Uncovering The Plan

I finished my morning training and went out. I cut through the streets toward a quarter where hardly anyone went, and pulled a mask on along the way for good measure. I couldn’t feel anyone at my back, but I wore it in case.

Nobody could be allowed to learn that Duho and I were connected, not until the Great Saber Gang was gone.

A little further on, the derelict house we’d arranged to meet at came into view down the road. I checked my surroundings once more before going in, and nothing caught on my qi sense.

I stepped inside. Duho was squatting there, scribbling on the floor with a stick.

“Whoa— with that mask on you look like you’ve been kicking around as a bandit for a few years. Suits you damn well.”

I ignored him and sat down on a worn chair.

“There are plenty of eyes about. No harm in being careful.”
“True enough. After the Tugeum Hall business there isn’t a place in town where our Young Master isn’t the talk.”
“How’s the mood in the Great Saber Gang?”
“How do you think? Like sh—t.”

Duho slapped the dirt off his hands, dragged a chair over and sat down in front of me.

“That lot in the Great Saber Gang are venomous right now. Treasure storehouse burned down, gambling house cleaned right out by our Young Master. It’s an absolute shitshow. There’s no corner left for money to come out of.”
“And Black Leopard?”
“Beyond beating the gambling house’s manager to death on the first day, he hasn’t made a move.”

Something’s off.

The more Duho told me, the less Black Leopard added up. Three days had passed since the two of us cleaned out Tugeum Hall, and with the treasure storehouse and the gambling house both stripped, his source of funds was cut. And still it had been quiet much too long.

By now there should have been some kind of response. Squeeze the surrounding territory harder, or come to see me. And yet he was just sitting there?

The whole thing was far too suspicious.

Something stank.

“Black Leopard will be setting up a new source of funds. Or he might come at me or at the house.”
“Come on, no way. With Iron Lion and Flying Serpent Spear both there, he’s going to attack you or the house? However far off the rails Black Leopard goes, taking on two first-rate martial artists is beyond him.”

He was right. Black Leopard’s martial prowess sat between mid first-rate and the far edge of that tier, and he couldn’t handle my father and Uncle Ju together. Pushing through on numbers does not work either; a first-rate master could take on a few dozen third-raters by himself.

The former is the likelier, then.

The Great Saber Gang is one of the three great powers in Qingzhou. Keeping an organization that size on its feet cost a great deal of money, and feeding, clothing and running it alone would come to taels of gold.

At present, though, Black Leopard had no money in hand. The treasure storehouse had burned, and I had taken over the gambling house. His flow of money had dried up, which meant the funds that filled his men’s pockets were gone.

That’s what makes a power hard to hold together.

For a gang like the Great Saber Gang, all the more so. Most of them had gathered for money in the first place, and if the organization had none, they’d walk without a backward glance. Loyalty and belonging meant nothing to them. So it would be burning him up inside, because he had to raise money somehow or he couldn’t hold the Great Saber Gang together.

And yet he’s quiet.

He hadn’t even squeezed the surrounding territory for protection money. He had to be desperate for the cash to keep the organization turning, and yet nothing showed on the surface. My prediction that he’d stop at nothing had missed the mark.

But I didn’t believe Black Leopard was really sitting still.

He’ll be working at something in secret.

I just didn’t know what. He recognized no line between what was and wasn’t done, so there was no telling what he’d do next. The Great Saber Gang I remembered from my past life had its hand in all sorts. It smuggled salt¹, it lent at usury, it ran swindles. They did every rotten thing there was, which made them impossible to predict.

Whatever it turned out to be, if there was money in it Black Leopard wouldn’t be picky. I had to find his new source of funds one way or another. Only then could I drive the Great Saber Gang into a corner.

“Duho.”
“What?”
“Put more eyes on them. Find out what they’re up to.”
“Already done. I’ve got my boys spread around the Great Saber Gang’s home base. The moment Black Leopard moves I’ll let you know.”
“Good. This time don’t lose them — watch them properly.”

I was needling him. Revenge for the crack about looking like a bandit earlier. Duho stared back at me in pure disbelief.

“…Our Young Master’s talking crap again.”
“It isn’t crap, it’s the truth.”
“Can’t say one word nicely. Ugh.”

Exasperated, Duho shot up out of his seat.

“Just wait. I’ll come back with every last thing that bastard Black Leopard is doing.”

Duho left the derelict house first. I got up a while after him. With him set on it, it was only a matter of time before we knew what Black Leopard was plotting.

Until then, what I had to do was the same as ever.

Training.

I had to grow strong enough that it wouldn’t matter what men like Black Leopard got up to.

On the outskirts of Qingzhou, a cave halfway up a mountain, screened by vines.

Torches lit the wide-open space brightly. Old people, women, children. The cave was packed with them, young and old, men and women alike. A huge figure came walking out from deeper in.

It was Black Leopard, the leader of the Great Saber Gang.

He raised a finger and counted them off one by one.

“Twenty-five…”

His face creased. The number was smaller than he’d expected, and a subordinate who caught the look spoke up in a hurry.

“The boys are still bringing them in. A few more should be here soon.”

