Xu Yi said nothing. He took Jin Baogen to the lamb-and-bread soup shop where they had just eaten and ordered him a large portion.
Jin Baogen hadn't eaten meat in a month. The woodworking shop claimed to provide two meals a day, but they were mostly vegetables or sweet potatoes. Forget meat—he hadn't even had tofu.
He wolfed down the lamb-and-bread soup, devouring a huge bowl of lamb broth slicked with red oil and sprinkled with cilantro and sesame sprouts, along with five golden-brown flatbreads the size of dinner plates.
When he finished, he slumped back in his chair, rolling his eyes in blissful comfort. He let out a long breath, as if exhaling every grievance he'd suffered over the past month.
"Brother! Why didn't you just steal my contract back? Ten silver dollars! How long would it take me to save that much?!"
As he spoke, his eyes darted around.
Xu Yi said,
"You're too clever for your own good. You figured out I was in a gang and thought I could do whatever I wanted?"
Jin Baogen said,
"I saw how impressive the gang members were!
Last time they came to collect the monthly fee, our shopkeeper didn't dare make a peep!"
Xu Yi nodded.
"You're right. Your shopkeeper paid the fee without saying a word precisely to protect himself from people like me."
Jin Baogen said,
"Huh?"
Xu Yi said,
"Gangs each have their own territory. Big shops like the woodworking shop are under someone's protection. If I went there and bullied them, I'd be slapping another gang in the face. They'd come looking for me, and that would mean a fight."
"We don't have some deep-seated grudge. Why would I slap another gang in the face?"
"Have nothing better to do?"
Jin Baogen said dejectedly,
"Because your brother was being bullied!"
He muttered under his breath,
"Being an apprentice at that woodworking shop is downright inhuman. I got stuck with all the filthy, backbreaking work—even emptying the chamber pots and scrubbing the toilets!
For the past month, I've been up earlier than a chicken and gone to bed later than a cat. Every day, I also had to tell that old cuckoo of a shiniang how beautiful she was... If I'd kept at it, I'd have been worked to death—or sick to my stomach!"
After venting, he immediately broke into a cheerful grin, as though he'd turned all those miserable experiences into farts and let them fly.
"Good thing Brother came and rescued me!"
The clamor of 38th Shop District seemed to sound sweeter than ever.
Xu Yi chewed on a clove of garlic.
"A-Bao, I want you to come work for me."
Jin Baogen leaned closer, lowering his voice. His eyes shone, and his face brimmed with anticipation.
"Who are we killing?"
Xu Yi pointed at him, looking thoroughly annoyed.
"Can you act normal for once?"
He didn't want to waste time bantering with the quick-witted brat, so he got straight to the point.
"I got hired as the head of security at a pharmaceutical factory.
There are lots of jobs in Puxi City right now, but very few good ones. The security job pays more than ten silver dollars a month. It's not particularly safe, but at least it isn't tiring.
I was thinking of calling over all the guys who came down from Under the Sky Lantern with us, so we can share in this cushy pay."
Jin Baogen immediately clasped his hands in a gang-member's salute.
"Brother, your righteousness is admirable!"
Xu Yi waved a hand and pointed at his fists.
"When you salute, your left hand goes over your right. That's called a 'menacing salute.' It means you're ready to fight."
Jin Baogen stared at him in surprise.
"There are rules for that, too?"
Xu Yi bent the fingers of Jin Baogen's left hand, extending his thumb, index finger, and little finger.
"This is called 'Three Sticks of Incense.' It comes from three old stories.
Yang Jiao'ai and Zuo Botao represent 'willing to give your life for a sworn brother.'
Liu, Guan, and Zhang's oath in the Peach Garden represents 'loyalty through the ages.'
The 108 heroes of Liangshan represent the 'Hall of Loyalty and Righteousness.'"
Xu Yi folded together the four fingers of Jin Baogen's right hand, leaving out the thumb.
"This is called 'Half-Stick Incense.' It commemorates the brothers of Wagang Stronghold.
Legend has it that the brothers of Wagang Stronghold were divided when they surrendered to the imperial court. Their brotherhood was left unfulfilled, so it only counted as half a stick of incense."
Xu Yi placed Jin Baogen's right hand over his left and arranged his hands into a handsome salute.
"See? This salute is called 'Three-and-a-Half Sticks of Incense.'"
Jin Baogen's eyes gleamed as he listened.
Xu Yi said,
"When people of the jianghu meet and exchange the Three-and-a-Half Sticks of Incense salute, they're telling the other person:
We're jianghu folk who value loyalty and brotherhood."
"Put simply, it's a way of identifying yourself.
If you're friends, it's just an ordinary greeting.
If the other person doesn't know the rules, it's a warning not to make trouble."
Jin Baogen pressed him.
"What if they're enemies?"
Xu Yi said,
"Why bother with all that nonsense if they're enemies? Just grab your weapons!"
Jin Baogen's eyes brimmed with longing.
"Oh, oh!"
Xu Yi said,
"Three-and-a-Half Sticks of Incense is just the most basic salute. There are more complicated ones, used to prove your identity to the big shots in a gang...
That stuff is too far beyond you. You probably won't ever need it in your life, so I'll leave it at that."
Jin Baogen said,
"That's amazing!"
Xu Yi curled his lip.
"It's not amazing at all. Gangs talk about loyalty and brotherhood on the surface, but behind the scenes they're all full of shady dealings. This world fed those ideals to the dogs long ago... You'll find out in time."
That dampener did nothing to extinguish Jin Baogen's enthusiasm.
Xu Yi stood up.
"Come on. Let's gather the friends who came here with us and get rich!"
By about four in the afternoon, eight people had gathered around Xu Yi.
There were six men and two women, all from the town beneath Under the Sky Lantern. They were all distant relatives of one another.
Most of them were sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen—the age when people were least careful with their strength. Xu Yi armed them, but worried they might kill someone, so he repeatedly drilled the rules into them.
These boys and girls had all worked in terrible conditions. In those days, outsiders who came to Puxi had only two options: sell themselves or go to work in a factory.
But the factories of the day were no place for human beings. They were hellholes where people traded years off their lives for money.
Xu Yi had pulled them out of those hellholes, so they were already deeply grateful to him. And with Xu Yi's dark skin, their gratitude was tinged with a little awe.
Of everyone who had come down from Under the Sky Lantern to Puxi City, Xu Yi was the only one who had made something of himself.
Xu Yi registered them all with Lingtong Hall's personnel office, advanced each of them 100 copper coins, and told Jin Baogen to keep an eye on them.
Only after Jin Baogen promised did Xu Yi feel at ease.
Jin Baogen might not be very reliable, but he was the sharpest among them. If Xu Yi left him in charge while he was out, at least he wouldn't botch the job.
As for how to make Jin Baogen more reliable, that could wait.
After settling his hometown friends in the factory's security dormitory, Xu Yi left Lingtong Hall and walked along the main street of 38th Shop District.
Near the Green Shore River, he turned off. Instead of entering the alley where Golden Orchid Nunnery stood, he headed toward the docks on the Green Shore River.
River management in Puxi City was a mess. Private docks crowded both banks of the Green Shore River, one after another. The boats moored there included not only covered-canopy boats but also small metal boats fitted with engines.
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