"Amazing, truly amazing!"
On the third day, the fifteenth day of the eighth month, Zhao Pengju returned.
He had brought the agency's escorts back to Sanhe Town the previous night, but since it was too late, he had stayed overnight at the Hua'an Escort Agency. He went home that morning, bringing gifts for his mother, his wife, and his unborn child.
That morning, after finishing his usual exercises, Zhang Qingyuan set up his fortune-telling stall. Auntie Li looked at him as though he were a true god as she told him about her son's return.
This thoroughly stunned the crowd who knew nothing of the truth. Even the old man who had doubted him before kept nodding, praising his genuine abilities.
The common people were ignorant, but there were clever people among them too.
Fortune-tellers all used this same routine. Some were skillful at it, while others were not.
Zhang Qingyuan's routine was clearly not particularly skillful, but even if someone clever saw through it, nobody was so bored they had nothing better to do than argue with him.
As more and more people gathered before his stall, Zhang Qingyuan put his humility on full display.
"Adviser, how did he calculate that Zhao Pengju would return today?"
Three men sat by a window in the teahouse opposite, each with two followers standing behind him.
The followers held sabers and swords, a murderous air spilling from them. Apart from their group, the entire teahouse was empty.
Of the three men seated at the table, one was a burly fellow with his chest bared and bronze skin. One glance was enough to tell that he practiced external martial arts.
To his left sat a man dressed as a black-clad swordsman, a longsword at his waist.
To his right was a scholar in blue robes.
Their organization was called the River Crocodile Gang, one of Sanhe Town's two major gangs.
The town had once had three major gangs, but Zhao Pengju had wiped out the Heavenly Dragon Gang, turning a three-legged balance into a struggle between Chu and Han.
The other major gang was called the Dry Flood Dragon Gang. Between them, the two gangs had snatched up all the dockside business.
Of course, Sanhe Town had other gangs too, but none amounted to anything worth mentioning.
These groups all fell within the scope of canal gangs, living off the water beside them.
In the past, Sanhe Town had stood like a three-legged cauldron, its three powers in balance.
Now, however, it was a contest between Chu and Han. With that most stable triangular relationship broken, they naturally began thinking of unifying everything under their rule.
The adviser smiled, gently waving his folding fan. Looking at Zhang Qingyuan at the crossroads, he pronounced on the situation: "Simple enough. Zhao Pengju's wife is more than nine months pregnant, today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and his escort journey this time was only seven hundred li.
"If you were him, wouldn't you hurry back by today?"
Li Guan, leader of the River Crocodile Gang, laughed. "So he's a fraud! I thought he actually had some ability!"
"Nothing but petty tricks." The adviser continued fanning himself.
"Forget him. Let's talk about those bastards from the Dry Flood Dragon Gang first. Adviser, you need to come up with something. Word is Sun Zhenjiang has been getting into bed with Zhao Pengju behind our backs."
The adviser corrected him. "Making contact, not getting into bed."
Li Guan felt helpless. Why do you always have to correct me? "Whatever words you use, Sun Zhenjiang alone was already hard enough to deal with. Now there's Zhao Pengju too. Those two joining forces is a major threat to us. We have to take precautions."
"No need to fear. I've already written to the sect master of the Blood Lump Sect. He'll send experts under his command to support us."
"Brilliant, Adviser!"
They discussed their gang's affairs, as though Zhang Qingyuan were merely a piece of scenery there to improve their mood.
At the crossroads, townsfolk who knew nothing of the truth quickly gathered around, jostling for a chance to try it themselves.
Zhang Qingyuan turned nobody away, using his "rain falls from the sky and makes the ground slick; whatever your father's surname is, that's yours too" tricks to leave the onlookers utterly bamboozled.
In a single morning, he easily pocketed three strings of coins.
Hefting the copper coins in his hand, Zhang Qingyuan was delighted.
He knew the next three to five days would be a peak earning period, because he had now made a name for himself.
Over those next three to five days, plenty of people would come to him for fortunes.
Once those days passed, there would no longer be so many.
Sanhe Town was only so big. Three to five days was the limit for those who could afford a fortune, believed him, and were willing to come.
After three to five days, he would have exhausted practically all his local customers.
The remainder either had no money or scoffed at fortune-telling. In short, there would never be so many again.
By then, earning even a few dozen wen a day would count as Heaven showing him mercy.
Great Qian used copper coins as currency. One hundred wen made a string, meaning a hundred coins threaded together on a cord. Ten strings made one guan, equivalent to one tael of silver.
A guan of coins already threaded together usually contained fewer than a thousand wen. After all, "clever people" habitually slipped in a few coins less.
Who would count every copper coin in a large transaction?
Zhang Qingyuan took his three strings of coins to a rice shop and bought fifty jin of rice.
In the current society, grain prices were still fairly normal outside disaster-stricken areas.
At present, a shi of rice cost less than three mace of silver. Zhang Qingyuan's fifty jin cost him less than two hundred wen.
