Following Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai tradition, the day before New Year’s Eve was Little New Year, when every household swept away dust to welcome the new. Red lanterns hung in the stone-gate neighborhoods.
Every family held reunion banquets while the streets lay deserted. Fine rain drizzled everywhere, making the ground slippery and wet.
Through the misty rain, a middle-aged scholar and a thin young woman walked side by side under an umbrella. The young woman wore thick cotton clothing with a high collar, highlighting her pale, palm-sized face. Her expression was tense, her small mouth pressed into a line.
A police station stood at the crossroads. The young woman stopped, arranged a smile on her face, stood on tiptoe to chat and laugh with the police inside, her small hand passing over a handful of silver dollars.
There were covered benches outside the police station. Lin Yuchan bent down to wipe the rainwater off a bench, smiling as she said: “Mr. Rong, please sit.”
Rong Hong was extremely agitated, looking toward the river repeatedly, saying eagerly: “I really can’t go?”
As a fake foreign devil who’d gone abroad as a child, Rong Hong held very romantic aspirations toward various “anti-government figures.” Lin Yuchan found this idea extremely dangerous.
“They won’t amount to anything significant. You needn’t bother getting to know them,” she said. “Wait for me here. If there’s no news after two hours, please report to the authorities.”
Only then did Rong Hong give up, pulling out an English book from his pocket and reading with relish under the police station’s kerosene lamp.
Gentle waves rolled on Suzhou Creek. Along the riverbank stood a row of closed warehouses and shops, among them a red “Yixing” lantern stood out.
Lin Yuchan stopped alone beneath that lantern, using Heaven and Earth Society passwords to call softly at the door.
The door opened immediately. A middle-aged clerk stuck his head out, looked left and right, then said with a face full of smiles: “Miss truly keeps her word. Please come in.”
“No need for the trouble.” The other party was a black shop—she’d be crazy to enter. “Let’s talk right here.”
The clerk was stunned, then laughed: “Little miss, don’t think too badly of us. The underworld has its own rules. We just want to earn some money. This is a foreign settlement with foreign police patrolling everywhere. What good would making a big incident do us? Right?”
Though not old, the man’s face already showed many dark, anxious spots, with rough skin sagging downward. Each time he smiled, those spots quivered along.
Lin Yuchan knew what this meant: opium addiction. At least ten years.
Her vigilance increased. She simply sat down on a street bench: “I want to see the hostage.”
The clerk’s gaze pointed toward the police station at the street corner, saying unhappily, “Miss is making things difficult for us.”
Nonsense—she needed to stay within the police’s line of sight for safety, otherwise her silver dollars would have been wasted.
The clerk had no choice but to remain deadlocked with her at the door.
Before long, Boss Chu came out personally, slapping the clerk with a “smack!” and shouting: “Stand back!”
The clerk felt extremely wronged, angrily but silently retreating to one side. He had been following procedures!
Boss Chu wore silk robes with a scented pouch hanging from his belt. His three eyebrows didn’t look out of place in the night—at first glance, he appeared to be a respectable national capitalist.
“Mrs. Su Lin, employed at customs as a widow working as an interpreter,” Boss Chu got straight to the point with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Young lady has quite a gimmick, getting cozy with foreign superiors. The title of Yangjingbang’s top socialite will probably change hands soon.”
Lin Yuchan gasped, involuntarily standing up.
“How do you know…”
Boss Chu laughed: “Shipping business hasn’t been very good lately.”
Lin Yuchan nodded. The Clean Gang had many members, many probably working at customs too. Perhaps among the crowd pressing noses against glass windows at that night’s ball were their people. Seeing her dance with a foreigner, they’d extrapolated from sleeveless dresses to adult content, then reported to their boss with embellishments, thinking it precious intelligence.
Anyway, she didn’t plan to renew her customs contract—this identity information was outdated. Gossip couldn’t hurt her either; at most, it would give Director Hede a headache.
