Chapter 35: 035: Not Something That Spread Across All of Jiangxi

Pang Chunlai lived right at the foot of Cold Pearl Mountain, in a few tumbledown thatched huts that, from what he'd heard, he had paid to have built himself.

He took his meals at the private school and handled everything else on his own, without even hiring a single servant.

He probably didn't bathe much — who'd want to heat water? Out in the countryside there wasn't even anyone selling firewood; if you wanted hot water you had to go gather the fuel yourself.

Back inside the thatched hut, Zhao Han helped grind ink while Pang Chunlai began composing a scandalous story.

Zhao Han noticed that he couldn't see clearly whether things were far or near — as if he suffered from both farsightedness and nearsightedness — and couldn't help asking, "Sir, when did this eye ailment begin?"

Pang Chunlai's eyes were practically pressed to the paper as he wrote in a bizarre posture. He gave a self-mocking laugh. "In the forty-seventh year of Wanli, I marched with the army to kill Tartars. I didn't kill a single Tartar, and I nearly got carried off to be a slave myself. While fleeing for my life I fell off a cliff, and a tree branch gashed my eyes. The left eye is nearly blind, and the right eye can only see things up close."

Zhao Han fell silent at once, not knowing what to say.

Pang Chunlai suddenly raised his head and asked with a grin, "Guess how old your teacher is?"

"Sixty?" Zhao Han ventured.

Pang Chunlai burst out laughing. "Forty-five."

This is forty-five?

You could tell people you were seventy and no one would doubt it.

Fei Yinghuan was also in his early forties, yet he looked as if he had just passed thirty — who would have guessed he and Master Pang were the same age!

Pang Chunlai's hair was now grizzled, more white than black. His entire family was dead, he was the only one left, and he could see only out of his right eye. Who knew what other torments he had endured? No wonder he was inciting and grooming children to rebel.

He himself had no capital to rebel with, and he couldn't hoodwink adults, so he could only slowly cultivate children. Xu Ying was probably in that rebel-training plan too.

This fellow hated the Tartars, and he hated the Great Ming court just as much!

Before long, Pang Chunlai had produced an article, written in a style akin to popular fiction, striving to make it readable for anyone with a few years of schooling.

Zhao Han bent over it and read, then looked at Pang Chunlai and thought: Born in the wrong age! If you'd been born a few hundred years later, you'd definitely be a huge self-media blogger.

People say, give them one picture and they'll spin a whole story — but this Master Pang didn't even have a picture.

He went straight for the lurid family scandal!

It insinuated that Lady Zhang had borne no sons by forty, so she hooked up with her own grandnephew, preparing a seventieth-birthday gift for her husband in advance.

As for which grandnephew it was?

Lady Zhang's generational seniority was high anyway, and the Fei clan was teeming with people — grandnephews were a dime a dozen. Readers could just guess to their hearts' content.

An aunt-grandmother carrying on an illicit affair and bearing a child with her grandnephew — the plot was far too explosive and titillating, far more buzzworthy than dallying with a household slave. It was guaranteed to spread like wildfire within days.

Pang Chunlai said, "Use your left hand and copy out a few for me."

Writing with a brush in his right hand was passable, but making Zhao Han write with his left was pure forced labor.

After only a few characters, Pang Chunlai frowned and said, "Stop writing. Go fetch Fei Ruhe."

Zhao Han felt as if he'd been granted amnesty. He set down the brush and scurried off to the private school to find Fei Ruhe.

Fei Ruhe had no idea what was going on and came along bringing his study attendant Fei Chun. He stood to the side and instinctively glanced at the paper; the amorous article immediately twisted his expression into something bizarre.

Pang Chunlai had already copied out six or seven sheets. He said to Fei Ruhe, "You and your servant, post these in every conspicuous spot at Cold Pearl Academy and the private school."

Fei Ruhe was no fool. He chuckled and said, "Master, you'd better find someone else. If my father finds out, he'll beat me to death for sure."

"Your father won't beat you," Pang Chunlai said. "Your family may be a branch of the main lineage, but you were split off far away to Goose Lake. You didn't get much property here at Hekou, and you haven't managed to place many people at Cold Pearl Mountain either. If this succeeds, your family stands to gain. As it happens, your father is up on the mountain, and he's the only juren of this generation. The head of the academy will certainly seek him out first to discuss it, and together they'll straighten out the academic atmosphere at Cold Pearl Academy."

"Your father won't beat you," Pang Chunlai said. "Your family may be a collateral branch of the main lineage, but it split off far away to Goose Lake. You didn't get much property here at the river mouth, and you haven't managed to slip many people into Hanzhu Mountain either. If this succeeds, your family stands to gain. As it happens, your father is up on the mountain, and he's the only juren of this generation. The mountain head will certainly seek him out first to discuss it — together they'll clean up the academic atmosphere at Hanzhu Academy."

Pang Chunlai switched to luring the boy again. "You practice martial arts diligently every day — do you want to be a general when you grow up?"

Fei Ruhe puffed out his chest and raised his head. "I want to be a great gallant hero!"

"What?" Pang Chunlai thought he had misheard.

"I want to be a great gallant hero, to enforce justice on Heaven's behalf and rob the rich to aid the poor!" Fei Ruhe declared his lofty ambition.

