly to herself. “Sometimes, I feel I am being punished for something. It is easy for myself to say that I wanted to have a second chance at life but to be made into ... well, I guess I said yes to having a second chance, and this is what I would end up getting. Nothing like trying to go to the bathroom and piss and not being able to aim now.”

The great thing with her home is the people that pass by the street to go to the outer city entrance of Peking. There are people that pass and go all the time that she could watch and remark. A pair of soldiers in French uniform passes by her home as they talk to one another.

“Hmm,” she thought to herself. “I admit I feel like going to those soldiers and saying that I am a Frenchman in a girl’s body, but they would think I was mad, though. I do find it disturbing, though, to see what is happening to China. After the War of Jaiyu, the Japanese, the French, the British, the Russians, the Germans, the Austro-Hungarians, the Americans, the Italians ... they started taking claim of jurisdiction in China. It’s like the Europeans and the Japanese are carving China up like a roast. I never thought to see the day that the French are claiming China like this. I have seen more Japanese than anything else now, but my peop ... the Chinese are getting dominated like this. Christian missionaries are trying to convert people. I overheard a French pastor and his wife speaking French to one another as they looked at the Chinese as ... savages. I ... I am not a savage. I was a loyal soldier to my people. I believed in my nation and what it could become.”

Daiyu watched as the French soldiers spoke to one another as they stopped and spoke to one another. She understood what they said with simple ease as must Chinese did not understand the language. It was her secret way to identify things not generally spoken. She pretended not to listen, looking away from the soldiers as they listened very carefully.

“These Boxers are getting worse and worse. We could be facing a revolt from the Boxers soon,” said one of the soldiers.

“The Boxers will not be able to launch an attack on Peking. We control this place, how are they going to lay siege to the place knowing that other nations have it to” the other soldier responded.

“Sounds like they are worried about them. I would be in their shoes. We call them by many names, but I like the ‘Militia United in Righteousness’ the best. To others outside of China, they called them ... Boxers. They started due to many reasons, including the attempts from the outside to convert them to Christianity. They even went as far as replacing religious buildings into churches. Another big reason is the blatant disregard of respect the foreigners have for us. I fear that I might have been born into an area that might be seeing a savage conflict coming in, and if it does, I will be right in the middle of it. My parents seem to be indifferent when it comes to this, but my family is a different problem altogether. My sister is too young to know the difference, my mother does not seem to care, and my father ... I don’t know what to say about him.”

She looked down as she shook her head. She watched as a trader walked up to a British merchant and began to talk. Once again, Daiyu looked away as she watched and listened. She did not understand English yet, but she watched as the action unfolds in front of her.

“I can make you an offer of some of the best stuff, my friend, and it can be yours for a simple price,” said the gentleman.

The other man, a simple Chinese trader, nodded his head quietly and pulled out of his pocket and handed it to the merchant with ease. The merchant responded by pulling out of his satchel a packet that Daiyu recognized as opium.

Daiyu clenched her fist. “Fucking opium. If there was one thing that I despise what the Europeans did was introduce that shit. I feel like they are trying to control us by using that crap to become dependent on them for more. Lives have been turned upside down by that terrible shit.”

She had to keep a blind eye for the poor now. Famine has broken out in the city and landscape. Her family still had some food, but they had to tighten their belts, so to speak. Her father worked as a wagon hauler moving people and items around. It was barely enough to maintain the place. Recently with the threat of an uprising closing in the only thing Daiyu had to keep an eye on is the family. She did worry about her father. He had been acting differently these past few weeks so far. He has been giving signs of being drowsy, disoriented, and randomly falling asleep everywhere, even falling asleep standing up. She thought at first that he had been overworked, but money for the family has been dwindling rapidly.