At the Door of Justice Read online



  At the Door of Justice

  By: Three Cups of Wine (San Bei Jiu)

  Introduction

  This is the story of a chivalrous Swordsman and his friends. The story was set in the period of Song dynasty in China (AD 960-1279).

  The weak Dynasty at that time was severely roiled by several attempts by its neighbours to invade its territory. The chaos had created much hardship for the people.

  The weak and corrupted Dynasty was in decline, it no longer had the ability to govern effectively; the distracted Central government was in no position to protect its citizens. The people of the Empire were at the mercy of corrupted provincial powers and outlaws. At that time, justice was only available to the people who had the money to pay for it, the population was marginalized. Such injustices were the driving force behind the birth of the shadowy world of Wulin; a subculture of martial art practitioners called Wuxia.

  These peoples were also called Swordsmen; this is the story of their devotion to the art of fighting and their dedication to seeking justice for the oppressed.

  This subculture was not an organized movement; they pursued their own form of justice by their respective means. In the absence of law and order, the justice could only come from the blade of sword. The values of a Wuxia dictated that injustice must be fought at all times, even the threat of death must not deter him.

  In order to carry out his duty, a Wuxia had to learn the ultimate fighting skills; he had to be better than the evil-doers. This dedication to justice led to the golden age of martial arts, this was the time of swordsmen wandering through the land looking for justice to uphold, evil-doers to be rid off, and new fighting skills to be learned.

  The various adventures of Yan Ching had brought him into face to face with Grave robbers, Tribal Black Magic masters and fellow Wuxias’ who possesses superhuman abilities. His devotion to justice was challenged at many levels. Through his adventures, Yan Ching learned the value of life and many alternative views. Eventually his core values were brought into question….

 

  Three Cups of Wine…

  One Cup for Heaven

  One Cup for the Land

  And One Cup for Humanity

  Contents

 

  Hatred knows no Bound

  Surprises at Sunrise Inn

  Every men’s Poison

  Part1

  Hatred knows no Bound

  The word Wulin literally meant the forest of martial art skills; this forest was not a specific place, this forest was a mindset. The people that followed the practice of Wulin culture lived in a parallel world with sentiments very different from those of the contemporary society. The culture of Wulin emphasized the practice of martial arts and with these skills the practitioners were morally obligated to perform good deeds for the society, helping the underprivileged, fighting bullies and ridding the world of evil and wickedness.

  It was the duty of any Wulin practitioner to even out the injustice in this world. These values might sound very similar to the values of our contemporary society, but the difference was that the Wuxia actually had the resolve and the capability to carry out his philosophy. Therefore when a Wuxia sees injustice, he would never turn a blind eye, he would even break the law in order to fight the injustice, he would risk his life. It was his duty.

  And this is their story…

  The practice of Wulin culture came about when the normal rule of law broke down, when the authorities were no longer able to protect the weak. In extreme environments, the authorities instead of protecting the people, they started to oppress them. When that happens, Wulin would collectively step forward to correct the injustice. The concept of Wulin would flourish during such times, when the weak dynastic rulers were not able to rule, the people had to take the law into their own hands.

  People with the ability to protect the population were often welcomed to replace the incompetent authorities, impromptu justice were meted out to punish the corrupted magistrates and local thugs who had tormented the population.

  But unfortunately Wulin was not a structured organization; they were not able to replace the administrative system totally, they were just playing the role of a corrective force to punish the wrong-doers. With them around, the evil-doers had to be wary of their undertakings, for you never know who was lurking in the shadows counting your wicked deeds.

  Wulin was mainly made up of individuals who were independent and free minded, they did not answer to anyone and they conducted their affairs quietly without much fanfare. When such a Wuxia came across injustice he would met out his summary punishment to the perpetrators according to his own judgment. Very often after punishing the evil-doers, he would disappear without even acknowledging his deeds.

  Evil outlaws, corrupted magistrates or local bullies often got beaten up or even killed by such stealthy Wuxias’. Usually such evil-doers would receive a warning first before drastic actions were taken. Many magistrates had their eye brown shaved off by this Wuxias’ as a public warning. But if the warning was not heeded, their wicked deeds would be repaid ten times over.

  Sometimes a few close friends could combine their capabilities and form a group, such groups usually made up of ‘blood brothers’ who had sworn an oath. This oath of eternal loyalty tied the destiny of the sworn brothers together forever. Whoever harms one of the brothers would be revenged to the fullest of their capability.

  The biggest organization in Wulin were the Sects, most of this Sects were associated with a certain type of martial art (Example Shaolin, Wudang Ermei etc.). Such Sects also operated as a school teaching its brand of martial art, this industrious method of producing students turned these Sects into very powerful organizations in Wulin with very broad member base.

  Sects like Shaolin, Wudang and Ermei attracted many students into their school of martial art. This new recruits upon joining a Sects would immediately enjoy the protection of the organization. They would be taught the martial art related to the Sects. Every student’s dream was to be admitted to the inner circle of the Sect, this selected group of talented individuals would be taught the ultimate martial art of the school. These selected few were known as the ‘in chamber’ disciples of the grand master/teacher himself, the senior person of this entourage would be in line to be the next leader of the Sect.

  Sadly most of the students would not make it to this stage as the teachers would only have time for a few selected students. But such big enterprises were not the only avenue to learn special fighting skills; there were many extremely powerful individuals who did not belong to a Sect, these were free spirited characters that did not care for the glory and detest the headaches that came with running a big organization. Such a person was not inferior in any way; they just did things differently.

  My teacher was one such individual; he was very accomplished in his technique of fighting with a simple saber. His martial art was called the Lightning Saber, it focused on speed and swift changes to the attack style. He was also renowned for his unarmed fist fighting techniques called the Thunder fist, this technique was derived from a Shaolin fist fighting technique which he learned when he was in Shaolin.

  During his younger days he was a disciple in Shaolin for a few years, he did acquire much knowledge from this famous school, but due to his care-free nature he was expelled from the Temple. He bore no grudge against the Temple school, but as an expelled student, ethically he was not allowed to practice the martial art he learned there, so he invented his own.

  By the time I met him, he was already a well known person in Wulin, he was known as the Godly Fist Hong Er. Hong Er was his name; Er meaning two as he was a second son in the Hong fami
ly. My teacher did not intend to have a student; he was too much of a wanderer to settle in any one place for long, he was always looking for new places to go to, new adventures to experience…..and new fights to fight.

  He met me under very peculiar circumstances; my village was ransacked by bandits, my whole family was killed and as a young man of twelve I was trying to avenge my family. I trailed the bandits for three days and three nights waiting for the opportunity to revenge my family. It was obviously a futile attempt as I was not trained in any martial art and there was no way I could have defeated them.

  Banditry was common at that time as there was a famine in the region, as Imperial authorities were weak and corrupted; no attempts were made to help the population. Many of the famine victims turned to robbing each other to survive.

  Bandits existed in various forms, some did it for sheer survival; some did it because it was easy to rob the starving villages and some of them robbed the rich to feed the poor. The group of bandits that rob my village was the lowest kind of bandits; they specialized in robbing the poorest village as they were the ones that would put up the least resistance. The worst was that they would kill the entire village to cover their tracks. I swore that I will revenge my family, even if it costs me my life.

  At that time Godly Fist was in the region, he was wounded in a fight with another group of bandits. When he saw me trailing my group of bandits he knew what I was trying to do.

  Godly Fist could not bear to see me throwing my life away, so he took me along with his travel and taught me all I need to know about the shadowy world of Wulin and he taught me all his fighting skills.

