Tax Payments and Hard Training

"Three taels."

Six tax collectors blocked the doorway and shouted as if they had a grudge against everyone there. "You have to pay now! Otherwise, we'll arrest you."

Cui Hao showed them the three taels of silver. He watched as they finished recording the payment, then handed the silver over.

The tax collectors used the small scales they carried to make sure the silver weighed exactly three taels, then turned and went to knock on Aunt Li's door.

There were five people in Aunt Li's family, and they handed over five taels of silver.

When they reached Lai Zi Tou's house, things took an unexpected turn. He had no money to pay the tax. He cried and shouted, pleading with them to let him off.

The tax collectors ignored him. They shackled him and tore down his house.

"Aunt Li," Su Yun came out and asked as she watched Lai Zi Tou being dragged away, "didn't Uncle Lai sell his wife and children?"

"He likes to eat and gamble. Any money he gets never stays in his pockets overnight."

"Sister Li," Aunt Hua called as she approached with her thin frame and troubled expression, her lightly dressed daughter Lingdang at her side. "We're still one tael short for the tax..."

"Sister Hua, it's not that I don't want to help you." Aunt Li, who had been enjoying the spectacle a moment ago, now wore a look of pain. "The spring tax comes right after the autumn tax. You know what my husband's like. I can't help you."

Desperate, Aunt Hua pulled her daughter down to her knees. "Sister Li, please help us mother and daughter. We'll pay you back before spring."

After all, they were from the same village. Aunt Hua had lost her husband, and they usually got along well enough. Aunt Li gritted her teeth. "I'll lend you five hundred coins. You'll have to figure out the rest yourself."

"Brother Hao, Sister Yun," Aunt Hua pleaded, turning on her knees to face them. "Please lend us five hundred coins."

Su Yun was softhearted and looked at Cui Hao.

"Sister Yun, it's up to you."

"Aunt Hua, you and Lingdang get up. I'll go inside and get it for you."

Aunt Hua kowtowed. "Thank you, Sister Li. Thank you, Sister Yun. Thank you both."

"Don't shout!" Aunt Li stomped her foot anxiously. "If other people hear, we won't be able to live in peace!"

Aunt Hua understood. She pulled her daughter up. If others found out she'd managed to borrow money, they would come asking for loans too.

A moment later, Su Yun came out and handed Aunt Hua half a tael of silver she had just cut off.

Aunt Hua thanked them profusely and left.

"What a tragedy." Aunt Li sighed as she watched mother and daughter walk away. "She'll probably come borrowing again in spring."

Before Su Yun could reply, Zhou Mengyue came over of his own accord, wearing a sturdy training uniform marked with the character "廣," his broad frame accompanied by three ruffians.

"Cui Hao, bring out your woodcutter's knife. Let me have a look."

Cui Hao's hands had no calluses. He looked as though he couldn't hurt a fly, and he couldn't beat his older brother head-on, so there was no way he could have driven a blade into his brother's forehead.

But he had searched the whole village and the neighboring villages, looking into everyone who had a grudge against his brother. He'd found that none of them could have killed his brother in a face-to-face fight.

After thinking it over, he realized his brother had only bullied honest, frail, sickly people who were easy to take advantage of. He'd been looking in the wrong direction. So he started over, looking into the young and strong, and the woodcutting knives they owned.

"Sister Yun, bring out the woodcutter's knife for Brother Zhou to look at."

Sister Yun turned and fetched the knife.

Cui Hao took the woodcutter's knife from Su Yun. Its tip was rounded, and he handed it to Zhou Mengyue.

Noticing dried black blood where the handle met the blade, Zhou Mengyue asked, "What have you chopped with this?"

"Snakes and chickens."

"Where did you get the snakes and chickens?"

"Game I caught on the edge of Second Mountain."

"Do you still have their bones?"

"Yes."

"Let me see." Without waiting for an answer, Zhou Menglong and his men barged straight into the yard.

A moment later, Zhou Mengyue came out with the three ruffians, satisfied that Cui Hao had told the truth.

