Scabby-Head Zhang ran roughshod over people: today he'd help himself to a fish from one family's basket, tomorrow from another's. Never much — but just enough to disgust you.
Which fisherman in Yixing hadn't been fleeced by him? Which widow hadn't he leered at? He had long since become a festering sore that everyone loathed.
No one dared say it to his face, but in private, Li Libo voiced his contempt as well.
Liang Qu's expression shifted. "Beaten? When was this?"
"Maybe this morning? Anyway, when I saw him, he had a huge black ring around his eye and was walking with a limp — got worked over but good."
"Who would dare hit him?"
"No idea." Li Libo shook his head, then added in a low voice, "Honestly, he's not that formidable. He'd been at the martial hall two days before he got thrown out for causing trouble — what good could he possibly have learned? He probably can't put together so much as a showy flourish. It's just that nobody's bothered to expose what a paper tiger he is."
Liang Qu gave him a sideways look. "By that logic, why don't you go expose him?"
"Even a paper tiger has that bulk of his sitting right there." Li Libo laughed sheepishly. "Anyway, today he sneaked out on his boat. I figure he's afraid someone will come looking for revenge, so he's gone to lick his wounds out on the lake. If I hadn't happened to be taking a dump in the reed flats, who knows if anyone would have noticed. You're only the second to know."
Liang Qu took that in.
"Done with your questions? I've told you all this, so that meat of yours—"
"It's all yours."
"Ha! Generous — truly generous! With the family scrimping to save money, who knows how long it's been since I last ate meat. Heh heh."
"Wait." Liang Qu pressed down on the plate.
"Now what?"
"Never mind. It's nothing. Go ahead and eat."
Li Libo was puzzled, but he let it go and dug into the meat in big mouthfuls.
Liang Qu shook his head. He had meant to keep the news locked down, but on second thought it would be entirely superfluous — he was taking himself far too seriously.
The Zeye Marsh of Jianghuai.
A small sampan lay quietly moored on the lake, Zhang Tieniu stretched out inside it, the warty scars covering his head strikingly conspicuous.
Scabby-Head Zhang, normally the picture of savagery, now looked like a chicken with every feather plucked, listless and dim — and the bruise ringing his eye was almost comic.
"Damn it, he was still his usual half-dead self just yesterday — how could he come back to life all of a sudden? Hsss — that damned Zheng Xiang, hitting far too hard. My kidneys..."
Zhang Tieniu clutched his waist and belly, his face full of misery.
He had done too many vile deeds over the years to dare convalesce at home, fearing someone might seize the chance for revenge. All he could do was row out on his little sampan and hide on the lake.
Zhang Tieniu sighed. "Only here is safe."
"Not necessarily."
Zhang Tieniu's heart nearly stopped. The moment he tried to rise, a mass of clear water plastered itself over his face. The water seemed alive, burrowing for all it was worth toward his lungs. Caught off guard, Zhang Tieniu sucked in a sharp breath — and at once felt his lungs flood, leaving him unable to breathe.
Then he saw a figure haul itself up over the gunwale. Hair loose, it tumbled into the boat, sprang up at once, and drove a vicious kick into his groin. Unspeakable agony crashed over him.
Facing Scabby-Head Zhang, whose face had swollen the color of pig's liver, Liang Qu dared not pause. Veins stood out on the hand gripping the stone, and with every ounce of strength he brought it down on that warty head.
Thud!
Zhang Tieniu's eyes rolled back, and he was out.
Seeing that he no longer moved, Liang Qu dropped the stone; it knocked against the planking and rolled gurgling into a corner.
Just... just that simple?
With barely a move, Scabby-Head Zhang — scourge of the village, a man who had trained at a martial hall — was down?
Liang Qu panted in great gulps, staring at his own hands, and at the blob of water slowly dispersing from Scabby-Head Zhang's face.
Before coming, he had made thorough plans, never imagining it would go this smoothly. Only finding the man had taken a fair amount of time. He had even prepared to take injuries: he had broken off a piece of lotus root to carry against his chest, poured hot water over his stiff, immobile body to warm it up, and lain in ambush underwater.
And in the end, none of it had been needed!
Water control was practically a super-effective counter against ordinary people!
Catch them off guard, seal their mouth and nose with water, and no amount of ability would save them.
Gazing at Scabby-Head Zhang lying there like a corpse, Liang Qu took hemp rope from his waist and bound the man's hands and feet. He searched him and — a genuinely unexpected windfall — found two taels of silver on him.
