A Search for Someone

Chen Mo felt little novelty in any of this. His predecessor's memories had made the surroundings familiar.

He avoided the busy, bustling main streets and stuck to quiet alleys and residential neighborhoods.

He had pieced together the addresses of the families he sought from scraps of gossip around the neighborhood and his predecessor's hazy memories. They weren't especially precise.

The first family was supposedly that of an old man who hauled cargo at the docks. When he refused to pay the Black Tiger Gang's dock fees, their men beat him so badly that, with no money for treatment, he lingered for half a month before dying.

His son had gone off sailing and never been heard from again, leaving only his elderly wife behind.

Chen Mo wandered for a long while through a shantytown where filthy water ran everywhere before finding the low, ramshackle hut.

A cloudy-eyed old woman sat at the entrance, picking through rotten vegetable leaves.

Chen Mo approached and bowed slightly. "Granny, may I ask you something? I'm from the paper effigy shop on South Street. I heard someone in your family passed away some time ago?"

"Our shop recently received a commission from a kind benefactor. We'd like to give a little afterlife money to a family in hardship, just to show our sympathy. We'd also need an old belonging to serve as a link..."

The old woman raised her cloudy eyes and eyed him warily. Her fingers trembled slightly, especially when she heard the words "afterlife money."

She was silent for a long time before rasping, "Gone. Long gone... There's nothing left... Those damned..."

She couldn't finish. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she lowered her head, ignoring Chen Mo as she mechanically picked through the leaves.

Chen Mo knew he wouldn't get anything out of her. He couldn't bring himself to press her, so he left without a word.

There was no medium he needed here.

Another family was a couple who ran a snack stall. The Black Tiger Gang had tried to extort stall fees from the husband. When he refused, they smashed his stall. During the ensuing scuffle, he was shoved to the ground, struck the back of his head on a stone, and died on the spot.

The woman sold their belongings to bury her husband, then disappeared.

Chen Mo went to the area where the stall had stood and asked a cobbler nearby.

The cobbler smacked his lips over his dry tobacco and shook his head. "They moved away ages ago. Poor thing... When that woman left, she took nothing but a bundle. Maybe she went to stay with relatives in the west of the city? I don't know."

The trail had gone cold again.

The west of the city was too vast. There was no way to know where to start looking.

Chen Mo's heart sank a little.

There was one more family: the Shens, who sold tofu.

The Shen family's son was a hothead. When one of the Black Tiger Gang's underlings harassed his younger sister, he confronted the man and was beaten to death in the street. Plenty of people had seen it happen.

The old father had been so enraged that he vomited blood. He passed away not long afterward, leaving only the old Shen matriarch and the daughter who had nearly been violated to depend on each other.

Rumor had it they were still where they'd been before. The little tofu workshop was rented, and they had nowhere else to go.

Chen Mo's spirits lifted, and he headed for the lane where the Shen family's tofu workshop stood.

It was a narrow, damp alley, with the tofu workshop at its entrance.

The storefront was tiny, and its door was shut. The place was deserted; there wasn't even the usual fragrance of tofu, only a faint, sour stench.

The white mourning couplet pasted on the door had long since faded and torn. It fluttered slightly in the wind.

Chen Mo stepped up and knocked softly.

After a long while, the door opened a crack, revealing the pale, haggard face of a young girl. Her eyes were red and swollen, and she watched him warily.

"Who are you looking for?"

"Is this the Shen family?" Chen Mo tried to keep his voice gentle. "I'm from the paper effigy shop at Deliverance Studio. My father once... received some kindness from your father. I heard what happened to your family, so I came to pay my respects."

At the mention of Deliverance Studio, the girl's guard eased a little. Then he mentioned her father, and her eyes reddened further.

She glanced back into the house before murmuring, "My mother is ill... It's not a good time for visitors."

"I won't come in. I just want to say a few words." Chen Mo lowered his voice. "I know who killed your elder brother. It was the Black Tiger Gang, wasn't it?"

The girl jerked her head up. Fierce hatred blazed in her eyes, and her lips quivered.

She said nothing, but her eyes had already confessed.

"I hate them too." Chen Mo's voice grew softer, heavy with the pain of a kindred soul. "My father is gone, and they've nearly run my shop into the ground. I can't help you openly, but... I want to try and see if I can make those beasts taste a little of the retribution they deserve."

He paused, watching the girl's eyes suddenly brighten, then fill with doubt, before continuing, "I need some old belonging your brother kept close to him. Anything will do—a corner of a shirt he wore, or a towel or quilt..."

"I can't promise anything. I just... want to try."

The girl bit down hard on her lip, and tears slid silently down her cheeks.

She glanced back into the house again, as if she'd made up her mind, and said quickly, "Wait here." The door closed gently.

A moment later, the door opened a crack again, and the girl handed out a faded blue bundle of coarse cloth. It was light in his hand.

"It's a little piece cut from the new trousers Mother made for my brother's birthday last year... He only wore them once..." Her voice broke, and she couldn't go on.

Chen Mo accepted it solemnly. The coarse weave and the faint, lingering scent of soapberry clung to the cloth.

"Thank you. What happened here stays between us."

He carefully tucked the bundle into his clothes, then took out every last copper coin he had and pressed them into the girl's hand. "Buy your mother some medicine."

Before she could refuse, he turned and hurried away from the little alley steeped in sorrow and hatred.

The clamor of the street surged into his ears again: the rattle of rickshaw bells, vendors hawking their wares, and the wavering notes of a fiddle drifting from a teahouse... The bustle of this mortal world seemed cut off from the desolation of that alley, as if they were two separate realms.

"I heard the Black Tiger Gang's leader is a trained fighter."

Halfway down the street, Chen Mo suddenly recalled something and stopped. "I need to add another layer of insurance."

By the time Chen Mo trudged back to Deliverance Studio, dusk was drawing near.

The shops along Funeral Street were already putting up their shutters, clattering as they went and deepening the desolate mood.

He secured the three-panel door, shutting himself off from the outside, then leaned against it and panted softly.

The yin baleful intent in his body seemed more active after the day's exertions, and a dull ache throbbed in his chest.

At least he had everything he needed.

Feeling the cloth bundle against his chest, he hurried toward his room...

Meanwhile, in Linhe County's western district, the atmosphere inside a three-courtyard residence occupied by the Black Tiger Gang was entirely different from Deliverance Studio's quiet gloom, though hardly relaxed.

The main hall of the residence was brightly lit.

A man in his early forties sat in the grand chair at the center. He was not especially burly—in fact, he was somewhat lean—but his frame was broad, and his half-lidded eyes occasionally flashed with the glint of a lurking beast.

This was the Black Tiger Gang's leader, Lei Tiger. The glint in his eyes was the mark of a master who had perfected his hidden force.

An open, thick ledger lay on the redwood Eight Immortals table before him.

Scarface stood with his hands at his sides on the lower left. His scar looked somewhat sinister in the lamplight, but his manner was quite respectful, with even a trace of barely concealed unease.

On the right stood the thin, rat-whiskered Mr. Xu, holding a small purple-sandalwood abacus. His fingers occasionally flicked a few beads, producing a faint, crisp click.

The hall was quiet. The only sounds were Mr. Xu's occasional murmurs as he read out figures and Lei Tiger's fingers gently tapping the table.