A few days ago, I had just sent Xu Rang to get stitches; today, I was sending myself and Xu Dawei. Street fights and brawls weren't rare in this era.
The doctors at the town clinic were used to seeing strange things and didn't bat an eye.
My wound was shallow and didn't even need stitches; the bleeding had mostly stopped on the way there.
Xu Dawei, however, was too honest (shizai). His arm was sewn up with hundreds of stitches, leaving a dense, centipede-like scar that would stay with him for life.
It was precisely because of these scars that I went soft in 2002 and didn't handle him.
Some friends might say, "Are you guys mentally ill?"
"You run to a village, slice yourselves a few times, just to get them to release water? If you really had the strength, wouldn't it be better to just take men and rob them of it? Isn't this like farting while taking off your pants—completely unnecessary?"
This statement is correct, but also incorrect.
There used to be a saying in the Tianjin Municipality, right at the foot of the Imperial City. In the early years, if people walking the Jianghu had a conflict, both sides would gather their men (ma ren bai chang). But instead of fighting, the Big Brothers would compete to see who was more ruthless.
With both crews present, the Big Brothers would step out first. I might stab my thigh with a dagger; you might use a lighter to burn your earlobe.
Or if not that, I'd chop off a finger, and you'd slice off half an ear. It was all about seeing who was tougher.
Whoever chicken-ed out, whoever wasn't as ruthless as the opposing boss, would obediently roll away. In the future, when seeing people from the other side, they'd have to tuck their tails between their legs.
When I first heard about this, I couldn't help but suck my teeth (cuo ya hua zi). Thank goodness I was born in the Southwest and not in that municipality.
Mixing in society and walking the black path over there really consumes Big Brothers (fei da ge)! If a conflict arose, the Big Brother would truly be miserable.
Of course, as I said before, I never set foot in the Jianghu of the North in my life, so I don't know if those rumors were true.
What Xu Dawei and I did was simply to tell the people of the Chen Family Ancestral Village that we weren't pushovers (shan cha); we were men of society who ate by the knife.
If you asked us to forcibly rob a village's water, was it possible? Of course, it was.
I could have asked Chen Qiang for two guns, dropped two of the troublemakers in the village, and then no one would dare say "no."
But then, I would be sent to a public trial, waiting to eat a bullet. My mother would have to pay the five-yuan bullet fee to claim my corpse.
It wasn't worth it. For a fish farm, it really wasn't worth making such a scene. Mixing in society, mixing in society—the emphasis is on the word "mix" (hustle).
Those who commit arson and murder at the drop of a hat are violent bandits.
Xu Dawei's actions were just to tell the people of the Chen Family Ancestral Village that he was a ruthless man. If pushed too far, he would do anything, so it was best not to give him a hard time.
We had the means and determination to handle people, but not everything needed to be solved by handling people.
Just as I have emphasized repeatedly, a triad boss is a triad boss; a bandit is a bandit.
Xu Dawei rested his arm for two days, and the fish farm was mostly cleaned up.
Xu Rang was busy watching the slot machine parlors. Chen Qiang and Mustache Yang had been traveling between the county seat and Liuxiang Town recently, likely discussing the passenger station business with Xu Muye. There was also a guy named Zong Bao, whom I wasn't familiar with.
So, on the twelfth day of the twelfth lunar month, with heavy snow drifting down, it was just Xu Dawei and me going to the Chen Family Ancestral Village for the second time.
This time we drove a HiAce van and brought more than ten men.
Chen Xiang was from the Chen Family Ancestral Village. Previously, there was a water source from the village connected to the fish farm, providing live water.
Ever since we settled Chen Xiang's old man, that water source had been blocked.
The water in the fish farm had been drained clean; now we were just waiting for live water to come in to refill the pond.
Today, in this HiAce van, besides tools like hoes and shovels for clearing the water source, there were also a dozen machetes.
Xu Dawei's left arm hadn't healed yet, so he held a gleaming machete in his right hand, looking coldly at the people of the Chen Family Ancestral Village.
Today, his blade wouldn't be cutting his own hand. Cutting himself before was leaving room for negotiation, not wanting to make a huge scene.
Today, if anyone dared to make a squeak, they were looking to get handled.
I lit two cigarettes and handed one to Xu Dawei. Since he was holding a knife in his right hand, he could only dangle the cigarette from his mouth.
