Studying martial arts?
A martial arts prodigy?
Everyone present turned the two phrases over and over, and somehow they all felt it strange — as if a person like that ought not to appear in Yixing at all, and certainly ought not to be Liang Qu.
Who was he?
An orphan.
A status heavy as lead in any age.
Apart from selling themselves to buy a way to live, most of them became beggars and quietly starved to death in some winter or other.
The Liang father and son had never had an easy life to begin with. Many of the neighbors still remembered clearly the death of Liang Dajiang, that widower. He had not quite been wrapped in a straw mat, but all they could afford was a thin wooden coffin; he was buried in haste on the back hill with a wooden marker set at the head.
Liang Dajiang's skill at fishing had been quite ordinary as well. Apart from a good boat left behind, the house did not even have a fishing net, and as his son, Liang Qu could hardly have been any better.
The only thing about him that could be called good was perhaps his looks. But in this world, no matter how handsome a boy was, no one would come to the door with a proposal of marriage, much less fill his stomach.
And yet, seeing the three brothers fleeing in such a sorry scramble, that seemed to be the only explanation.
Everyone looked at one another.
They had assumed Liang Qu's road would end no differently from the other orphans' — either selling himself into service or begging. Who would have thought he would now turn out so unlike what everyone had imagined, as if he had undergone a complete rebirth.
First he had taken to fishing well, bringing in nearly a hundred wen a day in catch. Then he had caught a treasure fish in one stroke — a fine one, too, a single fish selling for the price of two. And now it seemed the money from selling fish had gone into learning martial arts.
Study, and martial training — those had always been the two best roads for ordinary folk to rise above their station.
Never mind study. Martial training was not far from anyone's life here; they might not have seen it, but they had heard of it. Yet no one had ever heard of anyone from the village getting ahead through it.
A man came back from his training and could not even hold his family's spot at the river mouth, water another two mu of fields, or cast two more nets' worth of fish — pure waste of money.
But this Liang Qu seemed to have actually learned something to show for it.
However it was, reaching this point proved that Liang Qu was not quite like other people, and someone began to voice flattery.
"Ah Shui has made something of himself. He'll be a proper gentleman one day."
"Once you're really a martial master, don't go forgetting us neighbors."
"Quite so, quite so! Once you're a martial master, I'll have my son learn from you too!"
Liang Qu watched their reactions without much joy, saying only that he had been lucky.
The reason he had spoken of learning martial arts at all was simply that he did not want ruffians turning up at his door every few days. So he had let them know two things.
First, he had no money left; it had all gone on training fees.
Second, he had a talent for martial arts. If they meant to come freeload, they had best weigh that first.
Of course, there was another purpose as well. In the days to come his changes would only grow greater. When that time came, no questions, please — and if there were questions, the answer was martial training.
What, you ask why others hadn't changed the same way? Do others have such excellent natural aptitude as mine?
Plant the seed in everyone's minds at the start that he was heaven-sent, and later, when things got a little outrageous, it wouldn't seem so abrupt.
Once the crowd's excitement had dispersed, Liang Qu went home, moved the rice jar aside, dug out the silver buried in the earth, and breathed a sigh of relief once he had confirmed not a coin was missing.
The autumn tax would be due before long. If he had no money then, he would be done for.
Fortunately, thanks to the Single Whip Law and the merging of the poll tax into the land tax, a fisherman's tax was simple: one adult male, one tael of silver.
Only, the silver people handed in varied in purity, while the standard was official silver, so there arose the matter of melting loss — and that melting loss naturally landed on the common folk's heads. In practice, the tax came to about one tael and three qian.
In Dashun, one came of age at sixteen. By rights Liang Qu was still a few months short, but everyone knew how these things worked: never mind a few months — half a year short and you were still "sixteen."
It was only a pity that by rights, under the Single Whip system, paying in silver directly ought to have been enough, yet several prefectures around the Jianghuai Zeye Marsh still had to hand in grain as well, to supply the capital.
For that reason he ought to go buy rice tomorrow; otherwise the price would climb badly.
Liang Qu settled his plan, tucked the money into his coat, then pulled out a twig and drew a chart on the ground, and began to practice his boxing.
