Love on the Yangtze E-Book

Michael Pick

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Love on the Yangtze
A Novel by Michael Pick
In the shadow of the world’s largest dam, secrets are rising faster than the water.
Marcus Hollen, a German engineer sent to supervise infrastructure near the Yangtze River, expects blueprints, budgets, and bureaucracy. Instead, he meets Mia—a brilliant and enigmatic cultural activist who leads him deep into a forbidden valley, toward an ancient shrine that was never meant to be found.
When a jade medallion awakens something buried beneath the reservoir, Marcus is thrust into a race against time, government forces, and his own doubts. As ancient memory collides with modern ambition, the two must decide what is worth remembering—before history is drowned forever.
Love on the Yangtze is a sweeping literary thriller about truth, memory, and resistance, set against the haunting beauty of a disappearing world. Mysterious, poetic, and charged with quiet urgency, it asks one simple question:
What happens when the past refuses to stay buried?

Leseprobe

Love on the Yangtze

Michael Pick

Copyright © 2025 Michael Pick

All rights reservedThe characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.CopyrightMichael PickImkenrade 15g23898 [email protected]

Love on the Yangtze

by Michael Pick

Chapter 1

Marcus Fraser placed the apartment key on the mahogany sideboard in the hallway. The matte, silvery piece of metal looked out of place on the two-hundred-year-old wood, polished with beeswax. He ran his index finger appreciatively across the surface. Alexandra had a refined taste for antique furniture. It wasn’t the first time he admired her talent for blending furnishings from different centuries and cultures into a seemingly unified whole.

Raindrops drummed against the door. Perhaps Marcus didn’t belong in this ensemble, but if that had been his reasoning, he wouldn’t have bothered to dust the surface. One thing he had learned over the years: his relationships inevitably grew more complicated with time.

When Marcus told Alexandra about his upcoming trip to China, it was as if he’d finally deprived their relationship—already gasping for air—of its last breath. Only this time, it hadn’t been his intention. And it hadn’t been him who’d said the final words. Alexandra had dumped him. Briefly. Coolly. Almost emotionless. It reminded him of himself.

The mirror in the hallway was framed in a style Marcus had once seen used as a wall border in an old museum. He liked his face. A boldly defined Greek nose, dark hair cropped no longer than a thumbnail. Green eyes—piercing, perhaps a little cold at times. He was about five foot eleven, just enough to avoid looking stocky. A good build, maintained by five kilometers of jogging every morning. His arms and legs were toned but not overly muscular—he detested weight training.

Alexandra had never demanded much from a life together, which had suited him. What he’d felt compelled to do in all previous relationships—pretending to be someone else—he hadn’t needed to do with her. Then again, maybe she just hadn’t shown him what bothered her. Maybe he hadn’t meant that much to her. These “maybes” drifted through his head like a balloon losing air.

Rain tapped on the roof of the minicab. The seat cover in the back shimmered caramel-brown, and the vehicle smelled faintly of pine needles.

“To the airport,” Marcus called to the driver.

“Sure thing,” came the reply—and from the voice, Marcus realized the driver was a woman.

“Should I come back later for your luggage?” Her tone carried a hint of irony.

“No thanks. Just take me to the airport.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus saw the driver shake her head.

It rained the entire way to the airport.

The sky in China was bluer than Marcus had expected. Like a grey golf club, the runway of Dangan Airport lay nestled in green rice fields.

He had transferred to an Air China propeller plane in Ulaanbaatar. The cabin smelled faintly of hydraulic oil. The aircraft rattled as if to prove it was still alive. Marcus admired the Chinese man next to him, who endured every bit of turbulence with stoic indifference, as if it were a routine part of the journey—like the cup of tea served at the beginning of the flight.

Across the aisle sat a man as pale as April snow. He seemed to consider the only flight attendant—a strikingly attractive Asian woman—as his personal assistant. Over the course of the flight, he had apparently devoured the entire onboard food supply.

At that very moment, he was vomiting for the third or fourth time. Once again, the flight attendant stood by his side, holding a neon green plastic bag under his mouth and gently rubbing his back with her other hand. The man was so obese he couldn’t see his shoes whether sitting or standing. Marcus estimated his weight at well over three hundred pounds. The fact that the plane remained level was nothing short of a miracle. His nausea, however, did not prevent him from requesting peanuts between heaves.

Not that Fraser expected everyone to live by the same standards he applied to himself. But this fellow managed to be simultaneously repulsive and grotesque. The short gasps between spasms, the rattle in his lungs, the deep crimson of his skin, the wobbling layers of fat, the sacklike shape of his clothing—it all opened up a chasm between them wider than the airplane aisle could ever suggest.

