The Pidgin Warrior Read online

  “Gen Fengchi showed his ability in the presence of Emperor Yongzheng: He pulled a thread… a hair… a… a thread… Ah… it was a thread…”

  That’s right, it was a thread. He said the thread was fifteen zhang long. He said Gan Fengchi took that thread, and concentrated his qi. Puffing out his belly again, he said thread stood up, like a perfectly straight bamboo pole — fifteen zhang tall.

  “And that’s not all.” The fat man stood up and started gesticulating. “At the very tip of the thread, that’s fifteen zhang high, on the top of the thread, he had a golden ingot weighing five thousand jin placed up there. Ah! Now that’s gongfu!”

  Shi Zhaochang tapped the ash off of his cigarette and asked, “A five thousand jin gold ingot?”

  “Yes. It was Emperor Yongzheng’s. However…” At this, the fat man’s voice become calm and even, and he sat himself down. “However, that that’s nothing either. Afterward, Gan Fengchi told Emperor Yongzheng to have all of his warriors come and pull on the thread. So five hundred warriors came to pull…”

  Of course they couldn’t move it. And the fat man smiled in victory.

  Shi Zhaochang breathed out a long breath. A lungful of smoke floated over toward the fat man. He had exhaled with a bit of force, and he looked at the fat face opposite him—to see if the face showed any discomfort from his smoke.

  But the fat man didn’t mind at all. He just puffed out his belly again started telling a story about concentrating the qi…

  Elder Mister Shi Boxiang and Mister Liu Liu were discussing the current events.

  “I wonder if there is trouble in Shanghai.”

  “There shouldn’t be any.” Mister Liu Liu said calmly.

  Elder Mister Shi Boxiang threw away his cigarette butt, and pulled another from the green foreign metal case. He crossed his legs, his back leaning against the wall. After making himself comfortable like this, he took a long sigh. “The Chinese people really have no fighting spirit! Look, since… since, since… since that…”

  Mister Liu Liu seemed to not have been able imagine someone might suddenly express such emotion. He stared emptily for a while before understanding the topic that he was raising.

  “Yes.” Mister Liu Liu glanced at the Elder Mister Shi Boxiang, before shifting his gaze to a rattan basket. “This time those befuddled people truly seem set on destroying the nation. Those so-called…so-called…and yet… but it seems…Everyone feels that this nation isn’t their own.”

  He smiled knowingly. “You and I haven’t the strength to truss a hen. We could struggle with all our might to no effect. We would be better off… in any case…Ah… A man of wisdom must protect himself first. And yet… And yet…”

  Suddenly his son burst out enthusiastically, “Not so! Not so!”

  The Elder Mister Shi Boxiang was startled, and with another “And yet…” he stopped.

  But the fat man said peaceably, “Of course, I know better than you.”

  Ah, what were the two of them arguing about?

  Shi Zhaochang continued, his face reddening.

  “The warriors who have skill with swords are much more powerful than ordinary ones. Of course, Lü Siniang was a swordswoman, an immortal of the blade, she was… If she were an ordinary warrior, she never could have assassinated Yongzheng. She killed Yongzheng with a spitted blade.”

  “You misremember,” the fat man spoke each word slowly. “Lü Siniang’s skill was in wall-climbing and flying over roofs, not in blade-spitting. She was a warrior, not a swordswoman.”

  “Impossible! I’ve read the books…”

  “Of course, I understand these things better than you, ah.” He made a gesture to quiet others down. “Of course, I understand these things more clearly than you. No one knows Lü Siniang better than I do. There is also a familial relationship between Lü Siniang and I.”

  Shi Zhaochong was startled, his eyes staring widely at the fat man.

  The fat man slapped his knee, and spoke in quite proper manner about that familial relationship: “Her elder brother’s son’s sister’s son’s great-grand daughter’s husband is one of my cousin’s mother’s brother’s brother’s son’s sister’s husband’s aunt’s son. So I understand Lü Siniang’s situation better than anyone. She was certainly no immortal of the blade.”