  It took me six long agonizing years before my teacher was satisfied that I was ready to take my revenge. These bunch of bandits were the first people I killed, I was eighteen years of age. When my family’s death was finally avenged, Godly Fist told me that his duty had been discharged. We went our separate ways and he instructed me not to mention him as my teacher, because he did not want to tie his name to anybody. The reason was simple, he led a dangerous life; he did not want to drag me into it.

  The next time I met him a few years later, even though I treated him with utmost respect, Godly Fist treated me like an equal; a friend.

  But unknown to him I had already decided to follow his footsteps; I wanted to practice the values of Wulin; to help the oppressed and punish the evil. Just like him.

  Ever since that day, I had wandered through the entire Middle Kingdom’s Central Plains (the region in China between the Yangzhi River and the Yellow River), I had acquired a small reputation for myself and most important of all I had acquired many like-minded friends. We were a bunch of well intentioned youngsters travelling the region helping the local population to fight against local bullies, bandits and sometime even corrupted officials.

  The Imperial Court was weak; they could not help the population, the people were under the tyranny of both the local magistrates and bandits, very often the local authorities and the bandits worked as one entity.

  We were the underground movement that stealthily helped the population by getting rid of these people. Those were glorious times, and we had acquired our reputation among the Wulin people as capable skillful fighters. We were invited to many gatherings and banquets to celebrate our achievements and were looked upon as heroes of Wulin. We were much respected.

  But this reputation was also the cause of all our eventual difficulties; as our reputation grew; the stories told about us began to evolve into ridiculous tales. Such unintended claims (not made by us) aroused the curiosity and jealousy of the other martial art practitioners. People started to seek us out and challenge us to duels, instead of fighting bandits and corrupted officials we spent most of our time fighting people who were supposed to be on our side.

  There was a darker side to Wulin, while everybody was talking about upholding justice they were also very concerned about the glory, fame and wealth that was involved. Such priorities thought usually unspoken were actually quite important for those Wuxias’. These people believed that the short cut to fame was to defeat someone famous, such engagements were ‘title fight’; it had nothing to do with the upholding of justice. After a while we could not tell the ‘chivalrous Wuxias’ from the evil bandits we were supposed to fight.

  These challengers could have furthered their reputations by fighting injustice; but instead they chose the fast track way of fighting us. In the beginning it was fascinating to have people from all over wanting to ‘test’ our fighting skills, but after a while we began to realize that it was not that simple. All these people were not our admirers wanting to befriend us, they were more interested in defeating us and have our names added to their ‘losers’ list.

  After some time we found that they were spending more time in defending our ‘title’ than we did on promoting justice. And it was a never ending story, after defeating someone, he would call in his ‘brothers’ and friends to seek revenge on us. As we fight off a few challengers our reputation were even more tempting for the next few to try us. Soon the entire Wulin seemed to be obsessed with defeating us, we only managed to survive this period through sheer luck.

  And we also realized that the really skillful martial art experts were not the ones coming to fight us, these people did not need the shortcut to glory; they were already there. The people coming to challenge us were the wanabees; the real Wuxias’ were humbler folks who carried the true values of Wulin.

  There were many noble Wuxia’s around, but these people chose to stay away from all the pettiness and hypocrisy of Wulin, many of them like my teacher did not even show their identity to the world. They travelled incognito, they did not like to declare their names and when they needed to eliminate bandits or kill a corrupted magistrate they did it quietly.

  Sometimes, a corrupted magistrate would be beaten up or robbed, but nobody would know who did it. The humiliated magistrate would quietly attribute the crime to some bandits, and sweep the whole event under the carpet. People like Hong Er did not need any celebration or banquets; he did it for the people.

  I began to see the wisdom of my teacher’s ways.

  After spent months fighting off numerous challengers, finally, we were all totally disgusted at the situation. We had our first experience with the pettiness of Wulin, it did not took us long to decide that we no longer want any more of this. We decided to disband and went our separate ways, hoping that this would get us off the limelight. We went back to our respective hometowns, and began our new life as commoners in the common world.

  Transition to a commoner’s life was not easy, other than martial arts I had no skills, and even though I wanted to distance myself from Wulin, I realized that it was not possible. Furthermore, I did not want to abandon my guiding principles of doing good and upholding justice, therefore I set myself the task of finding an employer who had the same values as me. I had also accepted the fact that I would not be able to stay away from Wulin, not for long.

  It did not take me long to find such a person, he was the biggest philanthropist in the city of Luoyang, every year he spent a big fortune helping the poor, building schools and providing free medical care. I was glad to work for him; I believed a person who was so generous to the poor people could not possibly be evil. His values fit perfectly into mine.

  My job was neither difficult nor simple; it was the senior position of a ‘guardian of the mansion’ in his household in Luoyang city. ‘Guardian of the Mansion’ was not the post of a security guard; I was in charge of security of the entire household plus the security of the vast business empire.

  My employer’s name was Kuan Ling; he had a huge household consisting of three wives, two sons and one daughter and a number of brothers, sisters, in-laws, cousins all staying in his huge mansion. The Kuan clan was very rich; they had businesses in rice, tea, and shipping, they owned land and properties in various big cities all over the Middle Kingdom.

  To Mister Kuan, money was not an issue, he just wa
nted security for all his clan and he gave me a free hand in performing this task; I had a small army working for me. I was given huge budget.

  But my job was not as straight forward as it seemed, Mister Kuan’s immense wealth had attracted much unwanted attention. Mister Kuan Ling knew that his entire family was being watched greedily by all the outlaws in the land.

  I was employed for my reputation; Kuan Ling knew that even though he could employ an army to protect his family, but that would make little difference to determine skillful fighters who was attracted by his money. He needed my connection in the underworld of Wulin to give him additional protection; he knew my reputation in Wulin would be an added deterrent to anybody seeking to cash in on him.

  In my budget, I had a huge sum of money that I could hand out to anyone for information and help; I had built a network of informants telling me what was going on in Wulin, any suspicious Wuxia or outlaws coming into the city would be made known to me even before they checked into an inn. My intelligence network in the city was even better than that of the local Governor, because I had a bigger budget.

  Very often I passed information to the local authorities to get rid of some outlaws coming into town, they were always very grateful to me for that, as some outlaws had a heavy prize on their head. If needed, I even helped them to capture the outlaw because some of these criminals were very good fighters and the local constables were useless at real combat, they were only good at bullying the peasants.

  But most of the time my job consisted of engaging this outlaws, I would call on them to let them know that I was aware of their presence. It was also to let them know of my presence. It was always best to prevent a crime rather than to fight it, most of the time a subtle hint from me plus a small gift of silver pieces would be enough to send them on their way. I only resorted to violence when these outlaws became too greedy or they decided not to give me the due respect.

  Another part of my job was to protect Mister Kuan Ling’s business interests, his vast empire had brought him many enemies, and these enemies were powerful people, and they too had money to throw.

  This was the part of the job which was most challenging as it often dragged me back into the world of Wulin; once again I had to face the pettiness that came with it. So far, nobody had been foolish enough to challenge the combination of Mister Kuan’s wealth and my reputation. Such a challenge would be defended very bitterly and the resulting fight would be bloody, whoever starts such a conflict had better know what he was in for.

  But we knew such attempts will be made one day, Mister Kuan’s wealth was just too tempting, and there were many rich merchants out there who would love to get their hands on the Kuan clan’s business empire. These rich merchants might not be as wealthy as the Kuans’, but they were wealthy enough to buy them plenty of muscles. The only deterrent I could show them was the consequences of trying….absolute destruction.

