Luo Bin wore a gray cotton tunic and trousers. The fabric was finer and more durable than the coarse cloth he had worn before, and the cut fit him better. The snug cuffs didn't hinder him at all when he raised his arms to throw a punch.
He'd bought the ready-made outfit at a tailor's shop in the city a few days ago. With his wardrobe changed, he no longer looked so down on his luck.
Now, as he lifted his eyes to Zhang Xin, a faint air of authority spread from him.
"What's wrong with Aunt Wen?"
Zhang Xin's mind was in a fog, and his answer came out in disjointed fragments. "Outside... some newcomers... looking for trouble."
Before Luo Bin could even rise, a commotion had already erupted in the front courtyard. Several familiar women were cursing, mingled with the clatter of sticks striking tables.
Wen Li stood behind several older women, carrying a freshly aired quilt. Her eyelids were swollen and red.
One of the older women wore an apron and held a charred wooden stick in her hand. She pointed it at the unfamiliar men before her.
"Have some shame, would you? You've only just arrived, and you're already harassing a widow! You worthless bastards, born but not raised—has a dog gnawed away every shred of decency you had?!"
"Why don't you take a piss and look at yourselves? With that black, scarred face, you still dare dream of marrying a swan? And you've got the nerve to lay a hand on our Wen girl?"
"Filthy trash! Spineless eunuchs! If you've got guts, go to the main hall and take on those big shots!"
At the height of her tirade, the woman slammed her charred stick against the ground. It struck the bluestone paving with a clang, and flecks of spittle sprayed onto the shoes of the scar-faced man leading the group.
The woman was Zhang Xin's wife. She'd cooked in the Pei Family's back kitchen for over ten years, and her cleaver could chop vegetables as easily as it could chop a man. Among the women and children in the courtyard, she was the most fearsome shrew.
Her scolding set the others off. A dozen women erupted at once, their curses pelting the men like beans pouring from a pan.
"Exactly! Where did you think you were putting those filthy hands?!"
"What did Wen girl ever do to you? Take a look around—do you even know whose turf this is? Luo's in charge here now. You brainless lout, how dare you run your mouth?!"
Wen Li stood protected behind the women, clutching the folded, freshly aired quilt so tightly that her fingertips had turned white. Her eyes were swollen and red... The gray she'd deliberately smeared on her face to make herself look ugly had worn off, revealing fair skin.
It wasn't as if she'd never seen depravity. During those years with the Pei Family, she'd bound her chest and made herself ugly just to survive. She'd endured every kind of filthy stare. But now, when she'd finally found a safe place to stay...
They'd cornered her by the moon gate and openly harassed her. In this courtyard, a person's grievances might have been the cheapest thing of all, but the humiliation lodged in Wen Li's chest refused to fade.
The scar-faced man was named Liu Lang, and he led this group of twelve. Feng Yi had already given them a warning earlier. It seemed Luo Wendi had taken them in from the Moon Veil Nightclub and from stockades in the outer suburbs beyond the city.
Most were desperadoes, refugees, or thugs from small gangs...
They weren't members of some legendary martial family, nor Martial Masters, but they still posed a certain threat to Xu Ping and the others. After all, though the latter had once worked as guards, they weren't as vicious as men who'd lived by the blade.
Ping City lay between Jinmen and Tianhai. It stood on the outskirts of the Li River and served as a major overland transportation hub. Though it didn't have the dozens of miles of foreign concessions and lavish excess found in Tianhai, it was still a middling city by the standards of the age.
The streets and back alleys were never short of the lowly poor scraping by for a living, or idle troublemakers who strutted about trying to look tough.
Liu Lang had once worked security at the Moon Veil Nightclub, maintaining order and keeping the peace. He'd been treated with deference by everyone from the wretched men before him to famous opera stars, foreign trading-house managers, and compradors.
Today, he'd been humiliated in front of this bunch of "surrendered soldiers." The anger in his chest flared at once, and even the lust stoked by the sight of the pretty young widow burned hotter.
"A bunch of foul-mouthed old hags! Brothers, loosen your belts and give them a good wash!"
"A widow who can barely keep a roof over her head, and she's pretending to be some chaste martyr?" Liu Lang slammed his stick against the ground.
"Luo? The pretty boy who clawed his way to the top by killing his own brothers? You're protecting this worn-out whore? So what if I touch her?"
More than half of Luo Bin's eighteen longtime men had been given jobs by Black Sheath Hall. Some had gone to unload cargo at the docks or guard establishments; others had gone to work at shops under the hall's control.
Only six or seven remained in the courtyard. The rabble behind Liu Lang, a pack of filthy thugs who'd lived by the blade, glanced around, saw they had the advantage, and immediately grabbed whatever they could find: shoulder poles, whetstones, wooden sticks, planks, and more.
Thud!
A muffled blow rang out. In the blink of an eye, Liu Lang's stick slammed into Xu Ping's back. Xu Ping staggered a few steps, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.
Then his face twisted into a snarl. "Goddamn it! Hall Master Luo saved our lives. We didn't want to fight, out of respect for him, but you damn beast have gone too far!"
Xu Ping snatched the cleaver from Zhang Xin's wife and sprang forward, hacking several times. Liu Lang blocked each strike with the tung-oil-soaked stick in his hands. The cleaver was so poorly made that its edge had already begun to curl.
The men beside Xu Ping fought Liu Lang's rabble in a chaotic brawl. Some were yanking each other's hair; others grappled and threw one another to the ground.
Xu Ping seized his chance and slashed Liu Lang in the ribs. But the blade was too dull to do more than draw a little blood.
Zhang Xin's wife hurriedly led Wen Li and the other women aside to safety. From the moon gate at the back courtyard, Zhang Xin's scolding rang out.
"Stop fighting! Stop it! You're all on the same side—what are you fighting for?"
Clang—
A sharp blast split the air, and a tall figure swept into the fray like a white ape leaping through the branches.
Arm-Through Power surged from Luo Bin's lower back through his shoulders and along his spine into his fist. His right hand, which had been hanging at his side, slammed into Liu Lang's face.
Crack—
The brittle sound of bone breaking burst through the courtyard. Liu Lang's nose and cheekbones caved in under the blow, and his body flew sideways as if struck head-on by a battering ram.
Luo Bin walked slowly toward where he'd fallen. The lightning-fast exchange had drawn the attention of both groups.
"Your name's Liu Lang? Nice surname, but you don't deserve it."
"Hrk, hrk..."
The flesh of Liu Lang's face had split and collapsed inward. A wheezing "hrk, hrk" rasp rose from his throat, but after choking out a few sounds, he couldn't manage a single word. By the medical standards Luo Bin remembered from his previous life, that punch would at the very least leave him with a concussion.
Luo Bin stopped and said coolly, "You're a lecher, aren't you?"
"Hrk, hrk..."
Liu Lang began to struggle frantically, but his body seemed no longer to obey his mind. A shoe sole hovered above his eyes, then slowly moved down his body.
At one moment, another wave of agony hit him.
The part of him that served as his body's fifth limb turned into a bloody pulp in an instant, soaking through the crotch of his trousers...
Meanwhile, Zhang Xin was still fussing over Xu Ping. "How'd you end up fighting? Are you hurt? We should all live in harmony. Harmony above all..."
"I'm fine. But they seem to have a problem."
Zhang Xin checked him over. "That's all that matters—as long as you're fine."
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