  “If she were an immortal of the blade, then she would have been more…”

  “Of course immortals of the blade are more powerful,” the fat man worked his hands together.

  “In any case I should get to this point in my studies, otherwise I would have wasted my whole life.” Shi Zhaochang looked out the window, “one must study the Daoist Arts to be an immortal of the blade.”

  The Elder Mister Shi Boxiang broke in, “For that one must have native ability. How do you match up?”

  The youth looked askance at his dad and swallowed.

  Mister Liu Liu placed his hand on the youth’s shoulder. “You see those…”

  Shi Zhaochang flushed throughout his entire body. His heart beat loudly, shaking nearly to shatter his chest.

  “Without martial arts, China cannot be saved,” he said, panting, short of breath. “We only need one! … would we fear the devils then? … must learn swordsmanship!”

  The Elder Mister Shi Boxiang recalled the words Lü Dongbin said when he spoke through spirit possession at the altar: China cannot be destroyed because a great hero of national salvation reached maturity and must soon appear to undertake great things.

  Was that hero his own elder son Shi Zhaochang?

  He didn’t think so. If that great hero did come out of his family, he hoped that it would be his second son, Shi Zhaowu—Now that child had native ability. He didn’t care much for his elder son.

  Shi Zhaochang looked at his dad and threw the cigarette at that green foreign metal case with all his might. He knew the old man didn’t believe in his elder son. Ever since his stepmother gave birth to Zhaowu, the elder son immediately became a something that could be taken or left. The old man felt that the elder son didn’t have anything great in terms of prospects. But of course, Shi Zhaochang himself knew so much more about his future than that muddleheaded old man.

  “Humph. You just watch!”

  He looked again at his dad. His dad pulled out a handkerchief folded into a rectangle and used it to dispassionately wipe his three or four wisps of beard. Ever since he had married his stepmother, his dad’s face had become a loathsome visage: Hmm, look at those malicious, demonic eyes!

  This entered into dark magic, it did! Actually the old man was quite good. But as the two of them made it back to their own compartment the old man chided Shi Zhaochang: One should not boast about oneself.

  “Boasting will never get you anywhere.”

  “What was I boasting about?” Shi Zhaochang didn’t look at his dad.

  “For example right then when you were next to Mister Liu Liu…”

  “A man will always have his ambition,” the son said loudly. “To talk about one’s own ambition isn’t boasting.”

  The Elder Mister Shi Boxiang stared for a while.

  “Ambition…” the old man muttered, rubbing his hands.

  “Dad, don’t be difficult with me all the time. I know you are… Ah, never mind.”

  “What?” His tone became oddly friendly.

  “Younger brother is utterly lost in the dark and yet you never chide him.”

  “Your younger brother is going through a muddled phase. What can I do?”

  “Ah, a muddled phase,” the son smiled.

  The old man simply believed in the younger brother. The fortune-teller said that he would become a division commander by the age of sixteen. The old man took his younger son as a Taisui.

  “Hm, division commander by sixteen!”

  To be fated to become a division commander by sixteen wasn’t actually
that strange, it was just that Shi Zhaochang didn’t believe that he could do it: his younger brother just didn’t have it in him.

  He couldn’t sleep that night. The train rumbled along. It wasn’t easy to practice gongfu on the train. He hadn’t done his evening exercises.

  Why run off to Shanghai? Frightened?

  Could he find a master in Shanghai? But those immortal swordsmen and men of the Dao wouldn’t stay in Shanghai. Those people were always up in the Kunlun Mountains, hiding away in dark obscure huts, refining their inner alchemy, concentrating their qi. If not there, at Mount Emei…

  Shi Zhaochang sighed and rose, lighting a cigarette.

  “I’ve got to think of a way to get to Mount Emei to seek the Dao.”

  He had heard that if he wanted to go to Mount Emei, Shanghai was at least a bit closer than Beiping. After learning the Dao, it would take one day of work to clear out the bandits, and then he could go and take back the three northeast provinces and force the capitulation of the XX nation. A little rest, and then he could go on to conquer other nations: Russia, England, and some of those Javanese nations.

