Opium Wars

(Opium wars rp anyone? c: The first Opium war was between I LIKE WHALES and China, the second between China and I LIKE WHALES, France, Russia, and the US. I think I'll start with the first Opium war.)

The workers at the den watched their most loyal customer fondly. Her hair was loose and mildly tangled, but other than that she looked fine, unlike many of the other opium addicts. In fact, she was stunningly beautiful and clearly rich, dressed in finery. She was not horribly thin like the other patrons, nor had she the hacking cough and wheezing. The other patrons, when they spent enough time out of the their high, wanted to know how she stayed so beautiful yet could come in everyday and smoke for hours. She never answered, simply stared and kept smoking.

A slow, lengthy drag through the long pipe. Hold the addicting smoke for a moment. Let out the cool, wispy vapor. Had China been in a sane state of mind, she would have known that as a representative of her country, she should definitely not be smoking this illegal drug in an illegal opium den, especially since the Emperor had recently banned the drug. But as it were, she was deep in her mellow high, reclining in a couch, and remembering nothing, nothing of her duties, thinking nothing, nothing of her dignity, just breathing in, holding, and breathing out.

"Dui bu qi, xiao jie," came a soft voice to her right. Focusing her eyes on the small girl, she wondered who she was. "Excuse me, Miss Wang. There is someone looking for you." The girl waved her to the back door, and China walked floated along in her drug-induced high.

"Miss Wang!" whispered the man at the door furiously, grabbing her by the arm and leading her away from the den. "What are you thinking, frequenting such places! And outside of your disguise! We have to go to Canton to negotiate the ban on drugs right now and you're high! Oooh, what will they think of us when they see that our representative is high, those Western barbarians?" groaned the man. China simply nodded absently, letting herself be led. The screams and yells of police busting into the den and shutting it down didn't register in her ears.

In time, they got back to the palace. She got cleaned up, relatively sober, and her chest bound. She shed her dress for a man's pants, and padded her waist to null some of her curves. A woman would not be respected in the world of politics, this she knew. She had seen how everyone looked down upon Hungary, though Hungary had stayed strong, good for her. She tied back her hair and became Yao Wang, male representative of the Qing Empire of China. Now a man, she boarded the boat with the new commissioner. A servant girl tucked a packet of opium discretely in China's bags, along with a pipe and matches, and got a coin back in return.

China settled in her room and pulled out the opium. The high made her feel so relaxed, and so happy. She could simply forget all her troubles for a while, forget the pain of her suppressed womanhood. Just for a little while, she thought to herself, lighting the pipe. Just a short time.

***

Someone knocked on the door to her cabin. She opened it. The small servant boy on the other side looked awed to be talking to such nobility, and the fact that her room was filled with ghostly smoke just added to his awe. He lowered his eyes and spoke to the floor. "D-dui bu qi...we're here in Canton."

(whew that was long but it was an opening post~ your turn now I LIKE WHALES~
I don't know if everything in there was historically correct. I'm not sure if Lin Zexu ever went to I LIKE WHALES to stop the trade or if he just sent letters and stopped British trade ships at the harbor. But I'm going to I LIKE WHALES, how else would I meet I LIKE WHALES?

Edit: they actually went to Canton to negotiate, not I LIKE WHALES. Whoops. Anyway, fixed that, and crossdressing because why not.

IGGY Y U NO REPLY)