Chen Jiechang turned around at the sound of the voice. Catching sight of Li Libo, he scoffed. "Why shouldn't it be me? If you can come here, why can't I?"
"Hey, looking for trouble, are you?" Li Libo rolled up his sleeves, making a show of preparing to teach Chen Jiechang a lesson.
Xiang Changsong stepped between the two with a chuckle. "You two certainly seem to have a great relationship."
"Who has a great relationship with him?!" both barked at the exact same time.
Beside them, Liang Qu scratched his head. He had an impression of Chen Jiechang as well.
Yixing had quite a population—over a thousand souls. Fishing households made up half of them, and among people around their age, there were only a few dozen. Li Libo was one, Chen Jiechang was another; seeing each other constantly around town, everyone knew one another.
Liang Qu was fifteen or sixteen, Li Libo seventeen or eighteen, while Chen Jiechang was slightly older, around nineteen or twenty.
Unlike Li Libo, whose two elder brothers had indulged him into a bit of an idler, Chen Jiechang had only an elder sister. He himself was renowned as a skilled fisherman, earning more than a hundred wen a day, roughly comparable to what Liang Qu made now.
Chen Jiechang had no golden finger; he caught fish purely through genuine ability.
Xiang Changsong said, "It's not as though people from Yixing have never come before, but having three of you at the same time is rather rare. Since you all know each other, I'll leave the rest in your hands, Junior Brother Liang, Junior Brother Li."
Liang Qu nodded. "Understood."
"Brother Jie."
"Ah Shui."
Chen Jiechang nodded, his manner noticeably warmer than toward Li Libo. When it came to his decision to study martial arts, Liang Qu had genuinely played a part in it.
On the day they had both caught a treasure fish, Liang Qu's spotlight had completely eclipsed Chen Jiechang's. Being young men, Chen Jiechang had naturally felt resentful at the time, feeling his thunder had been stolen for nothing.
Yet on the day the autumn tax was due, Chen Jiechang had seen Liang Qu's actions with his own eyes, and that resentment had turned into admiration.
In all honesty, had it been him, he never would have borne parting with that dan of rice. Then he had heard that Liang Qu had gone to study martial arts...
Chen Jiechang had earned a substantial sum from selling his treasure fish, and paired with his prior savings, he had plenty left over even after paying his autumn tax. Thus, an ambition had stirred within him: he wanted to forge a new path for himself as well.
A short while later, Lu Shaohui returned. Learning that he had gained another student, and one who was also from Yixing, his brow furrowed once more, though his face quickly smoothed over.
Chen Jiechang sensed that things were amiss, and his subsequent experience proved his suspicion right. Had Liang Qu and Li Libo not pointed out his mistakes, he would have had no idea whether he was performing the stance training correctly or not.
Before coming, he had anticipated that as a humble fisherman he might face prejudice, but he had never imagined it would be this severe.
If Liang Qu and Li Libo hadn't built a solid foundation under Hu Qi's guidance and been able to instruct him in Lu Shaohui's stead, Chen Jiechang probably wouldn't have learned even a few proper stances throughout the entire day.
Had Liang Qu not told him that Martial Master Hu Qi would eventually return, Chen Jiechang nearly would have lost his temper.
Liang Qu consoled him, "Endure it a little longer. Once I finish learning Crane Fist, things will be fine—I'll teach you then."
Within the Three Fists Method, portions of the stance training were identical or similar, with only about a third having significant differences. With a prior foundation, learning proceeded quickly.
Between yesterday and this morning, Liang Qu had already mastered Tiger Fist. He estimated he would finish Crane Fist by tomorrow.
Chen Jiechang took a deep breath, suppressing his irritation. "Sorry to trouble you, Ah Shui."
"It's nothing. We're the only three townsmen in the martial hall; of course we should look out for one another."
Li Libo curled his lip. "Why don't you mention troubling me? I was teaching you just now too, all right?"
"You? Heh."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
***
"You're saying that brat went to study martial arts?"
In a courtyard, Zheng Xiang, dressed in white brocade robes, paced in agitated circles around a peach tree. Withered leaves drifted down, reflecting the turbulent state of his mind.
Beside him, an attendant clad in hemp robes bowed. "Yes. This servant trailed him for days. For some reason, that kid named Liang seemed to suddenly awaken, and his fishing skills grew sharper by the day.
