Chapter Eleven: The Young Matriarch of the Zhao Family

The sudden cry from outside the gate that someone had died was enough to make both Hongye and me unable to sit still any longer.

One person had already died in the courtyard. If that shout from beyond the wall were real as well, then heaven knew what else might happen. No matter who died, it was no good.

I had no time to think it through. I pulled Hongye with me and rushed out.

But just as Hongye and I had barely stepped down from the mourning hall, she suddenly called me back in a soft voice.

"Old Tian." Xian Hongye blinked at me and said, "That kick you used to break the fraud's leg just now... that was so cool. Really."

Those words made me feel wonderfully pleased.

Embarrassed, I laughed it off, masking my unease, and ran out with her.

Soon, the two of us rounded the bend at the entrance of the Zhao Family Lane and reached the scene.

There, everything was blood and chaos.

At the mouth of the narrow alley, the Heaven-Cutting Master, drenched in blood, had been running in such haste that he collided head-on with an old man coming the other way. Now he lay sprawled on the ground, all fours in the air, his eyes rolled back.

The Heaven-Cutting Master's collapse threw the Zhao family into disarray. Zhao Haikun hurriedly ordered his wife to keep pressing the acupoint beneath the nose, while the Heaven-Cutting Master reached out a hand toward Xian Hongye and gasped, "Brother's no good anymore, little sis. Hurry and give me mouth-to-mouth."

Heh. I gave a cold laugh in my heart, wishing Hongye would have her rice-insect gu frenzy right then and bite him to death.

It seemed the Heaven-Cutting Master had taken the blow hard, but he should not be in serious danger. The old man he had crashed into, however, looked far worse.

From where I stood, peering through the crowd, I saw the elder lying on the ground, clutching a cane in one hand, his whole body trembling slightly as he sighed again and again. He kept muttering, "Someone's died... someone's been killed!"

Beside him stood a plump middle-aged man, supporting him, his face tight with anxiety.

The middle-aged man clearly cared deeply about the old man's condition. While rubbing the elder's chest, he kept murmuring, "Little Shuo, little Shuo! Wake up, wake up! Don't scare me..."

His words were probably in Cantonese. My knowledge was limited, so I could not understand a single phrase, but even so, they sent a jolt through me.

Because the speaker was none other than Lei Wancai, nephew of Lei Ren.

Since Lei Wancai was here, then the white-bearded old man in his arms had to be Lei Ren, the old master Lei, the very same man with whom I had once clashed over ritual fire-cooking matters. No doubt about it.

Their appearance shocked me more than a little.

As for Lei Ren, the cook of the Five Ridges Temple, I remembered him all too well. Apart from my old squad leader, he was the first temple abbot of the five internal organs I had ever met. The man was widely experienced and held an impressive seniority, but unfortunately his intentions were far from honorable.

Lei Ren, together with his nephew and a whole band of disciples and granddisciples, ran a black inn without lanterns along the highway from Hebei to Shandong.

For that alone, I could not bear to be seen in the same light as him.

What was more, he had disregarded the fellowship of the four temples, selling stir-fried noodles to Wang Hou for five hundred yuan a serving, and even dared to cross swords with me. His behavior was contemptible, and it made me wary of him at all times.

I always felt that he was the sort of man who schemed against others every waking moment. Besides, Xian Hongye had warned me before that this old fellow likely had some old grievance with the Zhao family, and that... he may well have had his eye on the Zhao family's ancestral kitchen knife.

Now, of all times, he had shown up here at the very moment my old squad leader had passed away. How could that not arouse suspicion?

And how had he come here? What did he have to do with those "black mildew sticky-rice formations" and "fire-tail scorpions" on the old Qi Road?

Strangely enough, ever since yesterday, after I ran into the Lei uncle and nephew, everything had gone wrong. Not only had one bizarre event followed another, they all circled around those mystical things like sticky rice and ghost soldiers. That alone would have been enough, but Lei Ren had also told me a story about how his father, Lei Aniu, and Zhao Qingshan had used sticky rice to summon ghost soldiers.