  “The United States?”

  He thought for a long while: The United States was quite friendly to us Chinese. …Eh, he could wait until the time came to decide.

  Then, everyone would know there was a Shi Zhaochang. Every family in China would erect memorial tablets for his longevity, kowtowing and burning incense. He would need a lover, a woman like Thirteenth Sister. He would do good deeds together with his lover.

  Shi Zhaochang puffed on his cigarette with determination.

  Perhaps he would be able to find a woman like Thirteenth Sister in Shanghai. There was a book called… called…

  “Called what?”

  Called, yes, called Something Something Predestined. Exactly, he went looking for her over in Tianqiao. He went to Tianqiao, but couldn’t find her: those performing martial arts were nothing but some male heroes. There was only one area with a woman, and that was a sixty or seventy year old woman. Damnit, there was only one woman like Thirteenth Sister in Tianqiao: the one in that book!

  In the few days and nights he was planning these things, he didn’t speak to anyone. The old man didn’t understand him. His mother-in-law simply didn’t get along with him from the beginning. Zhaowu was muddleheaded. He was just by himself, smoking, lying back, and planning what to do first when he got to Shanghai.

  “I’m not at all familiar with Shanghai.”

  He’d never been to Shanghai. The person who had been taking them to Shanghai had left. He had to get to know some new people.

  Even though he had been in the train several days, he wasn’t tired. Others were red-eyed, stepping off the train as if in a daze. He just mumbled a few words, grabbed his leather case and jumped down to the platform, landing right in front of someone’s face.

  The platform was crawling with people like ants.

  Were there enough people here for him to find a friend?

  Ah, Shanghai!

  That night, Shi Zhaochang strode out of the hotel onto the sidewalk of Avenue Edward VII.

  His hands were fists and his jaw was set tight. He strode out repeatedly on the cement in a splayfoot stance, eyes peeled with attention at every face.

  “Aya,” an angular face called out to him suddenly, “My Savior! The Great Warrior! How did such a man as you come to Pidgintown? When did you arrive, good sir?”

  But Shi Zhaochang had forgotten who the angular face was.

  “Don’t recognize me?” he said, bending at the waist in something like a bow. “I am Hu Genbao… Where’s the good sir’s hotel at?”

  “Ah, perfect!” Shi Zhaochang’s eye lit up. “I’m staying at a hotel run by a Hunanese man. We’re moving tomorrow or the next day. How have you been? Weren’t you…”

  2

  The Child of a Splayfoot Culture

  In this world, there are many fortunate things that come about by chance. Dear reader, you must know that I speak of Shi Zhaochang. Shi Zhaochang was just thinking of getting to know a few people in Shanghai. And then? Hu Genbao.

  Last year Shi Zhaochang—no, it was the year before last—the year before last, he met Hu Genbao in Hankou. He was walking over near Jianghanfu where a few guys wearing short blue coats surrounded someone in a lined gown and were attacking him. The man was trying to appease them, bowing and begging, but he was still taking it on the chin. Shi Zhaochang walked up and pushed through the blue coats:

  “Get out of here! I’ll flay the next man who lays another hand on him!”

  “What’s it to you!” the blue coats said. “This man Hu sold us, he…”

  “I dare you to make another move!” He immediately dropped into a horse stance, looking solid.

  It goes without saying that among those lower class guys there wasn’t one worth anything.

  I don’t recall if there actually was a fight, or if a police patrol came by, but to make a long story short, those surrounding the man in the lined gown were broken up.

  “Truly you are my benefactor,” the gowned man bowed. “If it weren’t for your arrival, my life would have been in danger. What is your honorable surname?”

  “It was nothing. I am Shi.” He saluted with cupped hands.

  “Please come to my home to clean up. Your honor has…”

  “Think nothing of it. Fighting injustice is my duty.”

