The sun climbed high overhead, and droplets of water dripped from the icicles beneath the eaves.

Seven or eight thick-necked, hard-faced men shoved aside the porters and peddlers blocking their way, swaggering toward Fan Changyu’s shop with an openly menacing air. The man at their head had a broad, square face and a short beard, his features fierce and intimidating. Yet when he walked, he limped noticeably.

It was none other than Master Jin, the gambling house’s chief thug—the same man who had repeatedly gone to Fan Changyu’s home to make trouble.

“I’d like to see which damn fool is bold enough to do business on this street without paying his respects to—”

The moment Master Jin spotted Fan Changyu standing outside her shop with her arms folded across her chest, the rest of his sentence died in his throat.

The few lackeys following behind him who had previously been beaten black and blue by Fan Changyu likewise went pale.

Even his one good leg began to ache faintly.

This married couple each had a nastier hand than the other. Would his other leg end up getting broken here today, too?

Several of the lackeys instinctively dragged their lame legs back half a step.

The butchers at the neighboring shops saw that their opponents had the advantage in numbers, while Fan Changyu was, after all, only a woman. They couldn’t help but worry for her. Only Butcher Guo across the street still wore a gleeful expression, clearly looking forward to seeing her get taught a lesson.

Master Jin managed to squeeze a fawning smile onto his face. “Fan-Fan Da Guniang? You’re the one who runs this shop?”

The onlookers were utterly dumbfounded at the sight.

This… wasn’t quite how things were supposed to go, was it?

Fan Changyu casually picked up the stick kept behind the door. At once, the gang of street ruffians looked terrified and hurriedly retreated in unison.

Master Jin, the man at their head, waved his hands frantically. “A misunderstanding! Fan Da Guniang, it’s really a misunderstanding! If we’d known you were the one who owned this shop, how could we ever have dared show you disrespect?”

您(nín) — A respectful form of “you,” used when addressing someone of higher status, age, or rank, or simply to show deference. To preserve this distinction in dialogue, I render 您 as an italicized you, while ordinary 你(nǐ) remains plain you.

Across the street, Butcher Guo’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. He could never have imagined that this gang of street ruffians would be so frightened of Fan Changyu.

Fan Changyu gave Master Jin a cold look and pointed the long stick in her hand toward the brick stove they had smashed outside her shop: “You did this?”

It was bitterly cold, yet a layer of cold sweat beaded across Master Jin’s forehead. He hastily wiped it away with his sleeve and hurried to explain, “We were only taking someone’s money to do a job. We’ll fix it for you! We’ll fix it!”

As he spoke, he quickly shot a look at the few lackeys behind him. One glance at the long stick in Fan Changyu’s hand was enough to scare them. They had no desire whatsoever to experience again the agony of being beaten until they spat out the scraps of food in their stomachs. Trembling with fear, they stepped forward to rebuild the stove.

Fan Changyu couldn’t help feeling somewhat taken aback. She had originally assumed these men really had come to collect protection money. She hadn’t expected there to be another story behind it.

She asked Master Jin outright, “Who sent you to make trouble at my shop?”

“Fan Da Guniang, this…” Master Jin looked troubled. They had been paid to do a job, after all, so they still had to keep their mouths shut.

Fan Changyu swung the long stick around with the back of her hand, bringing its tip straight to Master Jin’s throat. Before he could even react, he saw the stick aimed directly at his vital point. The cold sweat at his temples instantly gathered into beads and rolled down his face. Whatever professional code he had meant to uphold was forgotten in an instant. Stammering, he confessed, “I-It was… the owner of Wang Braised Delicacies Shop on the main street.”

Fan Changyu frowned slightly. She was a complete stranger to the proprietor of Wang Shop. Their two shops were several streets apart, and neither had any reason to interfere with the other’s business. Her braised-meat business had only been open for a few days,surely it hadn’t already grown enough to make the man go this far.

She immediately snapped, “Nonsense. I have no grudge against the proprietor of Wang Shop. What reason would he have to send you to smash up my shop?”