  When I made my rounds with the local gentries and their respectively retainers, I quietly made it known to them that I treated Mister Kuan Ling as my brother, his family as my own. The subsequent reasoning would be very simple; harm anyone of the Kuans’ would bring upon the perpetrator the wrath of the Little Thunder Fist, me; Yan Ching.

  This warning was meant for the greedy merchants and for anyone thinking to cash in on the Kuans, it was better to deter people from trying before they make their attempt. I would not be able to prevent a desperate attempt on the Kuans, especially if it was carried out by highly skilled fighters, but with my knowledge and connections I would be able to find out who the perpetrators was.

  Anyone making this attempt knew that I would not rest till they are dead, that was the only way to deal with your enemies. They must realize that they would not have the chance to enjoy their wealth; they would realize that they did not want me as an enemy. The moment you cross my path, there is no turning back…

  The Jade Statue

  It was approaching spring, a very beautiful day, the city was alive with the festivities, everybody was preparing for the Lunar New Year celebration. The first day of the Lunar New Year was one of the most important days in the Chinese calendar.

  After a year of roaring trade, the Kuan clan was spending much money in the preparation for the coming event; the entire household knew that Mister Kuan Ling being a generous person would be handing out big bonuses to everybody. Everyone was in high spirit.

  All this household preparation did not involve me; I was in my study planning the security arrangement for the numerous banquets when my guards informed me that an important official from the Province of Fujian had arrived and had been shown to Mister Kuan.

  My job usually did not involve entertaining such official as I had made known to Mister Kuan that I detested such corrupted officials (as they usually were), and my manners and words would do more harm than good for Mister Kuan. But this time I was requested by Mister Kuan to attend the meeting at the main hall, I was curious.

  The main hall was at the inner courtyard of the mansion; its main purpose was to welcome important visitors. By the time I arrived, the place was filled with servant running up and down the pathways bringing tea and dim sum to serve to the guests.

  This visitor had brought along many guards, in fact a small army was stationed right outside the main hall, I was told by the door man that a bigger army was outside the Mansion and had surrounded it. The roads leading to the mansion had been blocked off. This must be an important visitor indeed.

  As I walked into the hall, I could see that Mister Kuan was very humbled by the visitor, his faced was flustered and he kept bowing to the man. I was introduced to the visitor, he was the governor of Zhejiang Province, and he was the General in Command of the entire southern imperial army. He was indeed a big shot.

  It turned out that his visit was totally unexpected, and Mister Kuan was embarrassed for being totally unprepared for this important guest. But up till now I still did not understand why I was requested to the meeting, I was useless at small talks with Imperial Officers, as to preparing the household for his stay the housekeeper would be the more appropriate person. Why did Mister Kuan want my presence for?

  It was soon explained as General Zhen asked Mister Kuan to dismiss the servants from the main hall, only three of us and two of his lieutenants remained behind, after slowly sipping his tea he turned to us and said, “Dear Mister Kuan, please allow me to apologize for this unannounced visit, I regret that I have to disturb your harmony during this festive season.”

  Kuan Ling mumbled some polite word.

  The General explained further, “I had been ordered by the Emperor to carry out an important task; I had no choice but to travel to Luoyang quietly unannounced.

  As you would have heard the Empress Dowager (Emperor’s mother) is a devoted Buddhist, she heard of a precious Jade Statue of the Goddess of Mercy in the southern region of Fujian, she wanted to acquire it for her shrine in the palace. The Emperor had secretly purchased the Statue, for a high price. My job was to deliver it to the Imperial Palace on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year.

  While there are still many days before the 15th, I would like to rest my troops in Luoyang before going on to the Palace; while I am here I want to keep this statue in a secure place, and I heard in Luoyang there is nowhere safer than your huge mansion. I also heard that your vault is the safest place in the world. I would like to keep the statue in your vault for a few days….if you would oblige.”

  I knew Mister Kuan would not be able to turn down this request, I saw his face turning through several shades of green while humbly nodding his head and mumbling his agreement. It was quite prestigious to have Imperial treasures locked in his vault, but it was also a heavy responsibility and at the same time this also meant he had to open the vault to an outsider to view. It was well known he was rich, but nobody really knew how rich he was, if this General turned out to be a greedy official this might mean big trouble.

  The vault of the Kuan clan was situated i
n the middle of the huge mansion; it was built underground with only one entrance which was guarded day and night. Being an extremely well constructed fortress it was impenetrable; the iron doors were two feet thick and the locks were made by the same locksmiths that had constructed the locks for the Imperial treasury. No one could open it without a key, no one had ever tried, and no one had bothered to try.

  The vault was so secretive that even I had never been inside before; the only two persons holding the keys were Mister Kuan himself and his eldest son Kuan Ting. And furthermore, the two keys must be used together to open the doors, and the doors were seldom opened as the Kuan clan had another smaller vault in the mansion that hold a large enough amount of gold and silver pieces for the day to day operation of the business.

  Their daily cash flow was supplied by the smaller vault; the main vault was only opened during the half yearly accounting period when profit from the previous year would be sent inside. The Kuan clan’s business was very successful, therefore gold and silver pieces were usually flowing into the main vault for storage, never out.

  The main vault was also used to store the precious treasure pieces that the clan had acquired over the years. Jade pieces, golden statues and famous paintings were stored inside, once a year during the stock taking; experts would be called in to examine the painting and carving to ensure that they were in good condition. All this would be done under the watchful eyes of Mister Kuan and his son, nothing was left to chance.

  The eldest son Kuan Ting was hurriedly summoned to the main hall as we needed his key to open the vault. We proceeded to the back garden where the vault was located. I noticed that one of the General’s lieutenants was carrying an embroidered box roughly four feet by four feet with a depth of two feet. This must be the jade statue.

  As Mister Kuan and his son unlocked the doors, I was checking out the surrounding areas to make sure that nobody was watching lurking in the shadows; less people knows about this the better. I did not want any of the servants to see this and start telling the whole city about it.

  And I was hoping that I would not be called into the vault, I did not want to know what was inside and I certainly did not want to see the jade statue belonging to the Emperor. The less one knew was better for one’s wellbeing.

  But it was not to be so; soon Kuan Ting came out of the vault and told me that my presence was requested. As I went inside I saw stacks upon stacks gold and silver ingots arranged in an orderly manner in four corners of the room. The far end of the room was stacked with boxes of presumably precious treasures, urns containing pearls and precious stones were carelessly left on the floor. I was in the presence of extreme wealth; a small portion of the carelessly exposed urns would have made anyone a very rich man.

  I could see that the General and his Lieutenants were equally stunned by the display; it was with some effort that they managed to keep their jaws from dropping to the ground. Mister Kuan and his son were on the other hand rather embarrassed by their opulent display of wealth, this was never the image they had wanted for themselves.

  After a long silence, Mister Kuan said, “Dear General, I have a humble request if you would permit me Sir.”

  The General threw him a questioning look without saying anything.

  Mister Kuan continued, “Dear Sir, I humbly beg you to allow this humble peasant to have a glance at the precious Jade statue. If you grant me this honour, it would glorify my entire clan for generations to come.”

  The General was slightly taken aback, but after some careful consideration he realized what the smart Mister Kuan was up to. As to me, I would have been very surprised if Mister Kuan did not request to inspect the merchandise.

