Loyal to a Fault Part 2

The women knew Yang Yan was the patient Zhu had saved, and the guards knew Physician Zhu for an honored guest who understood the rules, so they reckoned he meant no real harm. One warmhearted patron, though, stepped up to block Zhu and asked, "What's this boy to you? Why torment him so?"

"This one's a clan-killing seed," Zhu spat. "You want to meddle, you take him." And he shoved Yang Yan at the man. Hearing "clan-killing seed," the patron feared he'd bring trouble on himself and quickly stepped aside. Zhu said no more, dragging Yang Yan upstairs with great strides. With no spectacle left to watch, the crowd drifted off.

Zhu hauled Yang Yan back to the room, dumped him on the floor, and snarled, "Do you have any idea what you were doing?"

Yang Yan knew Zhu had saved him; he held no grudge, but he had nothing to say.

"Was that your enemy?" Zhu asked.

Yang Yan nodded, then looked up. "Do you know where they're staying?"

Zhu answered with a slap that knocked him flat.

A girl pushed the door open, carrying a towel and a set of undergarments. Yang Yan recognized her as the woman who'd climbed into his bed the night before; her name was Liu Yan. "I didn't call for you," Zhu said. "What are you here for?" Liu Yan went to Yang Yan. "You've only just healed—don't catch a chill." She began toweling him dry. He flinched at first, then let her finish.

After a while Yang Yan said, "Thank you, miss. I can do it myself," and reached for the towel. "Put your clothes on in a bit," Liu Yan said. "Physician Zhu is a good man. He isn't bullying you."

Yang Yan nodded.

Liu Yan stood and turned to Zhu. "He's only a child. Don't be hard on him."

"I'm saving him," Zhu said evenly.

She nodded. "I understand." She glanced back at Yang Yan once, shook her head, and left.

Zhu watched the boy dry his hair and change into clean clothes, then said, "Qunfang House is Beggars' Sect property. It's a good thing you didn't succeed. If you'd killed a man here, do you think the Beggars' Sect would let you walk away?"

"Tell me where they're staying."

Zhu shook his head. "When you've slept it off."

Yang Yan nodded and climbed into bed. Zhu was struck by how obedient he'd become, and oddly enough it left him feeling guilty. He put out the lamp and was on his way out when he heard Yang Yan say, "I'm sorry."

Zhu felt a small warmth. The stubborn calf had finally bowed his head.

......

The next day Yang Yan's face was swollen high. Zhu applied medicine to bring the swelling down and pressed him about the fit the night before. Yang Yan said he didn't know what had happened. Zhu took his pulse and could find nothing amiss, which puzzled him. "I can't diagnose this hidden ailment of yours," he said, "but you'll need to be careful of it from now on. I'm going out. I'll be back this afternoon."

Yang Yan only nodded, asking nothing. That stirred Zhu's curiosity. "You're not going to ask where I'm going?"

"I know," Yang Yan said. "You're going to tend their wounds."

"Nothing else to say?"

"I've thought it through." He looked out the door. "Revenge is my business. You're a physician. Saving people is yours."

"I'm not old Sun," Zhu said. "I don't hold the healer's trade in such high regard. But you've got one thing right—revenge is your business, not mine."

He shouldered his medicine bag and reminded him, "Don't follow me." Then he left Qunfang House.

Along the way Zhu glanced back from time to time and confirmed that Yang Yan really wasn't trailing him. He found Shi Jiu and his companion, spun them some nonsense to smooth things over, and changed Wu Huan's dressing. By midday he returned to Qunfang House. Yang Yan was still sitting on the bed, exactly where he'd been. Zhu greeted him, set down his bag, and asked, "So well-behaved. What are you thinking about?"

"About how much your slaps hurt," Yang Yan said.

"Holding it against me?"

"Taking it to heart."

Zhu nodded. "Not bad. You can learn a lesson." After a moment he added, "Come with me."

Yang Yan knew Zhu loved to keep his cards hidden and that asking would get him nowhere, so he followed him to the largest room in Qunfang House. Zhu knocked. "Is Madam Seven in?"

A coquettish voice came from within, laughing. "Physician Zhu honors us? Come in."

Zhu pushed the door open. The room, Yang Yan saw, was spacious and, compared with the others, less gaudy—only a writing desk, a few chairs, and a square table. Nothing remarkable, yet it had a plain, tasteful air.

Madam Seven looked to be a little past forty. Yang Yan had heard she was the madam of this brothel but had never laid eyes on her. Seeing her now, he found her makeup laid on thick; he could read in her face both the charm she'd once had and the hard weather she'd lived through. She sat at the square table cracking melon seeds, two large bowls before her—one heaped with seeds, the other full of nothing but husks.