Master Jin hurriedly said, “I’m telling the truth! One of Wang Shop’s employees came to us himself yesterday, carrying the money.”

Fan Changyu’s brows drew together even more deeply. By then, the few lackeys had already rebuilt the stove, setting the bricks back in place with clay, and more and more people were gathering to watch. Thinking that, whatever the truth might be, she couldn’t afford to let it interfere with her business, she lowered the wooden stick.

Master Jin hadn’t even had time to catch his breath before Fan Changyu put him to work again.

“You. Get the fire going and warm the stove through first. The rest of you, go to the well at the end of the street and bring back a few buckets of water.”

Fan Changyu cooked the braised meat right outside the shop, so naturally she needed to keep a supply of water on hand. But this morning, she’d been so busy dealing with the smashed stove that she hadn’t yet had time to go to the well and draw any.

The better part of the morning had already been wasted. There was no way she could finish all these tasks herself, one by one, in the time she had left. Better to put these ready-made laborers who had cost her so much time to work.

The few lackeys had never imagined they would one day be ordered around like this. They stood there dumbfounded, but the moment Fan Changyu shot them a glance, they didn’t dare dawdle. They hurried off with their buckets to draw water.

Once the hooligans left, the passersby who had gathered around the Fan family shop to watch, having no idea what had actually happened, assumed the matter was settled and dispersed to get on with their own business.

Only the neighboring shopkeepers and residents were left practically gaping in disbelief. Seeing Fan Changyu casually order around this gang of good-for-nothing hooligans who made a living causing trouble, they looked at her as though she were some kind of freak.

Fan Changyu, however, didn’t think anything of it. She noticed that Master Jin was still standing right in front of her shop, scaring customers away, so she hurriedly drove him to the side.

“You. Go stand over there. Don’t block my door and drive away my customers. Once I’ve sold today’s meat, you’re coming with me to Wang Shop. I want an explanation from them. And if you’ve been feeding me any more bullshit…”

Her gaze swept over Master Jin’s other leg: “I’ll beat this leg lame too!”

Master Jin remembered the man’s sinister expression that day, and the vicious blow that had landed on his leg. A piercing pain shot through the leg that still hadn’t fully healed. His face went white, and he hurriedly shook his head: “I, Jin Laosan, may lie to anyone, but I’d never dare lie to Fan Da Guniang!”

金老三 (Jīn Lǎosān) — 老三 means “the third son”, and is a common informal way of referring to someone within a family or local community.

Seeing how frightened he was, Fan Changyu still wore a fierce expression, but inwardly she couldn’t help wondering just how badly that guy had beaten these men. All she’d done was threaten to cripple his other leg, and he’d already been scared half to death.

The few lackeys soon returned with the water. Afraid they might have slipped something into it, Fan Changyu gave them a ladle and made them each scoop up some water from their own buckets and take a drink before she was satisfied that it was safe to use for washing the pork she was going to braise.

As for the water that would actually go into the pot, there was still some left over from yesterday in the water jar inside her shop.

Once the large pot was set over the fire, the fragrant aroma of braised meat once again drifted down the entire street.

Those who had come to Fan Changyu’s shop yesterday and waited in a long line only to leave empty-handed had made a point of arriving early today. At last, they managed to buy some braised meat.

Most people, however, still didn’t dare approach the shop when they saw Master Jin and his gang crouching beside it with such miserable, long-suffering expressions.

Their faces were covered in thick layers of flesh, and even when they were looking utterly dejected, they still looked like a bunch of fierce, menacing thugs.

Fan Changyu noticed this too. Not wanting the group to scare away her customers, and with the first batch of freshly braised meat nearly sold out anyway, she bought six more pig heads and three buckets of offal from the neighboring butcher shops.

She handed each of the men a pig head and ordered them to pluck all the bristles off. She then had the remaining men wash the offal right under her watchful eye.

With their heads bent over their work, the men were soon too busy to frighten anyone. Naturally, the customers coming to buy meat could no longer see those fearsome faces of theirs.

