“Brother Mo, we’ve arrived.” Chou Yu called from outside the carriage.
Mo Zi closed the register and let out a long breath. From what was recorded, Shuniang and Xianniang had no suspicions—they had simply gone in to play and blow a few musical pieces. Moreover, Shuniang was from Luo Zhou and had been with Aunt Qin for two years, reportedly very dutiful. Xianniang had a livelier personality. When she entered Wangqiu Tower, she already played excellent flute. Usually she got along well with the other entertainers, was attentive to guests, and had a good reputation.
Perhaps the Metropolitan Guard had arrived too quickly and Wu Yanle hadn’t met with anyone yet. Perhaps she herself was being overly suspicious, frightened by that person’s deep scheming to the point of seeing danger everywhere.
Jumping down from the carriage, she saw bare mountain cliffs on both sides with a wooden barrier gate in between. Behind it was a narrow road winding inward—she could faintly hear shouting voices.
“Who would have thought this place, Hongyu Shipyard, would have such an imposing ‘one man guards the pass’ atmosphere.” Mo Zi looked at the four burly men, all muscular and fierce-looking, behind the wooden barrier.
“I wonder if they have a guilty conscience—it really seems like they don’t want anyone to enter.” Wei Qing squinted his eyes, trying hard to see inside.
This day, Mo Zi brought people and carriages to claim the thousand pine logs that Zeng Hai had lost to her in the wager. Originally she hadn’t wanted to come personally, but Min Song had reminded her that Zeng Hai was a petty person—she should be careful that in her absence he might pull some crooked scheme, having been unwilling to lose in the first place.
A thousand pine logs was no small number for Mo Zi. Once obtained, they could save a large sum in costs—enough to build two medium-sized ships for free. Therefore, Mo Zi not only came personally but brought Zan Jin and the three Chou Yu brothers, with Min Song and Wei Qing backing them up. Especially Min Song—to the unsuspecting Zeng Hai, he represented Risheng and Old Master Min, meaning they wouldn’t dare blatantly renege on the wood.
“Who are you people? What do you want?” One of the big men guarding the entrance glared at them with bulging eyes.
“We’re from Hongyu Shipyard. We sent a card to Boss Zeng—we’ve come today to collect a thousand pine logs.” Wei Qing stepped forward to speak, conveniently presenting Mo Zi’s name card.
That fierce-looking man was probably a minor boss. He glanced at Mo Zi’s card without accepting it. “I don’t read. What red fish, black fish—never heard of it. Scram quickly, don’t block the road. We have lumber being transported in soon.”
Hearing such words, Wei Qing wasn’t angered. Smiling, he produced an ingot of silver. “Brothers, convenience for others is convenience for oneself. This silver isn’t much—use it to buy drinks. Guarding under the hot sun isn’t easy—truly hard work. We know Boss Zeng is in the capital city. We contacted him beforehand. He told us to come find the head manager here. Please relay the message. If the head manager won’t see us, we’ll leave immediately and definitely won’t trouble you gentlemen.”
The four men’s eyes lit up. Although they could usually bully the shipyard workers, opportunities to receive benefits weren’t many. This ingot of silver was at least seven or eight taels—enough for half a month’s drinking money.
The minor boss beamed with joy. Accepting the silver, his smile became obsequious. “So the big boss sent you gentlemen—why didn’t you say so earlier? I’ll immediately send someone to call the manager. Please wait a moment, wait a moment.” Turning his head, he instructed them not to be negligent, called over a subordinate, and hurried inside.
Seeing this, Chou Yu curled his lip and whispered to Mo Zi, “Guard dogs gnawing bones—no more barking.”
Mo Zi smiled. “Money can make ghosts push millstones.”
Coming out today, she had deliberately arranged for Wei Qing to take the lead in order to test his abilities. It seemed he was indeed quite capable. After all, he came from the Luo Zhou Wei family. Although he was an unwelcome illegitimate son, he had still learned quite a bit in that environment, and Wei Qing’s mind was very nimble.
