Chapter 9: Chapter Nine: A Good-for-Nothing

At this moment, drool streamed from the corners of her mouth like icicles in the deep of winter; clutching a broken piece of tile in her hand, she came scurrying over, beaming with joy.

But a yellow-haired bandit nearby kicked her flying half a zhang away. She rolled on the ground several times before finally stopping, then slowly crawled back up. Her tender little face had been scraped raw, and bright red blood quickly gathered into a clump over the wound…

The little girl had barely gotten up when she noticed the tile in her hand had shattered, and she burst into loud wailing — this was her eating bowl!

"Shut it!"

Shi Jiu'en roared in disgust and lifted his foot to stomp. Li You, on reflex, leapt over and gathered the little girl into his arms.

Perhaps startled, the little girl fell silent in an instant.

A few older children pulled her up from in front of Li You and led her back.

Li You's heart clenched in pain. In his past life, though he had accomplished nothing and lived far from satisfactorily, he simply could not bear to witness human suffering.

"Second Master, if you ask me, Wu Ying died long ago. Those brats he took in — better to sell them off early to Third Master's father-in-law."

A subordinate named Xu Lifang said this, fawningly, to Cao the Second. Zhang Zhuanggen, though a bandit, had taken a wife — his wife was the daughter of Xing Youdao, the former postmaster of Qingyang Post.

Cao the Second paid him no mind. These nine children were far more useful than fellows like Huang Mao'er — day in, day out, chopping firewood, boiling water, picking up coal briquettes, gathering wild greens — which of those tasks could be done without them?

He cleared his throat and called out to the miners and salt slaves before him: "Don't rush to eat today. Let me say a few words…"

He casually pointed at the dozen-odd new young men and the seven men including Gao Conglong and Wu Dading: "These people were newly recruited by the Big Boss. From now on they'll work alongside you. Everyone put your backs into it — once we've got enough out of this iron mine and salt works, the Big Boss won't just pay you wages, he'll let you go home sooner!"

After he said this, the miners and salt slaves below didn't react at all — they simply stared at the two buckets of food at Cao the Second's feet.

Li You noticed that only a few of the men wore scorn in their eyes and the corners of their mouths. No need to think twice — these words had surely been repeated countless times.

"Hmph. Don't think about running. The three heads hanging on that walnut tree haven't even dried in the wind yet… If you're caught, that's what happens to you. And besides, you've got chains on your ankles — even if we don't catch you, and you flee into the mountains around here, you'd just be feeding the tigers and wolves for free!"

Cao the Second seemed to find it dull himself and went straight to threats.

Finally, pointing at Li You beside him, he announced to Shi Jiu'en and his men: "This gentleman here is an accountant-clerk invited by the Big Boss… Look closely now — he's a genuine scholar from Qingjian County!"

That line of his actually drew quite a few gazes; even the previously numb miners turned their eyes to Li You one after another.

After all, in this Zhu-Ming era where scholars and the realm ruled the world together, a scholar already counted as a privileged member of the gentry. To wretches who scratched a living from the soil, he was already a gentleman and lord.

Out of the habitual courtesy of a modern man, Li You instinctively brushed aside his disheveled long hair and gave everyone a gentle smile, flashing his big white teeth.

But then he realized the miners and salt slaves were looking at him with expressions that were mostly disdain and contempt — far more scornful than they had been for Cao the Second's lies earlier.

Li You couldn't help but smile bitterly inside: a "scholar" like him had already been colluding with bandits!

After Cao the Second finished speaking, he gave Shi Jiu'en a few instructions, then rose and went back to the small courtyard.

Shi Jiu'en gave Li You a nod and a gesture of invitation, but first followed Cao the Second into the courtyard, and the band of guarding bandits trailed behind as well.

Li You had only just turned and taken a few steps when he heard a thump-thump of footsteps and suppressed roars behind him. Looking back, he saw a crowd of miners already pressed against the food buckets — a sea of black, shiny heads. Some were scooping food out with their bare hands and stuffing it into their mouths; others were dragging and pulling desperately…

The guarding bandits, Huang Mao'er and the rest, laughed and cursed as they went, occasionally kicking the upturned bottoms in front of them. Once they'd had their fun, they linked arms and headed into the courtyard.

Li You quickly turned his head away. He didn't dare look more, afraid he might see that group of children using broken tiles and stones as bowls — especially the little girl with beads of blood on her face…

"What a fucking ghost-world of an era!" Li You puffed out his cheeks and cursed, then stepped into the courtyard.

The main room of the small courtyard was Cao the Second's quarters. The side rooms on either side weren't large either — all built of stone mixed with yellow mud and wheat straw.

The roof was a hipped-style rolled-ridge roof, with a few green tiles, but mostly thatch and bamboo strips.

Cao the Second entered the courtyard and, supported by Shi Jiu'en, was about to step into the main room. Li You hurried forward and said quickly: "Second Master, my young servant is injured — could he be brought in as well…"

"Oh… I haven't yet seen this scholar's young servant. Is he a fellow with a bristly beard? Or does Master Li simply prefer that sort of… close-company look?"

Cao the Second turned and looked at Li You with a cold smile: "The Big Boss said to keep him, but he never said to put him on a pedestal. My Nanshan never keeps anyone who eats idle food!"

Li You's heart jolted, a chill running through him: Could Cao the Second have known all along that I was a fake scholar?

But why didn't he expose me just now?

And… what was "close company" supposed to mean?

For a moment he was left standing cold in the courtyard, with no one paying him any attention.

