53 At the Spring Breeze Pavilion, Stood Good Old Chao Xiaoshu (1/2)
Chapter 53: At the Spring Breeze Pavilion, Stood Good Old Chao Xiaoshu
Translator: TransnEditor: Transn
Ning Que looked up at him and asked, ”Go kill someone then, and what's the point of standing here at my store anyway?
”I'm waiting for the rain to stop, while also waiting for a few people to arrive,” replied the man.
”The rain won't stop especially when one expects it to, and people won't normally arrive when you're waiting for them.” Ning Que acknowledged in goodwill.
”If people fail to arrive they'll certainly have a good reason for it,” said the middle-aged man with a smile, ”but can I please talk to you about something rather serious, rather than probing each other as if we were sadhus?”
”Now that's what I call a good attitude. I don't like going round and round either,” Ning Que smiled back and said, ”nor do I like speaking to someone who's standing up while I'm squatting, since there's a difference in height.”
”You can always stand up.”
”Why don't you crouch down?”
The man smiled again and crouched down without any hesitation, damping the threshold of Old Brush Pen Shop with his wet robe. He looked at Ning Que's young face and told him, ”I'm struggling.”
Ning Que continued eating his noodles, waiting to hear more.
”A lot of the bigwigs up there want me to take a side, but right now I can't take a side. That's why I'm being besieged. My brothers and I do an immaculate job, and it would be too much hassle for the government to inculpate me according to the law of Tang. That's why they have decided to kill me off tonight simply, and under the camouflage of the raining night, all my enemies from the south and north of the city are now speeding towards here.”
”What about the ones you're waiting for?”
”One of my brothers died a few days ago. The rest of them are mostly officially employed by the government. Those people up there can easily use any official excuse to keep them at the military base or at the yamen. As a result, I've got very few people with me tonight.”
The rain kept pouring down in the night, and it was getting worse. It looked like the people he was waiting for were not going to show, but the man didn't seem to care much about it, and talked about his situation calmly, without concealing anything. He smiled at Ning Que gently and went on to say, ”But all this isn't the a problem, my real problem tonight is that, I must have someone next to me, but I can't find that person.”
Looking at the sword he carried on his waist, Ning Que guessed that it might be a tiny sword. Then he asked, ”What kind of person do you need by your side?”
”Be quick, strong and brave enough to kill people without batting an eyelid, while never letting anything fall on me.”
”I suppose that 'anything' doesn't include the rain?”
”Certainly not.”
”That's not too tough then.”
”Why me?” asked Ning Que as he scratched his slightly wet hair.
The man glanced at his right hand and said, ”I heard about certain things, and even though the Shubi Lake wood chopper ain't so famous in Chang'an, I know very well what a young horse-gang killer is capable of doing.”
After a brief silence, Ning Que smiled and said, ”Why should I go with you? What do I get out of this?”
The man seemed to appreciate how straightforward the young lad was, and as he flicked off the rain from the umbrella, he said, ”No one in the Chang'an city knows about my last card. If I win tonight, I can show my hand, and then you'll know that I'm a great coattail that's truly worth riding on.”
”Tonight is already getting extremely dangerous, so why don't you show your last card first?”
”Because the last card ain't a card, but a person. I can't command him, but he can command me. He needs me to win the battle tonight, because he wants to make sure that the enemy hasn't got any hidden last cards.”
”Right, well I'm getting bored of this style of conversation. All I want to say is that you might be a nice coattail to ride, but this doesn't appeal to me much. If you know about the faraway Shubi Lake, then you must also know that I had my chance to ride on a seemingly delicate but one of the best coattails in Tang Empire, but I refused to take a ride.”
Ning Que was obviously referring to Lee Yu, the fourth Princess of Tang Dynasty. After saying this he was quiet again, and he placed his noodle bowl on the wet floor, and stayed shoulder to shoulder with the man to watch the rain falling. At that moment, he recalled a scene of a story that he liked, and he remembered what Zhuo Er asked him to do back in the little restaurant. He then made up his mind.
The man stayed quiet for a brief moment and said, ”Maybe... you prefer to set a price directly?”
Ning Que slapped the annoying rain and said without hesitation, ”500 taels of silver.”
The man frowned a little and suggested. ”That's too little, maybe a little more?”
In a rainy night, at the doorstep of the bookshop, the scenario of these two negotiating a deal looked particularly bizarre, especially when the employer obviously thought the fee was too low.
Ning Que looked at him and asked, ”How many people do you reckon I'd kill tonight?”
After giving it a little thought, the man said, ”At least five.”
Ning Que said, ”At the grassland, I might not even gather five taels of silver after killing five men from the horse gang. Therefore you may rest assured that, for 500 taels of silver I can fight with my dear life.”
”I don't need your life,” said the man kindly, ”and if it ever got so bad as to harm your life, you could always leave first.”