"About half a month ago, he actually caught a treasure fish called an ox-horn pomfret and sold it for six taels and five qian. Then he enrolled in the Yang Family Martial Hall to study martial arts. Martial Master Hu at the hall even claimed he possessed fine aptitude. He's been there for over ten days now."
"The Yang Family Martial Hall? The Third Young Master is studying martial arts there too, isn't he?"
"He is." The attendant hesitated before adding, "Oh, and one more thing. During the autumn tax collection two days ago, a fisherman named Chen Qingjiang came up short by seven dou of rice and was on the verge of being dragged off to Lanzhou to dig canals. That kid stepped in and made up the difference, covering three dou of rice and six qian of silver. I asked around—supposedly it was because Chen Qingjiang had previously given him a sesame cake and a few jin of grain."
Zheng Xiang looked somewhat surprised, then narrowed his eyes and sneered. "A single sesame cake and a few jin of grain in exchange for an entire dan of polished rice? Even I'd like to get in on a trade like that."
The attendant, Ah Quan, remained silent.
Zheng Xiang circled the peach tree once more, then suddenly spat in fury, "That bastard Lin is utterly detestable! Sending me away on an errand for over a month for no good reason—lowly beast!"
Within the Zhao residence, there were two housekeepers in total: Head Housekeeper Lin Guiyong and Second Housekeeper Zheng Xiang.
Zheng Xiang had not originally been a housekeeper. He had been a domestic servant raised in the Zhao residence, but because of his cleverness and smooth maneuvering, he had gradually risen to become the household's second housekeeper.
Wherever there were people, there were power struggles.
Head Housekeeper Lin Guiyong was never going to sit by and watch Zheng Xiang rise to threaten his position, so friction and constant rivalry flared between them.
Zheng Xiang had racked his brains for ways to curry favor with the old master, and Liang Qu had been one of his angles. But before he could carry it out, right before the master's sixty-fourth birthday, the head housekeeper had found an excuse to send him away to Huangzhou to deliver gifts and run errands on behalf of the Second Young Master.
By the time he returned, more than a month had passed. Not only had he missed the prime opportunity to show his face on the birthday, but he had also been forced to have his subordinates hastily deliver his congratulatory gift in his absence.
Although the Second Young Master was pleased and praised him for handling the matter splendidly, the Second Young Master was not the one running the household—not to mention there was an Eldest Young Master above him.
It wasn't until Zheng Xiang remembered that there was still a handsome youth back in Yixing he could exploit that his servant informed him the kid had gone off to study martial arts, leaving him stifled with frustration.
Martial Master Yang guarded his reputation fiercely. If any accident befell a martial apprentice while enrolled, the Yang Family Martial Hall would inevitably launch an investigation. Even if only going through the motions, they would still investigate.
If it came out that Zheng Xiang had coerced someone, trouble would follow without question.
Zheng Xiang found it baffling: how could someone Scabby-Head Zhang had described as on the brink of starvation undergo such an earth-shattering transformation?
Could he truly have experienced the intellectual awakening people often spoke of?
Zheng Xiang was skeptical, yet he had no choice but to believe it.
At this point, acting recklessly was out of the question. No one in Pingyang Town dared provoke the Zhao residence, but that was the Zhao residence—Squire Zhao, the Eldest Young Master, the Second Young Master, and the Third Young Master—not him!
He still needed to climb the ladder!
Bullying a youth was a trivial matter, and causing a stir was also a trivial matter. But if the Zhao residence had to waste paper cleaning up after him, that would be a catastrophe!
If word reached the old master's ears, he could forget about ever supplanting Lin Guiyong to become head housekeeper of the Zhao residence!
Treading carefully, as if walking on thin ice—that was Zheng Xiang's creed in life.
"By the way, where is Scabby-Head Zhang?"
"He hasn't been seen since last time. Likely too ashamed to show his face before you."
"Useless piece of trash," Zheng Xiang cursed again. After a long pause, he abruptly asked, "Ah Quan, in Pingyang Town, has any commoner who studied martial arts ever made a name for himself?"
"I suppose there have been a few." Ah Quan gave an awkward smile. "I haven't heard of any from the other two halls, but the Yang Family Martial Hall has been open for over a decade and produced a handful of commoner martial practitioners who broke through their barriers, though definitely fewer than thirty."
"And over these ten-odd years, how many commoners have entered the Yang Family Martial Hall?"
Ah Quan did a quick mental calculation. "Five or six every month... over a dozen years, nearly a thousand."
"Nearly a thousand? Heh. Then let us wait patiently for two months."
Chapter 23