Li You couldn't quite figure it out, but his stomach was already growling with hunger — that dog meat couldn't hold up against two days' worth of exertion.

"Hey, Scholar, if you don't mind, let's eat together!" A somewhat shy man in blue said to Li You.

"Good!" Li You agreed without hesitation. The man had a square face and a high nose, and actually looked a bit like those half-grown boy-soldiers from the night before.

The man in blue laughed sheepishly, looking extremely pleased.

He led Li You into the left side room. Fifteen or sixteen men had already come in. Against the south wall was a row of large communal bunks; against the north wall by the door, two simple wooden boards had been temporarily set up as tables.

The man in blue squatted on the ground to eat, with four others around him. On the floor lay a broken door-plank, on which sat two bowls of pickled radish. The basket still held five corn-bun buns, plus three steamed taros. In front of each person was a bowl of thin porridge — but this porridge was thin enough to reflect a person's shadow, and not a few grains of millet could be seen at the bottom of the bowl.

When Li You entered the side room, the two tables went quiet for a moment, but no one moved.

Only the three men squatting on the ground eating stood up. One of them, a long-faced man, hemmed and hawed as if wanting to say something, but in the end didn't speak. He merely squatted back down and pushed the basket and porridge on the plank toward Li You.

The men sitting at the tables glanced Li You over, but paid him no further attention. They were all sharp; they knew how to read the room, and had long noticed that Cao the Second didn't really care for this scholar — was even somewhat cold toward him.

Among the crowd was the young Huang Mao'er too, who said with a grin: "What the hell is a scholar good for? Wouldn't it be better to lord it over people down in the lowlands? Don't tell me your family got cleaned out by bandits?"

"Ha ha… down in the lowlands, scholars are all our great lords!"

Xu Lifang chimed in as well. He was actually a bit displeased inside, because he himself could read a bit of writing and counted as one of Cao the Second's most capable men.

"Huang Mao'er, Gu Laosan, shut your asses!" The young man in blue glared at Huang Mao.

Huang Mao'er wasn't cowed in the slightest and sneered: "Wa Qingyun, Liu Longjin, Zeng Changshun, Lü Yi — no wonder you lot are old bandits of five or six years and can't even sit at the table to eat… Don't go bending your elbows outward!"

"Ha ha ha…"

The others all burst into laughter.

"It's fine, it's… fine!"

Li You's mouth watered; he could barely speak clearly, so how could he bother with their gossip? He quickly reached out and held back the angry Wa Qingyun.

"Master Li, eat!"

Liu Longjin across from him, in a coarse shirt, hurriedly handed Li You a pair of chopsticks made from a bamboo joint.

"Good…"

Li You could hold back no longer. With chopsticks in one hand and a bun snatched up in the other, he stuffed it into his mouth — barely tasting anything before one bun was down. He crammed in two more in quick succession, washed down with the thin porridge, wolfing it all down. Only then did he feel some relief, but he was still hungry.

"Husband, keep eating. There's still... there's still..."

Wa Qingyun's anger subsided; he pushed his own thin porridge over and handed Li You a steamed sweet potato.

The others, Zeng Changshun and Lu Yi, though they also treated scholars with courtesy, were truly hungry themselves. Seeing Li You devour food as if starving, they hurriedly gripped their rice bowls and ate on their own.

Li You knew that Liu Longjin opposite him and Wa Qingyun beside him had not eaten yet, so he waved his hand to indicate he was full.

Yet his heart was still filled with regret, for he had completely forgotten Wu Dading outside. After all, the man was still running a fever, and in this ghostly environment, no one could say for certain whether he would survive.

"Here, eat another one. I'm not hungry today!"

Wa Qingyun swallowed his saliva, telling a lie, but still firmly handed the sweet potato in his hand to Li You.

Li You naturally could not refuse this opportunity, for he intended to give it to Wu Dading outside, and at the same time push his luck further by scooping a large bowl of thin porridge from their two bowls.

With Wa Qingyun's help, Wu Dading did not work in the afternoon, though iron chains, just hammered out by the blacksmith, were still fastened to his feet.

Leaning against a large sun-facing rock, Li You fed him some food.

By dusk, Wu Dading's fever had broken, and his spirits immediately recovered by more than half, which made Li You marvel at the physical constitution of people in this era.

Li You set his mind at ease. Looking at the setting sun hanging on the western mountain peak, he thought that the tense days of fleeing were finally over. Relaxed now that the problem of survival was solved, he decided to set a new goal: first, to secure a position as a leader. The very first thing he would do then was to clean out all the scum and trash within the Shanzhai.

In the blink of an eye, some miraculous images began to float in his mind...

98K, Level 3 Helmet, Level 3 Vest, RPG, TNT, C4, steam engine, generator, tank, J-11, cannon, aircraft carrier, atomic bomb, nuclear bomb...

"To make a Kar98k or an AK, I'd first need to produce bubble-free steel, seamless steel pipes, and the process of rifling? Ah, even in modern times, isn't this technology something not everyone can master?"

As for the Level 3 Helmet and Level 3 Vest, without providing qualified industrial machine tools, should I carve, mill, file, and plane them by hand? Do I need to hand-roll steel?"

"TNT, C4, grenades, nitric acid, nitroglycerin, picric acid... these need purification... I'd have to move the entire industrial system over here; otherwise, I can't make a damn thing..."

Li You pondered for a long while, then stared at the heavens with a look of utter despair and cursed, "Damn it, the only thing I know how to do is fold a paper airplane and blindly curse your ancestors... Besides becoming handsome, I'm just a useless waste!"