Chapter 83: An Uneasy Night

Around the first watch, Guangzhou fell silent. Since the Australian army had entered the city, the once-relaxed night ban had been tightened. The new Australian yamen had posted public notices throughout the city, stipulating that after the first watch, no one was permitted on the streets without a travel permit.

As soon as the sun set, the detective teams, led by a few “Australian police,” patrolled the streets, urging the watchmen to close the street gates. Residents and shopkeepers along the main thoroughfares had received orders from their pao-chia heads to hang lanterns outside their doors after nightfall. The lights were dim, swaying under the eaves, their faint glow illuminating the large, printed notices posted on the walls at every corner.

At the main intersections, gallows—a sight the citizens of Guangzhou had never seen before—had been erected. A few corpses now hung from them, swaying slowly in the lantern light. Paper signs hung from their necks, bearing the inked characters for “robber” and “thief.” The captured criminals had been strung up before the night was even over.

For the citizens of Guangzhou, these were uneasy days. But since entering the city, the Fubo Army had maintained strict discipline, not harming a single hair on their heads, which had left a deep impression. By the second day after the city fell, the markets had largely reopened.

Still, following the age-old wisdom of staying indoors and keeping a low profile during times of war and chaos, every household extinguished its lights and went to sleep as the first watch began. In this silent night, a side courtyard deep within a residence in the city’s west was still lit.

The windows and doors were shrouded in thick bamboo curtains, allowing only a sliver of dim light to escape. The hall, however, was brightly lit. On a rosewood couch, a middle-aged man reclined. He was very fat. Being at home, he was dressed casually in a Taoist robe of Western cloth, a net gauze cap on his head, and a pair of purple-edged straw sandals on his feet. He leaned against a large Nanjing satin pillow, a pipe with a bamboo stem and jade mouthpiece in his hand, smoking in silence. The blue-white smoke drifted and swayed, much like his thoughts, directionless.

Two maids, one standing behind him and one kneeling before him, gently pounded his legs and kneaded his shoulders. But this did not seem to bring him any comfort. On the small Japanese lacquer table before him sat a variety of exquisite fruits, all seemingly untouched. The Hangzhou Mingqian tea in his cup, a tea that cost several taels of silver per tael, had gone completely cold.

A man dressed as a master secretary sat diagonally opposite, his gaze tinged with fear. It was the first time he had ever seen his master so… helpless.

On the table between them lay a notice. The paper and ink were still fresh; it had clearly not been posted for long. The common Song typeface marked it as a product of the city’s new masters: the Australians.

“Master, the night is deep. Tomorrow…” The secretary, feeling the oppressive weight of the long silence, finally broke it.

The man called “Master” was Mo Rongxin, the head of the Wenlan Academy.

The notice had been brought by Shi Tidi, the academy’s accounting secretary, who was, in reality, Mo Rongxin’s private man of affairs. Mo Rongxin rarely visited the academy himself; all its financial matters were handled by Master Shi. Naturally, after Mo Rongxin, Shi Tidi was the one most concerned with the academy’s income. Not only did he receive an annual salary of one hundred and twenty taels of silver, but he also skimmed five or six hundred taels from various fraudulent accounts and kickbacks. It was a considerable fortune.

Today, the shopkeepers of the dozen or so shops on Chengxuan Avenue that rented their storefronts from the Wenlan Academy had come to him, bringing this notice. The Australians had posted it everywhere, demanding the demolition of the sheds on Chengxuan Avenue within twelve hours.

Though called sheds, the structures built by these families had long since ceased to be mere sheds; they were practically houses. It had cost a great deal to build them, and their demolition would significantly shrink the shop spaces. Not only would business become inconvenient, but many money-making tools and goods would have to be stored elsewhere. The shopkeepers were at their wits’ end and had all come to their landlord for a solution.

Shi Tidi, of course, had no solution. In the past, he would have taken his master’s card to the county or prefectural yamen, had a “chat” with the clerks or secretaries, and a little silver would have solved the problem. Now, not only had the officials changed, but the entire system he knew was gone. He didn’t even know where the yamen gate was. In his panic, he had no choice but to come to Mo Rongxin.

“What can we do? There is nothing to be done!” Mo Rongxin blew out a puff of smoke and set his pipe aside. He began to rise, and the maid beside him quickly supported his arm, using all her strength to help him to his feet.

Mo Rongxin picked up the cold tea, took a large gulp, and sighed. “The Australians have just entered the city. This Master Liu is a new official with a new broom. To stand in his way is to court death. Go and tell them, if they wish to hang themselves, they can go tomorrow. I will not be their scapegoat.”