To make matters worse, the man turned to him.

“Flying makes you miserable.”

And lonely, Marcus thought.

“Why not travel some other way, if flying disagrees with you?”

“Have you ever tried traversing China without a plane? The cars here barely fit one of my legs. Don’t get me started on the roads.”

Marcus instinctively glanced at the man's left thigh and imagined that leg alone crammed into a Chinese car. But why would anyone do such a thing?

“Theobald van Dryme,” said the man, holding out a hand with sausage-like fingers.

“Marcus Fraser.”

“You Scottish? Fraser’s a Highland clan name, right? I’m a huge fan of Scotland. Grand scenery, tolerable weather—never too warm. Only the food…”

“I’m Canadian. My ancestors were Scots, though. They came to New Dundee, Nova Scotia, about two hundred years ago.”

Beneath the bloated cheeks, Marcus suddenly sensed something shifty—like a sly little dwarf hiding behind a mask.

“I’m from Holland. Utrecht. Ever been to Utrecht?”

Marcus shook his head, hoping that would end the conversation. Salvation came in the form of the captain’s announcement: the plane was about to land in Dangan.

The stewardess assisted the passengers with their seat belts. Marcus leaned back and studied her. Her pitch-black hair, falling past her shoulders, reflected the cabin lights. Her boyish figure looked sharp in her gray uniform, while the white blouse made her sun-kissed skin stand out.

“Not bad, huh?” van Dryme winked lewdly and jiggled his double chin toward the flight attendant.

For a brief moment, Marcus imagined the two of them in an intimate setting—and immediately felt a wave of nausea. He also felt sorry for the woman, and reflexively brushed her arm as she passed by. Her skeptical glance and raised left eyebrow prompted an apologetic hand gesture, while van Dryme flashed him a knowing grin.

Against Marcus’s expectations, van Dryme didn’t get stuck in the gangway. They boarded the same transfer bus run by the China Yangtze Power Corporation, but to Marcus’s relief, the Dutchman struck up a conversation with a solemn-looking Chinese man in a gray suit who had been waiting for him at the terminal, holding a name sign.

Marcus’s itinerary listed a three-hour drive to the dam site. The minibus held about twenty passengers. Every seat was taken except the one next to him. Just as the doors closed and the driver started the engine, Marcus saw a woman running toward the bus.

“Wait! Hold on!” he shouted to the driver, earning twenty surprised glances, van Dryme’s among them.

The driver picked up on the gesture and opened the door. Breathless, the woman climbed aboard—and Marcus recognized her as the stewardess from the Tupolev.

She spoke softly to the driver in Chinese.

He smiled and shook his head, gesturing toward Marcus. Whether it was the gesture or simply a lack of space, she took the seat beside him.

Marcus’s heart beat faster as he felt her presence, though his rational mind screamed that romance was the last thing he needed. She opened her mouth to speak, but Marcus beat her to it.

“You don’t have to thank me. Helping someone is second nature to me.”

Again, the raised left eyebrow—perhaps it was a trademark of hers.

“I wasn’t going to thank you,” she said in English with a charming accent.

“Oh,” said Marcus, annoyed at himself for failing to come up with a better response. “What then?”

“I just wanted to make one thing clear. I don’t tolerate unwanted advances. If you think I’m one of those almond-eyed women who drool over every American or European man, you’re sorely sawed.”

“You mean mistaken.”

“Excuse me?”

“You meant to say ‘mistaken,’ not ‘sawed.’”

“Hair-splitting.”

She perched on the edge of the seat, as far from Marcus as possible. Only now did Marcus notice the amused faces around them. He grinned back and turned his attention to the view outside.

The hum of the diesel engine gradually settled the mood. After an hour, Marcus noticed she had shifted into a more comfortable position, and another hour later, she had fallen asleep. This gave him the chance to study her delicate nose, shaped brows, and dainty earlobes. Up close, her hair was the deepest ebony he had ever seen.

She slept so soundly that the bus’s curves and potholes didn’t stir her. After a sharp turn, her head gently dropped onto Marcus’s shoulder.

She was so close he could hear her heartbeat—a calm, steady rhythm.

Marcus tilted his upper body slightly to make it more comfortable for her. Then he gazed out the window, pretending to be unbothered.

Just before the bus arrived, he nudged her gently. She awoke with a start and looked around. Once Marcus thought she’d had time to gather herself, he asked if she was alright.

“Leave me in silence,” she hissed.

“You mean ‘leave me in peace.’”

“Excuse me?”