She shrugged indifferently: “So?”
Boss Chu said frankly: “So, Miss, needn’t act like a startled bird. You’ve already spoken with the police station, Boss Rong from Boya is probably waiting around the corner, and you’ve likely reported today’s itinerary to your foreign superior, too, right? Miss has multiple escape routes—if anything happens to you today, how can I continue my business? Please come in. Your fellow townsman is inside. Forgive me for not bringing him out—he’s locked up.”
…Irrefutable.
The clerk opened the door for her.
But Boss Chu wasn’t exactly a gentleman either. He stood smiling at the doorway without moving aside, leaving only two feet of space, waiting for Lin Yuchan to squeeze past him.
She steeled herself and squeezed past Boss Chu’s chest, her thick cotton clothes getting compressed flat.
She looked around. The shipping office had ordinary commercial furnishings: a mahogany counter with a filthy ledger spread on top, behind it a wall with several rusty iron nails hanging wooden boards covered with timetables…
The adjacent room had a smaller chamber with greasy, smoke-stained walls. Several clerks sat around smoking opium, watching her through the doorway with ill intentions and smiles.
Lin Yuchan noticed some men’s queues had been grown recently—bald front scalps with shoulder-length braids behind, looking quite ridiculous.
Indeed, defectors from the Heaven and Earth Society.
Two of them looked somewhat familiar to Lin Yuchan—probably those who’d robbed Rong Hong’s clothes while mixed in with refugees.
There was also a young man in tattered clothes kneeling on the ground, unclear whether he owed debts or had offended someone. He remained silent, allowing opium ash to be dumped on his back, trembling intermittently.
Lin Yuchan felt nauseated by the opium smell, her stomach churning.
“Wait,” Boss Chu suddenly called out. “We don’t accept drafts or banknotes. Miss’s figure doesn’t look like she’s carrying two thousand taels of silver on her person.”
No wonder he’d deliberately squeezed her earlier. Lin Yuchan withdrew her gaze from that unfortunate young man, suppressing waves of nausea in her chest, and admitted frankly: “Of course not.”
Who would be foolish enough to pay in full without seeing the hostage? Even third-rate underworld dramas wouldn’t be performed this way.
Lin Yuchan smiled ingratiatingly and said obediently: “I’m not here to collect the person today, just to confirm whether the hostage is dead or alive.”
Boss Chu laughed heartily: “I misjudged you. Please return, miss, and have a good New Year.”
He completely didn’t buy her act.
Lin Yuchan made up her mind, throwing her shoulder bag onto the counter. In front of everyone in the room, she opened it, pushing aside the umbrella, hat, small makeup mirror, handful of copper coins inside… finally pulling out a silk purse.
Opening it revealed seventy silver dollars, equivalent to about fifty taels of silver.
With a clang, she dropped the purse on the counter.
“This silver counts as… well, earnest money. For all the big brothers to celebrate the New Year. I’m still gathering the rest.”
“Earnest money” was a scheme invented by unscrupulous real estate agents in later times. The well-traveled Boss Chu had never heard of it. He frowned, then examined this slender young woman by the oil lamp’s light.
Her clothing was new and tidy, not luxurious but appropriate. She wore no makeup, just carefully groomed eyebrows, appearing clean and neat.
She was also Rong Hong’s acquaintance. Based on Boss Chu’s years of experience reading people, she seemed like a middle-class family’s daughter who should be able to gather two thousand taels of silver.
Yet she didn’t seem like a wealthy family’s young lady, so she didn’t inspire his impulse to “detain her and extort another two thousand taels.”
After considering briefly, he nodded.
The middle-aged clerk opened a hidden door behind the counter.
Lin Yuchan gathered courage to enter, but Boss Chu said again: “Wait.”
He looked at her with ill intent, laughing: “What kind of people has the Guangdong Heaven and Earth Society been recruiting lately—young women who don’t understand rules. Body search.”