  As a sharp business man, Mister Kuan would never allow anything to be place in his vault without checking the content first, it would be disastrous if the General place a worthless piece of junk in the vault and later claim that Mister Kuan had stolen the precious statue and had replaced it with a piece of junk.

  Having dealt with officials all his life, Mister Kuan had the perfect manners to convey the message and yet at the same time not let anybody lose face. And being a keen collector of art works, he was also curious about this piece of Imperial treasure. Such an art piece; once it enters the palace seldom comes back to the outside world again.

  We found a nice table top, and the General ordered his Lieutenant to unveil the statue. It did not disappoint, it was indeed a beautiful piece of jadeite, carved into the figure of the thousand hands Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy), both the quality of the jade and the high standard of the craftsmanship was unmatched. But the priceless aspect of the piece was its size, to find a flawless piece of jade of that size was very difficult, this piece of art work was a one in a million.

  After admiring the art work, the Lieutenant packed up the piece and we placed it into a cushioned container and left it on the table top. It will be removed in three days time so there was no need to store it away. With the impenetrable vault, and the unbreakable locked doors…what could go wrong? In three days time when the General leaves with the Jade statue, it would be the happiest day of Mister Kuan’s life…. and mine too.

  The General requested that his Lieutenants and some of his troops to be allowed to guard the entrance to the vault, this precaution was agreeable to both parties as it would put the General’s mind to rest and at the same time nobody could accuse the Kuans’ of stealing the Statue as the General’s troops would be co-guarding the vault. What could go wrong?

  With everybody’s mind at rest, the General settled into the mansion and was provided with the best luxury money could buy. Mister Kuan was anxious to secure his friendship as this General was now the only one in the Imperial court who knew how rich he was, a strong friendship along with much precious gifts might help the General keep his silent.

  Immense wealth brings along many complications.

  The Lieutenants and the soldiers were well treated; they were served the best cuisines they have ever eaten in their life. I believe they would be talking about it for the rest of their life.

  I got to know the Lieutenants well as both had some Wulin background before they were serving the General, we had some mutual friends in the Wulin and they had heard of my exploits in my younger days. We got along very well.

  Shock

  Three days went by very quickly; it was time to send the General on his way with his precious cargo and finally we would be able to breathe a sigh of relief. While walking to the vault Mister Kuan was in a cheery mood. He was inviting the General to visit again and for a longer stay the next time. I too was bidding my new friends farewell and exchanging contact addresses, promising to visit each other in the future. All of us were in high spirit, Mister Kuan and I were glad to be rid of the General and the statue and the General was happy to be on his way to fulfill his task.

  Mister Kuan and his son unlocked the doors to the vault, as they pushed the doors aside I could see that something was wrong, the cushioned container was on the floor and the embroidered box containing the Jade Statue was wide open! All of us rushed into the chamber, the box was laying wide open and empty, and all our faces turned pale, none of us could utter a word. The impossible had happened, the statue had been stolen, and the impenetrable vault had been broken into.

  The General was the first to speak, “Kuan Ling, how dare you?”

  Mister Kuan was too shocked to reply, he tried to utter something but nothing came out of his mouth.

  By now I had recovered enough to think carefully and put up some logical argument for my employer, “Dear General, please keep your calm.”

  I quietly went to close the doors to the vault so that nobody could hear us.

  I said, “Dear General, please consider carefully, Mister Kuan would not be stupid enough to steal the Imperial treasure entrusted to him, in his own vault. Furthermore, you had your soldiers guarding this vault, how could we have done anything without you knowing?”

  By now the General had c
almed down, “Kuan Ling, this Statue was lost in your vault, you find it back, I will give you ten days, which would be the latest date that I can leave in order to report to the Emperor in time, with or without the Statue.

  Let me remind you, if I go the His Royal Highness without the Jade Statue, both you and I will have hell to pay.”

  There was no need to remind us; this failure could never be explained away, no matter how we argue it would not make a difference, we would be made the co-perpetrator of the crime. I would not be surprise the punishment would be to confiscate the entire clan’s wealth and exile the entire household, men, women and children. Including servants and footman…including me. And my past association with the shadowy Wulin would make me the prime suspect of this crime. My past history will be scrutinized and all my long forgotten deeds will be looked upon in different lights.

  I said, “Dear General, I appreciate your generous ten days, I will find the perpetrator and I will clear our name. I begged for your cooperation in a few matters, firstly, we will inform the entire household that you have fallen ill and had delayed your departure. There are only a few guards who saw us coming into the vault, I will seal their lips, and I want the thieves to believe that the theft had not been discovered. Secondly, I might need the use of your army and your authority to track down the thieves. Now the first thing I need you to do is to seal up the whole city, just tell the local authorities that you are tracking down smugglers.”

  The General readily agreed to my requests as he was totally stunned by the event, and I dismissed the guards with a stern warning to keep their mouth shut. I placed a fresh batch of guards to guard the vault, they consisted of my most trusted people, I was confident that not a word would be leaked from them.

  I needed this arrangement as for the next few days I have to examine the place inside out, for I had concluded that there must be a hidden entrance inside the huge chamber. There was no way that the thieves could have entered from the main entrance. That way was guarded by my trusted people, the General’s soldiers and the two keys carried by the Kuans father and son, it was impossible that these three group of people had conspired to commit this theft.

  My findings

  I set to work immediately; two of my trusted men and me examined the chamber from top to bottom, it did not take us long to find the hidden entrance at the wall at the far end of the room. This entrance was well made; you would never find it unless you were looking for it. It was crafted nicely into the stone wall, it was definitely not a job that was done in the last three days, this job was years of work.

  The stone door was built into the wall and it was fitted beautifully with excellent craftsmanship, it was built for long term usage; it was not for a one-time robbery. That means that the thieves had access to this wealthy vault for a long time; they could have carried away the entire load of gold and silver as they would have plenty of time to do so, but they did not. (The vault was only opened once every six months) Clearly this theft was planned months or even years ago.

  As we entered the tunnel, it was obvious that some fresh digging was done recently to enlarge the passage way, this was probably to accommodate to jade statue. We followed the tunnel to exit at empty shop at the east end of the city three miles away, the shop was obviously empty….. The birds had flown.

  Immediately I realized the importance of this discovery, it was even more important to keep this finding quiet. After peeking out of the window of the shop house and ascertained our location, we crawled back into the tunnel and went back to the exit at Mister Kuan’s mansion. From there we made our way across the city back to the shop house and quietly started making our enquiries around the neighborhood. We pretended to be wine merchants looking for a shop house.

  When we checked with the neighbour, we were told that the shop had been empty for years, but according to the landlord of the place, rent was paid to him every year by courier from another Province, he had never seen the tenant before. As the rent paid was handsomely high he had never question about the business of the shop he was just happy to have rented out this property at such a good price….dead end.

  As I slowly prodded deeper into the mystery, I began to see a profile of the person or persons I was dealing with. I knew that these thieves were not in for the money as they could have gotten away with a King’s ransom had they wanted to, the entire wealth of the Kuan clan was in their hand.

  Such a person could only be doing this for revenge; they wanted to bring destruction to the Kuan household. Taking their entire wealth was not enough for them, they wanted total annihilated, nothing less. But they did not have to power to fight the Kuans’ in an open battle, especially when the Kuans’ were so well protected, so they waited for their opportunity.

  With the General’s arrival to borrow the use of the vault to keep an Imperial treasure, they realized their opportunity had arrived. Using the Emperor’s wrath to bring total destruction and shame to the Kuans’ clan was indeed an ingenious plot.

  When borrowing someone else’s knife to kill ones’ foe, whose knife would be better and sharper than that of the Emperor’s?

