Chapter 4: A Sissy to Fight
They truly did attend a feast, although it was not a feast of delicious and rich fare. An enterprising establishnt near the docks offered neverending food for a cheap price. Called the Heavenly at Palace, it was not very well cleaned, and filled with sweaty sailors and drunken soldiers.
The food was simply prepared, but plentiful. There were skewers of suspicious-looking at served by the handful, boiled yellow beans, spicy prawns from the nearby river, and loads of flatbread. Most of the food was unseasoned, but Sun Mai was aware of that ahead of ti and purchased a pack of peppers and spices from a nearby vendor.
The restaurant also provided endless pots of cheap yellow wine, which Sun Mai began to down with a vengeance. When Sunan reminded him about what he had said just earlier that night about drinking, Sun Mai claid to have forgotten.
At one point, Sunan suddenly thought of sothing and asked, “How are we paying for this?”
Sun Mai stared at him for a mont. “Seriously? Did you forget? We’re rich! You won! Did you hear , you WON!?” He reached into his robe and then threw a purse down onto the table. It landed a clunk. “That’s an entire string of cash!”
Sunan nearly choked on a mouthful of grilled at. “A string of cash!? You an 1,000 spades?!”
Sun Mai grinned and drank another mouthful of yellow wine. “Like I said, we’re rich!”
“But I thought you said we would earn 250 spades?”
Sun Mai chuckled. “That was if you lost.”
“You expected to lose?!”
Sun Mai stuck his chin up. “Of course not. I was just prepared for the worst.” His eyes suddenly flickered, and he looked around. “Now tell , how did you do it? Was it...magic? Black magic? Most n of learning don’t believe in such things, but I’m no ordinary man. So... was it?”
Sunan guffawed. “Magic? Magic’s not even real! No, it was... I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Don’t know how to explain it?! What does that an? You knocked that buffoon a full 10 ters through the air! The physician said his arm was broken, plus three or four ribs, although that could have been from the fall. If it wasn’t magic, then what was it?”
Sunan frowned and picked up a pot of yellow wine. After taking a long swig, he said, “Sothing happened to out in the mountains....”
Sun Mai chuckled. “I guessed as much from your clothing, if you could even go so far as to call it clothing. More like rags, really. Dirty rags, or even--”
“Anyway,” interrupted Sunan, “when I was out in the mountains alone, I... I felt sothing. Sothing that’s part of nature, I think, but then... it beca a part of . It felt like an energy, or a wind of so sort, like air. It began to flow through my body, and then, it started to grow. Sohow I pushed that wind air energy into my hand, and... well you saw what happened.”
“Wind energy, huh?” Sun Mai cracked open a spicy prawn and devoured it. A distracted look suddenly appeared in his eyes. “Wind. Energy. Wind and energy. Windy energy. Energetic wind? Energetic windiness? Windy engergeticness? No, that’s not right. Hmmm. Qi. Classical Fei. Qi. Yes, that’s right.” His gaze suddenly turned sharp. “You know, not many people can read Classical Fei nowadays, let alone speak it. Were you aware that in ancient tis, people believed that the whole world was made of only five elents?
“Sounds funny, of course, because later that was proven wrong. However, in Classical Fei, the character for ‘air’ was the sa one they claid was one of the five elents, a type of energy that kept the world in motion. In Classical Fei, the pronunciation of that character is ‘qi.’ Wind air energy is a pretty cumberso term, so why not just call it Qi?”
“Chee?”
“Qi,” said Sun Mai, correcting his pronunciation slightly.
“Qi,” echoed Sunan. He nodded. “I like it.”
The conversation veered off into other directions after that, and the more yellow wine they consud, the stranger the conversation got. Eventually, the night transford into one long blur, much of which Sunan was later convinced was a hallucination.
The following morning, his pounding head was filled with images of himself and Sun Mai singing songs with a group of pretty girls with too much makeup, an argunt with a beggar over a lon, and sothing about a tiger.
It took hours to recover. When his head was finally clear and his stomach settled, he had a more serious discussion with Sun Mai about what had happened, and what they would do going forward.