Fan Changyu butchered and sliced braised meat for her customers while keeping an eye on the men at work. Whenever she caught one of them cutting corners or leaving something unclean, she would jab them with her stick.

“There’s still hair on that pig’s head! Rub the large intestines thoroughly with wood ash, wash them clean, then scrub them from end to end with rice straw!”

She was practically three times more of a bully than the bullies themselves.

The gang of street hooligans trembled in fear, privately cursing their rotten luck. How had they managed to get on this woman’s bad side again?

Fan Changyu, as though she could read their minds, glared at them and said, “You did something wrong, so you have to be punished. Otherwise, what are we supposed to do—treat the law as a joke?”

The whole group shrank like quails and nodded repeatedly in agreement.

Seeing that they were showing a suitably repentant attitude, Fan Changyu asked when she had a moment to spare, “Weren’t you working at the gambling house? How come I see you everywhere?”

At that, the group of hooligans looked somewhat sheepish.

Jin Laosan grumbled, “We don’t work at the gambling house anymore.”

Fan Changyu couldn’t help finding that strange. “Why not?”

One of the hooligans, holding a pig’s head in his arms, muttered gloomily, “We only went to the gambling house to work as hired thugs because we needed to make a living. This time, we took forever to collect that debt for the gambling house. They wouldn’t have been happy if we’d actually chopped off Fan Da’s hand and brought it back as proof. Besides, all these years we’ve been collecting debts, we’ve never actually crippled anyone or left them missing a limb. Then we got our legs beaten up… so the gambling house kicked us out…”

Fan Changyu frowned. “Weren’t you still going around the streets collecting protection money?”

Jin Laosan gave a dismissive sigh: “It’s not like the protection money we collect actually belongs to us. We’re only collecting it on someone else’s behalf.”

Seeing that Fan Changyu still didn’t seem to understand what he meant, he explained bluntly, “For us to go around openly demanding money from the shopkeepers, the authorities have to turn a blind eye. Someone higher up has to have our backs. If anything goes wrong, there has to be someone to clean up the mess for us. And naturally, most of the money we collect goes toward paying our respects to those government officials.”

Fan Changyu’s face darkened, and she remained silent for quite a while.

Jin Laosan hurriedly added, “But no one used to come around this street collecting protection money. Otherwise, if we’d known Fan Da Guniang’s shop was here, how would we ever have dared come.…”

A layer of fog seemed to settle over Fan Changyu’s heart. Suddenly, she asked, “When did they start collecting protection money on this street?”

Jin Laosan thought for a moment. “Just last month.”

Fan Changyu’s brows furrowed even deeper. Her parents had also been attacked and killed by bandits last month. Could the two things be connected?

But after making the connection for only a moment, she dismissed it herself. Her father had spent many years traveling the jianghu and possessed considerable martial skill. It hardly seemed possible that after living peacefully in Lin’an Town for more than a decade, he would suddenly become someone’s target and meet with disaster.

江湖 (jiānghú) — Literally “rivers and lakes,” jianghu refers to the loosely connected world outside the official government and social establishment, traditionally populated by wandering martial artists, swordsmen, bandits, martial-arts sects, and other figures living by their own codes. In historical/wuxia fiction, it can broadly mean the martial or underworld world, rather than simply “the countryside” or “society.”

Fan Changyu gathered her thoughts and, still wearing a fierce expression, said to Jin Laosan and the others, “You’re all grown men, you could be doing anything with your lives. Instead, you choose to make a living as street thugs and hoodlums!”

“We’ll change! We’ll change! We’ll be good men from now on!”

The whole group immediately trembled like quails with their heads tucked in the moment they saw her lose her temper.

Only then did Fan Changyu let the matter drop. With someone else handling all the rough and tiring work today, she actually had the rare luxury of taking things easy.

The reputation of Fan’s Braised Meat had already spread, and business was even better today than yesterday. Before noon, all the meat she had brought from home after braising, along with the fresh batch she had made today, had completely sold out. Even the braised eggs left in the shop were gone. She sent one of the hooligans to buy another basket of eggs, and more than half of those had already been sold as well.

