by San Bei Jiu
The Fight (River Ghost’s account)
Bright sunny day. Good day for a fight. Good day to punish the evils of the world.
We arrived at the warehouse slightly early to find that Mister Jin and the He brothers were already there. I brought with me only ten of my best fighters; I had another two hundred waiting nearby. I was very confident of my advantage in this conflict, I wanted to see the reaction of the He brothers when I brought only a small number, I would like to see if they would take advantage of my smaller number. If they were the bullies that I thought they were, then I would teach them a good lesson.
They had laid out tables and chairs in the middle of the warehouse; in keeping with the tradition of Wulin they had prepared the place for the meeting (as they were the ones who initiated this meeting). Even though the undertone was hostile, we still spent time on some polite words before we got to the point.
The host Mister Jin finally spoke, “River Ghost, we had never intruded into each other’s territory, we had never poke our noses into each other’s affair. Yesterday you had broken this harmony by stealing my…” He paused for a moment trying to find the right words; I believe he did not want the rest to know that what I had taken was just an accounts book. He was trying to hide the fact that he was cheating his business partner (the Magistrate); I believe he might be cheating many others, including the He brothers.
He continued, “My documents. Such action was very unbecoming of a Wulin person. What have you got to say for yourself?”
I replied, “Mister Jin, you are nothing but a greedy fool, so do not speak to me about the practice of Wulin. When I needed your help yesterday, I was begging you for some information, but you had taken advantage of my need and you had tried to “rob me when my house was on fire” (this phrase means taking advantage of someone’s predicament). You had the nerve to ask me for my shipping business, how dare you. Your greediness had left me no choice but to resort to such unconventional means, you brought this upon yourself.”
The humiliated Mister Jin defended himself, “I was just trying to negotiate the best deal, what was wrong with that? You have insulted me, therefore insulted my brothers here, you have bitten off more than you could swallow.”
This cunning old fox was trying his best to draw the He brothers in; he wanted them to back up his argument. The He brothers had no choice; brotherly convention requires them to support Mister Jin regardless of circumstances. Even if the He brothers disagreed with Mister Jin they had to fight this fight first and then resolve their brotherly disagreement later.
He Hu, the eldest of the three came forward and addressed me, “River Ghost, we are all practitioner of the Wulin values; we know the right and wrongs. I have every respect for your fighting skills, but at the same time you must not undermine ours. I advise you to return the documents and we shall let it pass. You have to pay me and Mister Jin 500 silver pieces for all the trouble you had caused.”
Another greedy fool!
I smirked at him and said, “He Hu, what makes you think that I am afraid of you and your brothers? You have heard my account of what happened when I went to beg from your brother Mister Jin, do you think he was righteous to take advantage of my predicament? Was that what you meant by rights and wrongs of Wulin’s value?”
I continued, “He Hu, I do not think we are discussing rights and wrongs here, I think your only interest was the amount of gold your can gain from this occasion. I do not want to waste any more time with you, if you want a fight I will honour you with one.”
I turned to Mister Jin, “If you do not provide me with the information this morning, I will have the ‘document’ sent to the relevant party. I am sure you know what I meant.” Mister Jin face turned pale.
He Hu was furious at my casual dismissal of his threat, he said, “River Ghost, you have only ten fighters against my forty, what makes you think that you can walk out of here alive. You are a fool.”
I replied, “This ten here are just my servants, I have another two hundred outside, I left them there because this warehouse was too small. If that is not enough, within ten miles radius I can raise another five hundred fighters, 50 miles radius I can have another 2000, in a hundred miles radius I will have 5000 fighters.”
Old Li my trusted advisor as usual had read my mind; he signaled for the 200 fighters to come forward, they crowded the entire warehouse; many of them were not able to step in at all.
The look on my opponents’ faces was hilarious, now I had the upper hand to the situation. I did not want to kill them, but I wanted to break their spirit.
I said, “He Hu, I do not intend to win you all by sheer number, which is not the Wulin way, let’s have a one on one, you and me. We will settle our differences, if I lose, I will return the document to Mister Jin and never bother him again. If you lose, Mister Jin will give me the information and I want your assurance that you will never seek revenge on anybody who had helped me in this incident.”
It was impossible for He Hu to turn down this offer without losing face; he knew it was better to fight me alone than to take on my whole army, he had to agree. Everybody moved aside to make space for the fight.