Recording his progress in a chart, using it to judge the best times and greatest efficiency for training — this was the scientific body-tempering method.
Early the next morning, Liang Qu took his silver and went to the rice shop bright and early, only to find a good many people already there buying rice.
He went in through the front door. Straight ahead was a long counter, and beside it a row of rice bins, each more than half full of grain laid out for display. If you bought little, you could scoop it yourself and carry it off; if you bought much, they brought the goods out from the small storehouse.
Behind the counter sat the shopkeeper, working his abacus and marking figures with a brush. Seeing someone come in, he glanced up once and went on with his own business.
Liang Qu's clothes were shabby and he did not look like a man of means, so naturally the shopkeeper had no interest in waiting on him.
"Here you are, take good care of it. Thirty-six wen altogether, settle up at the counter."
"Have a look, young sir — which grain would you like?"
The clerk beside him greeted him warmly enough, hurrying over as soon as he had finished his task, with time even to answer other customers' questions.
Liang Qu looked over the goods: polished rice, unpolished rice, inferior rice, glutinous rice, sweet potatoes — quite a few varieties, though none of them marked with prices.
"How much is polished rice a jin?"
"Ten wen a jin."
"So dear? Wasn't it nine wen a jin only the other day?"
The clerk laughed. "It's the autumn tax, isn't it? Plenty of people coming to buy rice — nobody wants to be dragged off for hard labor. So the price changes by the day. Come two days later and it might well be eleven or twelve."
Changing that fast — no wonder there were no price tags, Liang Qu thought.
"Can't you go a little lower?"
"Well..."
Tap.
The shopkeeper set down his brush and raised his head, his tone flat. "It's the same price everywhere now. Buy if you're buying; if not, leave quickly. This front shop isn't big — make room for the people behind you."
Liang Qu's eye twitched. He very much wanted to pull off a shoe and smack the man with it, but this was the only rice shop in Yixing; offend him and he would have to go buy in Pingyang Town.
A dan of rice weighed over a hundred and fifty jin. Carrying that in his arms for a dozen li would likely kill him with exhaustion, and hiring a cart would be another needless expense.
Besides, a single dan might not even be enough. Run into a rigged measure and a dan of rice might be counted out to you as seven dou; you had to buy a dan and a half to be safe.
With money and grain to back them up, they really could throw their weight around.
Unwilling to quarrel with his own money, Liang Qu could only ask on: "A jin of rice is ten wen. So if I buy a dan and a half and pay in silver?"
"A dan and a half, paid in silver?" The shopkeeper considered, took up his abacus and worked it a while. "Then let's call it one tael six qian for you. How's that?"
Liang Qu calculated in silence. He was not much good at haggling; mostly he simply listened to the other man's price, and if it seemed acceptable he bought, and if not, he let it go.
A dan and a half for one tael six qian — that was passable.
"Fine, one tael six qian then." Liang Qu fished out his money pouch. The clerk beside him reached for it, but he dodged aside. "Your shop delivers the grain to the door, doesn't it?"
"Where's your home?"
"Right here in Yixing."
"Then of course we deliver."
"Good. Bring out the rice, then."
Liang Qu paid straight up, not particularly worried about being cheated.
Since coming to this ancient world, the one thing he found tolerable was that shops pulled no tricks on locals. If they squeezed you, they did it openly, like the fishing yard — a willing seller and a willing buyer; they told you plainly how much they were skinning you for and did no dirty work behind your back. Otherwise, given how little the people here ever moved away, they could not have stayed in business at all.
Once the rice had arrived home and been put away, Liang Qu bought two baskets for holding grain, a quilt, two sets of clothes, two pairs of cloth shoes, a good fishing net, a bar of soap, a pig-bristle toothbrush and a little tooth powder — and cleaned himself out entirely.
Liang Qu carried the bedding on his back and a pile of goods in his hands, sighing inwardly that money truly did not go far. He had bought nothing but daily necessities, and the tael or so of silver that remained was gone.
Still, hugging that soft cotton quilt to himself, he was certain he would sleep well tonight.
Chapter 19