Author: 哔哔 (Bi Bi) / Jin Gang Quan

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 61

Huo Fenghua and Xiong’er sat side by side on the stone steps outside the clinic.

Huo Fenghua asked him, a little puzzled, “Since you’ve got such an amazing gift, how did you end up running a little roadside gambling table?”

Xiong’er glanced at him. “What else am I supposed to do?”

Huo Fenghua froze for a moment. He couldn’t think of much use for that ability besides playing fantan. He asked, “Why not open a big gambling house?”

Xiong’er spread his hands. “Where am I going to get the money to open a big gambling house? Just getting official permission costs silver, and I don’t have the money to grease palms up and down. How am I supposed to open one?”

Huo Fenghua frowned. “Opening a gambling house is that much trouble?”

“What did you think?” Xiong’er said. “How can a poor person open one?!”

Huo Fenghua thought quietly for a moment, then said, “Your brother’s fighting skills are pretty good too. By rights, the two of you shouldn’t be this poor.”

Xiong’er’s voice dropped. “My big brother is mute. A lot of places won’t hire him.”

“Mute?” Huo Fenghua was startled at first, then it clicked. “No wonder he didn’t say a word and just started swinging. So he can’t talk.”

Xiong’er said bitterly, “My brother’s talented at martial arts, and he can endure hardship. But he never got a good break, and he can’t speak, so he got buried here.”

Huo Fenghua grinned and patted his own chest. “I’m your good break.”

Xiong’er sized him up. “You? You look soft and weak. I really didn’t expect you to be that fierce.”

Huo Fenghua chuckled twice. “Never judge a person by their looks. Haven’t you heard that?”

Xiong’er asked, “What did you say your name was just now? Gaungtou Qiang?”

At the word “bald,” Huo Fenghua reflexively reached up to touch his hair. He nodded. “Yeah. I’m Guangtou Qiang.”

Xiong’er looked baffled. “But you’re not bald at all. Why are you called Gaungtou Qiang?”

“You don’t know,” Huo Fenghua said. “Before I turned seven, I didn’t grow any hair. And my name has the character Qiang in it, so my family called me Gaungtou Qiang. Then when I hit seven, my hair suddenly grew in, and later it even grew really well, but the nickname stuck.”

Xiong’er asked, confused, “There’s an illness where you don’t grow hair before seven?”

“Yep.” Huo Fenghua nodded seriously. “What weird illnesses don’t exist in this world? People just don’t see them often.”

Xiong’er asked, “Then you’ve got to have a surname, right?”

Huo Fenghua looked at him and let out a small laugh. “My surname’s Su. My original name was Su Qiang. Gaungtou Qiang is my nickname. You can call me Brother Qiang.”

“Brother Qiang?” Xiong’er looked skeptical. “How old are you?”

Huo Fenghua didn’t answer. He only asked, “How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” Xiong’er said.

“And your brother?” Huo Fenghua asked.

“My brother’s twenty-three,” Xiong’er replied.

Huo Fenghua nodded once. “Call me Brother Qiang. I’m twenty-four.”

Xiong’er couldn’t believe it. “Seriously? You don’t look twenty-four at all. At most you look eighteen or nineteen.”

Huo Fenghua patted his knee. “What did I just tell you? Never judge a person by their looks. I’d just said it and you already forgot. Being skeptical of people is a good thing, but refusing to believe anything you think is impossible, that’s being stubborn and self-righteous. Not good. Really not good.”

Xiong’er listened, a little stunned.

Later, the clinic was about to close. They wouldn’t let Xiongda stay overnight and told them to find a cart and take him home.

Huo Fenghua stood and tugged at the pack on his back. “No need for a cart. I’ll carry him back.”

Xiong’er had already seen Huo Fenghua carrying Xiongda all the way to the clinic, but he still asked worriedly, “Can you?”

Huo Fenghua said, “Of course. Trust Brother Qiang.”

He went to the bed, lifted Xiongda in a cradle carry, and had Xiong’er lead the way. The two of them left the clinic together.

The town was laid out in a neat square and wasn’t large. By evening, every household had closed their doors. Only the glow of oil lamps leaked from the windows.

Xiongda and Xiong’er lived in a broken-down house at the edge of town.

Halfway there, the moment Huo Fenghua was carrying Xiongda down the street, Xiongda suddenly woke up. He was still injured and could only jerk his head up in shock, not understanding what was happening, and lacking the strength to leap out of Huo Fenghua’s arms.

“Your brother’s awake,” Huo Fenghua called to Xiong’er ahead.

Xiong’er immediately turned back, leaned in close, and asked, “Brother? Are you okay?”

Xiongda tried to lift a hand to gesture, but the movement tugged at his ribs and sent a spike of pain through him. Cold sweat broke out on his pale face.

Huo Fenghua lowered his eyes to look at him. “Don’t move. We’ll talk when we get back.”

Xiong’er said too, “Brother, hang on. We’re almost home.”

He turned into a small alley, and they reached the brothers’ house.

Huo Fenghua laid Xiongda on the wooden bed inside, tugged over a ragged quilt to cover him, then couldn’t help lifting a hand to fan away the dust and looking around. “How does anyone live here?”

Xiong’er didn’t answer. He just squatted by the stove in one corner and started a fire, planning to boil hot water for his brother.

The whole house was a single room. One corner was the kitchen stove, and along the wall on the other side were two broken wooden beds. Huo Fenghua didn’t even know where he could sit.

Xiongda lay on the bed, eyes open, watching him.

Huo Fenghua told him, “Don’t stare at me, big brother. Your little brother cheated at gambling first. I only exposed him. And you were the one who hit me first. I just fought back.”