He Hu was a heavily built; his weapon of choice was the long stabbing spear, this weapon was very effective for fighting a group of opponent. Long spears were usually used in the army because they gave a tactical advantage when deployed in number; a number of spears facing the opponent were like a wall of death. But its disadvantage was at close quarters fighting, the moment the opponent was able to get up close, the spear was quite useless.
I had encounter opponents with spears before; I knew exactly how to deal with them, I had fought a hundred battles in my life, a person like He Hu did not worry me. He Hu was nothing but a big bully; he was big which would be very menacing for an inexperienced fighter, but to me he was just a big chunk of meat.
I held daggers in both hands as we circled each other; finally he attacked with a stabbing thrust, he had put his entire body weight behind this move, which showed me how foolish he was. I easily sidestepped his spear.
He followed up with numerous stabs and swipes hoping to catch me off balance. As I avoided his strikes, I was watching for an opening to get inside. Finally the opening came when he was trying to stab my left shoulder, I turned my body to avoid the tip of the spear while I laid my dagger on the spear and slide them along the entire length of the spear quickly towards his grip.
As he was caught wrong footed by my speed, he could not move back in time, as my daggers slide towards his fingers holding the spear he had no choice but to let go of his weapon to avoid having his fingers being sliced off. As he stumbled backwards his spear fell to the ground, I followed up my momentum and made a small cut on his face, he tried to block with his hand and I cut them as well. Even before he could fall to the ground, I had already made three cuts on him.
As he tumbled to the ground, I made another in-step into his space and pointed my dagger to his face. Even with his face covered in blood I could see the fear in his eyes. His youngest brother He Xiong tried to rush forward to help his brother, but the second brother He Pao restrained him; he knew that if they were to ambush me from behind they were all dead. Instead He Pao who obviously was the wisest of the lot shouted to me begging for mercy for his brother.
I had no intention of killing anyone here; I just wanted to teach them a lesson. Slowly I turned and walked away from the humiliated fighter; the brothers rushed forward and helped their brother to his feet. Without looking at them, I said, “Now get out of here before I change my mind, it would be wise if you lead a humble life in the future, if hear any of your bullying acts again I would not be so merciful the next time.”
By now Mister Jin was on his knees as his trembling legs could no longer support him, he knew he was the cause of all this trouble. With his shaky voice he begged, “Dear Hero River Ghost, please have mercy on me, I am just a foolish old man trying to make a living, I will give you all the information yo
u want. Please spare this worthless life.”
He replied, “You are right, you are a worthless greedy fool, your stupidity had wasted much of my time, if my friend in Luoyang end up in trouble because of this one day’s delay, I will come back for you. Now go to your shop and get me the details of the transaction, I will come to you right away.”
As his legs were still too weak to walk, he crawled out of the warehouse, and I could see a trail of urine behind him.
After dismissing my fighters, I rushed to Mister Jin’s goldsmith shop, this time my reception was much warmer than the previous time. He respectfully bowed before me in the presence of the entire household; I had no time for that, I told him to dismiss everyone and we went to his office to look at his transaction records.
The first rental remittance was done slightly more than three years ago, and then followed by annual renewal. Mister Jin remembered clearly it was always the same middle age man whom came to him and the man paid in cash, the instruction was to remit the money to Luoyang to pay for the rental of the shop house. He added that the man spoke with a Luoyang accent, Mister Jin was quite wary as he wondered why the man being from Luoyang did not pay the rent himself, instead he had spent remittance fees to have someone else paying for him.
If was by sheer coincidence that he saw the same gentleman in Luoyang one time when Mister Jin went there on a business trip, he knew that the man lives in the eastern part of the city. But he was not able to recall the exact location as he was not really familiar with the city. The name stated on the transaction was Mister Shao; it was probably a fake name.
I believe that was all Mister Jin could provide, after the humiliating defeat I doubt he would dare to hide anything from me. I sent all this information to my good friend in Luoyang; I hope it would help him. On my own initiative I decided to bring Mister Jin to Luoyang to, with some luck he might be able to spot the man in the city, or at least he could tell us where he saw the man last. I told him to prepare to set off immediately, it would be a two days’ trip on a fast horse.
Chang’an (Night Owl’s account)
Yan Ching’s message was delivered to me by a beggar, it must be a Swallows message; they never show themselves unnecessarily. The message was clear; my friend was in trouble, he needed me to find out about grave robbers, specifically the group that did a job in Luoyang….three years ago.