  The next thing I noticed about the plot was that it involved some rare expertise, the digging was done professionally. It was extremely difficult to tunnel through three miles of the city and accurately entered a specific area; to do that undetected would be impossible, unless you are a professional. Grave robbers!

  These thieves must have engaged the help of grave robbers to do the job; I would have to check on that angle. When I checked through the rental record of the empty shop with the landlord, I realized that this tunnel was built not long after I had arrived on the Kuans’ household, all this digging was done right under my nose!

  Grave Robbers

  Grave robbers had existed since the earliest dynasty; this group of professionals was very secretive in their job as they were considered the worst of criminals. Robbing somebody’s ancestral grave was a terrible crime; furthermore these grave robbers usually targeted the Imperial graves which were the richest targets. These skills were usually passed from father to sons seldom outside the family; they usually work in small team of two to three persons and always at night.

  The strategy of the grave robbers were very ingenious, they would never dig up the grave as that would attract too much attention, instead they would tunnel to the grave from a distance away. This would leave the exterior of the grave intact and nobody would know that the burial chamber inside had been emptied. Very often the descendents of the deceased would not even realize that their ancestors’ grave had been robbed.

  The grave robbers exist as secretive groups; their identities were not known to anyone outside their immediate group. Thus making it extremely difficult to engage the service of one of them, furthermore, their expertise were very rarely needed by an average person. Such experts if you could find one would usually come at a very high price.

  This specialized expertise were rarely needed, it was only required for three main purposes; first and foremost was buried treasure, second was when a specific item was desired by somebody outside the family of the deceased. The third reason would be less obvious, robbing the grave could be a way to destroy the feng shui of the deceased’s family.

  Rich Chinese clans placed a strong emphasis on the feng shui layout of the ancestral graves; they believe that having good feng shui for the ancestral tomb would ensure the continuity of the clan’s prosperity. Political or business rivals seeking to change this prosperity could resort to robbing and desecrating the graves to disrupt the flow of good fortune.

  The unique expertise of the grave robbers was perfect for this purpose as they do not disturb the exterior of the grave, the descendents would not even realize they their feng shui had been destroyed until it was too late.

  Mister Kuan’s story

  By late morning I had done all the investigating I could do, I went back to the Kuans’ mansion to report my findings. Usually I did not have to rep
ort anything to Mister Kuan, but this instance was different, he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. At the same time I also need to find out from him which of his enemy would fit into my profile of the thieves.

  This bunch of thieves had a deep hatred for the Kuan family; this hatred was clearly beyond straight forward business rivalry. This plot to discredit the Kuan clan was not for financial gain at all; they did not steal a single piece of gold or silver. Clearly the objective was to destroy the entire Kuan clan…with the help of the Emperor’s wrath.

  As I enter the study of Mister Kuan, I found that both Mister Kuan and General Zhen seemed to have aged twenty years since this morning; both their faces had shrunken with worries.

  One who was the owner of unimaginable wealth and the other the proud commander of a hundred thousand troops had been transformed into two frail old men in that short span of time. They were facing the life and death situation of their entire family, and both of them were helplessly lost.

  They knew that they could not report the theft to the local magistrates; neither could they report this to the Imperial authority. Once this new gets out, the situation would be irreversible; the first reaction from the Emperor would be the harshest punishment imaginable. Their heads will be chopped off regardless of whether the statue could be recovered eventually.

  When they saw me, both of them got to their feet and started asking me thousands of questions, I calmed them down and slowly began to explain my findings to them. As they listened they began to realize that their trust in me was well placed, as I explained my analysis of the theft they knew I was the best person to handle the case. They had no better candidate to pursue the case for them; my contacts and my experience in the Wulin would be the best bet they had at the moment.

  I said to Mister Kuan, “Dear Mister Kuan, as I had explained earlier this was no ordinary theft, they did not want money or gold or any of your precious treasure. Their objective was to destroy your clan; can you think of someone who harboured such deep hatred for your family?”

  I continued, “I do not think this was the work of your business or political rival, this person and the Kuan family had deep differences, probably family feud involving blood. Have you killed anyone? This dispute might even be something that had happened in the previous generations?”

  I added, “Has your family done any great injustice to someone in the past? Some big rivalry? Have you or your ancestors made some enemies that fit into this profile?”

  After some careful consideration, Mister Kuan hesitantly said, “I believe I know who was behind this, but this was a long time ago, I was a mere baby at that time, I am not really clear what actually happened. The only person alive who knew the whole story would be Old Wang; my retired housekeeper. He was the housekeeper for my grandfather. Old Wang is over a hundred years old now, after his retirement I had kept him in the household. Let me sent for him.”

  The old man was brought before us, he was so old that he was immobile and blind, but his mind was still clear. Old Wang greeted his master respectfully and waited for our questions.

  Mister Kuan started his narrative of the story, “As I was very young when this event happened, everything that I knew was told to me by my late father and uncles. Let me tell you what I know and Old Wang will fill in the details.

  When my grandfather started off his business in Luoyang, we were only operating a small rice trading business; we were not rich like we are now. As our business grew, we got richer and one of my grand aunties was married to the local governor’s son. This connection got us even richer; my grandfather was trying to muscle his way into the tea trade. But at that time there was another business family who was already established in the tea trade. No matter how hard my grandfather tried he was not able to dominate the tea market.

  Eventually, he resorted to drastic means to win over his business rival; he conspired with the local Governor who was his relative and accused the rival business family of treason, they accused them of passing military secret to our enemies in the north.

  At that time our dynasty’s relationship with the Kingdom of Liao was very tense, when the Imperial Court heard about these accusations they did not even bother to investigate. The Imperial Legal department just took the local Governor’s word for it and sentenced the entire family of our business rival to execution. The women and children were exiled to the northern frontier.”

  Exile at that time meant being sent to a prison camp in the far north region with no chance of returning. Such prison camps were meant to be the graveyard of the prisoners; conditions were so harsh that nobody was expected to survive long. With such camps around, the Imperial Legal department did not have to sentence women and children to execution, the harsh environment did the job for them.

  He continued, “My grandfather regretted this act very much; he was a broken man soon after the incident and most of our family members did not know of this shameful act. Soon after the incident, my grandfather committed suicide and my father took over the business, my grandfather’s suicide was covered up.

  Before his death, my grandfather told my father that we must do more philanthropy to make up for our past deeds, we had carried out his instruction ever since. Every year we had contributed much gold and silver to help to poor, but looks like it was not enough. The rival family had come back to seek their revenge.”

  He paused; the General and I looked at each other, clearly thinking of the same thing. After visiting Mister Kuan’s vault, it was quite obvious that he did not do enough of charity; such dastardly act was something I despised and such greedy merchants and corrupted officials were exactly the kind of people I would have punished during my younger days as a roving Wuxia.

  But unfortunately my fate had been intertwined with this despicable family; I had to save his life in order to save mine. The General was probably thinking of his terrible luck to have entrusted his Jade statue to this Kuan family, walking himself into this disastrous situation. The safest vault in the world turned out to be the darkest vipers’ pit that will soon consume all of us.

  While Mister Kuan was narrating, I noticed Old Wang had tears streaming down his cheek, the old man must have been involved in the plot; just like his master, and he had been regretting ever since.

  I asked Old Wang, “Old Wang, can you tell me something about the family that we had wronged.”