Min Song was also very intelligent, but not good at dealing with lower-class people—unconsciously displaying the full airs of a young master. Of course, as the legitimate grandson of the Min family main branch, he had the capital for such pride. However, if he encountered great winds and waves, who knew if he would have enough composure. In peaceful times it was fine, but if war erupted, countless people fell from heaven to the depths—their fates often more miserable than commoners.
“A Song.” Mo Zi hadn’t forgotten Old Master Min’s entrustment. “When Hongyu’s manager arrives, you’ll be the one to ask for the wood.”
Min Song wasn’t happy, but he had to listen to Mo Zi and reluctantly agreed.
Seeing this, Wei Qing showed his disapproving expression again. “Young Master A Song, you’d better not mess this up.”
Mo Zi’s eyes rolled, and smiling, she chimed in, “That’s right, A Song. Wei Qing just handled the smoothing over quite well—everyone was all smiles. Don’t let them all get offended when you open your mouth. If we don’t get the wood, I’ll come collect from your family.”
The person Min Song found most annoying at Hongyu was Wei Qing. Not a bit of real skill in his hands, yet his mouth could coax everyone in the entire shipyard to like him—hearing “A Qing, A Qing” everywhere. Being roughly the same age, everyone wasn’t as close to him, even Ding Ding and Niu Niu kept their distance. Now hearing Mo Zi praise Wei Qing again, he felt somewhat provoked.
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing but speaking human words to humans and ghost words to ghosts—what great skill is that?” Previously he had disdained doing such things—not that he couldn’t.
However, while each thought things were going well, reality was that the two men who went in to invite someone returned still just the two of them. Moreover, the ingratiating faces that had just accepted silver seemed somewhat vicious again, somewhat sinister. They moved the wooden barrier to the side, saying carriages couldn’t pass—only people could go through.
Among Mo Zi’s group, leaving aside other abilities, every one of them was audaciously bold. Leaving the driver outside, laughing and chatting, they walked inward, making those four gatekeepers stare at their backs for a long time.
Passing through the short gorge, everyone’s vision suddenly brightened.
The great river surface, flowing torrents—the opposite bank couldn’t be seen.
Hongyu Shipyard had no inner bay. The shipbuilding platforms were right on the shore, launching down the sandy beach into water. The platforms numbered one large, three medium, and four small—the scale obviously much smaller than Risheng, but equally busy with clanging sounds.
“There are many women and children.” Zan Jin found this very strange, because to this day at the shipyard he had only seen two women—Mo Zi and Aunt Ding.
When Zan Jin spoke, Mo Zi had also already noticed. There were at least thirty or forty women and half-grown children shuttling about, mostly doing heavy carrying work. Moreover, almost everyone wore tattered rags and had sallow, emaciated faces. Those whose hands and feet were slightly slower would be beaten and scolded by nearby overseers. The workers on the ship platforms were all men, but most had wooden expressions, a few looked grief-stricken and angry. Those wearing good clothes and pointing about on the side were probably higher-status shipwrights—either cold or arrogant. Looking more carefully, one could discover that aside from a row of about ten brick-built houses, Hongyu’s other structures were crooked thatched cottages about to collapse and tents with holes letting in wind—facilities extremely crude.
Min Song frowned. “I only heard that this person Zeng Hai loved taking small advantages. Who would have thought he actually uses women and children as cheap labor? Look at those overseers holding whips and sticks—treating them like convicts, not at all like hired workers.”
“Ah—I hate this kind of heartless rich person most!” Chou Yu bared his teeth. “Brother Mo, can we teach this Fat Zeng a lesson?”
“What’s difficult about teaching a lesson? What’s difficult is having a legitimate cause. We’ve only come to collect wood—how can we randomly meddle in this family’s affairs? As long as they haven’t violated Da Zhou’s laws and have black-and-white contracts with these workers, then it’s a case of one willing to hit and one willing to be hit—even the authorities can’t do anything about it.” Although Wei Qing spoke coldly, his complexion also didn’t look good.