With the seemingly vast fortune they had won, they rented a small room in an inn near the docks, not too far from the Heavenly at Palace, which was surely destined to beco one of their favorite destinations.
Sun Mai explained more to him about the underground platform duels. Everyone got paid, even the losers. However, the winners could earn exorbitant sums. According to Sun Mai, if he could win the next fight, they would get 1,500 spades, not just 1,000. And the numbers increased from there. Rumor had it that the top fighter, who went by the flashy nickna Golden Immortal, earned 50 strings of cash per fight, and never lost.
At Sun Mai’s urging, he began to spend most mornings ditating and practicing with his Qi. He also began to teach Sun Mai the ditation techniques from his village. Five days passed. On the morning of the sixth day, one day before the next underground platform tournant, Sun Mai finally made a breakthrough.
He let out a whoop of excitent and leaped to his feet.
“I did it! I felt it! The Qi! This is incredible! What do I do now?”
Sunan sat down cross-legged next to him and began to instruct him in the most basic ways of manipulating the Qi inside of the body.
That night, Sunan had a strange dream. He heard laughter, maniacal laughter. And then there was a black hurricane, whipping across the lands, flaying trees, sending n and soldiers flying about. He woke up in a cold sweat and couldn’t go back to sleep for nearly an hour.
The following day, after a morning spent ditating and circulating Qi, Sunan and Sun Mai went to the market to buy so new clothing. Sun Mai upgraded his scholar’s robes to silk, and Sunan purchased a tunic and trousers of sturdy hemp, sothing he felt more befitting to a rough-and-tumble duel.
Sun Mai tried to convince him to buy a jacket with a dragon embroidered on the back, but Sunan refused.
“But you’re Sunan the Dragon!” exclaid Sun Mai.
Sunan rely snorted and continued on through the market.
Later, as they ate an afternoon al, Sun Mai suddenly asked, “So, who was that girl?” He raised his eyebrow suggestively.
“Girl?” Sunan replied, confused.
“Co co, no need to be so shy. When I got up last night to talk to the moon, I saw a girl in your room last night. Gray robe? Pretty? Had a jian sword strapped to her back?”
Sunan stared for a mont. “Hold on, what did you just say? Talk to the moon?”
“Yeah, don’t you talk to the moon?”
Sunan shook his head. “Uh, no. Were you drinking again? There was no girl.”
Sun Mai gave a cold snort. “If you don’t want to admit it fine. She was pretty, though. You have my approval.”
Sunan shook his head and continued eating.
Later that night, they found themselves once again in the underground warehouse. Last ti they had co, people had paid no more attention to them than they would a pair of flies. This ti, eyes turned in their direction, and the buzz of conversation rose up in the room.
Rat-hearted Li appeared at their side. “Greetings, Young Masters. Young Dragon, are you ready for your fight?”
“Just Sunan. There’s no need for the ‘dragon’ part.”
“Er, very well, Young Master Sunan, please co with to the fighter’s corner. Young Master Sun, a table is waiting for you in the managers’ corner.”
There were other fighters sitting on the benches, who eyed Sunan coldly as he approached.
“Your performance last week was spectacular,” Rat-hearted Li said, the words pouring out of his mouth. “Chen Zhisheng is still bed-ridden! And from a single blow at that. Because of the stunning fashion with which you achieved victory, you moved much higher in the rankings. You will fight fourth, against Wang Li, the Killer of Daolu.”
“Killer?” said Sunan. “I thought it was forbidden to kill your opponent?”
“Of course it is, but you know... accidents can happen.” After leading Sunan to the benches, Rat-hearted Li limped off into the crowd. Sunan looked over at the champions’ corner, and saw a man wearing a golden robe. Presumably, he was the fad Golden Immortal, the reigning champion.
Before long the fights proceeded. This was Sunan’s first ti to truly watch people in organized combat. The first match was between a burly man who looked like a sailor, and a shorter but even stockier man who was obviously a soldier. Seeing them exchange blows, Sunan felt lucky that his opponent last ti had been Chen Zhisheng. The sailor and the soldier were clearly no strangers to a fight.
They’re definitely good, probably not good enough to be considered experts though, he thought.
