The sun climbed high, and icicles under the eaves dripped water droplets.

Seven or eight men with brutish faces shoved aside the street hawkers who blocked the way and strode toward Fan Changyu’s shop with menacing momentum. The man at their head had a broad face, wore a short beard, looked very fierce, but limped as he walked.

It was none other than Boss Jin, the head thug from the gambling den who had several times gone to Fan Changyu’s home to cause trouble.

“I want to see which bold-faced fool on this street is doing business and dares not to give money to—”

When he saw Fan Changyu standing at the shop door with her arms folded, the second half of Boss Jin’s sentence cut off. The few small henchmen who had previously been beaten by Fan Changyu also changed their expressions at once.

The leg that hadn’t been lame before began to ache faintly.

The two of that couple hit people harder and harder each time; would the other leg be broken right here today as well?

A few of the henchmen unconsciously dragged the lame leg and took a half step back.

The butchers from nearby shops, seeing they were numerous and that Fan Changyu was only a woman, all silently worried for her, but Butcher Guo across the street still wore a look of gloating.

Boss Jin forced a sycophantic smile onto his face: “Miss Fan… Miss Fan? This shop—this shop is yours?”

The onlookers, seeing this scene, were a little dumbfounded.

This approach…seemed not quite right?

Fan Changyu casually picked up the stick behind the door. The group of street ruffians immediately showed horror on their faces and were frightened into stepping back.

Boss Jin, at the head, waved his hands repeatedly: “A misunderstanding! Miss Fan, really a misunderstanding! If we knew this shop belonged to you, how dare we be disrespectful?”

Butcher Guo across the way almost popped his eyes out; he could not have imagined these ruffians would be so afraid of Fan Changyu.

Fan Changyu looked at Boss Jin with cold eyes, and with the long stick in her hand she pointed to the brick stove in front of her shop that had been smashed. “Did you smash this?”

The cold was biting, but a cold sweat broke out on Boss Jin’s forehead. He wiped it off carelessly with his sleeve and kept saying, “We’re just taking people’s money and doing work for them. We’ll fix it for you! We’ll fix it for you!”

As he spoke he quickly made a sign with his eyes to the few henchmen behind him. The henchmen, seeing the long stick in Fan Changyu’s hand, were afraid and no longer wanted to experience the pain of being beaten until they coughed up their food. Trembling, they went forward to repair the stove.

Fan Changyu felt a few moments of stunned surprise in her heart; she had originally thought these people had really come to collect protection money, and hadn’t expected this layer of inside story.

She asked Boss Jin directly, “Who sent you to come make trouble in my shop?”

“Miss Fan, this…” Boss Jin showed a troubled expression. They were paid to do work for people; of course they still had to put on a front and say they were the ones in charge.

Fan Changyu swung the long stick backhanded, pointing it straight at Boss Jin’s throat. Before Boss Jin could react he saw the stick aimed at his vital spot; the cold sweat at his temple immediately formed beads and dripped down. Forgetting all industry rules, he stammered out, “I-it was the shopkeeper of Wang Ji Luwei on Main Street who sent us.”

Fan Changyu’s brows knit slightly. She was not acquainted with the Wang Ji shopkeeper; the two shops were separated by several streets and could not affect each other. Her shop’s braised-flavor business had only been open a few days; it shouldn’t have pushed the other to this extent.

She immediately scolded, “That’s nonsense. I have no grievances or enmity with the Wang Ji shopkeeper. Why would he have you come smash my shop?”

Boss Jin kept saying, “Everything I said is true—yesterday Wang Ji’s assistant personally brought us the money.”

Fan Changyu’s frown deepened. Seeing that a few henchmen had already used clay to re-lay the bricks on the stove, and that the crowd of onlookers was growing, she thought that in any case business could not be delayed, so she put the wooden stick away.

Before Boss Jin could catch his breath, Fan Changyu set him to work: “You, get the fire going, heat the stove first. You lot, go to the well at the street corner and fetch a few buckets of water for me.”

She was braising meat at the shopfront; naturally the shop needed water in reserve, but this morning, because of the smashed stove, she hadn’t had time to go to the well to fetch water.

A half day had already been wasted. If she did all these tasks herself one by one it would probably be too late—better to put these ready laborers who had delayed her to work.