Xiongda coughed twice.

Xiong’er said while tending the fire, “Don’t say that stuff to my brother.”

Huo Fenghua circled the room once, then went over to Xiong’er and found a little stool to sit on. “You two clearly have skills. How did you end up like this?”

Xiong’er silently kept feeding the fire, the flames painting both their faces red.

Huo Fenghua said, “Don’t you want to get rich, kid?”

Xiong’er looked at him. “You don’t look like some wealthy bigshot either.”

When Huo Fenghua left the General’s Manor, he’d been dressed in plain cotton clothes and carried plain belongings so it would be easier to travel alone. Besides his face, nothing about him looked “rich.”

Of course, the fact that he could casually pull out that much broken silver meant he wasn’t poor either. But Xiong’er had only just met him. He wasn’t going to be persuaded by a couple words.

Huo Fenghua rested his forearms on his knees. “That’s why we make money together.”

Xiong’er asked, “How? Let’s hear it.”

Huo Fenghua didn’t answer right away. He stared at the fire and began thinking. If opening a gambling house required official permission like Xiong’er said, then it really would take a lot of silver to grease palms. The relationships would be tangled, and with his own shadowy status, maybe he shouldn’t head east after all.

Xiong’er didn’t urge him. He went outside, drew water from the well, and poured it into a pot to boil.

Huo Fenghua suddenly thought of Zhuyue City and Fengming Town. Zhuyue City was practically its own country. Fengming Town was on the eastern border of Donglin. It technically had an official government, but in name only. The real power there belonged to the old demon Zixi and his Yuzhen Sect. Now that Huo Fenghua had Zixi’s whole reservoir of power, he ought to find a place like Fengming Town—somewhere strength was what mattered.

With that thought, Huo Fenghua lifted his head to look for Xiong’er and found that Xiong’er was already sitting by the bed, feeding his brother water. Huo Fenghua hurried over and sat too, helping Xiong’er support Xiongda’s head as he asked, “Do you know anywhere the authorities can’t control, where everything depends on strength?”

The brothers both looked at him at the same time.

Xiong’er held the bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. He fell silent, glanced at Xiongda, then said to Huo Fenghua, “I know a place like that, but even if we go, we won’t be able to survive there. It’s a mess of all kinds of people. If you’re not careful, you can’t even keep your life. Better not to go.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Huo Fenghua said. “Just tell me, does a place like that exist?”

Xiong’er scooped up water and carefully brought it to Xiongda’s lips. After he swallowed, Xiong’er said, “At the junction of Donglin’s northwest, Xichou, and Beiyi, there’s a city built on a riverbank. It’s called Wuhetan.”

As he listened, Huo Fenghua used his sleeve to wipe the water from the corner of Xiongda’s mouth.

Xiong’er fed Xiongda another spoonful of hot water. “Wuhetan used to belong to Beiyi. More than twenty years ago, Beiyi lost a war to Xichou and ceded the land. Recently, Xichou was destroyed by Donglin. The Xichou officials in Wuhetan were dragged out of the government offices and killed by the locals. Donglin and Beiyi both still haven’t sent troops to reclaim it, so Wuhetan has become a true no-man’s-land. Whoever has the ability rules there.”

Huo Fenghua listened quietly and asked, “Is it prosperous?”

Xiong’er nodded. After he finished feeding Xiongda, he poured hot water into a wooden basin, dipped a cloth in it, and began wiping his brother down as he spoke. “Even though Wuhetan was ceded to Xichou over twenty years ago, it’s separated from Xichou by the Wu River. Xichou stationed troops on the other bank, not inside Wuhetan itself. It was lawless from the start, with all kinds of people mixed together. Lots of fugitives who’d killed people in the Central Plains went there to hide. Later, when Donglin attacked Xichou, even more people fled to Wuhetan. Now it’s truly flourishing. Every street has taverns and brothels, and gambling houses everywhere. But there are no rules. People kill in the street. If you kill someone, you won’t get beheaded. It’s chaos.”

Huo Fenghua asked, “Have you heard of Zhuyue City?”

“Of course,” Xiong’er said. “Why?”

Huo Fenghua smiled. “Let’s take Wuhetan and copy Zhuyue City—break away and become independent. We’ll make ourselves emperors. How about it?”

Xiong’er couldn’t help laughing. “Don’t joke.”

Huo Fenghua said, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, kid.” As he spoke, he saw Xiong’er loosen Xiongda’s robe to wipe him down. Xiongda’s upper body was strong and solid, his chest full. Huo Fenghua couldn’t help reaching out and giving it a squeeze.

Xiong’er immediately slapped his hand away, furious. “What are you doing?”

Huo Fenghua held the back of his slapped hand. “Just touching. What are you mad about?”

Xiong’er snapped, “Y-you—are you Tu’er ye*?!”

*While often related to the rabbit of Chang’e (Moon Goddess), in historical slang terms, it refers to someone who is gay (often derogatorily). He is also sometimes treated as the Rabbit God overseeing homosexuality.

Huo Fenghua froze, then quickly understood what Tu’er ye meant. His heart jumped as he thought, I might actually be… But of course he didn’t admit it aloud. He said, “What are you talking about? I’m feeling his chest to see if it’s solid enough to go with us to Wuhetan and conquer the world.”

Xiong’er reluctantly believed him, though his expression still held suspicion. He pointed at him. “Stay away from my brother!”

Huo Fenghua scooted from the bedside to sit on a small stool nearby.

And on the bed, Xiongda’s dark face was faintly flushing, turning into a deep brown-red.

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