Wars invigorated Shanghai and Jim felt even the corpses in the gutters seemed livelier. The city is bustling and to Jim it seems as if the entire city is celebrating its takeover from the Americans and Europeans. Much still remains the same, British and Shanghai police directing traffic, Japanese infantry sitting on the sidelines. The Chinese puppet regime soldiers march through the town shouting slogans.
Jim knows the Chinese enjoyed the spectacle of death and liked to be cruel as a way of reminding themselves how precariously they were alive. Jim watched the Chinese peasants staring at the headless bodies around the execution posts.
As Jim walks home he is followed by a Chinese youth who accosts Jim for his watch. The youth is about to cut off his hand with a knife.....
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