None of the small thugs had expected there would come a day when they themselves would be ordered around. They froze on the spot, but when Fan Changyu’s sharp gaze swept over them, not one dared to dawdle—they hastily took up buckets and went to fetch water.

Once the little hoodlums left, the crowd that had gathered around the Fan family’s shop, thinking the matter was already settled, dispersed and went about their own business.

Only the neighbors nearby nearly dropped their jaws when they saw Fan Changyu directly commanding that gang of petty criminals. The way they looked at her was as though they were looking at a freak.

Fan Changyu, however, felt nothing of the sort. Seeing that Boss Jin was standing stiffly at her shop’s entrance, scaring away customers, she hurriedly drove him aside. “Go stand to the side. Don’t block the door and affect my business. Once I’ve sold today’s meat, you’re coming with me to Wang Ji—I want to get an explanation. And if you dare to feed me some half-baked nonsense…”

Her gaze swept over Boss Jin’s other leg. “I’ll cripple this leg too!”

When Boss Jin recalled that man’s dark, vicious expression and the brutal blow that had struck his leg that day, the still-unhealed limb throbbed with stabbing pain. His face turned pale as he quickly shook his head. “I, Jin Laosan¹ Laosan: literally “Old Third,” a familiar or ranking nickname meaning the third among brothers or peers., might lie to others, but I’d never dare lie to Miss Fan!”

Seeing him so frightened, Fan Changyu still kept a fierce expression, but inwardly she couldn’t help feeling puzzled—just how hard had that man beaten them back then? A mere threat to cripple his other leg was enough to scare him like this.

Before long, the thugs returned with the water. Fan Changyu, worried they might have tampered with it, handed them a ladle and made them each drink a mouthful from their own buckets before she was assured enough to use the water to wash the pork to be braised.

As for the water to boil in the pot, there was still some left in her shop’s water jar from yesterday.

Once the big pot was set on the stove, the fragrance of braised meat once again drifted through the entire street.

Those who had queued up at Fan Changyu’s shop yesterday but hadn’t managed to buy any came early today and finally got some.

However, most people, seeing Boss Jin and his men crouched nearby with faces full of bitterness and hatred, still didn’t dare approach to buy anything.

Even when full of misery, their brutish faces made them look like a pack of fiends.

Fan Changyu noticed this as well. So as not to let these men affect her business—and since the first batch of braised meat was nearly sold out—she went to a neighboring butcher and bought six pig heads and three buckets of offal, handing each of the men a pig head and ordering them to pluck all the bristles clean, while the rest were to wash the offal under her watchful eyes.

They lowered their heads and busied themselves, so the customers coming to buy meat naturally paid no attention to their fierce faces.

Fan Changyu carved and sliced the meat for her customers while acting as overseer. Whenever someone slacked off or failed to clean properly, she jabbed her stick at them. “There’s still pig hair here on the head! Roll the intestines with ash to scrub them, then rinse clean and brush them with straw from end to end!”

She was fiercer than a local tyrant.

The gang of street thugs trembled and secretly regretted their bad luck—how had they managed to provoke this great aunt?

Fan Changyu, as though able to read their minds, kept a stern face and said, “You do wrong, you get punished. Otherwise, what do you take the law for?”

The group hunched their shoulders like quails and nodded repeatedly in agreement.

Seeing that they were showing proper remorse, Fan Changyu asked casually when she had a moment’s rest, “Weren’t you lot working at the gambling den? Why do you seem to be everywhere?”

At this, the group of ruffians looked embarrassed.

Jin Laosan muttered, “The brothers don’t work at the gambling den anymore.”

Fan Changyu couldn’t help asking why.

One of the small thugs, clutching a pig head, mumbled gloomily, “We followed Third Brother to the gambling den as enforcers just to earn a meal. This time we were late collecting a debt. If we’d really chopped off Miss Fan’s hand to bring back as proof, the gambling den might’ve let it pass—but after all these years collecting debts, we’d never actually left anyone maimed. Then when Third Brother’s leg got hurt… the den threw us out.”

Fan Changyu frowned. “Aren’t you still running all over town collecting protection fees?”

Jin Laosan let out a sigh. “Those protection fees? It’s not like we get to keep them. We’re just collecting on someone else’s behalf.”

