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There was a Mahuo Temple by the sandy lakeshore on the outskirts of the city, which seemed to belong to a “grassroots religion” that followed the Taoist teachings. The past few years had been rife with chaos and war, so these kinds of religions had sprung up everywhere. Candles and incense burned all night inside the temple, and beggars would gather outside in hopes of receiving the discarded tributes that had been tossed out. When Chen Pi arrived and found a place in the corner, the other beggars quickly got out of the way.

In regions that had docks, beggars would usually be able to acquire a big pot that they could cook some water and spices in for a few meals. Chen Pi found an earthen stove, took out a broken bowl, and boiled the crabs using the lake water. He then pulled a wooden board out from underneath the straw he was squatting on, as if it was his precious possession.

This was the window board he had stolen from the tailor shop on Dashengfu Street in Hankou. The back of the board had been painted red, and a few words had been written on it: one hundred coins, kill one person.

(In 1932 (1), Changsha suffered a fly disaster so terrible that they offered twenty coins for every twenty flies that were killed. In six days, six hundred thousand flies had been killed. He could also get a hundred coins if he killed a hundred flies, but Chen Pi found that killing a hundred flies was much more difficult than killing one person.)

He wiped the board as he chewed on the crab legs. When he was done eating, he took the board to the streets, avoiding Dashengfu Street as he looked for an alley to post up at. When he found one, he leaned the board against the wall and then squatted beside it.

He had been doing this for three days. There were many legends as to how this came about, and the most famous one in the future was related to Xi Xiucai, a man from a Japanese foreign firm.

It was said that Xi Xiucai was a very interesting man, who had seven fingers on his left hand. He was nicknamed Xi Qi (2), because the foreign firm had the character “Xi” in its name. But now that the firm was gone, Xi Xiucai—who had worked for the Japanese—didn’t have any new job prospects. Even his house had been taken over by the government. He set up a street stall some time ago, saying that he would write things for others in exchange for some coins. He also stayed close to the Mahuo Temple’s walls, but the beggars knew he had worked for the Japanese, so they beat him and broke his pens every day. He would always yell, which annoyed Chen Pi to no end. But the Mahuo Temple’s miaozhou (3) soon gave him a job of copying the names of those who lit incense at the temple.

Xi Xiucai had to hold his pen in a strange posture because of his seven fingers, which made his calligraphy very powerful. The miaozhou liked how the thin gold lines he wrote were very strange, and said that people with five fingers couldn’t do it.

“This can only be done by someone who has either seven fingers, or very long fingers; otherwise, even the great Zhang Yuzhao (4) wouldn’t be able to write it.” Xi Qi was often heard saying.

He would copy the names of those who lit incense every day and get ten coins for it. The temple was very popular, so his hands would swell up, but he finally had a bite to eat. Moreover, the beggars wouldn’t dare fight him, but they would still spit on him and curse him out whenever he passed by.

For some unknown reason, he suddenly started to take notice of Chen Pi. He would send him some leftovers, and even seemed to regard Chen Pi as his friend, coming over and trying to make small-talk with him.

Chen Pi obviously knew that Xi Qi was pretending to be familiar with him, since he had killed no less than four or five beggars after coming here. The beggars were split into two groups known as the “Sha Hulu” and the “Caisheng Zhege” (5), and they constantly fought over the Hanchang territory. They were far more vicious and cruel than ordinary people, and would be buried on the spot whenever they died. They were beggars, after all, so no one cared about them.

But when they came up against someone like Chen Pi, they couldn’t do anything. If you tried to kill him, he’d kill you, and if you spit on him, he’d kill you too. No matter whether it was day or night, if you messed with him, you’d definitely die. As result of this, everyone left him alone and didn’t even dare to look at him.

Xi Qi was a very observant person, so once he saw this, he knew he could get the better life he was craving. As a result, he pretended to be close to Chen Pi. Although Chen Pi was annoyed by it, it was too troublesome to find food by himself, so he played along. But Chen Pi also kept thinking that this Xi Qi wasn’t an ordinary person.

Chen Pi had seen a lot of people’s eyes, and knew what an ordinary person looked like. Even if someone were to dress luxuriously, Chen Pi would still be able to tell that they were an “ordinary person”. But Xi Qi wasn’t. Whatever he was thinking wasn’t on an ordinary level.

But Chen Pi didn’t have time to figure out what Xi Qi was thinking, because the seven-fingered man got the plague and died shortly thereafter. When he had died, he was still copying the names of those lighting incense.

Before he died, however, he told Chen Pi something.

As he lay dying on his bed, he used Chen Pi’s stolen board as a writing desk to keep copying the names. He hadn’t been able to ask a doctor for help before things took a turn for the worse, and now he was even more desperate. “When I used to write before, the Japanese would give ten silver dollars, while the Chinese only gave ten small coins. It’s obvious why I would work for the Japanese. But now that the Japanese are gone, the Chinese won’t even give me a coin for my words, and want to kill me. Back then, how many other people wanted to work for the Japanese? They’re not angry with me for working for the Japanese, they’re jealous of the silver dollars I earned.”

As he spoke, he sounded more and more resentful: “It’s not like those doctors haven’t treated the Japanese for silver dollars, right?”

Chen Pi asked him: “Are you angry with them?”

“Of course, I’m angry. I want to tear the flesh from their bones.” Xi Xiucai said viciously. He was no longer cautious around Chen Pi like he had been before, and Chen Pi knew that he wasn’t afraid of him anymore. There was no need to fear death when it was right around the corner.

“If you’re angry with them, why not kill them?” Chen Pi wondered aloud.

Xi Xiucai froze for a moment before suddenly bursting into laughter. He was laughing so hard that he ended up coughing violently. Once he recovered, he showed a grim expression that Chen Pi still vividly remembered, and said: “I learned one thing working in that foreign firm that we Chinese can’t compare with. Before ever doing anything in the firm, the Japanese would always ask: what’s the advantage? Has anything good ever come of killing people, Chen Pi? You’ve killed so many people, yet you’re still a beggar. It means you’ve killed all those people in vain. Killing them hasn’t done anything good for you at all.”

Chen Pi stared at Xi Xiucai for a while. He didn’t immediately understand, but he suddenly felt that he was on to something. Xi Qi slowly removed the yellow paper he had been working on and wrote on the board: one hundred coins, kill one person.

“These six words are for you. All the glory, splendor, wealth and rank you can ever hope to achieve in this life is on this board.”

Those were the last words Xi Qi ever said to Chen Pi.

<Extra 4.1> <Table of Contents><Extra 4.3>

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TN Notes

(1) It really said Ren Shen (9th year of the 60-year cycle) which was kind of/vaguely covered in Ch. 34 of Wu Xie’s Private Notes (TN note # 4 if you care enough to actually go look lol) but I found this cheat here so let’s hope it’s right.

(2) Xi (喜)= to be fond of/to like/to enjoy/to be happy. Qi (七)=7

(3) Acolyte in charge of incense in a temple

(4) Famous calligrapher. Lived from 1823-1894.

(5) “Sha Hulu”= Kill/Murder Gourds (I’m assuming they’re the ones that just hold out the bowl and beg for coins/food). “Caisheng Zhege”= Harvesting and cutting (like organs). It’s basically a special term for the most vicious professional beggars. They would artificially create cripples or “monsters” as a pretense to win the sympathy of the world, so as to obtain a lot of money from passers-by. They’d catch a normal living person like a young child, and use a knife, axe, or other method to turn them into a strangely shaped “monster”.

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