Shi Tidi gave a dry laugh. “Master is right. But the academy has many shops on Chengxuan Avenue. If all the sheds are demolished, the loss will not be small. If there is a way to turn things around, they are willing to spend some money to deal with it.”

“They may be willing, but I am not,” Mo Rongxin said. “The bandits are just waiting for someone to jump out so they can kill them to establish their authority. Whoever wants to be the first to stick their neck out can go right ahead.”

Shi Tidi was not ready to give up on the potential for a bribe. “Master, should we discuss this with Master Gao of the Guan Di Temple?”

This was Mo Rongxin’s most powerful trump card. He had relied on the people of the Guan Di Temple to resolve several major crises in the past. Though it had earned him the unsavory nickname of “beggar in-law,” the benefits had been substantial.

“You think it’s so easy?” Mo Rongxin said. “The bandits are not fools. The moment the Guan Di Temple people show up, they will know we are playing tricks. If they cannot deal with the Guan Di Temple, do you think it will be any trouble for them to deal with us?”

“So…” Shi Tidi was disappointed. It seemed this “thank-you money” was not to be had.

“Go and tell the shopkeepers: do not go looking for connections. Just demolish the sheds yourselves, honestly. At least you can recover some of the materials. When that gang of black-hearted yamen runners starts tomorrow, I guarantee not a single brick will be left. It is late. You may rest here for the night and go early in the morning. Go.”

Seeing that his master had dismissed him, Shi Tidi had no choice but to rise and leave. Mo Rongxin suddenly thought of something. “How is the academy these days?”

“With the bandits entering the city, the headmaster and students have not been coming. The students who live at the academy are quiet.”

“Go and keep a close eye on the head cook. Don’t let him think only of eating and taking things for himself. The food at the academy is practically pig slop. From tomorrow, there must be meat at every meal—and not just bones and chicken racks for soup. I want whole chickens, whole ducks, whole fish! And the rice must be plentiful! Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes,” Shi Tidi started. He was also involved in the skimming of the food budget.

“Do not lose a great thing for a small one. Are those sour scholars so easy to manage? You have been so careless, they have long been full of complaints,” Mo Rongxin said calmly, fanning himself. He decided to give the man a “pointer.” “Now that the Australians are the emperors, we must prevent them from taking this opportunity to make trouble. If they do, I will know nothing of it…”

Shi Tidi quickly replied, “I understand. I will see to it when I return tomorrow.”

In another courtyard of the same mansion, Mo Rongxin’s fifth daughter-in-law, Gao Huichun, sat alone in her room, embroidering. She was a young woman in her twenties, married into the Mo family for five years. Before dinner, a maid had come to report that the fifth master had business to attend to and would be resting in the outer study. He had told her not to wait up. Though she had shown no expression at the time, her heart was heavy with unhappiness. She knew her husband was, in fact, resting in a maid’s room again.

Among the wealthy and powerful, it was common for a man to have several concubines. Even among the beggar chiefs led by her father, some kept multiple women. Her own father not only had more than a dozen women but also frequented the flower boats, often not returning for the entire night.

When she was engaged to the Mo family, she had been happy to marry into a “scholarly family,” but when she learned her future husband already had a concubine, she had felt a pang of unhappiness.

At the beginning of their marriage, they had been loving. But as time passed, especially after she failed to produce a son, her husband’s affection had waned. The nights he spent in her room became fewer and fewer. If not for her father-in-law, who, concerned for her father’s face and fearing a quarrel between the young couple would damage the relationship between the two families, forced his son to spend the night with her every few days, he might only come two or three times a month.

His absence tonight was clear to her: he was using the excuse of “business” to spend a spring night with the maid he had recently taken a fancy to.

This so-called “scholarly family”… her father-in-law, Mo Rongxin, was himself a greedy and lecherous man. He kept four or five thirteen-year-old maids around him at all times for his pleasure. His sons were no better. They all had wives and concubines in droves and frequented brothels and flower boats. Though her husband was the fifth son of a concubine and held little status in the family, he still had several maids in his own chambers.

As the legal wife, she was unwilling to show her “pettiness” in front of the maids, but a different kind of pain in her heart could not be shaken. It is truly hard to be a woman, she thought. I am not yet old, my beauty has not yet faded, and already it has come to this. Not even talking with the maids or listening to the blind girl sing could ease the ache in her heart.

The first watch had already sounded outside. She put down her embroidery and listened to the desolate sound of the clapper. Thinking of her own situation, of the past five years in this great house, she was filled with a swirling mix of emotions. Her eyes began to sting, and she nearly shed tears.

But she dared not even sigh, swallowing her sobs, for fear of being overheard by her maids and causing more trouble.