I had some knowledge about the grave robbers business, because as a smuggler, I too work in the night. Occasionally we come across each other, but as a rule we did not acknowledge one another as we were both on the wrong side of the law.
Grave robbers groups were a secretive; they did not like to mix around with people outside their circles, not only were they outlaws, but they were also despised by the society as their job was deemed dirty and inauspicious. Thus these professionals do not display their trade openly; they usually have a separate life during the day.
For convenience, they usually disguised themselves as farmers during the day to do subsistence farming while at night they would conduct their more lucrative activities. As a farmer, they were also able to explain the digging equipment in their house.
I had come across several groups of these robbers, I had seen their activities and I had a good idea which family was involved in this trade. I had never attempted to approach them as I was not interested in that business, and I was rather superstitious about this unconventional trade. But this time, for the sake of my friend, I had to dismiss the taboo and approach them.
I had a friend who had some contact with this people; in fact his ancestors were in the grave robbing business. But ever since his grandfather days, the clan had moved away from this trade as it was believe that this trade had brought much bad luck to the family. I shall find out from him how to go about my investigation. His name was Liu Kun.
I explained my problem to Liu Kun; he was reluctant to reveal the grave robbers identity as it was ethically wrong for him to do so. He was also worry that my investigation would bring in the authorities and he would be responsible for the trouble that would befall the grave robbing syndicate. I assured him that I would not involve the local authorities and the robber’s identities would remain a secret, and the robbers would be handsomely compensated for their trouble. He reluctantly agreed.
A meeting was set up for me to meet a clan that was in the business, this clan of grave robbers was a relatively big group as it consisted of three generations working together. I would be meeting the leader of the clan and this elder was very knowledgeable about the activities of many other groups in the area.
No name was given, and I was to meet him after midnight at a cemetery outside the city, I was told not try and learn the identity of this gentleman, he will not show his face to me. I had to attend the meeting alone.
That night I made my way to the cemetery, alone. It was a cold winter night, when I enter the quiet cemetery I could hear the wild dogs howling in the distance, in the darkness I had only a single lantern to show me the way.
At the fringe of the darkness, I thought I saw some shadowy figures flashing by, but they were clothed in all black attire making them hardly detectable in the darkness of the night. I reached the appointed spot which was a big tomb in the middle of the cemetery. Further down from where I stood was the mass graveyard which was the burial ground for the poor, these people had no money to bury their dead in a proper grave, and thus they were buried in simple shallow graves and sometimes the cremated ashes were put in an urn by the road side.
Often unidentified dead bodies were also buried in these grounds as there was nobody to pay for the burial; traditionally these mass graves were said to be haunted by unhappy spirits who did not have the chance to move on after their death. All this eeriness added to the coldness of the night.
I wait for a long time; I could feel many pairs of eyes watching me as I sat there. Eventually, a voice spoke up from the darkness beyond, “Night Owl, do not move, do not turn your head, if you do I will disappear and you will never see me again. Is that clear?”
I nodded.
The voice continued, “I understand from Liu Kun that you wanted to know about a job in Luoyang three years back. A job that did not involve robbing a grave; it was to dig a tunnel of about three miles from a shop to a location underneath a rich man’s mansion. Is that correct?”
I nodded again.
The voice, “I had to clarify that to make sure we are talking about the same job. I heard of this job from one of my contacts in the business, it was not done by my clan, it was a tragic event.”
He continued, “This job was taken by the Zhang family who lived in the village of Lu Po, three of them went on the job; the father and two sons, they were paid handsomely in advance. But at the last stage of the dig, right before they broke into the chamber, their hirer tried to kill them; only the youngest son came back alive. The father and the elder brother were murdered by this unscrupulous people. Such treacherous act were common in our business, because most of the time the hirers were afraid that the grave robbers would leak information about them.”
He continued, “Therefore grave robbers had to protect ourselves by finding out about the hirers before we took the contract, we had our ways. But this time the Zhang’s were too careless and they paid the price. The youngest Zhang who managed to escape had brought his family to the hills to hide from this people. He is anxious to seek revenge; perhaps you can help him to achieve his goal.”
I assured him that I will help the Zhang family.