Zhu led Yang Yan in and dropped into the chair across from her, grinning. "Strange. A few days out of my sight and Madam Seven's grown years younger."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Spare me. No good wind blows hard enough to move a great bodhisattva like you. Honey on your lips means you're after something sweet." She glanced at Yang Yan. "This the boy who made the scene last night? My, handsome enough—pity about the spoiled face. Physician Zhu, there goes your miracle-worker's reputation."

"I'm the one who wouldn't let him treat it," Yang Yan said.

"And he knows gratitude too? Come here, let Madam Seven hold you. There, there." She talked and cracked seeds at once, as though making a meal of them. Eyeing the husk bowl, near eighty percent full, Yang Yan thought, 'Even if it's only seeds, that's a bellyful—and isn't she afraid of the salt?'

"The boy caused some trouble last night," Zhu said. "He's come to make his apology."

"Apologize how?"

"You said yesterday a new girl wouldn't take to the trade, and she's been a headache for you?"

"I meant to have you coax her round, and got a tongue-lashing for my pains." She turned to him. "Take a look—is that needle still stuck in my skull?"

"A joke, and Madam Seven took it for earnest? Tell me, what's the girl's story?"

"What story would it be? A chaste, fierce daughter saddled with a gambling father. He owes the Fugui House twenty taels, so he sold the girl. Now she's threatening to hang herself with a rope, dash her head against the wall—kowtowing and begging by turns. Walk down the street and you'll hear the same tale eight or ten times over."

Anger rose in Yang Yan at the words. 'What a vicious father,' he thought, 'selling his own daughter to a place like this over twenty taels of silver.' Doted on by his parents from boyhood and friendless, he prized family ties above all, and a real sympathy stirred in him for the girl.

"By that account," Zhu said, "if she won't yield, the only place left to go is her father?"

"If I weren't short on fresh girls, I wouldn't bother wearing myself out on her—the usual thing is to return the goods and refund the money."

Zhu drew a silver note from his robe. "Here's twenty taels. I'll buy her out."

Madam Seven needled him. "A living bodhisattva! There are sixty-odd girls in Qunfang House. Buy them all out and, top and tail, I'll let you have the lot for an even three thousand. Buy me out too, and I'll throw myself in for free."

Zhu laughed. "Not one girl in all of Qunfang House can match Madam Seven for sharp wits and a steady hand—beautiful and worldly-wise besides. Three thousand for you alone would be a bargain. The other girls would be the free throw-in."

"Such a smooth tongue. Give it up—you're building a bridge over bean curd. Wasted effort."

"Well? Do we have a deal?"

"Her father sold the girl for fifty."

"That's not my concern," Zhu said. "You took twenty. Go collect the other thirty from her father."

Madam Seven said nothing, cracking her seeds, seeming to weigh it. After a moment: "All right." And she tucked the note away.

"If the girl won't go," Zhu said, "you give it back to me."

She laughed. "If she won't go, I'll knock off another two taels of plain silver as a thank-you."

Zhu laughed aloud. "We'll see about that. Where is she?"

Madam Seven sent a guard to lead Zhu and Yang Yan to the girl. Yang Yan was mystified. 'Physician Zhu means to buy the girl's freedom,' he thought. 'Why bring me along?'

They came to the rear courtyard, where the guards and hired muscle lodged. A dozen or so brawny men were drilling their forms; here and there clusters of three or five, or a dozen, hunched together shouting over dice. Only now did Yang Yan grasp how many guards Qunfang House kept.

"When we're in there, I'll do the talking," Zhu said. "Don't open your mouth." Yang Yan nodded, baffled at what Zhu was up to.

Zhu had a guard unlock the door. Hearing the sound, the girl inside shrank into a corner and shouted, "You dog-bred bastards, keep your filthy hands off me! Out, all of you—I'll die before I agree! Push me and I'll die right here, and haunt you every night till you've no peace, man nor beast!"

Yang Yan saw the girl in a patched, threadbare shirt. She was passably pretty, but her mouth was coarse and her manner without grace—a farm girl, most likely, raised by a gambling father who'd never bothered to teach her. She was huddled in the corner, plainly frightened, a raw swollen welt on her brow where the blood had broken—the mark of her failed attempt to brain herself against the wall. Thinking of her plight, Yang Yan felt a pang of sympathy and was about to speak, but Zhu cleared his throat, and remembering his instructions, he held his tongue.

"It's not hard to leave, if that's what you want," Zhu said. "Behave yourself. Come here and let me see to that wound."

The girl looked at him in confusion. "You're letting me go?"

"Come here first. Leave it any longer and it'll scar."

She hesitated. "You're a physician?"

Zhu said impatiently, "Enough. Come over now or I'm leaving, and when you regret it later, don't expect me to care."

