“Playing a game is not going to put rice in the pot, nor wood into the stove. We are going to need to borrow money again this year.”
The neighboring villages sent their best players to challenge him. He defeated them all. Eventually, Hua Xiong, the son of the county’s wealthiest man, heard about Chang Sheng, the wei qi prodigy.
Hua Xiong’s family made its fortune by acquiring a coveted license to sell salt. There was a large lake in the county, its waters made salty by the blood of Chi Yu after he was defeated by the Yellow Emperor and his body chopped into pieces. The Han Emperors taxed the salt trade as their principal source of revenue, and the imperial salt monopoly was strictly enforced. Hua Xiong’s grandfather placed some strategic bribes, and the family had been growing fat from the salt fortune ever since.
Hua Xiong was the same age as Chang Sheng. He was the sort of boy who tortured cats and delighted in galloping his horse through the fields of his father’s tenants, trampling down the sorghum and wheat so that the tracks formed his name. That was how he showed up at the door of the Guan house when he came to play a game of wei qi with Chang Sheng, high on his horse, a swath of trampled sorghum behind him.
He brought his wei qi set with him: the board made from the pine trees of Mount Tai; the black stones were green jade while the white stones were polished pieces of coral. Chang Sheng made the game last as long as he could so he could finger the cool, smooth stones a little longer.
“The game is getting boring,” Hua Xiong said. “I haven’t lost to anyone in years.”
Chang Sheng’s father smiled as he thought, Doesn’t he know that people who have to borrow money from his father would make sure he wins the game?
Hua Xiong was actually a pretty good wei qi player, but not as good as Chang Sheng.
“Very impressive,” Hua Xiong said to Chang Sheng’s father. “Brother Chang Sheng has a gift. I am ashamed to say that I am not his match.”
Chang Sheng’s father was surprised. He was too proud to ever tell his son to deliberately throw the game to Hua Xiong. He had expected Hau Xiong to throw a tantrum. But not this.
He’s not so bad, he thought. He’s graceful in defeat. That’s a quality that belongs to a phoenix among men.
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“What’s so impressive about that? I never get mad when my father beats me at checkers. I know I just have to get better.”
“Those are wise words. Not everyone sees a loss as an opportunity.”
“So is this Hua Xiong really a good man?”
“If you don’t interrupt me, you’ll soon find out.”
“I’ll have more watermelon seeds. I won’t be able to talk if my mouth is full.”
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The harvests grew even worse in the next five years. Locusts hit the province. A plague sealed off the next county. There were rumors of cannibalism. The Emperor raised the taxes.
Now eighteen years of age, Hua Xiong was the head of the family after his father choked to death on the leg bone of a pheasant cooked in rice wine. He took advantage of depressed property prices to buy up as much land as possible in the county. Chang Sheng’s father went to see him on New Year’s Eve.
“Don’t worry, Master Guan,” Hua Xiong said as they both signed the deed. “I have fond memories of the games Chang Sheng and I used to play as children. I will take care of you and your family.”
In exchange for selling his land to Hua Xiong, Chang Sheng’s father got enough money to pay off the family’s mounting debt. He was then supposed to lease back the land from Hua Xiong and pay a share of the proceeds from the harvest each year as rent.
“He gave us a good deal,” he told Chang Sheng’s mother. “I always knew he would grow up to be a good man.”
That year, they worked especially hard in the fields. The locusts came again to the county but missed their village. The sorghum stalks shot up tall and straight, bobbing in the dry winds of late summer. It was the best harvest they had had in years.
On New Year’s Eve, Hua Xiong arrived with a retinue of burly servants.
“May the new year bring you good fortune, Master Guan.” ?They bowed to each other at the door.
Chang Sheng’s father invited him in for some tea and plum wine. They knelt down on the clean, new straw mats, across from each other, the small table with the pot of warm wine between them.
They toasted each other’s health and had the customary three cups each. Hua Xiong gave a little awkward laugh. “Well, Master Guan, I came for the little matter of the rent.”
“Of course,” Chang Sheng’s father said. He called for Chang Sheng to bring out the five taels of silver. “Here you are, Master Hua. Five percent of my year’s proceeds.”
Hua Xiong gave a little cough. “Of course I understand how things have been rather hard on you and your family for the last few years. If you’d like some time to prepare the rest of the payment, that is perfectly acceptable.” He got up and bowed deeply.
“But I have all the money here. I can show you the books. I had a good year and took in ninety-three taels of silver at the market. Five percent of that is four taels and eight coins. But since you were generous to me in the original sale, I thought I would pay you five full taels to thank you.”
Hua Xiong bowed even deeper. “Surely Master Guan is having a joke at lowly Hua Xiong’s expense. Some evil persons have been saying that Master Guan is going to try to get out of paying the full amount of the rent this year, but lowly Hua Xiong did not believe them. Lowly Hua Xiong was sure that everything would be cleared up as soon as he came to see Master Guan in person.”
“What are you talking about?”
Hua Xiong looked as if a spider were crawling up his spine. He spread out his hands helplessly. “Is Master Guan asking lowly Hua Xiong to produce the deed and the lease?”
Chang Sheng’s father’s face became an iron mask. “Show me.”
Hua Xiong made a great show of searching for the documents. He patted down his sleeves and the breast pockets of his robe. He shouted at his burly servants to look in the wagon. Finally, one of them, a big man with gigantic, misshapen knuckles, came up to Hua Xiong and presented the rolled-up document to him, giving Chang Sheng’s father a hard, long sneer.
“Whew.” Hua Xiong wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “I thought we almost lost it. I had not thought it would be necessary.”
They knelt down again, and Hua Xiong spread out the lease on the table between them. “The rent is to be eighty-five percent of the proceeds from the year’s sale of crops,” he read, pointing to the characters with his delicate, long fingers.
“Perhaps you could explain to me why the ‘eighty’ is written in such narrow characters as compared with the rest of the document,” Chang Sheng’s father said after examining the lease.
“The clerk who drafted the lease was indeed a poor writer,” Hua Xiong said. He gave an ingratiating smile. “No doubt Master Guan is a much more cultivated calligrapher. But for a lease you will agree that it does not matter that his hand was poor?”
Chang Sheng’s father stood up. Chang Sheng could see that the hem of his sleeves trembled. “Do you think I would have placed my seal on a lease like that? Eighty-five percent? I might as well go join a band of bandits if I want to live on that.” He took a step toward Hua Xiong.
Hua Xiong backed up a few steps. Two of the big, burly men stepped up and formed a screen between him and the older man. “Please,” Hua Xiong said, his face twisted in a show of regret. “Don’t make me take this to the magistrate.”
Chang Sheng looked at the ax leaning behind the door. He began to walk toward it.
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“Oh no. Don’t do it!”
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“Go to the kitchen and see if your mother needs more wood,” his father said.
Chang Sheng hesitated.
“Go!” his father said.
Chang Sheng walked away and the burly men relaxed.
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“Sorry I interrupted.”
“No, it’s fine.You were trying to save Chang Sheng, like his father.”
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