He said, “I had agreed to Liu Kun to see you not because I wanted your money, I just wanted to see that justice is done for the Zhang family, as fellow professionals I felt I could not allow such injustice to go unpunished. Unfortunately grave robbers are not skilled in martial art, we could not fight them. I will not collect a single piece of gold from you for this information, I just wanted justice.”
I respected this gentleman, even though he was not a Wulin person, he certainly carried some
of the values better than many so-called Wuxia.
I said, “Dear Sir, I have the utmost respect for your chivalrous character, I promise you that you shall have your revenge for the Zhang family. Please tell me where I can find this Zhang young man; I need to find out more information from him.”
The voice said, “He is here.”
Slowly a dark figure emerged from the shadow, as he edged forward I was able to see that he was a young man of about twenty, he was dressed in black from head to toe. He was slightly built but his steps showed his firmness and strength, he was the perfect specimen of a grave robber, slimness and strength. The slimness was an important factor as the grave robbers were often working in confined space; the strength was a prerequisite for the hard work he had to endure.
I said, “Dear Sir, I thank you for all the trouble.” But there was no reply; the owner of the voice had melted away into the night. To a professional like him, there was no need for a ‘thank you’.
The young man stood before me and stared at me for a while. Finally I said, “You are Master Zhang?”
He nodded and said, “Yes, my name is Zhang Xi Lu, my family had been in this business for three generations.”
I said, “Please tell me something about the job in Luoyang.”
Zhang Xi Lu replied, “My family worked in a small unit of three, my father, my brother and I. We were the highest category in our profession; there were several categories of grave robbers. The lowest were those that rob the grave by fast and brutal digging, digging up the grave from the front, these people were unskilled robbers; they finish their job in one single night and destroy everything in their path.
The second category were tunneling experts, they will dig a tunnel from a distance away to enter the grave from underneath. This stealthy way will preserve the external of the tomb therefore nobody will know that the grave had already been emptied. But these tunneling experts lack skills which we possessed; direction. Very often they will end up in the wrong tomb and they will have to dig another tunnel adjusting the direction until they get it right. This was a waste of time and usually ends up destroying more than they intended to.
My family had a special technique using a direction finding device which I cannot reveal to you, it’s my family heirloom. With this device we could accurately dig a tunnel to a specific location 3-5 miles away. Therefore we were most suitable for the job in Luoyang; this expertise had brought us to this disastrous job.”
He continued, “We were offered the job by an unknown intermediary, he came to us one day and seems to know a lot about our operation. He offered us a huge amount of gold for the job; it was irresistible both financially and professionally for my father. The money was good and equally important my father wanted to test our digging technique in the city environment, no grave robber had ever done that before. We were thrilled by the challenge.”
His eyes began to tear up as he talks about his father, he said, “Arrangements were made for us to travel to Luoyang; we were secretly surveying the city for days, finally my father decided on the direction of East to West approach. We quietly conducted another survey of the buildings and the soil condition of the approach route, after one month of studying he decided on a shop house in the east side of Luoyang as our start point of the dig.
The hirer rented the shop house for us to conduct our operation. This operation was very different from our normal grave robbing activities as the city was a very noisy place, we were able to do our digging in broad daylight in the privacy of our little shop house.
In the city nobody really care when there was a loud bang or a tremble underground, city folks were simply too busy with their own life. Nobody bothered us. Every day, two of us will dig, and the remaining one will quietly carry the soil and rocks to the other parts of the city to be discarded. The shop remained closed all the while; we had built a doorway leading to the alley behind so that nobody will see us coming in and out of the place. Nobody knew we were there at all.
It took us more than a year to complete the job; it was a perfect execution, we hit within one foot and two inches of the intended target. At the last moment before we could break in to the target chamber, my father went to seek instruction for the final penetration; he was instructed to do so. We were told that the break through must be coordinated from someone inside, but now I know that to be untrue, they wanted to eliminated us when the job was done.
We were told to rest for two days before we make the final break, my father was suspicious, and he sent me away to another part of the city. I was told to keep in contact with him every three days at a teahouse, I was reluctant to go but my father told me that it was important that people would know the true if anything should happen to them. He did not show up at the next meeting, I went to the inn they were staying I was told that they were killed by bandits the night before.
I knew that I was up against some powerful people who did not hesitate to kill, I could not fight them, and I did not even know who they were. Before my father sent me away, his last instruction was that if anything happened to him, I was to come back home and take the family to safety. With my father and elder brother dead, I was then the head of the family; I was responsible for their safety.
