Chapter 603 — Red Rope

CHAPTER 603

Red Rope

“A tenth of the shop,” Kuang Dahai said. “And one copper rope fee from every porter who stands in my lane.”

He was a huge man with a shaved head and a scar through one eyebrow. Red rope was wound three times round his belly. Eleven men stood behind him in the lane, and the queue had shrunk against the wall like a frightened snake.

“It’s Auntie Tao’s lane,” Shi Feng said, holding his noodle bowl. “And it’s my shop. No.”

“The Red Rope Gang has held Lamp-Oil Lane for nine years, frontier boy,” Kuang Dahai said.

“Then you’ve had a good nine years,” Shi Feng said politely. “Still no.”

Kuang Dahai studied the cheap robe and thin arms before giving the order. Shi Feng had kept his qi quiet enough to leave him nothing else to judge. The gang leader saw an ordinary newcomer who could be frightened out of a share.

“Break the sign,” Kuang Dahai said.

Shi Feng sighed and put the noodle bowl down on Tao Erniang’s bench.

“Watch my bowl, Auntie,” Shi Feng said.

Tao Xiaoyu grabbed Ji Yuanhe’s sleeve and pulled him into the shop doorway. The queue pressed back against the wall, but nobody left. Shutters banged open all down the lane. On Lamp-Oil Lane, a fight was worth more than a free pill.

The lane was four paces wide there. Tao Erniang’s bench and pot stood on the left, the shop front on the right, and the gutter ran down the middle.

The first man came with a club. Shi Feng took the club out of his hand and hit him in the chest with his elbow, and the man sat down in the gutter and forgot how to breathe.

Shi Feng hoped the first man falling would stop the rest. It didn’t. They were already rushing him before their companion hit the gutter.

The other ten came at once.

He kept his qi concealed and left the Sword in the ring. His Bone Refinement body was enough.

Two knifemen came first, shoulder to shoulder down the gutter. Shi Feng drew back half a pace on Drifting Ash Step, to the spot where the bench and the shop step pinched the lane to the width of one man. The two knifemen bumped shoulders and jammed. He took the left one’s knife wrist and turned it. The wrist cracked. His knuckles found the right one’s jaw, and both men went down together.

A third man tried to come round over the bench.

“Not over my pot!” Tao Erniang shouted, and hit him across the ear with her ladle.

The man reeled back off the bench, straight into Shi Feng’s heel. A knee buckled.

“One. Two. Three,” Ji Yuanhe counted from the doorway, in time with the breaths.

The other seven stopped. They’d seen three friends fall without the frontier boy taking a single step out of his gap. Three spread out in front of him. Two edged along the shop wall. Two more slipped behind the queue to come at his back.

So they could count too, Shi Feng thought. That was fine. Counting was slow.

The front three charged. Shi Feng didn’t step back this time. He stepped through, Drifting Ash Step carrying him between the first two like smoke between fingers, and the clubs meant for his head met each other. Crack. He caught the third man by the belt rope and threw him.

The man flew into the shop front, splitting the crooked sign.

“My sign!” Tao Xiaoyu cried.

“Ah,” Shi Feng said. “That’s going on the bill.”

A red rope dropped over his head from behind. Shi Feng didn’t turn. He leaned forward and bent at the waist, and the man holding the rope went over his shoulder and into the gutter, still holding on.

The last of them dropped his club and ran for the lane mouth. An old porter put out his carrying pole without even standing up. The runner tripped over it and lay still.

“Nine. Ten,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Ten breaths later, eleven men lay in Lamp-Oil Lane, groaning. Kuang Dahai stood alone among them with his fists up and no idea where to put them.

“He used his hands!”

“Eleven of them! Eleven!”

“Did anyone see him move?”

“I saw the sign move…”

“Old Hu tripped one! Old Hu’s a hero!”

Shi Feng picked his bowl back up. The noodles were still warm.

At the lane’s far end, a man in a fine robe watched from near a carved gate. Its embroidered crest belonged to the Zhuo Old House. He studied the queue, the broken sign and Shi Feng’s bowl with open disapproval.

“Boss Kuang,” Shi Feng said, cheerfully. “Let’s settle up. First, the sign. Tao Xiaoyu charged me sixty in a hundred of my first day’s tickets for it. My first day sold nothing, so she painted it for free, which makes it priceless. I’ll be modest and call it two hundred stones. Second, the paint for a new one, ten. Third, my noodles went cold for ten breaths, which is nothing, so I’ll waive it. Two hundred and ten.” He smiled. “See? I’m being reasonable.”

Kuang Dahai lowered his fists. His men were groaning around his feet while Shi Feng stood eating noodles. The demand for a tenth of the shop no longer looked worth repeating.

“…I don’t have two hundred on me,” Kuang Dahai said.

“He doesn’t,” a voice said from above. “But I do.”

The broth in Shi Feng’s bowl trembled.

A man was sitting on the eave of the teahouse at the lane’s corner. He wore a dark red robe, and a coil of red rope as thick as a wrist hung from his shoulder, with an iron weight the size of a fist at its end. The air in the lane grew heavy. Half the porters’ knees bent before they knew why.

“It’s Iron Lock Ke!” someone whispered. “The rope’s backer!”

“Master Ke,” Kuang Dahai said, and his face turned white with relief.

Ke Tiesuo stepped off the eave and landed in the lane without a sound. He looked at the eleven men, then at the bowl.

“Nine years this lane has paid me a third of every rope,” Ke Tiesuo said. “Who cut it?”

Shi Feng sighed and put the bowl down on the bench for the second time.

“Auntie,” Shi Feng said. “Keep it warm, please. This one might take longer.”