As Sunan watched, he picked up on so of the things that the n were doing, such as where they placed their feet, how they delivered their blows. In many of the situations, he instantly saw how a failed blow could have connected, or how twisting in a slightly different way could have resulted in avoiding a strike.
The two n battered each other back and forth for three rounds before the sailor was finally knocked unconscious by a fist to the side of his jaw.
-Splurt-
As the man slamd face first onto the fighting platform, a glob of blood flew out of his mouth and narrowly missed Sunan.
Sunan swallowed hard.
The following fight was less dramatic, but longer. The two fighters were clearly experienced, and spent a lot of ti dancing around each other. Neither of them even landed a blow during the entire first round. About half way through the second round, soone suddenly sat down right next to Sunan.
Sunan looked over to see a skinny fellow with a long scar down the side of his cheek, and long, curled mustaches.
“Hey kid, you’re the one they call the Dragon, right?” he asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the fight.
Sunan nodded. “Yeah, that’s , but you can just call Sunan.”
“My boss is Iron Awl Hu, have you heard of him?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“He’s an important man in Daolu. We’re aware that you’re new in town, so you probably don’t know the lay of the land here. Let just spell it out for you. Iron Awl Hu runs things here. The constables, the soldiers, everyone answers to him. Got it?”
Sunan nodded.
“Good, you seem like a smart kid. Listen, the man you’re fighting tonight, Wang Li, he’s a friend of Iron Awl Hu’s nephew. I think it would in your best interests to just let him win the fight. Don’t make it seem obvious. Throw in a few good punches and kicks. But in the end, you go down and you stay down, understood?
“Since you’re in the fourth match, you would normally make 625 spades for losing. We’ll kick it up to 1,000. Not a bad deal right?” He finally turned to look at Sunan. “You hear , kid?”
Sunan clenched his jaw. “I hear you.”
“Good. Don’t let it go past two rounds.”
With that, the man stood up and wandered off into the crowd.
The current fight ended about then, and the third match started. However, Sunan couldn’t concentrate on what was happening on the platform. His mind was working furiously regarding the words spoken to him by the mustachioed man.
Finally, the mont arrived in which his na was called, but he still hadn’t formulated a plan. For so reason, he wished he could consult Sun Mai about. Although Sun Mai tended to ramble, and sotis incoherently at that, he often ended up making interesting points and profound statents.
As he hopped up onto the platform, he heard a few people cheering for himself, the Dragon, but most were obviously rooting for Wang Li, the so-called Killer of Dao Lu.
As Rat-hearted Li made the introductions, Sunan looked over his opponent. He was young and well-built, with cold eyes and a mouth twisted into a perpetual scowl. He actually did look like the type of person you would expect to be a killer.
The round began, and Wang Li instantly went on the offensive, albeit cautiously. Before he could get close, Sunan began to circulate his Qi, raising his hands defensively at the sa ti. He instantly could tell how vastly different this match was going to be compared to his first fight.
Wang Li was obviously a trained fighter, with experience to boot. However, with Qi flowing through him, Sunan didn’t find it very difficult to avoid the man’s blows. The few that connected didn’t cause him very much pain.
But then one particular jab caught him across the chin, sending him staggered to the left, stars dancing in his eyes.
-Whack!-
How did I let that through? he thought. I won’t let that happen again!
He shook his head to clear it, then sidestepped to avoid a followup blow.
After so more back and forth, the round ended. The entire ti, Sunan didn’t strike out a single ti.
When the second round started, Sunan still wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t like the idea of throwing the fight, but in the end, he would still make a lot of money. Sun Mai probably wouldn’t object. And it wouldn’t be a good idea to offend a powerful cri lord, which was what Iron Awl Hu seed to be.
Wang Li edged forward and began to look for an opening.
Fine, I’ll just throw the match. It doesn’t matter.
However, it was in the exact mont that Sunan was about to throw the fight that Wang Li spoke for the first ti.
“Hey little bitch, where did you learn to fight, so village sowhere? Who taught you, your mother? Or was it your sister? Tell where you co from so that I can go thank them for giving such a sissy to fight. Afterward, I’ll make sure to give them a real good ti!”
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