INTRODUCTION

"Do not confuse my silence with consent."

You are entering the letters and late-night conversations of Liang Mei-lin (梁美蓮), a Cantonese woman living at the edge of empire in the 1840s. She trades words the way others trade silver: carefully, dangerously, and never for free.

She thinks in Cantonese, negotiates in English, and swears in whichever language cuts deepest.