Digital illustration created using Blender and Adobe Photoshop brushes.

 

In the dawn of the era when the Shōgun enforced the unyielding Sakoku decree, the Portuguese merchant visited us with growing unease. Gliding through the Canton port, he appeared increasingly gaunt each day. In the morning light, he entered, slightly intoxicated, prepared to pawn family heirlooms and share fleeting words of sentiment. Desperate for income or solace, devastated by the decline of his pearl in the antipodes, Macau.

Beijing, withholding assistance, insisted the colony's misery was self-inflicted, a consequence of Japanese hospitality harassment. They deemed the Shōgun's resolution timely. Meanwhile English, Dutch, and Spanish caravels loomed ominously, anticipating Macau's fall to establish new colonies on adjacent shores.

Amidst a shifting world, Mandarin merchants abandoned the Lusitanian port. With time, the young Portuguese merchant also bid farewell, his destination unknown. I still yearn for our intimate nights of pawning and condolence, picturing his early departure from Malacca to Lisbon, fading into the Atlantic's waves.