Lin Yuchan was startled and quickly said: “I didn’t bring anything… hey, don’t you have any women here?”
“Yes,” Boss Chu said shamelessly, “but I trust doing it myself more.”
“No, no, I’ll do it myself.” Lin Yuchan quickly removed her cotton coat, revealing a tight-fitting jacket underneath, then bent down and patted her trouser legs following airport security procedures, flinging her hands to show her sleeves were clean.
Boss Chu had originally wanted to take advantage, but unexpectedly, she acted boldly, leaving him disappointed.
Several clerks also perked up, craning their necks to look at her waist and legs unabashedly.
Then their drooling gazes fell on her feet—
The clerks looked at each other and laughed, commenting: “Half Guanyin—good to look at but useless.”
Then they continued smoking opium.
Boss Chu confirmed she couldn’t hide any large or small knives—by her appearance, she probably hadn’t practiced martial arts at all. No foreign guns either. Those things were bulky and awkward, protruding noticeably wherever they hung. Besides, how many women in all of China could use foreign guns?
He sneered: “Leave the bag. Please enter.”
Behind the hidden door, cold wind whistled through winding passages leading to a warehouse. Outside was a secret dock where a huge sand junk was moored alongside a row of small and medium-sized sailing boats. The vessels swayed up and down with the waves, arranged as orderly as a regiment of ghost soldiers.
One small boat had orange candlelight shining through its cabin windows. Hearing Boss Chu’s footsteps, someone inside yawned.
“We agreed that after hai hour is rest time. Whatever business, talk tomorrow!”
Lin Yuchan was delighted to hear that voice. No one else in the entire Clean Gang spoke this way.
Boss Chu glanced at her and ordered his clerk: “Escort the guest out.”
Lin Yuchan leaned forward and shouted: “Minguan! Long time no see!”
The boat fell silent.
Boss Chu grabbed her to drag her away. Lin Yuchan desperately pushed against him.
“Haven’t seen the person yet… you’re not following rules…”
Boss Chu sneered: “Didn’t you already hear the person’s alive? Want to meet? Bring more money!”
Fifty taels of silver for one Cantonese phrase—this was exploitation without leaving bones!
As Lin Yuchan struggled and cursed, she suddenly heard a clear, decisive shout from the sailing boat.
“Boss Chu, your boat is leaking.”
This was followed by thud-thud-thud sounds, like someone hammering the hull.
Boss Chu’s face darkened as he involuntarily released Lin Yuchan.
“You dare…”
Su Minguan’s voice was calm and amused.
“Oh my, it’s leaking even faster now.”
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.
Boss Chu was so angry his three eyebrows all trembled. After hesitating in dilemma briefly, he barked orders: “Bring him out!”
Simultaneously, he kicked a wooden plank onto the deck with his foot, saying to Lin Yuchan with a dark expression: “Get on.”
The sailing boat’s small cabin was locked. A clerk’s lackey opened the lock.
Compared to several weeks ago, Su Minguan had grown thinner, with sunken eye sockets, seemingly having had few good nights’ sleep. His short hair hadn’t been cut and had begun growing wildly with confident abandon. Facial stubble had sprouted, making him look more like a villain than the surrounding Clean Gang lackeys.
But strangely, despite such haggardness, he still maintained a steady aura, his gaze seeming to carry weight.
He looked deeply at Lin Yuchan and said, “Why did you come again?”
“Again?” Lin Yuchan didn’t react, somewhat puzzled. “They said you were locked up.”
The “locked up” she’d imagined was the kind with hands and feet bound in shackles. Otherwise, if it was just locking a cabin door, why not bring him to the entrance to meet, forcing her to come in?
Su Minguan already understood, beckoning her into the cabin.
“A’Mei, you believe whatever they say?” he said coldly. “Did they also make you prepare silver to ransom someone? What’s the asking price?”
Lin Yuchan was shocked: “Aren’t you…”
Seeing her bewildered expression, Su Minguan’s face softened somewhat as he turned around, hiding his features in shadow.