Mo Zi had to admit Wei Qing’s words made great sense. She had come not to meddle in others’ idle business. Without a legitimate cause, acting on impulse would only invite trouble and couldn’t seek justice for these women and children. Therefore, she said to leave and immediately stopped looking further, walking toward the brick houses. The best houses were always occupied by those with power—applying this rule, Hongyu’s head manager should be there.
Outside the houses they were blocked again by several manager-looking people who arrogantly told Mo Zi’s group to wait, but after two quarters of an hour no one appeared.
Mo Zi coldly watched as Min Song asked twice and was given blank stares by Hongyu’s people. She thought: these people were accustomed to bullying the weak and fearing the strong—did they think she was as easy to bully as their workers?
Good. Now she had a legitimate cause.
“Zan Jin, Chou Yu, you two go in and invite that head manager out for me. Doesn’t matter if you don’t recognize him—see whose clothes are most expensive, whose room is biggest and best, who’s surrounded by the most people—that’ll be him. You can frighten him a bit, but don’t injure anyone. After all, we’re on someone else’s territory.” She didn’t want to provoke people, but people insisted on provoking her.
Zan Jin and Chou Yu most loved taking action. With two “hehe” sounds, they darted inside. Some servant who didn’t know better reached out to block them and was immediately flung several zhang away, howling in pain. This frightened several other fellows who had been wearing smug expressions—they shrank into corners with mournful faces, not daring to move again.
The sounds from inside were quite lively. At first someone shouted to grab weapons—a burst of crashing and clanging—then came wails and cries for mercy, shouting for heroes to spare them. Then Chou Yu loudly asked who was in charge here—several voices saying “him, him, him.” Mo Zi thought: good, finally someone’s coming out.
“Brother Mo, those overseers are coming with weapons—over twenty people.” Wei Qing’s voice was somewhat urgent. He felt the other side had superior numbers.
Mo Zi belonged to the rational troublemaking type. If this were at Risheng, even if they made her wait until evening, she wouldn’t send people to drag out the person in charge, because Risheng had strong cohesion—offend one person and you’d offended hundreds. But Hongyu was different. Over a hundred shipwrights plus women and children were all an oppressed group who were themselves dissatisfied with management. If anything happened, they’d only secretly applaud. As for the twenty or thirty thugs, with Zan Jin and the three Chou Yu brothers, she wasn’t worried at all.
Sure enough, as soon as Wei Qing finished speaking, Fei Xia and Shui She protected Mo Zi, displaying their weapons. Fei Xia had a pair of water-parting thorns, Shui She had a snake-shaped sword. Previously on shore the two didn’t carry weapons with them, but now following Mo Zi, discovering she had considerable trouble around her, they changed their habits.
These thugs Zeng Hai hired specialized in bullying timid, incompetent people—they fundamentally couldn’t face real experts in combat. After the first few who challenged Fei Xia and Shui She were kicked to the ground, the twenty-some people repeatedly retreated, not advancing another step.
“Aiyoyo, help!”
Chou Yu dragged someone out by the ear—that person begging for mercy.
“Brother Mo, Hongyu’s head manager is surnamed Wang. I’m guessing he ranks eighth—Wang Ba is him.” Chou Yu laughed heartily. With a forceful push, he sent Head Manager Wang sprawling to the ground.
Head Manager Wang fell to his knees on the ground. Raising his head to Mo Zi with a mournful face, “Manager Mo… Manager Mo, please have your people show mercy! This humble one knows his error and won’t dare make things difficult again.”
The big boss had instructed them not to easily give the wood. When the front gate reported that the other side only had seven people, he wanted to intimidate them. Who would have thought that the thugs usually kept would be completely useless at the critical moment—knocked down one punch per person, like swatting flies.
These people were too terrifying!