Seeing that Fan Changyu didn’t seem to grasp what he meant, Jin Laosan spoke more plainly:

“If we can go around so brazenly asking shopkeepers for money, of course it means the officials are turning a blind eye. There are people above covering for us—if trouble comes, there’s someone to take the fall. The money we collect, the bulk of it naturally goes to honor those official lords.”

Fan Changyu kept her face grim and was silent for a long while.

Jin Laosan hurried to add, “But this street—no one used to collect protection fees here. Otherwise, if we’d known Miss Fan’s shop was on this street, how would we have dared come?”

A haze spread over Fan Changyu’s heart. She suddenly asked, “When did this street start being taxed for protection?”

Jin Laosan thought for a moment. “Just last month.”

Fan Changyu’s brows furrowed even deeper. Her parents had also perished to mountain bandits last month. Could there be some connection?

But after a brief thought, she dismissed it herself. Her father had roamed the jianghu for many years and possessed fine martial skills. He’d lived in Lin’an Town for over ten years; it made no sense that he’d suddenly be targeted and killed.

She gathered her thoughts again, still wearing a fierce expression as she said to Jin Laosan and his group, “Grown men, seven feet tall—of all the things you could do, you choose to live as thugs and ruffians!”

“We’ll change! We’ll change! We’ll live honestly from now on!”

At her burst of anger, the group all trembled like quails shrinking their necks.

Only then did Fan Changyu stop scolding them. Today, the rough work and hard labor had all been handled by others, and she, for once, had a bit of leisure.

The name of Fan’s Braised Meats had already spread. Business today was even better than yesterday. Before noon arrived, all the braised meats she’d prepared at home and the batch freshly cooked in the shop were sold out. Even the braised eggs were gone, and she sent one of the thugs to buy another basket of eggs, which she sold more than half of.

Two braised eggs for three copper coins—such a price was truly irresistible.

Fan Changyu made a quick calculation; today’s earnings came to more than four taels!

The butchers in the neighboring meat stalls were, of course, jealous of her thriving business. But seeing Jin Laosan and his group all bowing and scraping before her, not one of them dared utter a sour word.

Fan Changyu, pleased with the day’s silver, found even that gang more agreeable to the eye. Since they had worked for her all morning and shown good remorse, she even gave each of them a braised egg.

After being ordered about the whole morning, the thugs were as wilted as cabbages in a field. Suddenly receiving a hot, fragrant braised egg, they were clearly stunned.

Fan Changyu kept her stern face and said, “Finish eating—then follow me to Wang Ji for a confrontation!”

The gang had been smelling braised meat all morning; their stomachs were growling like beasts. At that moment, they wished they could swallow the eggshells too.

After finishing, they still looked unsatisfied and asked cautiously, “Miss Fan… could we come work at your shop in the future?”

Fan Changyu scowled inwardly. How could that do? Each one of them was broad-shouldered and muscular—if they all worked for her, they’d eat her out of house and home!

She refused mercilessly. “No.”

The thugs didn’t dare speak again, drooping their heads as they followed behind her toward Wang Ji. But with their fierce faces, no one could tell how dejected they were.

Pedestrians along the street all stepped aside at the sight of them. To anyone watching, it looked exactly like a female bully leading her gang of ruffians to stir up trouble.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

In a restaurant by the street, a man in fine brocade personally rose and poured tea for the one seated opposite him. Steam curled upward, blurring the embroidered patterns on his wide sleeves.

“The situation in Huizhou is not yet stable. Since Your Lordship lies low here, your confidants can’t come easily. But Zhao is a mere businessman—Wei Clan’s hounds won’t trace anything back to me. So long as Your Lordship trusts Zhao, Zhao is willing to give his life in your service.”

The lattice window was half open. The man opposite him had a profile as if carved from jade—refined brows and eyes, long fingers scabbed over with dark crusts, lightly tapping the table. His manner was indifferent, yet carried a quiet, suffocating authority.

His long, narrow eyes were half-lidded as he gazed toward the street, seeming to admire the snowy view outside.

The brocade-clad man, seeing he hadn’t replied for some time, followed his gaze out the window—and then realized he wasn’t looking at the scenery, but at a young woman walking down the street, leading a group of thugs.

The man in brocade glanced again at Xie Zheng, his eyes flickering, and said with a smile, “That must be the new wife Your Lordship has married, no?”

Footnotes

• 1
  Laosan: literally “Old Third,” a familiar or ranking nickname meaning the third among brothers or peers.