“But… you dared to come.”
Beside him was a messy roll of bedding and a rough ceramic bowl. Except for lacking handcuffs and shackles, it was really no different from a prison cell.
There were bells outside the cabin—if he made any unusual moves, they would ring clearly.
A group of lackeys monitored outside the door, the cabin completely exposed to view. Su Minguan acted as if no one was there, sitting cross-legged on the floor and inviting her to sit too.
She removed an outer garment, carefully spreading it on the damp ship planks before sitting down and wrapping her legs and feet.
“I didn’t expect Shanghai’s branch to have become like this,” Su Minguan said quietly and quickly. “I originally wanted to visit and get a boat ticket back to Guangdong, but unexpectedly they detained me…”
Lin Yuchan couldn’t help saying: “They said they’d turn you over to authorities for reward money!”
Su Minguan looked at her kindly, as if viewing a baby.
She immediately explained: “Better safe than sorry.”
He smiled almost imperceptibly: “Then it wouldn’t have dragged on this long.”
Lin Yuchan asked: “Then, what have you been doing this whole time?”
Su Minguan didn’t answer, instead looking at her with a smile: “I heard from Clean Gang brothers that you’re doing quite well with foreigners?”
Lin Yuchan: “You speak first.”
He hesitated briefly before saying simply: “I was forced to sign a ten-year indenture contract, doing hard labor daily—repairing boats, mending sails.”
It wasn’t that simple. On that Yixing sailing boat on the Huangpu River were some Clean Gang’s bottom-level boatmen and underlings. Suddenly seeing an “relative” from another province, they were indeed very enthusiastic, thinking him one of their kind. He had no time to investigate these people’s backgrounds. Upon reaching shore, he discovered Boss Chu waiting at the dock. After two sentences of conversation, he realized something was wrong. When he tried to turn around, Boss Chu gave an order and cast a net around him.
He still carried injuries that hadn’t fully healed. He could fight off four or five, but there were seven or eight more, until foreign settlement police were alerted and foreign guns pointed at his head.
Young Master Minguan, who dominated upper and lower Ninth Street in Guangzhou, had been outmaneuvered upon first arriving in Shanghai. He found it shameful and wouldn’t elaborate.
Fortunately, he’d retained some dim intuition, leaving his foreign gun with Lin Yuchan before entering the water, avoiding exposing Jin Lanhe’s identity. Otherwise, if Boss Chu knew he’d caught a big fish, he’d immediately turn him in to the authorities—the victory memorial should have reached Beijing by now.
Meanwhile, Boss Chu was utterly unscrupulous, using free labor while using him to swindle money, making the sucker Lin Yuchan gather silver for ransom—truly eating from two sources with no capital but infinite profit.
Lin Yuchan instinctively wanted to say: You can escape!
Boss Chu was smoking at the cabin entrance. At least five or six lackeys guarded the deck, occasionally coming close for a look, then chatting casually about how to extort businesses during the New Year, how to beat people most severely, which families had timid daughters they could molest…
Lin Yuchan dared not voice this, only anxiously shifting her legs and feet, desperately looking at the water waves outside, hoping he’d understand her meaning.
“Escape? Heh.” Su Minguan ignored her concealment, loudly expressing anger. “I still have injuries, one meal of spoiled rice daily, my legs are weak—where could I run?”
Then, in Lin Yuchan’s anxious, heated gaze, he added quietly.
“Moreover, they took my pendant,” he switched to thick dialect, speaking rapidly. “They probably want to sell it for money, but the jade lock has a chip, needs craftsmen to repair it, and temporarily can’t find buyers…”
Boss Chu immediately kicked the cabin door, irritably shouting: “Speak human language!”
Su Minguan spoke quickly: “…That was left to me by my mother.”
Lin Yuchan widened her eyes, mouthing: “For this, you won’t escape?”