Could it all really be coincidence? Or had this old fox quietly arranged everything from the shadows?

I leaned toward the latter. In fact, I was almost fixated on the belief that even if he had not personally set it all in motion, he could not possibly be uninvolved.

For that reason, when I saw this "Lei the Swindler" who had collided head-on with the "Heaven-Cutting Fraud," I kept my distance, cold and guarded, and did not go over to acknowledge him right away.

Only after my sister-in-law, Gui Yuxiu, had carried the rolled-back-eyed Heaven-Cutting Master into the Zhao courtyard for "first aid" did I push through the crowd, step out from the already cramped blue-stone alley, squat down, and pat Lei Wancai on the shoulder.

"Something wrong?" I asked coldly.

Unlike our shock at seeing the Lei uncle and nephew, Lei Wancai did not seem to find our appearance abrupt. After all, he had long known we were coming to Zhao Family Tower.

Lei Wancai glanced at me and merely nodded, answering, "My uncle is in poor health."

Heh. I sneered inwardly, thinking: if his health is so poor, why isn't he in a wheelchair this time? Could it be that he suddenly found his spirit renewed and strolled all the way from Dezhou along the highway?

Though I thought that, I did not say it aloud.

After all, the old man had indeed been hit hard by the Heaven-Cutting Master, and his seniority stood over mine as well. It would not do to speak carelessly.

So I restrained my temper and, in proper formality, asked the man lying on the ground, "Uncle-in-law, how are you? You're not dead, are you?"

Lei Ren lay on the ground, still panting from fright.

He seemed to have no external injuries, but he looked utterly miserable.

By then, Lei Ren's white beard and clothes were smeared with the chicken blood that had splattered from the Heaven-Cutting Master, and feathers were stuck to his forehead. Most pitiful of all, the cane in his hand had somehow snapped in two; one half was clenched in his grip, while the other was lodged in that headless dead chicken, caked with filth and feathers.

Quite disgusting, really.

After recovering for a long while, Lei Ren finally drew a breath. He looked at me, a little surprised, and nodded. Just as he was about to speak, however, Zhao Haikun cut him off with a frosty voice.

Sitting in his wheelchair, Zhao Haikun looked down at Lei Ren as if gazing upon a traitor, and said with a scowl, "What are you doing here again? Didn't my father say back then that as long as the Zhao family is not completely dead, you are not allowed to set foot in Zhao Family Tower again?"

That was rather harsh.

In terms of seniority, I had once calculated it carefully, and it seemed Zhao Haikun and Lei Ren belonged to the same generation. By that reckoning, I should have called the man Uncle. But in terms of age, Lei Ren was far older than both Zhao Haikun and my old squad leader, by more than one whole generation. No matter how you looked at it, he deserved to be called elder brother.

Besides, the Hu Mansion cook of Shandong cuisine in our Confucius Temple took the Sage as his teacher and understood seniority and propriety all the more clearly. Ordinary people would have to grant him a bit of respect, let alone when both sides were from the same circle.

Alas! What kind of deep enmity must the Zhao family have forged with Lei Ren to force Zhao Haikun to curse him with such a merciless line?

At once I realized that this Lei Ren, this Uncle Lei, had quite a story with the Zhao family.

But to my surprise, Lei Ren did not get angry at Zhao Haikun's words. On the contrary, once he got to his feet, he actually laughed, and rather proudly at that.

Seeing that twisted expression on his face, I suddenly understood that this man had absolutely come prepared. The olive branch he had extended to me at the highway service station was certainly no accident either.

Sure enough, just after Lei Ren rose to his feet, I suddenly heard a sharp young girl's voice from behind the uncle and nephew of the Lei family.

"Zhao Haikun! Just because you don't give him face, are you not even giving your grandmother face?"

Right after that, a girl of seventeen or eighteen suddenly walked in from the other end of the alley.

At a glance, she looked like nothing more than a child who still had milk on her breath.

That little brat's words left me completely stunned.

Hadn't the Zhao family nearly died out already? So where had this little grandmother come from?