Yang Yan put in, "Don't be afraid, miss. Physician Zhu means you no harm." Zhu shot him a glare, and he shut his mouth.

The girl wavered, wavered again, then crept timidly forward. "Sit," Zhu said. "Don't stand." He sat on the floor, and Yang Yan sat too, the three of them forming a triangle. Zhu took out a salve and applied it to her wound. "What's your name?"

"Zhaodi," the girl said—'Beckon-a-Brother.'

"And did one come?"

"A brother. Just turned twelve this year."

Zhu nodded. "Is he good?"

"No. He's always making me angry. I beat him often enough."

Yang Yan thought of his own sister, and his heart tightened. He nearly spoke, then held back.

Zhu smiled. "That brother must hate you to death."

Zhaodi snorted. "He hasn't the nerve."

"There." Zhu finished and put the salve away. "You know how you came to be here?"

Her eyes reddened, and she said angrily, "That's my father's debt. It's got nothing to do with me!"

"That's right. It's got nothing to do with you. I'm not here to talk you round—you may go." He pointed at the door.

Zhaodi was astonished. She looked at the door, then at Zhu, half rose, then thought better of it—surely it couldn't be so simple. "Don't trick me," she said warily. "Nothing comes this cheap."

"I tell you to go and you won't?" Zhu said, puzzled. "What now?"

"What about the money my father owes?"

"That's your father's debt. It's nothing to do with you. The Fugui House will go after him for it themselves."

"I can do needlework. I'll pay it off bit by bit. Just tell them—not to lean on my father."

"Girl," Zhu said, "there's no such kindness in this world. Does your father still have land?"

She shook her head. "Sold long ago. He tenants Master Zhu's fields now."

"Can you make him give up gambling?"

She thought, then dropped her head.

"Go home," Zhu said, "and when your father can't pay, he'll sell you again. Qunfang House won't take you, so the least they'll do is break both his legs—and that buys nothing; the debt still stands."

Zhaodi gritted her teeth. "Physician, help me think of something! Or—front me the money. I'll pay you back, three years, five, ten if I have to!"

"All right, I front you the money," Zhu said. "Once this trouble's past, will your father quit gambling?"

Yang Yan saw Zhaodi didn't dare answer, and thought, 'This is the thing pulled two ways. But how is it to be solved?' Try as he might, he could think of no way out either.

Zhu went on. "Gambling till he's sold his fields and his daughter—that's a terminal sickness. Cut off his hands and feet and he'll crawl to the tables. Keep you here as a whore, and he'll gamble until you can never buy your freedom. Today you give him ten taels; tomorrow he loses twenty. It's a bottomless pit."

Zhaodi knew her father's ways and knew Zhu spoke true. What she should do now, she hadn't the faintest idea.

"Charging in blind like this," Zhu said, "just refusing the trade, solves nothing. I've a few ideas—whether you'll hear them, I don't know."

She asked at once, "What ideas?"

"One. You leave here and head north until you reach Wudang territory, and there you put down roots. You do needlework, you're not ill-looking—find a decent family and marry. As for that gambling father of yours and your hateful little brother, from then on they're nothing to do with you."

The words startled Yang Yan; he stared at Zhu. 'Abandon her own father and brother? What kind of rotten idea is that?'

"This way," Zhu said, "at least one of your family is saved. Otherwise you all go down together."

"Are there other ways?" Zhaodi asked.

"Marry a man of means and have him keep watch on your father—shut him up at home, never let him out."

"Physician... you..."

"Don't go getting ideas about me!" Zhu snapped.

Zhaodi wept. "There's only a few days. Where would I find such a man? Is there nothing else?"

"Reckon up what you're worth, go to the Fugui House, and stake yourself at the tables. Win, and your father's debt is cleared. However much he loses after that, you win it back the same way."

"My father's misery isn't enough—now I'm to be a gambler too? Is there nothing else?"

"Plenty," Zhu said, "if you can think of it. And if you can't think it through and just go charging ahead, don't dream of walking out that door." He pointed at it. "Even if you did walk out, you'd roll right back in with the interest piled on."

Zhaodi looked at the door, wavering.

Zhu stood. "If you mean to sell yourself for your father's debt and play the dutiful daughter, dragging yourself down with him—that's your own choice, freely made, so don't curse heaven and blame fate. I won't shut this door. Stay or go as you decide for yourself. Stop sulking, think it through clearly, then speak."

With that he walked out. Yang Yan looked at Zhaodi, then quietly followed.

In the courtyard Yang Yan said, "I understand now."

"Understand what?"

"You weren't talking to that girl. You were talking to me."

Zhu grunted. "How so?"

"Forget the enemies entirely, find a safe place to settle—at least then I'd be alive."

"I told you, revenge is your business. I never said any such thing."