She’d personally seen Boss Chu wearing that jade lock close to his body. With Su Minguan imprisoned at the dock, starving daily, even if he were a master thief, he’d have no chance to retrieve it.
He hesitated briefly, then nodded firmly.
With a crash, the cabin door was kicked open. Several lackeys called impatiently: “Alright, alright, this isn’t a teahouse—say a few words and finish! Little miss, come out! If you don’t come out, we’ll come in and grab you!”
Su Minguan gently pushed her back. In the cabin’s extremely dim light, his eyes were grayish, flashing with gratitude before returning to coldness.
“Thank you for coming,” he said hoarsely. “A word of advice—don’t be too kind to others in the future. Including me.”
He yawned and turned back to his rough bedding, suddenly stepping on the blanket’s edge. His footsteps faltered as his toes felt something unfamiliar.
Lin Yuchan suddenly turned around, spreading her arms wide to tightly embrace his waist from behind.
“Young Master Minguan, I can’t bear to part with you, sob sob sob… I’ll go back to gather money, any amount… I don’t want to leave you, sob sob sob…”
Su Minguan’s entire body suddenly stiffened. Through his back, clothing, he felt his body temperature spike, his heartbeat pounding rapidly. He forcefully pried at her hands wrapped around his waist, gritting his teeth: “Miss Lin, what are you doing…”
Lin Yuchan gripped his fingers tightly. Her nervous heartbeat made her voice somewhat distorted.
“There are several cotton balls under the blanket…” she sobbed while saying quietly, “Don’t move.”
The watching lackeys outside were delighted, loudly cheering: “Kiss! Kiss!”
This Miss Lin had come seeking them out herself—decent appearance, though unfortunately, big feet. But villains had diverse tastes, not as picky as respectable people. Under normal circumstances, they’d take full advantage. But she was also a source of two thousand taels of silver. Boss Chu’s meaning was to control their hands first, lest she get angry and seek death, wasting the huge ransom.
However, women who’d mixed with foreigners were indeed bold. She actively threw herself into others’ arms, her small chest rising and falling against his back—even the crudest theater troupes wouldn’t dare perform like this. The gang members on the boat watched the show transfixed, drool nearly dripping.
Lin Yuchan: “…Inside the cotton balls is your gun. Don’t disbelieve—I dismantled it. You’ll only see a pile of screws and wood when opened…”
A pile of scattered components, none wider than an inch, which she’d wrapped in cotton balls, bound tightly against her thighs, then gently removed. She’d practiced until proficient in the dormitory, making no sound.
Su Minguan clasped her hand, silently turning around to embrace her, pressing her small head against his chest.
His breathing was deep and rapid, heartbeat was unsteady. His clothing was hard and coarse, rubbing against her cheeks.
“Mm, I miss you too.” His chin rested against her forehead, stroking a tuft of her hair, thumb gently tracing her cheek, lingering tenderly for a moment before saying gently, “I’m very happy you came to see me.”
“…There are also ten bullets and a folding screwdriver. I had someone draw blueprints—you figure out how to assemble them. After the New Year, customs might conduct surprise inspections here. With the gun, you can take advantage of chaos to find your things and escape.”
She wasn’t completely confident either. Rong Hong had gotten an American pastor to teach her gun disassembly. After dismantling, even she couldn’t reassemble it. Had Young Master Su played with such professional guns as a child?
“Alright, this is my last good deed,” she suddenly felt her ears burning too, voice becoming finer. “This is all I can help you with. Don’t think about ransom money—I don’t even have lodging secured for next month…”
Su Minguan laughed quietly, hugging her forcefully once before saying loudly: “A’Mei, I can’t bear to part with you either. Go ask Aunt Hong, Uncle Cheng, Mr. Zhan, and them to lend some money, speak softly, and accumulate little by little. Though Boss Chu isn’t our kind of people, the underworld has its rules—he’ll keep his word.”
She nervously smiled, pushed him away, and fled from the cabin.