As I was hiding from these people, I did not even dare to collect the remains of my father and brother. I only dare to watch from a distance as the local authorities buried them in a shallow grave in the outskirt of the city. I had failed them, I did not even give them a proper burial.” He was weeping.
He continued, “I wanted revenge, but I could not stay in Luoyang for too long, I had to come back to Chang’an to my village to move my family to safety. I came back and settled my family in the hills, as soon as they were settled safely; I went back to Luoyang and kept watch on the shop house. I wanted to find out who this people were.
I kept watch for months on the shop, I saw a variety of people going in to the shop house; I believe a carpenter was sent in at some stage. I could tell as he was carrying his equipment, I believe they were building a door at the far end of the tunnel.
I followed some of these people to see where they lived, but they seem to be of a very diverse background, there was a physician, an innkeeper, a constable, a monk and even a butcher. They did not seem to know each other, and they did not acknowledge each other when they meet in the street. I believe they were working for someone behind the scene; this master-mind controlled this people individually. I am quite sure they did not have knowledge of each other.”
He continued, “After watching them for months, I began to realize a pattern, every few days every one of them would visit the Guan Yu temple on the east of Luoyang, they visit the temple at difference days, different timing, I believe they receive their instruction from there.
After some time, I realized I did not have the power to seek revenge on this big organization. And I had the responsibility of the family; I had three younger brothers and my mother to care for. I came back and told my story to one of the elders in my village, he told me to take care of my family first, one day when the opportunity arise, then I will have my revenge. I hope this is the day Sir.”
By now dawn was breaking, I was very saddened by this young man’s tragic story. I promised him that I will help him to the best of my ability; I told him that I would need him to travel to Luoyang with me. I might be able to right the wrongs done to him.
I brought him back to my house, after sending a message to Yan Ching about my findings and informing him that I was bringing the young man to Luoyang we set off for the city. It would take us two to three days to reach Luoyang; I had messages sent ahead at different interval to have fresh horses prepared for us so that we would not be delayed.
Back In Luoyang (Yan Ching’s account)
While I waited for the results from my friends, I kept the shop house under surveillance just in case the thieves make the mistake of coming back. Meanwhile the city was sealed up like a cocoon by the General’s army; Luoyang ci
ty had a population of 500,000, it was impossible to do a closer search of the city without arousing suspicion. I just hope that the thieves were still unaware that we had discovered the theft; I hope they were still waiting to see our reaction.
I believe when a person is seeking revenge in such an elaborate manner, he would definitely want to see the result of his years of work; he would not leave the city yet. He was probably waiting for us to discover the theft. He might not bring the Jade Statue out of the city yet as he would like to enjoy his handiwork and watch the devastation he brought to us.
If I did not read his mind wrongly, he might even be waiting for us to get to him, he would want to watch Mister Kuan kneel down before him and beg for mercy. Such a person surely craved for the satisfaction of the revenge, he would not want to hear it for a third party; he would want to see it himself.
Such a person was unpredictable; the hatred was just too great, normal logic did not apply to such an individual.
On the third day, I got a reply from River Ghost, as I had expected the goldsmith shop did not yield much information. The only important clue was that the rental was from someone in Luoyang, I had expected that. Now he was bringing the goldsmith proprietor to the city, hopefully he could identify someone here…but with a city of 500,000 there was little chance.
By evening, the reply from Night Owl came, there were more information here. The people Master Zhang had seen and followed were described in detail, immediately I went to the Shadows Syndicate to have this few people under surveillance and to find out whom they were. I will have some results by tomorrow.
I knew this group of people was just low level operative for this organization; I must wait for more details to emerge before I make the next move. My main objective was not the thieves; it was the recovery of the Jade Statue…intact. The people behind this plot could be dealt with later. The entire Kuan clan’s lives were on the line; the only thing that could save them was the Jade Statue, not the thieves. The psychologies of the mind behind this theft were clearly resourceful, and determine, if I spooked them by arresting the few people, they might just destroy the Statue. If the statue was destroyed the game would be over, whether we could catch the thieves after that would not matter anymore.
I had to wait for White Fan; the northern settlement should provide some clues to the identity of this people. The Shadows Syndicate had informed me that they were already on the trail of White Fan. By tomorrow, I would have some information on the people we were watching in Luoyang. And the Guan Yu temple…
