Zhou Sanqiang, third among his brothers at home, was known in the jianghu as Third Brother Zhou. Of course, to make a name for oneself in the jianghu, one needed a catchy prefix—something like Filial and Righteous Black Third Brother, Timely Rain, or those nicknames from Water Margin.
Unfortunately, this Third Brother Zhou was no match for Black Third Brother. He had never earned himself a prefixed title. Primarily because he had not made much of a name for himself; secondarily because he did not do anything decent.
There was a hierarchy of contempt among hooligans. Things like not bullying women and children, not preying on the poor—some hooligans of this era did have principles they upheld.
Or, put another way, to a certain extent, this was the "correctness" of the hooligan world. Upholding justice on Heaven's behalf, robbing the rich to aid the poor, and so on were all "legitimate" justifications for hooligan gangs.
Even those who did not actually behave that way had to package themselves as if they did. Even if no one truly cared, when someone else did it, they still had to say, "Impressive, impressive."
This Third Brother Zhou specialized in running gambling dens. Those who came to gamble included both modestly wealthy people and the poor. He lent them usurious loans, and relying on his numerous lackeys as well as a few connections among the authorities, he used every means possible to collect debts and extort money. Beating people was the least of it. If someone's wife or daughter was pretty, he always had to get a taste. Afterward, he would sell them off as slaves or servants, or sell them to brothels and pleasure quarters.
For someone like him, people could not think of any title to pin on him, so they could