Two braised eggs for just three wen was an extremely tempting price.

Fan Changyu did a rough calculation of the day’s takings. She had made more than four taels of silver!

The butchers running shops nearby naturally had their eyes on her business too, but seeing Jin Laosan and his gang bowing and scraping before her, none of them dared say more than a few sour words.

Fan Changyu was in an excellent mood after making a good profit. And now that she looked at Jin Laosan and the others, she found them considerably more pleasing to the eye. Since they had worked for her all morning and shown such a good attitude about admitting their mistakes, she even gave each of them a braised egg.

The little hooligans, who had been ordered around all morning until they were utterly wilted, were visibly stunned when they suddenly received a steaming-hot braised egg.

Fan Changyu continued glaring at them fiercely. “Finish eating, then come with me to Wang Shop. We’re going there to confront them!”

The little hooligans had spent the whole morning surrounded by the mouthwatering aroma of braised meat, and the greedy worms in their bellies had turned the heavens upside down. At that moment, they could hardly wait to swallow the eggshell along with the egg.

After finishing, the whole group was clearly reluctant to part with the taste. One of them cautiously asked, “Fan… Fan Da Guniang, could we come work at your shop in the future?”

Fan Changyu thought grimly that there was no way she could agree. Every one of them was built like an ox. If they all came to work at her shop, they’d eat her out of house and home!

吃穷了 — literally “eat [someone] into poverty”; meaning to eat so much that you bankrupt someone.

She flatly refused. “No.”

The little hooligans immediately fell silent again, drooping as they followed behind her toward Wang Shop. But with their fierce-looking faces, they somehow still didn’t manage to look particularly dejected.

Pedestrians along the street all hurried out of their way when they saw them. The whole procession looked for all the world like a female tyrant leading her gang of underlings off to pick a fight.

At a restaurant facing the street, the man in fine embroidered robes rose personally to pour a cup of tea for the man seated opposite him. Through the white steam curling upward, the woven patterns embroidered onto his wide sleeves became hazy and indistinct.

“The situation in Huizhou Prefecture has yet to stabilize. With Hóuyé lying low here, it would be inconvenient for your trusted men to come. But Zhao Mou is a businessman, and the Wei family’s hounds will have no reason to suspect me. If Houye is willing to place trust in me, Zhou Mou is ready to go through fire and water for you.”

侯爷 (hóuyé) — Literally “Marquis Lord,” 侯爷 is a respectful form of address for a man holding the rank of 侯 (hóu), Marquis. Hóuyé is not the title itself but the way others respectfully address someone of that rank.

某 (mǒu) — Mǒu literally means “a certain” or “some,” and is commonly attached to a surname or name when a person refers to themselves indirectly, as in 赵某 (Zhào mǒu), “a certain Zhao.” It has a somewhat formal, impersonal tone and is especially common in historical or official contexts.

The window lattice was half-open. The profile of the man seated opposite him was as fine as a jade carving, his features refined and elegant. His long fingers, the dark scabs of old wounds still visible upon them, tapped lightly against the tabletop. His manner was utterly casual, yet there was an oppressive sense of authority about him—a quiet air of authority that commanded fear without the slightest show of anger.

His long, narrow eyes were half-lidded as he gazed out the window, seemingly admiring the snow-covered street.

When the man in embroidered robes saw that he still gave no response, he followed his gaze out the window. Only then did he realize that the Marquis wasn’t looking at the snow at all, but at a young woman walking down the street with more than a dozen hooligans in tow.

The man in embroidered robes glanced at Xie Zheng again, a flicker of understanding passing through his eyes.

He smiled. “That must be the new wife Houye married, then?”

⟡ Aewoo’s Ramble ⟡

The title for this chapter is 恶霸本霸(Èbà běn bà). 恶霸 (Èbà) means a local bully or tyrant who throws his weight around (this is the same 霸(bà) used in the title of Chapter 11, 女霸, which I translated as She-Tyrant), while 本霸 (běn bà) essentially means “the very embodiment of a bully” or “a bully through and through.”