A buzzing sound filled Pockmarked Liu's head.
Five taels of silver.
Back when he roamed the Jianghu, he never knew where his next meal was coming from. He'd risk his neck for a few hundred copper coins. Now, he wore these fine clothes, drew a high salary, and even the wealthy gentry on the street called him "Officer."
This was a golden rice bowl.
And the Iron Fist Gang was trying to smash his golden rice bowl.
If he let these bastards succeed today, if the young mistress got angry, that five taels of silver would vanish, this black uniform would be stripped off, and he'd be back to being that despised Liu Ergou.
No.
Absolutely not.
The rage that erupted from the need to protect one's rice bowl was a hundred times fiercer than any so-called brotherhood of the Jianghu.
"Brothers!" Pockmarked Liu drew a short, iron-tipped club from his waist, his eyes instantly turning red. "Someone's trying to cut off our livelihood! Someone doesn't want us to live well!"
The heavy breathing of the dozens of black-clothed enforcers behind him grew ragged.
To cut off a man's livelihood is like killing his parents.
"Kill them!"
No tactics were needed, no formations.
Dozens of burly men in uniform black, brimming with pent-up ferocity, surged from one end of the street to the other like a black tide.
The Iron Fist Gang members hadn't even processed what was happening.
Their usual fights involved bullying honest folks or pre-arranged brawls with rival gangs, complete with a few opening threats.
But these men were different.
These men wasted no words. They went straight for the kill.
"Thud!"
Pockmarked Liu led the charge. Using his momentum, he brought his club down hard on Scarface's back.
The sound of breaking bone was sickeningly dull.
Scarface screamed and pitched forward, his face smashing into a basket of rotten vegetables.
"Dare to mess with the Xu family's turf? Dare to touch the Xu family's money?" Pockmarked Liu straddled him, raining down blows with his club, each strike carrying the intent to cripple. "Can you afford to pay for this? This auntie still has to hand over next month's fee to the young mistress! You beat her up, you gonna pay her share?"
The melee erupted.
On one side were the usually domineering gangsters; on the other were "security guards" fighting desperately for their high salaries.
The Iron Fist Gang lost on morale. They were here to collect a bit of tribute, but these black-clad men were fighting for their lives, for that five-tael monthly wage, for the fear of losing their current respectable lives.
In less time than it takes to drink a cup of tea.
The street fell quiet.
A crowd of shirtless toughs lay on the ground, groaning as they clutched broken limbs, lacking even the strength to stand.
The dozen or so Iron Fist Gang members, so arrogant moments ago, now lay piled in the middle of the road like slaughtered pigs.
Pockmarked Liu stood panting, blood smeared on his face, his hair disheveled.
He got up and kicked Scarface, who was already unconscious, in the stomach.
"Drag them away."
Pockmarked Liu wiped the blood from his face, his gaze sweeping fiercely around. "Throw them outside the city. Spread the word: this main street of Taoyuan County belongs to the Xu family. Anyone who dares reach out a hand, I'll chop it off and feed it to the dogs."
Several black-clad men stepped forward and began dragging the Iron Fist Gang members away like dead dogs.
Streaks of blood were left on the ground.
But soon, other black-clad men arrived with buckets of water. With a splash, they doused the street, and with a few sweeps of their brooms, scrubbed the bloodstains clean.
As if nothing had happened.
Except for the faint, lingering scent of blood in the air.
The entire street was deathly silent.
The vendors cowered behind their stalls, watching the efficient black-clad men clean up, then looking up at the red-clad young woman on the raised platform.
Fear.
This was a real tyrant.
Compared to the Xu family, the Iron Fist Gang was child's play. This wasn't just collecting protection money; the Xu family had turned the whole street into her territory, sacred and inviolable.
Xu Qinghuan sat back down in her chair, picked up the teacup that hadn't shattered, and took a sip.
The tea was a bit cold, but satisfying.
"Back to business," she waved her hand. "Anyone who dares slack off and not make money, their rent goes up next month."
The crowd on the street didn't move.
