Li Ye and Jin Peng ultimately did not get to pay their respects to Old Scholar Tree, because on the way there, they came across quite a spectacle.
A group of seventeen- or eighteen-year-old kids squared off against a group of twenty-something youths in the street, gesturing and posturing as they hurled threats at each other—"I'll kill you!" "You're fucking dead!" and the like.
Since the crackdown in the early eighties, street fights had become much rarer, and controlled weapons had also dwindled. At most, people would wave around little iron rods. So whenever something like this happened, plenty of people gathered around to watch the show.
When Li Ye and Li Dayong saw those foulmouthed kids, it was as if they were seeing their younger selves. They were clearly high school students on winter break.
"Brother Peng, do you think they'll actually fight?"
"Hard to say. Students these days are all soft as dough. Back when you and Dayong were around, you'd have been beating each other bloody by now."
"What do you mean, back when we were around? You were the hothead back then, weren't you? Who on this street didn't know you? And you've got the nerve to talk about me?"
Li Ye was displeased. He and Li Dayong had fought often back then, but they had always followed the rule of "if no one offends me, I offend no one." They were not like Jin Peng, a street loafer who could start swinging over a mere "What are you looking at?"
But Jin Peng went on, "Xiao Ye, haven't you figured it out yet? Those students came to the arcade during their break and got cheated out of money by these guys. That's why they called people over and have been yapping away here nonstop. If