Calming himself, Li Xiuwen sized up the situation.
Beneath the Walled City—and indeed beneath all of Xianghai—ran drainage tunnels leading everywhere.
He had heard from Huang Sihai that plenty of gangs which could not bear the light of day had their lairs down there.
They had even given the sewers an elegant name: the "Dragon Palace."
"For the past twenty days, Brother Ji has been hiding in the sewers—maybe he crossed someone he shouldn't have."
"Luckily Brother Ji hasn't noticed the change in me lately... He doesn't know I've begun learning martial arts. He still takes me for the spineless shrimp I used to be."
"This menace has to be dealt with. In days without Brother Ji, the air of this Walled City would be a good deal sweeter."
"As for the stronger Third Master—as long as I kill Brother Ji without a soul knowing, there'll be no trouble."
Brother Ji had made plenty of enemies in the Walled City over the years, and had just landed himself in trouble on top of it. If he turned up dead, that would seem perfectly natural.
He meant to use these unsettled days, while the waters were muddy, to finish the menace quickly—before delays bred new troubles.
…
A hardware store with no signboard.
"Boss, got any fruit knives? Folding ones, ideally," Li Xiuwen asked.
The boss was slurping down noodles. "Right side of the shelf. Pick one yourself," he said.
Li Xiuwen went to the shelf and settled on a palm-sized folding knife at a glance. When he flicked the blade open, a whiff of old lubricating oil rose to his face.
"Good eye. That's an import, and cheap at that—forged from M78 steel. Plenty of martial artists pick this one. I'll let it go cheap: thirty."
"Too dear. Twenty."
"But it's an import."
Seeing Li Xiuwen turn to leave, the man said, "Twenty-five."
Li Xiuwen pulled the bills from his underpants and bought the folding knife.
As his first signature weapon, he solemnly named it: Butterfly.
The boss took the money with a look of disdain and went back to grumbling over his noodles.
…
Li Xiuwen returned to Chen's Noodle Factory.
At home, he found his uncle and aunt standing before the machines, faces drawn with worry.
"What's wrong?" Li Xiuwen asked.
His uncle patted the machine. "Ah Wen, I'm afraid the factory can't go on... And I don't know how I'll pay your school fees from now on."
His aunt looked as if she had been crying; her eyes were red. "Brother Ji sent men over today."
"What does he want?" Li Xiuwen's voice went low.
"He wants us to settle the next ten years of protection money in one lump sum—and says he's giving us half off, only eight thousand. Isn't that a laugh." His aunt gave a bitter laugh.
"I've lived this long and never once heard of protection money collected a decade ahead... This is bullying past all bearing! They're leaving us no way to live!" his uncle said.
"It's not just us. Lots of the neighbors are being told to pay their protection money up front too. Have the Thirteen Taibao gone mad?" His aunt couldn't make sense of it.
Li Xiuwen thought of Tianyi's probing of Changle.
He guessed that punks like the Thirteen Taibao had smelled the storm about to break over the Walled City and meant to skim one last haul and run.
"When does he want it?" he asked.
"The third of next month. One week from now," his uncle said.
"Shouldn't we go to Mr. Ming?" His aunt took his uncle's hand.
"Mr. Ming, see us? Why don't you go call on the Queen of the Empire while you're at it?" his uncle said, his voice drained of strength.
"Ah Wen, could you beat Brother Ji?" his aunt asked.
"What are you thinking? Ah Wen has only been learning a month. Brother Ji has been famous for years—how could he fight him? Never mind Third Master on top of that. You're just grasping at straws in your panic."
His uncle eyed his aunt, displeased. He'd had Ah Wen learn boxing so the boy could protect himself out on the streets, not so he would go courting danger.
Li Xiuwen said, "Stay home for now. In a few days I'll go to the martial hall to see some friends and ask whether anyone is willing to step in."
Hope rose in his aunt's face. "Good. That's one thing about learning martial arts—the connections. This will surely be sorted out."
His uncle clearly held out little hope. The martial hall masters of the Walled City were shrewd businessmen—men who guarded their own skins and rarely stepped into such affairs, nothing like the knights-errant of old.
…
Late that night, Li Xiuwen came to Granny's pig's blood shop.
He wanted a bowl of pig's blood soup before a night of extra training.
Three days: he would push himself to come out stronger—strong enough to kill Brother Ji without a slip!
A ring of people stood around the shop, talking over one another.
Up close, he saw two corpses on the ground, half-rotted and bloated into grotesque shapes.
One old, one young. Only from their clothes could their identities just barely be made out.
One was Granny; the other was Ah Hua, the simpleton.
"Ai, how could Granny have lost all hope and swallowed poison like that?"
"And Ah Hua—Granny must have fed him the poison too. A simpleton like that can't look after himself... But why choose death when things were fine?"
"Two days ago I was drinking pig's blood here, and Granny did talk about it—joked about ending it all in one go, so the white-haired wouldn't have to send off the black-haired."
"I heard Ah Hua got into opium. He's been stealing money from home these past days."
"Ai, the old woman's lot was bitter. Her only son, a simpleton, and now hooked on drugs... The damned powder-sellers—who could stomach cheating a simpleton?"
The neighbors crowding round talked and sighed, heartsore, and could do nothing.
Inside Li Xiuwen a tide of burning qi and blood churned. His fingers dug deep into his palms until the veins stood out.
…
Three days later.
The sky was dimming; the dying sun hung red as blood.
The blood-colored afterglow fell across Li Xiuwen's arms, where the green light had grown ever denser.
All three days he had drilled the Sea Sand Stake and the Flipping Sand Palm, and had spent a thousand at Old Huang's on two fish balls—even next month's fee had gone into it.
Old Huang had warned him not to take too many fish balls: they pile up medicinal toxins and harm one's potential.
But with Brother Ji hanging over his head like an executioner's blade, he could not afford to mind.
With the fish balls' aid, the results were plain.
Li Xiuwen looked at the [Incense Burner].
[Li Xiuwen]
[Martial Skill]
[General Martial Knowledge: entry (73%)]
[Sea Sand Stake: entry (88%)]
[Flipping Sand Palm: entry (76%)]
[Stage: Green Membrane (88%)]
"Three days, and my stake training leapt from 44% to 88%. These fish balls really deliver—worth half a month of my grinding."
"At my present cultivation I stand among the best at the Green Membrane stage."
"Strength, resistance to blows, agility... my physical condition has risen on every front."
"A pity fish balls only hasten the training methods by stimulating the body's acupoints and meridians. Fighting technique is a matter of skill—I still have to hone that slowly myself."
Over these days, circling his questions sideways, Li Xiuwen had learned from Huang Sihai that Brother Ji practiced the Bear Mountain style.
Every style had its own strong points.
Sea Sand style and Bear Mountain style were both known for strength.
But Sea Sand style was, after all, an "orthodox" school of long lineage, and it kept up flexibility, speed, and the rest.
Bear Mountain style was a third-rate "wild boxing" that had sprung up only in recent years.
It had taken in the training methods of the foreign devils' "martial combatants" without ever grasping their essence.
So it traded away flexibility and much of its all-round quality for outlandish slabs of muscle and raw power.
What's more, its practice demanded special secret drugs; it chased quick results, and its cultivation was hollow—far beneath the steady, well-grounded Sea Sand style.
And of course it fell further still short of the solidity of the cultivation Li Xiuwen had forged with the "incense burner."
"Time to move." Li Xiuwen went downstairs, ready to keep the appointment.
Chapter 17