Carrying the rice, he went to a bookshop.
Seeing a Daoist enter with a sack of rice, the shopkeeper immediately greeted him with a smile.
"Looking to buy books, Daoist?"
"Yes." Zhang Qingyuan studied the shelves. "Do you have any scriptures?"
"Yes. We may not compare to the big cities here, but we do have the usual scriptures." He led Zhang Qingyuan to one row of shelves and pointed at the third shelf. "This whole shelf is scriptures. Have a look and see which you'd like."
There were some thirty-odd scriptures on the third shelf, and those were all the scriptures in the entire shop.
They were all ordinary scriptures commonly available on the market, such as the Nanhua Scripture, the Supreme Scripture of Clarity and Stillness, and the Dao De Jing.
That made sense. This was not the twenty-first century, when he could read any scripture he wanted with a quick Baidu search.
Books were precious in this era. Having these thirty-odd volumes here was already quite respectable.
"Do you have any martial arts manuals?" Zhang Qingyuan asked.
The shopkeeper smiled. "You're having me on."
"Sorry."
Zhang Qingyuan pretended to browse, thinking that he had taken too much for granted.
In his previous life, he had always heard people online call Taizu Long Fist commonplace stuff, so he had subconsciously assumed commonplace stuff could be bought on the market.
In this era, even the most ordinary martial arts moves remained in the hands of martial artists. How could a bookshop possibly stock them?
He would have to find another way.
Picking out a few scriptures, he turned and asked, "How much for these three?"
"One hundred and twenty wen."
Good grief, that could buy thirty-five jin of rice!
Truly, all pursuits were lowly; only studying stood above them.
Gritting his teeth through the pain, he spent a hundred and twenty wen on the three books.
Back home, Zhang Qingyuan first put the rice in the kitchen, then called Zhang Junbao to come collect cabbages with him.
Auntie Li had also promised him ten heads of cabbage.
When the two returned once more carrying cabbages, Zhang Junbao felt he had gained a new understanding of Zhang Qingyuan.
It had only been three days, and the people of Sanhe Town were already this warm toward him?
This was way too slick!
He was a downright social bandit.
"Brother Yuan, can we have meat for lunch today?"
"You're a monk, and you want meat?"
"I'm a lay disciple. Besides, I'm a Daoist now." He tugged up the Daoist robe he wore.
Zhang Qingyuan sighed, still aching over those three scriptures.
"I told you to study martial arts. How's that coming along?"
Zhang Junbao shook his head. "Not much progress yet, but I've taken stock of the internal power in my body. Since I only half understand the meridians, I don't know how my internal power flows through me."
"Enough of that. I'll buy you a meridian chart in a few days so you can study it properly."
"Sure!"
"Come on, let's have a fight."
Zhang Qingyuan invited him into the courtyard, where they stood facing each other.
Zhang Qingyuan struck first. Seeing him attack, Zhang Junbao did not counter, dutifully performing his role as a sparring partner.
Gradually, Zhang Qingyuan's moves grew faster and faster. Relying on the advantage of having trained several years longer, Zhang Junbao successfully blocked this flurry of attacks.
But Zhang Junbao was astonished by Zhang Qingyuan's martial talent. He might have trained for only three days, but his improvement was visible every single day.
If he and Brother Yuan were at the same level, the outcome really would have been uncertain.
This was Zhang Qingyuan's golden finger. Even Zhang Qingyuan himself was surprised; it let him experience what being a top student felt like.
Back in middle and high school in his previous life, there had always been one or two freaks who understood as soon as the teacher explained-and understood even when the teacher did not. Infuriating.
Now he was like that too. Zhang Junbao only had to demonstrate once for him to remember and quickly understand. All he lacked was proficiency and experience fighting opponents.
It felt ridiculously good.
That afternoon, Zhang Qingyuan went out again and earned more than three guan of coins.
Passing a butcher's shop, he bought two jin of pork. He also went to the bookshop and bought a meridian chart.
He had just left the bookshop when he saw two gangs fighting.
This was a common sight at the docks: gangs fighting over turf.
They were all hoodlums, thugs, local bullies, and scoundrels-the gangs' bottom-rung underlings.
More than a dozen men were locked in a chaotic, furious brawl.
Before long, someone came running from the east end of the street, dressed in a short fighting outfit and holding a steel saber. While still far away, he leaped into the air, soared more than a zhang, and brought his saber down into the crowd. Two men were instantly flung aside by the powerful force, and even the bluestone road was cleaved into a large crater.
Holy shit, this was an expert!
With this expert's arrival, the situation instantly reversed, and the opposing underlings scattered and fled.
The expert did not pursue them. Holding his saber in one hand, he displayed the full bearing of a master.
"Brilliant!"
Zhang Qingyuan could not help praising him.
But after offering that praise, he suddenly thought that internal arts were not something only experts could practice.
Aha, I know how to get an internal cultivation manual!