In plague-ravaged Canton, Professor Richard Lovell enters a house of the dead and uses a silver bar activated by the word treacle to halt a boy’s cholera. Everyone else in the home, including the boy’s mother and the Englishwoman Miss Betty, has died. Unable to take the body, Lovell carries the boy out, bringing only the boy’s English books.

At the English Factory, the boy recovers. He demonstrates strong English learned from Miss Betty and years of reading. In Lovell’s study, he reads haltingly from Adam Smith before Lovell produces a silver bar engraved with Chinese and English: 囫圇吞棗 and To accept without thinking. When the boy speaks the pair, the bar hums and he chokes on an intense date sweetness, proving a rare sensitivity Lovell values. Lovell proposes guardianship, language training, and a life in England, stating his interest lies in the boy’s ability. The boy signs, then adopts the name Robin Swift.

Two days later, Robin, Lovell, and Mrs Piper board the Countess of Harcourt. A crewman blocks a Chinese labourer with a valid lascar contract. Ordered to translate, Robin, fearing delay and rejection, tells the man his contract is no good, and the man leaves. The ship departs as Robin, shaken, watches Canton disappear, feeling severed from home.

During the voyage, Robin regains strength, walks the deck, and speaks with Lovell, who is precise and reticent, hinting at knowledge of Robin’s family’s decline. Mrs Piper reveals a recent Macau stay, implying Lovell could have arrived earlier while Robin’s mother was alive. Robin suppresses resentment, delivers meals to Lovell, and resolves to live in English, burying his past to survive.

Weeks later, Mrs Piper rouses Robin to see land. Through lifting fog, London emerges: the Silver City and heart of the British Empire.