The man answered quickly, reading his mood. But the crease between Black Leopard’s brows did not smooth out.

He clicked his tongue and ran his eyes over the bound people once more. The head count was low, but the quality was the bigger problem. More than half were worn-out old folk and women with sickness plain on their faces, and not one of them would fetch anything.

“Would you pay money for this lot? All the trouble they’ll be and nothing to show for it — sell them and you’ll hardly get a thing back. Won’t even cover their food.”

He said it coldly, clicking his tongue again.

Not enough.

Selling this lot would not come close to raising what he needed. Even the day-to-day money to keep the organization turning would be hard to cover, and the tribute money was the bigger problem still. Scooping up a few minnows like this would never raise it in time, and the connection he’d gone to such trouble to land was about to slip away.

Black Leopard made his decision.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

He had already put his hand to it, and building the thing up properly beat doing it by halves. If the quality was poor, he would make it up in quantity; he had resolved to raise the funds on small profits and quick turnover if that was what it took.

“Oi.”
“Y-yes! Yes, Boss!”
“Put more of the boys out. Have them turn over every last corner under the bridges and in the slums, and haul in anything with four working limbs, whatever it is.”
“But, Boss. If the magistrate’s office should catch sight of it…”
“You stupid bastard!”

— THWACK!

Black Leopard kicked the man in the shin.

“Agh!”

The man clutched his shin and went down on the floor. Black Leopard paid that no mind and roared down at him where he lay.

“Who told you to grab just anybody! Take orphan brats and beggar scum first! Or else bring in a whole family at once so nothing comes back on us! Make sure there’s no trouble!”
“Yes, yes. Understood!”

Afraid of being hit again, the man bowed and scraped and agreed with everything Black Leopard said.

“And make it plain to the boys. Anyone well turned out, anyone from a family with means — they don’t touch them. Take only the ones nobody will know are gone, and take them without a rat or a bird knowing it. Understood?”
“Understood, Boss! I won’t forget!”

At the man’s answer Black Leopard nodded.

I should have done this long ago.

He had never dealt in selling people, though he wouldn’t flinch at murder if there was money in it. The code of the gangho had nothing to do with it, nor benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom². He simply couldn’t be bothered with the authorities and the orthodox sects swarming around.

Thinking about it now, it had been a genuinely stupid thing to do. Feed money to the officials, keep the orthodox lot from finding out, and wasn’t that the whole of it? Even if a thing did look like turning into a problem, he could lean on the connection he’d landed.

Anything could be settled so long as there was money enough. He had simply realized it too late.

Black Leopard swept a greedy eye over the inside of the cave.

“Take them until this cave is full.”
“Er… Boss. If we take enough to fill the cave, it’s bound to show. The authorities and the orthodox sects around here will notice.”

He nodded at that. There was sense in it. However much he leaned on his backer and bought his way out of trouble, once a thing goes too far there is a limit to what can be covered up.

But there was a way around it.

“You dense bastard! Who said to take them only in Qingzhou? Eh? Have the towns and villages next door fallen down? Take them somewhere other than Qingzhou, that’s all! There’s trash lying thick as weeds the world over — you can’t scrape that up?”
“Ah…!”
“It makes no difference where you take them. Qingzhou or out of province, scrape them together without picking. Fill the head count, whatever it takes. Understood?”
“Understood!”

Black Leopard watched his men go out, and one corner of his mouth twisted up.

In his eyes the people in front of him looked like money. No cost of materials, no skill required. Pick them up, sell them, and that was all there was to it. Where in all the world was there a trade that returned more than that?

Sell what I have now and what they bring in on top of it, and there’ll be big money left over even after the tribute is paid.

With money like that, building up his power was nothing at all. His Great Saber Gang could take first place in Qingzhou.

No.

Not Qingzhou. A great power spanning the whole of Shandong was not a mere dream either.

“Heh heh heh…”

Laughter broke out of Black Leopard at the thought of standing as the foremost unorthodox-sect head in Shandong.

When that day comes, I’ll sweep away that Yang greenhorn who screwed me over, and his house along with him.

Black Leopard walked out of the cave in a fine mood.

Two days had passed since I met Duho.

Today, too, I was out in the courtyard swinging the spear.

— Fwish! Whish! Fwip!

Thanks to the new way of circulating qi, my spear had become far faster than before, and every time it cut through empty space a satisfying rip of air followed.

My body’s light.

That, too, was thanks to the new way of circulating it. All I’d done was twist the route slightly, and the efficiency was on another order entirely. Where before I had forced a channel open and dragged the water along it, now it poured out unchecked, like a broken bank. There was neither blockage nor waste in the circulation of qi.

Good.

At this rate, using Azure Dragon Emerges from the Sea once or twice would be no strain. Satisfied, I went back to repeating the thrust and the swing, and that was when it happened.

A familiar figure appeared outside the main gate.

It was Duho.

The way he came running, he must have found out what Black Leopard was doing. I drew the spear back and waited, and he came up panting.

“Black Leopard, that bastard — he’s dealing in people.”

“…”

He had crossed the one line that could never be uncrossed.