These Violent Delights

“In glittering Shanghai, a monster awakens. Its eyes snap open in the belly of the Huangpu River, jaws unhinging at once to taste the foul blood seeping into the waters. Lines of red slither through this ancient city’s modern streets: lines that draw webs in the cobblestones like a network of veins, and drip by drip these veins surge into the waters, pouring the city’s life essence into the mouth of another.”

The novel’s opening lines establish the presence of a supernatural creature: the monster. The narrator connects the monster directly to the gang violence in Shanghai since it feeds on the blood in the water, suggesting that the monster is a symbol for the consequences of that violence. The opening scene also establishes the foreboding mood of the prologue, foreshadowing the horrors the monster will bring to the city.

“The constant grappling between the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers wasn’t a secret. Far from it, in fact, because the blood feud was not something that raged only between those with Cai and Montagov to their name. It was a cause that ordinary members loyal to either faction took on personally, with a fervor that could almost be supernatural.”

The narrator’s description of the gang members’ passion for the violent rivalry between the two gangs as “supernatural” echoes the supernatural events occurring in the city, implying that violence, when taken to the extreme, is monstrous beyond the point of explanation. Furthermore, this quote shows the power of the Cai and Montagov families to order eager gang members to commit violence against the other side.

“Roma said Cai like a foreign merchant, his mouth pulled wide. The Chinese and the Russians shared the same sound for Cai: tsai, like the sound of a match being struck. His butchering was intentional, an observation of the situation.”

Roma purposefully mispronounces Lord Cai’s last name to assert his disdain for the Cais. The narrator explains the correct pronunciation of Cai and compares it to the sound made when lighting a match. This simile also reflects the Cai family’s dangerous nature.