Next, they searched Aunt Li's house. To verify that her husband's legs were truly crippled, they beat him with sticks until they were sure he couldn't stand. He wasn't the killer.

They carried on like this from one end of the village to the other, not even sparing the widows' homes.

"Big brother," one of the ruffians said as dusk fell, spotting an opportunity, "I've noticed nobody dares oppose you. Why don't we collect silver from every household, just like the government collects taxes?"

Zhou Mengyue's eyes lit up slightly. This might force his brother's killer to show himself. "Go recruit four or five more men."

The ruffian acknowledged the order.

Zhou Mengyue would never uncover the truth, but bad men didn't need a reason to do bad things. Not wanting to be pushed around, Cui Hao returned to the martial arts school at dusk to train his strength for the second time that day.

As he silently recited the strength-training method, he put the stone locks through every kind of torment.

"Junior Brother Cui," Sister Liu Yan came over after Cui Hao finished warming up. Her hair was tied in a bun, and she had bought seven chicks. "Would you like to try a stone club?"

Sister Liu had once succeeded in breaking through and was now an expert at the Clear Force stage. Cui Hao took the stone club, which looked like a baseball bat and weighed about a hundred pounds.

"Training with a stone club can ease muscle soreness and make your muscles look better. Watch closely while I demonstrate."

"Please, Senior Sister."

Sister Liu used a three-hundred-pound stone club. It danced around her body with graceful, flowing movements.

After she finished, Sister Liu explained, "This set of movements engages almost every muscle in your body. Give it a try."

With his boosted memory, Cui Hao slowly copied the movements, managing to look the part.

"Not bad." Sister Liu praised him first. "You learned it much faster than I did. Third Senior Brother had to teach me five or six times before I remembered the movements."

Cui Hao asked, "Which one is Third Senior Brother?"

"Third Senior Brother passed the martial Xiucai examination in the autumn and went to the prefectural city to join a sect."

Cui Hao knew that people in this world could become Martial Xiucai or Martial Juren, so he asked, "What level of cultivation do you need to take the Martial Xiucai examination?"

"At minimum, you need to reach the great mastery of Clear Force. It's best to reach full mastery."

"Senior Sister Liu, you're at the Clear Force stage too, right?"

"I'm at the minor mastery of Clear Force, just one step away from great mastery, but there's a huge gap in strength between the two." Liu Yan sounded regretful. "And I've been stuck here for a whole year. This might be as far as I get in this life."

"Senior Sister, Master said I'd only ever be an ordinary martial artist. Don't try to outdo me in misery."

Liu Yan smiled, accepting the new disciple's attempt at consolation. "Practice on your own. I'm heading back."

"Take care, Senior Sister Liu."

With her back to Cui Hao, Liu Yan waved jauntily.

Cui Hao continued building his strength. When he was utterly exhausted, he joined the other two new disciples in performing three full sets of the Broken Fist.

"Senior Brother Xiao, Junior Brother Cui," Wang Nian said, lying on the cold floor with his lungs wheezing like a broken bellows. "I can't go on. I haven't got an ounce of strength left."

The Broken Fist was a fierce martial art, and practicing it required giving everything you had. Cui Hao was exhausted too, and he dropped heavily onto the floor.

Xiao Li kept practicing his punches. "Master only gave us two months. If we can't reach the ordinary martial stage, he'll kick us out."

Wang Nian weakly raised a hand. "We've only just joined. Two months is a long way off."

Ignoring Wang Nian, Xiao Li kept training hard.

Watching Xiao Li work so diligently, Cui Hao vaguely remembered him.

That was four years ago. Cui Hao had been only fourteen, and he hadn't yet split from his relatives in the city.

Xiao Li had followed behind his older brother. The two brothers had cleaned out cesspits for people who needed it, whether in courtyards, shops, or taverns.

They'd always smelled a little, so everyone looked down on them and walked around with pinched noses.

Once, the brothers had cleaned out the cesspit behind the Cui family's shoe shop. Cui Hao had remembered the determined look in the young man's eyes.