"Go, dig open that blocked water source. I, Xu Dawei, have mixed in Liuxiang Town for so many years. I don't believe there's anyone fearless enough to test if the blade in my hand is sharp or not."
I took a deep drag of my cigarette. Without a knife, I walked to the front to take a look.
The reservoir of the Chen Family Ancestral Village was built around several streams, storing the water from the creeks for daily use and for irrigating farmland during the planting season.
I spit the cigarette butt onto the ground and said softly, "Dig. I'm watching right here today. If anyone dares to block us, I want his life. Worst case scenario, I'll pay with my own life."
The Hunchback was right. After Liuzi fell, as the man who handled Liuzi's Head Horse, the Hunchback, I had become a man with face.
I was a "character"; people listened when I spoke.
With orders from Xu Dawei and me, the shovels and hoes sprang into action. The blocked water source was quickly cleared.
As the water from the reservoir flowed down toward the fish farm, I breathed a slight sigh of relief. As long as the fish farm was operational, I could build a big house next year.
I tried hard to pull the corners of my mouth into a kinder expression, then turned to the gathered villagers.
"I, Chu the Second, am not an unreasonable man. I said I am borrowing water from your Chen Family Ancestral Village, so I will pay it back."
"In the future, when the fish farm harvests, I, Chu the Second, will send fish to every household in the village. I'll give ten jin (5kg) for every person in your family."
Applying both kindness and severity (en wei bing shi)—this was something I learned from Chen Qiang.
People are cheap bones (jian gu tou). If you lay out the benefits from the start to entice someone to do something, they will feel the benefits are too small.
But if you force someone to do something, and then give them a little benefit afterward, they will be grateful to you.
This is the weakness of human nature.
Hearing that I would distribute fish to them in the future, a look of joy appeared on the faces of these villagers.
Xu Dawei and I took our men and left. It was the twelfth lunar month; everyone was preparing for the New Year. I couldn't just live at the fish farm.
I couldn't clap with one hand. Although I could find some little punks following Chen Qiang or Xu Rang to watch the fish farm for me, they were ultimately other people's men, not my own.
From the day I took over the fish farm, I had thoughts of recruiting my own little brothers.
These people couldn't follow Chen Qiang, nor could they follow Xu Rang; they could only follow me.
I had to be their only Big Brother.
The first person I thought of was Lin Changzai. He had saved my life in a muddled confusion, and I hadn't repaid him properly yet. He had also said before that he wanted to follow me.
So, I might as well use this opportunity to rescue him from the pickpocketing trade.
I borrowed seventy thousand yuan from Chen Qiang and built a few simple sheds next to the fish farm to settle Lin Changzai and the pickpockets under him.
Lin Changzai was extremely happy. If there was a choice, no one wanted to be a thief.
He was so excited he was incoherent, almost kneeling on the ground to pledge his loyalty to me.
I didn't mention that he had unintentionally saved my life.
"A liter of rice is a favor, a bushel creates an enemy" (sheng mi en, dou mi chou). I was afraid that if the favor was too big for me to repay, he would constantly bring up the fact that he saved my life.
My cold-bloodedness was already showing signs of emerging at this time.
I gave Lin Changzai thirty thousand yuan to get the fish farm running. As for how Lin Changzai ran the fish farm, I won't go into detail.
After all, I am writing about society and the Jianghu, not a history of entrepreneurship in the nineties.
Just when I thought everything was on the right track and I was ready to be the boss and collect money, an unexpected person disrupted all my plans.
It was the twenty-ninth of the twelfth lunar month. I was at home helping my mother prepare the New Year's Eve dinner.
Ever since I hardened my heart to mix in society, my mother rarely spoke to me. She often sat in the courtyard for the entire day.
It pained me to see this, so after dumping the fish farm on Lin Changzai, I wanted to spend more time with my mother.
On the night of the twenty-ninth, as I was burning paper money for the ancestors and preparing to light firecrackers, a boy of thirteen or fourteen rushed over from the entrance of the alley.
"Second Brother! Second Brother! It's bad! Something happened!"
My heart trembled. This kid was one of the little pickpockets Lin Changzai led. If he said something happened, it could only be the fish farm.
The fish farm was my lifeblood (minggenzi) right now!
Absolutely nothing could happen to it.