Pang Chunlai couldn't resist mocking him. "Then you'll have to start by robbing the Fei clan. In all of Yanshan County, the Fei family is the richest. No need to rob them, actually — when you become head of the household someday, just distribute all the fields, shops, and properties of the Goose Lake Fei clan to the poor commoners of the countryside. That would make you a true great gallant hero! Robbing others but not robbing yourself — that's the act of a hypocrite. What kind of great gallant hero would that be?"

It made such perfect sense that Fei Ruhe couldn't refute it. He muttered, "If I can't be a great gallant hero, then being a great general works too."

Pang Chunlai guided him step by step. "To be a great general, you can't just practice martial arts. Charging blindly into battle is the way of a mere brute!"

Fei Ruhe asked, "Then what else do I need to practice?"

"The art of war!" Pang Chunlai said.

Fei Ruhe's head immediately swelled to the size of a bushel. "I've tried reading Sun Tzu's Art of War, but I fall asleep before I finish a single chapter. And those battle-formation diagrams — they make my eyelids fight each other."

Pang Chunlai sneered. "The art of war is far more than that. Do you know how to set up camp? Do you know how to manage provisions? Do you know how to train troops and marshal an army?"

Pang Chunlai sneered, "Is the art of war limited to just that? Do you know how to lay out a camp? Do you know how to manage provisions and fodder? Do you know how to drill troops and reorganize an army?"

Pang Chunlai stroked his beard, a sly grin spreading across his face. "I know all of it. Let your teacher instruct you."

Fei Ruhe didn't believe him. "Don't fool me. An old Confucian master like you knows these things?"

Pang Chunlai slapped the table. "I am a scion of a Liaodong military house. I've fought the Tartars more times than I can count — you think I wouldn't know such things?"

Fei Ruhe had often heard his fourth uncle talk about the Liaodong campaigns. He scoffed, "If you Liaodong military houses were so formidable, you wouldn't have been beaten so badly by the Tartars."

"The hell does that have to do with me? No matter how good my strategies were, those bastards had to be willing to listen! And even if they listened, they had to actually follow them — every last one of those motherfuckers sold out their allies and fled the battlefield!" Pang Chunlai was genuinely furious now. "I have the art of war and military strategy in my chest — I'm asking you, will you learn it or not?"

Fei Ruhe cocked his head and thought it over. He ventured, "Can I try learning it? If I can't master it, I'll still go practice martial arts and be a gallant hero."

"Fine," Pang Chunlai said, slapping down his self-media article. "Take this and post it all around the academy. Spread it quietly at night — don't get caught in the act."

Fei Ruhe and Fei Chun grabbed it and ran, their hearts secretly racing with a little thrill. Doing mischief on the sly always gave people this kind of rush.

Pang Chunlai kept copying. He produced another dozen or so sheets and tossed them to Zhao Han. "You take these and post them in Henglin and Hekou."

The Fei clan's ancestral residence at Henglin was several li from Hekou Town. For Zhao Han to run there and back would take at least a whole night. That was why they'd fetched Fei Ruhe and his servant — to have them handle Cold Pearl Academy. With too few hands, they simply couldn't cover everything.

Zhao Han headed first to the Fei ancestral residence at Henglin, jogging five li until he was panting with his tongue hanging out.

In the pitch-black dark, there wasn't a soul to be seen, though the occasional bark of a dog sounded from time to time.

Lanterns were lit at the main gate of the Fei ancestral residence. Zhao Han hid in the shadows first, spread rice paste evenly over the paper, then dashed over and plastered it onto the main gate. As soon as it was up, he fled, spun around, and ran to the side gates, pasting one on every side gate. Then he went on to paste them at the Fei ancestral hall.

By the time he was done with all this, it was already the middle of the night.

By the time all this was done, it was already the middle of the night.

A cold wind swept across the surface of the Xin River, making Zhao Han shiver uncontrollably. He ran along the river all the way and finally reached Hekou Town.

The streets and markets here were bustling. Even at night, cargo boats were loading and unloading goods.

Crossing the bridge into the town entrance, Zhao Han dared not hesitate any longer, afraid of being remembered by his face. He walked to the "Three Worthies Archway" and plastered all the remaining big-character posters onto the archway pillars.

Poor Fei Hong, a lifetime of sterling reputation — the youngest Zhuangyuan of the Great Ming — yet so insulted after death. The archway specifically commemorating his service as Chief Grand Secretary was now plastered thick with scandalous articles, the content being about his nephew's wife carrying on with a younger clansman…

The harm was not great, but the insult was extreme!

The sun gradually rose, mist curled from the river's surface, and the big-character posters on the archway pillars were all soaked through by the night dew.

This archway stood alone at the river mouth, the spot with the heaviest foot traffic in Yanshan County. Merchants and travelers from north and south gathered here in droves, including many traders from Huguang, South Zhili, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong.

This was not some affair that would spread through half of Jiangxi — it would spread through the entire Jiangnan region!

Mid-morning, a merchant from out of town finally took a stroll while his men were loading the boat. He came to pay his respects at the "Three Worthies Archway," only to discover many papers pasted on the pillars. He leaned in for a look and was instantly dumbstruck — good heavens!

(End of chapter)