  “You are truly a great warrior. This world today…”

  With this he had made friends with the gowned man, and that was Hu Genbao. But their friendship hadn’t lasted long: not long after that, his father had sent for him to be brought back to Beiping.

  “Ah, I never thought I would run into you here!”

  On the sidewalk, men and women walking hurriedly brushed by them. A few people selling late editions and children selling tabloids yelled out wildly.

  And yet Shi Zhaochang stood there the entire time, telling Hu Genbao what he had planned.

  “Are you familiar with Shanghai?”

  “I’m an old Shanghailander,” Hu Genbao smiled so that his entire face was wrinkled.

  “In Shanghai, I would like to find a…”

  “A little place to eat. Your honor probably hasn’t eaten. Allow me to serve as host.”

  “Ah, no,” Shi Zhaochang made a firm gesture with his hands. He felt that he should put out some capital at this time. “I’ll treat.”

  Hu Genbao’s back gradually straightened as he blew out a breath.

  “Yes, yes. What kind of restaurant does your honor prefer? There is a Zhejiang place here.”

  “That will do fine.”

  “Over wine, Hu Genbao told Shi Zhaochang that he knew a lot of people.

  “And there are some that are quite impressive.”

  “You mean good at martial arts, do you?”

  “Martial arts? Humph, good enough that you could go to heaven and still not find one to best him.”

  Maybe it was an immortal swordsman. Maybe it was one of the Dao. But Shi Zhaochang feared getting his hopes up only to be disappointed, so he said calmly, “Most likely is someone with internal gongfu.”

  But Hu Genbao shook his head. With a strange politeness, he stopped sipping his wine, the flesh on his sharp face shaking.

  Shi Zhaochang’s eyes fixed on Hu Genbao’s eyes. Damn him for keeping him in suspense.

  Hu Genbao picked at his teeth, cleaning his mouth before finally saying that this wasn’t an ordinary man.

  Then he jumped up, nearly overturning the table.

  “Ah!?”

  A tea server stood respectfully at their door.

  “What,” Shi Zhaochang said. “Could it be? Could it be?…Ah!”

  “Yes. But it must be steamed first,” the tea server said.

  “What. We’re speaking of our affair
s, what is it to you!” Then, “Old Hu, who is it?”

  Shi Zhaochang’s body began to float. What kind of man would Hu Genbao said it was? Who was it?

  “If the Supreme Ultimate Master were to come to Shanghai…”

  “Of course I would introduce your honor. He said that within a month a man was going to come and ask to be taken in as his student. This person would have native ability. He also said he would be from the north.”

  “He… He… He…” Shi Zhaochang was so excited that he nearly fainted. His butt hit the chair and his face flushed. “How did you come to be able know the Supreme Ultimate Master?”

  He wiped grease from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I bowed to him at the sacred altar and took him as my master.”

  “You…You…You… What? You are his disciple too?”

  “It was early this year that he become my master. He teaches me the Daoist Arts. Would you like a little pepper? The Supreme Ultimate Master is… If you don’t eat the duck it will go cold.”

  Shi Zhaochang stared at Hu Genbao’s mouth. He had started speaking before he had finished swallowing the duck soup and the liquid, with something that looked like foam, had trickled down his chin. This Hu Genbao was studying the Dao. But the Supreme Ultimate Master said that someone was coming to bow to him and take him as master. Who was that? Who was that?

  “I want to study the Daoist Arts. All swordsmen must understand the Daoist Arts.”

  “The Supreme Ultimate Master does.”

  “And Passing Through Earth…?”

  “He knows it all, he knows it all.”

  Suddenly, Shi Zhaochang stood up and took one long stride to Hu Genbao and made a formal bow with clasped hands.

  “If you… If you… do you respect me?”

  “What? I…” At this surprise, he stood and retreated a step.

  “If you respect me, I… I… Let us be sworn brothers!”

  The tea servant brought in hot towels, so the oaths to swear brotherhood had to be delayed for a moment.

  As the two walked out of the main door to the restaurant, Hu Genbao burped as he caught up to Shi Zhaochang, calling him Second Brother.