  In his feeble voice Old Wang began his narrative, “The family was surname Yang, their ancestral home was from Sichuan, and they had tea plantations in the Sichuan and Yunnan, their tea leaves was of the highest grade. When they moved their trading operation to Luoyang it was to facilitate the transportation of the tea to the north. With their high grade tea leaves and their infrastructure we were no match for them. Our Old master had invested a huge portion of our wealth into this tea business, but time and again we were outwitted and outclassed by them. We were on the verge of total ruin; we had no choice but to resort to this underhanded means.”

  He continued, “It was a very drastic move, but as they were richer and better connected than us and we were not able to bring them down with other smaller or less severe accusation. Before this incident, we tried to implicate the Yangs’ in a smuggling deal, but with their wealth and connection they were able to quickly buy their way out of trouble.

  Old Master was desperate; he decided to accuse them of the worst crime possible. At that time, with the tension across the border, it was easy to convince the Imperial Court that this rich merchant family was committing treason. Once the Imperial edict was announced nobody would dare to help the traitor for fear of being implicated, no matter how much money they were willing to pay, no officials dared to stick their neck out for them.”

  Old Wang paused for breath and continued, “Old Master was shocked by the misery he had caused to the Yang family, he regretted it, but there was no turning back.

  Old Master told me to secretly follow the exiled family members (women and children) to the northern fro
ntier, and find out where they would settle. I was instructed to find out if there was anything I could do to help them. The Old Master said there nothing we can do to help the male members of the family as they were all executed, but maybe we could help the women and children in exile. That was the only way he could think of to try and undo his terrible mistake.”

  He continued, “I quietly followed the contingent of soldiers escorting this group of women and children to the north; there were 146 of them, many of them died on the way. When we reached the northern frontier, I realized that my Old Master’s effort was futile, the living conditions in that region was near impossible, the land was frozen most of the year, the winter temperature was beyond freezing. Nothing grows there, only the hardiest tribesmen could survive this condition. The Yang family was sent there to die. I came back and reported this to Old Master, he killed himself soon after. Before Old Master died, he was half-crazy with guilt, in one of his demented outburst he said that the Yang family’s ghost will come back for revenge.”

  I asked Old Wang, “Did you go back to northern frontier after that? Do you know what had happened to the women and children of the Yangs’?”

  Old Wang replied, “I went back once, about ten years after the first visit, the village that they had settled in was deserted, I was not able to locate any survivors. When I reported this back to Second Master (Kuan Ling’s father), we assumed that they had all died in the harsh weather and they could have perished in the fighting between us and the Kingdom of Liao.”

  There were nothing much else we could get out of Old Wang; he had told us everything that he knew, we ordered the servants to carry him back to his chambers.

  I could tell that Mister Kuan was very embarrassed by the account of his family’s shameful past; General Zhen was quietly condemning him with his cold stare. However we had more pressing issues at hand, it was not the time to argue about the rights and wrongs of the past generation. I had to set my network in motion to capture the thieves and retrieve the Jade statue; I had no time to lose.

  I turned to Mister Kuan and said, “Dear Sir, I would have to make use of my Wulin resources to track down the Yang family, as time is pressing I would to use an expensive network to communicate with my sources. Sir, I need to spend a huge sum of money.”

  Mister Kuan looked at me as though I had said something really stupid, he said, “Yan Ching, do whatever is necessary, spend whatever you need to spend. Money is the furthest thing from my mind now, please go do it. I will place all my resources at your deposal.”

  He summoned his son and instructed the young man to follow all my instructions, and placed ten thousand taels of gold pieces at my disposal. This amount of money was enough to pay for a good size army, but at this moment an army would not help me. What I needed at that moment was expert help; I need people to do my investigation for me on the ground. The problem was who to use and how to find them.

  I called on the Swallows

  I had three leads to work on; all of them were a vast distance from Luoyang, the first lead that I could pursue was the courier service that paid the rent of the shop house. Secondly was the grave robbing syndicates and the third was the northern frontier settlement of the Yang family. I had to work on all the three leads at the same time; I believe if they were to produce results, they would surely lead back to Luoyang.

  To operate the investigation of three different areas from a vast distance, I had to acquire the services of the respective local experts, and I had to gain access to the most efficient communication systems available….The Swallows Syndicate.

  The Swallows was the name of a secret communication network, it was operated by a group of Wulin figures who were formerly serving the Imperial spy network. After some political upheaval this group of Imperial officials was expelled from the civil service and was outlawed, they then went underground into the shadowy world of Wulin and were never heard of again. But some well connected people (like me) in Wulin would know that they were still in operation, and their operation had gotten even bigger and more efficient.

  Now the network instead of serving the Emperor had transformed itself into a commercial operation, they sent important urgent messages for the rich merchant family for a fee. Such operations were very important to both the businesses of the merchants and also served the Wulin people like me, whenever I needed urgent help from my brothers, I would use this service to summon them.

  The Swallows had built a vast network of courier pigeons, fast horses to carry messages across long distance, this service being the fastest network in the Middle Kingdom also comes with a heavy price tag. With Mister Kuan’s financial backing I had no worries in that area.

  The Swallows were also an ultra secretive network; all messages were sent in coded writing, whoever intercepting the messages would not be able to understand a word of it. As the masterminds behind the operation were all outlawed Imperial officials, as a precaution they would not take in casual customers, anybody who wanted to use the service would have to be screened carefully and have the right references.

  As a former well-known figure in Wulin, I had no problem gaining their trust; I had established connection with them when I had first arrived at the Kuans’ household, I knew I might need the service one day.

  The contact person for this secret network was a fortune teller in the main street of Luoyang; my pass was a wooden pendant with some carving of a tiger’s head on it. When I showed this to the fortune teller, he summoned a boy and told me to follow the young boy. I was led through a back street and then into some quiet alley and finally into an ordinary textile shop, the proprietor of the shop led me to the back of the shop house.

  I was led into the living quarters, passing a grandmother feeding her grandchildren lunch. Anybody walking into this house would have no clue that this was actually a branch of the Swallows’ secret network.

  The Swallows were a non-violence organization; they did not have any form of protection, their only protection was their secretiveness and their layering of the operation.

  Next I was shown into a room to write my messages; the room looked exactly like any bedroom in Luoyang city. I was given pen and paper and was told to write my message. The proprietor of the textile shop said he will be back in a while. He would collect my messages and I had to pay him upfront; in gold pieces. Nothing is for free.

  I called in the Experts

  I had been formulating my strategy the entire morning, I had many friends that I could call upon to help me, I decided that I had to rely on those that were close to the location that I needed to do the investigation; there was no time to waste on travelling.

  My first message was to a close friend in the neighbouring province of Hubei, as the rent for the shop house was paid by courier from a goldsmith shop in the city of Wuchang (The capital of Hubei province); perhaps we could get some information from the goldsmith. This friend was one of the brothers in my group of roving Wuxia during my younger days, ever since we went our separate ways; he had chosen to settle in Wuchang close to his ancestral home.

  Wuchang was a city on the edge of the civilized world of the time; it was on the banks of the Yangzhi River which was the southern perimeter of the Middle Kingdom. It was a prosperous city as much of the lands’ commerce flowed through its river ports. My friend Zhang Liu Chun nicknamed the Little River Ghost had made a name for himself among the river traders; he was employed by rich river merchants to protect their shipping interest.

  Little River Ghost grew up along the river thus making him the best swimmer among our group of brothers; he was also quick with his dagger, often killing his enemies with swift powerful strikes even before the enemy could react. His small build made him very dangerous in close quarter fights; his short stature exposes his opponents’ lower body to his vicious dagger strikes. Usually his enemies were killed by cuts to the inner thighs; the femoral artery.

