Summary
In a fever-dream Chinatown where gaslight bleeds into opium haze, Chang—a laconic apothecary with a past scribbled in vanishing ink—trades herbal balms for confessions, hoarding sins the way misers clutch worn coins. When a trembling Irish girl staggers in clutching a blood-soaked deed to silver mines she cannot read, the parchment becomes a fuse: tong hatchet-men, corrupt constables, and a seraphic missionary all converge, each convinced the document is either salvation or damnation. Through alleys that coil like opium smoke, Chang negotiates not with bullets but with parables, dosing pursuers with riddles that metastasize into nightmares. Herbert Rawlinson’s federal marshal—equal parts messiah and mercenary—arrives brandoning a warrant inked in disappearing juice; his badge glints only when it catches the same light that exposes hypocrisy. Together, the apothecary and the lawman stage a shadow-theatre of justice: they burn the deed in a public square, letting the silver stay buried so the land can keep its ghosts. Yet the final shot reveals Chang’s own silhouette branded onto the smoke—an after-image suggesting the law is just another herb, potent for some, lethal for others, and always, always evaporating.
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