He tidied the sampan, stowing away everything sharp, then found a second rope to lash the knots down again. Finally he rowed the sampan to a stretch of reed beds where no one ever came.
After resting in the reeds for a while and gnawing a few mouthfuls of lotus root, Liang Qu, his strength restored, used his water control once more to splash water onto Scabby-Head Zhang's face.
"Mmph—"
Zhang Tieniu drifted awake. A few reed leaves swayed before his eyes; farther off, the setting sun had burned the sky red.
He coughed several times, hacking up a good deal of water. It seemed to pull at his wounds — violent pain burst from his groin, drowning out every other hurt he had. His mind swam blank for a long while before Zhang Tieniu grasped what had happened. He turned his head, eyes bloodshot.
"It's you!"
For that glare, Liang Qu kicked him square in the lower belly, kicking the breath nearly out of him.
With his abdomen in agony, Zhang Tieniu finally understood his situation: this was clearly the reed marsh, a place no one came. The man could kill him and no one would ever know. He hastily put on another face. "Brother Water, Brother Water, I was wrong! You're fully right to beat me!"
"I liked you better when you were defiant."
"Brother Water, you're joking, of course you are." Zhang Tieniu grinned awkwardly, terror pooling in his chest.
Never in his wildest thoughts had he imagined the one attacking him would be Liang Qu!
A good-for-nothing who couldn't even fill his belly — what on earth had happened to change him so much?
When he'd gone to look just two days ago, the man had seemed listless and half-dead!
And that living water — could it be sorcery?
Liang Qu sat at the bow, nudging Scabby-Head Zhang's head with the tip of his shoe. "Talk. Where's my black-awning boat? Where did it go?"
Zhang Tieniu hemmed and hawed, until Liang Qu raised his foot as if to kick again — only then did he confess: "S-sold it."
"Sold it?" Liang Qu pressed at once. "Sold it to whom?"
"The fishing yard."
Oh no.
Liang Qu would gladly have drowned Zhang Tieniu right there. Sold to any individual fisherman, things could have been talked out — but of all places, the fishing yard. To put it harshly, that place was exactly what you got when men like Scabby-Head Zhang organized themselves!
The fishing yard was a business that rented out fishing boats and gear — at extortionate prices. Many who rented a boat ended up working for the yard their whole lives, ground down by its exploitation. But if you didn't rent, you had no livelihood and would starve within days.
Yixing was comparatively tame. Elsewhere, the fishing yards were outright fishing tyrants: rent you would, whether you wanted to or not!
Seeing Liang Qu fuming, Zhang Tieniu hurried to beg for mercy: "Fishing boats are hard to sell, and I needed money fast for drink, so I had to sell it to the fishing yard at a discount."
"How much did you get?"
"F-four taels."
"Damn it — a black-awning boat sold for sampan price!?" Liang Qu delivered two more furious kicks.
The sweet tang of blood rose up his windpipe. Zhang Tieniu wanted to say something, but Liang Qu gave him no chance to speak; only when the beating was done did a gasping voice emerge.
"There's s-still two taels left. In my... my trouser pocket."
Damn it — so those two taels had been Liang Qu's own money all along!
Liang Qu thought of the silver he had found on Scabby-Head Zhang earlier and seethed to his core. So the wool had been sheared from his own back the whole time.
"And what was the business with the Zhao residence?"
"Th-that was me too. I told them."
Liang Qu had guessed right after all — it really was Zhang Tieniu who had leaked the news!
It turned out that after seizing the boat, Zhang Tieniu had noticed Liang Qu was not bad-looking, and having long heard that Squire Zhao fancied men, he had judged it another fine piece of business and gone straight to Zheng Xiang, a steward of the Zhao residence.
Hence Zheng Xiang's visit to the door. Once he saw the boy in person, Zheng Xiang decided Zhang Tieniu had spoken truly — but Liang Qu said he needed to think it over.
The deal fell through, and Zhang Tieniu got no reward silver, yet Zheng Xiang did not want the trip wasted; between the lines, he hinted that Zhang Tieniu should "help" Liang Qu make up his mind sooner.
To earn that reward, Zhang Tieniu came straight to his door and seized the few dou of rice Liang Qu had left. Picking his day, he reported once more.
Zheng Xiang, feeling himself duped, found Zhang Tieniu that very night and beat him black and blue.
Zheng Xiang was only an ordinary man, not powerfully built either — but he was a man of the Zhao residence. How would Zhang Tieniu dare strike back?
Afterward he could only row out on his sampan to recover away from prying eyes — and that handed Liang Qu his chance.
Chapter 6