Suddenly, the sharp clatter of abacus beads exploded in the air.
It came from a silk shop by the street. Shopkeeper Wang held an abacus, his fingers flying.
He was doing the math.
Before, the Iron Fist Gang took five taels a month, the yamen underlings skimmed three, and local thugs pilfered another two here and there. That was a fixed loss of ten taels a month, plus having to smile obsequiously and live in constant fear of having his shop smashed.
And now?
Pay the Xu family a yearly franchise fee of one hundred twenty taels, plus a monthly management fee of one tael.
It looked expensive.
But everyone had just seen the show.
The Iron Fist Gang had been crippled.
Who would dare come to this street to collect money now? Who would dare cause trouble here?
That one tael management fee didn't just buy street sweeping and stall arrangement; it bought the hardest backer in all of Taoyuan County, absolute safety that even the Iron Fist Gang wouldn't dare provoke.
Even if Xu Qinghuan was doing it for her own money, objectively, she was protecting these vendors' purses.
This was the violent dividend of monopoly.
This was the order brought by one predator devouring another.
Shopkeeper Wang had figured it out.
He shoved his shop door open, ignoring the still-wet puddles, rushed to the center of the street, and kowtowed deeply towards Xu Qinghuan on the platform.
"Young Mistress Xu is sagacious and wise!"
His shout was piercingly loud, filled with the relief and shrewdness of one who had survived a disaster.
"Before, we were mud to be trampled, bullied by anyone. Now, with the Xu family's name, we have a talisman of protection! This isn't paying money; it's finding a living Bodhisattva to worship!"
"We'd pay even if the management fee rose to two taels!"
The surrounding vendors weren't fools.
Seeing the crafty Shopkeeper Wang kneel, looking at the auntie who was now clutching her recovered money pouch and weeping...
The vegetable-selling auntie scrambled up from the ground, her face swollen but her eyes shining brightly.
She kowtowed in the direction of Pockmarked Liu, then turned and knelt towards Xu Qinghuan.
"Young Mistress Xu, you saved my life!" the auntie cried, her voice cracking. "If not for the Xu family, I'd be dead today, and my money gone! Young Mistress Xu is a good person! A great benefactor!"
As long as they could keep their money, as long as they could do business in peace.
Who cared if you were a corrupt official or a tyrant?
A tyrant who could drive off thugs was their savior.
"Young Mistress Xu is benevolent!"
"Young Mistress Xu is mighty!"
"From now on, this street only recognizes the Xu family's name!"
With a rustling sound.
Hundreds of people knelt on the stone slabs, their voices shaking the heavens. The scene was more devout than kneeling before a righteous magistrate in the yamen.
The teacup Xu Qinghuan had just picked up slipped from her hand and fell to the ground.
Shattered.
She looked down at the sea of kneeling people, listening to those grating cries of "sagacious," "benevolent," "great benefactor."
A string in her mind snapped.
[Ding!]
[Detecting collective extreme gratitude and dependent sentiment.]
[Critical hit reward! Pension increased by two hundred thousand taels of silver!]
Xu Qinghuan's mouth twitched, her entire face stiff as a mask.
Are these people insane?
This is a monopoly! This is exploitation! This is me trying to hog this whole bowl of villainy for myself!
You don't hate me for treating you like chumps to be fleeced, but instead thank me for driving the other pigs away?
Is there no justice left in this world? How is a villain supposed to operate?
"You're all sick..." Xu Qinghuan ground out the words through clenched teeth, her hands trembling with rage.
She snatched up the stack of silver notes on the table, wanting to tear them, but couldn't bring herself to do it.
Fine.
Since you all love being exploited so much.
Since you think paying up is an act of virtue.
Then I'll oblige you.
"Pass down the order," Xu Qinghuan took a deep breath, her voice laced with a reckless, nothing-left-to-lose ferocity. "Starting next month, the management fee is going up."
Suddenly, he understood.
Perhaps this was the legendary—art of rulership?
Wielding a thunderous hand to reveal a bodhisattva's heart.
The young mistress is truly inscrutable.