  Little River Ghost would have the ability and the connection to force the goldsmi
th to reveal the identity of the person sending the rent remittance; that is if the goldsmith knew anything. I added in my message that this task was of the utmost importance, if a little hard persuasion was needed he would have to use it.

  My next message was to be sent to Chang’an, this was the active region of the grave robbers. This was because Xian (Chang’an) was the ancient capital of various dynasties, therefore it had many rich ancient Royal tombs, and many had yet to be discovered.

  The grave robbing business had been striving there for hundreds of years. It was said that the first Emperor of the land (Qingshihuang) was buried around that region, many of the grave robbing families and clans had spent centuries there trying to strike the big prize. Generations of these robbers had been digging in the region but so far the richest tomb in history had not been found.

  My contact in Chang’an was nicknamed the Night Owl; his name was Li Si Niu which literally meant Li family’s fourth buffalo. He was an orphan like me, his entire family and village was destroyed by a devastating flood on the Yangzhi River. He was a beggar boy when he was taken in by a famous burglar named the Night Fox; Si Niu was trained by his teacher in the fine art of burglary, and some basic fighting skill.

  His teacher Night Fox was not an ordinary burglar, he was also connected to the Wulin and he operated his craft following the values of the Wuxia. He had always stolen from the rich and gave half the loot to help the poor. Thus both the teacher and the disciple were very well respected figures in the region.

  Night Fox had since retired from his philanthropic activities while Night Owl had started his own smuggling enterprise, once in a while he still carries out his burglary activities to punish some corrupted officials and greedy merchants. His reputation as a burglar and a smuggler was only known to a very small circle in Chang’an as smuggling was a capital offense, but his connections with the Wulin in Chang’an would help us to find out more about the grave robbing business.

  He would have his contacts, and I had sent by courier a large amount of gold pieces to him because I believe he would need to pay a high price for some information. Grave robbers were very secretive people; to get information from them we might have to pry their mouth open with gold.

  The third location of the northern frontier (the place where the Yang family was exiled to) was the most difficult problem to tackle. The northern frontier was very far away, a very remote region where I did not know anybody. But I remembered that a friend of mine was travelling in that direction, I hope that he is now near that region.

  This friend’s nickname was the White Fan Scholar; his name was Shen Yi Cao. White Fan Scholar was the only person in my roving group that did not practice martial art, he was useless as a fighter, but he was very knowledgeable and a very good strategist. He could come up with a plan even in the tightest of situations; his wits had gotten us out of many difficult spots.

  I wished I had him here with me now, but if he was anywhere near the northern border it would be even better as this investigation would need plenty of brain power as it was more complicated than the rest. According to Old Wang the Yang family in the north had disappeared almost seventy years ago, to follow such a cold trail I would need an intelligent person like White Fan.

  White Fan was from a rich family in Shanxi; his family was famous in goldsmithing and money remittance business, I believe his family might be as wealthy as my employer Mister Kuan. When he was with my roving group, he was actually running away from his family who was forcing him to take over the Business Empire, but White Fan then had other plans, he wanted adventure.

  But eventually when he returned home he found that his father had decided to sell off the entire family business because he believed that the northern Kingdom of Liao (Song dynasty’s arch enemy) was getting too aggressive, there will be war in Shanxi soon.

  After selling off all their assets, the entire clan moved south to the region of Jiangsu, the rich family adopted a low profile as not to attract unwanted attention, they were no longer engage in any form of business.

  Meanwhile White Fan spent most of his time travelling around the country visiting old friends like me. Six months ago he passed through Luoyang and had spent some time with me catching up on old times. He told me that he was planning to visit some monasteries in Changbai Mountains (in Liaodong); he wanted to see the harvesting of Ginseng. (Ginseng was a special root that was very precious in Chinese Medicine)

  White Fan’s carefree travel had given me an added difficulty; he could be difficult to locate as he was on the move. But in the world of Wulin, there was always a solution as long as you have enough gold pieces to pay for it.

  There exist a sister enterprise to the Swallows, it was called the Shadows. Shadows specialized in locating people, no matter whom and where, this network of stealthy trackers will hunt down the person, as long as you could tell them his name, his look and his general location or direction of travel.

  The Shadows were not trackers with sniffing dogs running after the target; instead they depended on a network of Innkeepers, river boat man, carriage drivers, and restaurant servers. At the same time some local authorities were also under the payroll of this secret organization.

  Anyone walking into a city or town would be noted, when the Shadows headquarters issue a name or a description, the records would be carefully matched, a huge bonus would be paid to the observer who could locate the target. Such an extensive network was very costly to maintain, therefore anyone wishing to use the service had better have the gold pieces to pay. This was the same reason I had sent gold pieces to Night Owl as I believe he might need the help of the Shadows in Chang’an to locate the grave robbers.

  After writing these three lengthy notes, I waited for the proprietor of the textile shop to come back to me. He was back before long; I paid him 50 pieces of gold each for the two messages to Wuchang and Chang’an as they were straightforward delivery, the message to White Fan which involved the Shadows cost me 200 gold pieces. I did not even bother to negotiate the price as I knew this money was a very small issue to Mister Kuan. I decided to place another 500 pieces of gold for deposit so that my contacts in the various cities could correspond with me without having to pay.

  After looking at the addresses the proprietor assured me that the messages to Wuchang and Chang’an being simple straight forward delivery would reach within a day. But the message to the northern frontier having no address would take longer; it would depend on how soon the Shadows could locate White Fan. And all fees were not refundable, regardless of success.

  I was absolutely confident that the Shadows and the Swallows could do the job. Such organization strived on their reputation; they charged an astronomical price, but they provided top quality service.

  Now that I had delegated my task to the respective parties, there was nothing much I could do other than wait for their results.

  Little River Ghost in Wuchang (His account)

  A Swallow flew into my home today; bringing a message from my old friend Yan Ching, of course it was not really a swallow; it was a little boy who brought the message. Along with the message, the Swallows organization had sent a note informing me how to make a reply to this message; all subsequent correspondents would be paid by Yan Ching.

  After reading the message, I realized my friend was in deep trouble, I immediately dropped everything I was doing. The first person I consulted was my advisor Old Li who was a wise old man; he had been in Wuchang all his life and he knew everybody in the city and knew everything that was going on. He would surely know something about the goldsmith shop in question; after being in Wulin for so many years, I had learned that before approaching somebody, it was wise to know as much as possible about that person first.

  Old Li amazed me with him extensive knowledge of the goldsmith shop, he started his recital, “This goldsmith you mentioned is owned by Mister Jin, the business had been in his family for two generations. Besides selling gold jewelries Mister Jin also do re
mittance services, quietly received deposits and is also involved in money lending. Even though his shop was not authorized to issue receipts of deposit he had been doing it under the table, his money lending activities undoubtedly is illegal.

  He had been able to conduct all this activities because he had the backing of a Magistrate in the city, but in his defense, he is not the only one doing such things, many goldsmiths are doing the same. Everyone would have their own backers. To get information from such a person could be difficult, unless you have a grip on him.” He paused while he sipped his tea.

  I asked, “What is the background of Mister Jin? Is he a Wulin person?”

  Old Li continued, “He does not have a Wulin background, but he has a few sworn brothers who are well connected in the Wulin, the three He (surname pronounced as Her) brothers of the Four Seas protection agency are his sworn brothers. That is why even though Mister Jin does not know martial art he would not be easily taken in by intimidation.”