"If I want vengeance, I have to find a way that leaves no aftermath. I'm just like Zhaodi—no money, neck-deep in debt, wanting only to charge in blind. And in the end I'd come back with the interest added on."

"You've a head for this after all," Zhu said.

"It's always easier to see it in someone else. When it's your own life, no one finds it easy to let go."

Zhu laughed out loud. "You, coming out with something so shrewd—remarkable. Truly remarkable."

"If Zhaodi just walks off like that, won't you be out twenty taels for nothing?"

"If she goes, twenty taels to save a life is worth it. I promised my master I'd practice medicine three years to lay up merit." He spread his hands. "Besides, the money was swindled anyway."

"And if she won't go?" Yang Yan said, watching him closely.

Zhu took his meaning. "Then it's down to whether she's thought it through. If she has, I've saved myself twenty taels of silver." He went on, "Another two days, once Master Zhu's concubine is cured, I'll be leaving Fuzhou."

Yang Yan was startled. "So soon?"

"Stay too long in one place and there's no coin left to earn. The wounds on your face are nearly healed anyway. Nothing to keep me here."

"Mm," Yang Yan said.

......

Two days later Zhu Menshang did indeed pack his things to leave. Yang Yan had been lodging on his account; once Zhu was gone, he couldn't stay on at Qunfang House either, so he packed as well.

Before they left, Yang Yan saw Zhaodi—painted and powdered, waiting on a patron.

She had stayed after all.

Zhu stood in the doorway, lost in thought. Yang Yan came up and greeted him.

Zhu spread his hands. "The two-way binds of this world are binds precisely because there's no way to satisfy both sides. Everyone has their own portion of fate. Choose, and don't look back on the choosing—that's all there is to it."

"Maybe she found a way to save them both," Yang Yan said. "Maybe today's shame buys her whole family's rescue."

"You believe that?"

"Why don't you ask her?"

"Let it go. There's only so much a man can take charge of." He waved the silver note. "At least I've saved twenty taels of silver—and two taels of interest rolled back besides."

"If it were me," Yang Yan said, "I'd repay you two hundred. Two thousand."

Zhu laughed. "A wretch like you?"

"In my next life, then—with interest."

"Forget it. Anyone who promises the next life is lying."

"Anything else to tell me?" Yang Yan asked.

"I used Master Zhu's money to set up a small clinic for old Sun. If you see him, say it was your gift."

Yang Yan was surprised. "Why not say it came from you?"

"He looks down on me—I can't be bothered arguing. Though with that second-rate doctoring of his, let's just hope he doesn't kill anyone."

Yang Yan smiled. "You really are a strange one."

"That's only because you haven't met enough people."

"Will you tell me now where my enemies are?"

"They left last night. All I know is one's called Shi Jiu, and the other—the one with no manhood—is Wu Huan. Both Huashan Sect."

"Just the two of them?"

"Just two."

"Which way did they go?"

"No idea. They talked around it. Looks like they've got some larger business to handle in Beggars' Sect territory."

Yang Yan thought it over but could make nothing of it. Seeing him hesitate, Zhu held out the sword. "Your blade."

Yang Yan shook his head and wouldn't take it. "This sword doesn't sit right in my hand. My skills are slight—for revenge I'd do better with a short dagger."

Zhu smiled. "You really have thought it through. Where to next?"

"As you said—to the Beggars' Sect, to have a look. I need to know my enemies clearly before I can work out how to deal with them."

Zhu considered, then said, "Two more things you should hear. I can't find the cause of your falling sickness—it may be a trouble of the mind. If I think of a remedy, I'll come and pull the root of it out for you."

Yang Yan nodded. "I know."

"The second is the more pressing. Don't hide it from me. Your eyes?"

Yang Yan was silent a while, then said quietly, "Everything I see is red."

"There's an injury in your eyes—blood congested behind them, the surrounding vessels damaged. Old Sun must have seen it too. Your eyes will go blind—ten years at the soonest, twenty at the latest."

Yang Yan started, then said evenly, "Twenty years? No telling if that's enough..."

There was no comforting that. Zhu could only say, "Well, then. We part here. Take care of yourself." He waved a hand and made to go.

Yang Yan watched him, then suddenly bent in a deep bow. Zhu laughed. "Thanking me and you won't even kneel? Just that one little bow—stingy as they come."

"I lied about the next life," Yang Yan said. "I owe you my life, and I'll repay you in this one—tenfold, a hundredfold."

Zhu laughed aloud. "If you ever come by that kind of power, I'll take it."

One went east, the other west, and so they parted.

Zhu Menshang gave the boy's words no weight at the time. He never imagined that, many years later, Yang Yan would make good on his promise—repaying him with ten lives, a hundred lives, a thousand lives, and more still, more than he could count.