  I had heard of the He brothers, He Hu, He Pao and He Xiong, these three brothers operates a protection agencies specializing in inter-city transportation of precious cargo for merchants. They were known for their fighting skills and were very well connected in all aspects of Wulin; they have friends on both side of the law.

  But they have a bad reputation of being greedy and unscrupulous in their conduct, they were bad examples of a Wuxia. They were respected because they are rich and powerful, not because of their characters.

  I asked Old Li, “Can you think of a way that I can twist the arm of this Mister Jin? I do not think that he would willingly offer his information. Is there a weakness in him that I can exploit?”

  Old Li was deep in thought for a moment, finally he said, “Sir, I understand your urgency, please allow me the time of one joss stick, I need to consult somebody before I can offer you my plan.” I agreed and he hurried off on his mission.

  One joss stick of time meant the duration that it took to burn off one joss stick, which was around 30 to 40 minutes.

  When Old Li returned, he brought a young man with him; he introduced the young lad as his nephew. He explained his plan to me, “Sir, you might wonder why I knew so much about the operation of Mister Jin, the reason was that my nephew here works for him. He had been a junior clerk for Mister Jin for two years, he had been very unhappy with his employer ever since he worked there.

  Mister Jin treated his employees very harshly and unfairly, and with his backings nobody in his employment could leave, those that tried to leave were either throw in jail by the Magistrate for some crime they did not commit or they end up being beaten up by the He brothers’ thugs. It was because of this that I was reluctant to involve my nephew in the beginning. But now I have a plan to force Mister Jin into cooperation with us.” I was delighted.

  Old Li continued, “I observed that we are dealing with a group of greedy people; Mister Jin, the He brothers, and the corrupted Magistrate. To deal with such characters, we must break them down one by one with self-interest, when they start having conflicting interest this grouping of greedy people will breakdown, then Mister Jin will be isolated.” Old Li was indeed a good strategist.

  Old Li continued, “We have to tackle two different sets of relationships here, first is that of Mister Jin and his business partner the Magistrate, this is a financial relationship, this would be easily broken. Second is the relationship between Mister Jin and his sworn brothers, the He’s. This relationship is based on Wulin values, we must handle with care.”

  He continued, “I believe we can leverage on the first relationship to twist Mister Jin’s arm, which is where my nephew comes in. He had discovered that Mister Jin had been cheating the Magistrate off his share of the business; Mister Jin kept two sets of accounts, one which he shows to his business partner, while the other was his real cash flow.

  My nephew would be able to steal a copy of the real account for last year; if we present it to the Magistrate he would have Mister Jin’s head chopped off. With this accounts in our hands, we could easily get Mister Jin to do anything for us. But after helping us, my nephew’s life will be in danger; I hope you can arrange something for him.”

  I said, “It is a brilliant plan, do not worry about your nephew, after this is over he can choose to work for me or work for my friend in Luoyang. He and his family will be under our protection; even with the He brothers’ backing Mister Jin would not be able to do anything. He would not dare to touch us.”

  Old Li added, “Sir, I believe in dealing with Wulin characters, we should do it according to the rules of the Wulin.”

  I said, “You mean I should first approach this Mister Jin for help before I take drastic measures?”

  Old Li replied, “Yes Sir, that is the proper way, we can even offer him money, if he is arrogant and turn us down then he will have nothing to complain when we hit him. The moment that happen, the He brothers will come to his help and we will have every right to show them what we are made of. Nobody in the Wulin can say that we were bullying the weak.”

  I said, “Yes, I agreed, we should do it the proper way.”

  Meanwhile, I instructed my lieutenants to activate all my fighters; I hope I do not have to use them.

  My visit to Mister Jin (River Ghost’s account)

  Early next morning I paid a visit to Mister Jin at his goldsmith shop. He received me with basic courtesy and brought me to the back of the shop. I went straight to the point, I explained to him that I need some information on the rental remittance made a year ago to a shop in Luoyang; he was able to recollect the exact transaction immediately.

  But instead of offering help, he started to ask me probing questions on why I need this information; I told him that I was in no position to reveal the reasons. I humbly begged him again for his help, and I hinted that I was willing to pay for the information. He kept making excuses while indirectly enquire how much money I was willing to pay. I knew this greedy merchant was trying to squeeze money out of me, I knew that if I show too much anxiety he will ask for the sky.

  But I also knew that my friend in Luoyang was anxiously waiting for my information, so I went straight to the point and asked, “Dear Mister Jin, how much money would you want to sell me this information?”

  He smiled his greedily; he took his time and sipped his tea before he replied, “Dear River Ghost, I am not in the business of selling my customer’s information, if you insist that I break this rule, you will have to compensate me well for it.”

  I knew this was nonsense, an unscrupulous person like Mister Jin had very few rules that he was not willing to break, he just want to play with me and squeeze more money out of me. He was beginning to irritate me very much, if it was under other circumstances I would have exploded, but for the sake of my friend I humbly asked again, “How much?”

  He said, “I had always been interested in your business of shipping, if you would make me the majority partner of your enterprise, I would happily provide you with the information.”

  If he had asked for ten thousand gold pieces I would have been less upset, this cunning old fox wanted my shipping operation. That was the limit, I did not want to negotiate anymore, and I want to punish this greedy man, I will have him begging for mercy by tomorrow evening.

  When I left his goldsmith shop, I saw him smiling triumphantly at the door, he was confident that I will go back to beg him. He was also confident that with the backing of the local Magistrate and the He brothers I would not dare to touch him. But he did not know that soon I will have a triumph card in my hand which would make the Magistrate obsolete and to me the He brothers were rubbish.

  On the way back to my house, Old Li informed me that he had already told his nephew to go ahead with the theft of the accounts book; this good advisor had read my mind.

  I am the River Ghost of Wuchang; I will not be intimidated by some greedy merchant, if he wanted trouble, I shall give it to him. I had everything prepared for this confrontation, I will win it.

/>   Mister Jin Regretted his Greed (River Ghost’s account)

  Old Li’s nephew brought the old accounts book to us in the late afternoon; he got it easily as Mister Jin was celebrating his coming windfall with his favourite mistress. Mister Jin told everyone that I will be back the next day begging him. This greedy fool had no idea.

  I looked through the accounts book and torn a page out of it and sent it to Mister Jin, with the instruction that it was important that he read it right away. According to Old Li’s nephew, when he left Mister Jin’s mansion, the man was already half drank with his mistress. This page from his accounts book would surely sober him up.

  By late evening, Mister Jin had sent a reply requesting that I meet him tomorrow at a deserted warehouse outside the city. The fight is on, I shall teach them a lesson or two. I doubt Mister Jin will be having much sleep tonight. I ordered my fighters to be on alert in case of a sneak attack, while I sharpened my daggers for tomorrow’s meeting.

  As a protector of my employer’s shipping interest, I was required to build an army of fighters, my agency’s ships passes through many cities along the Yangzhi River; they also sail through remote parts where there was no Imperial control. My duty was to protect these ships wherever they are, most of the time we do so without the help from the local authorities. My group of fighters had fought bandits, local thugs and fighters from other business rivals, they were experienced mercenaries. If Mister Jin thought that I would be intimidated by the He brothers’ bunch of bullies, he would be in for a surprise.

  Not many people knew about the actual size of my army, I had taken care to hid this fact, I did not want the local authorities to get worry and I did not want my business rivals to try and build an army to match mine. I had usually kept my forces dispersed over cities along the river so that at any one time my headcount in Wuchang would not be alarming, but for this occasion, I had gathered many of my forces.