TSBIRBV Ch 99

Chapter 99 Heaven above, Suzhou–Hangzhou below (11)

It was a rainy day. With no passersby, there was no begging to be done, and the quota went unmet.

On that particular day, Crooked Ear’s mood was foul. Rainy days, he’d say, made the ear sliced off by some orthodox “hero” ache.

Beaten until the dust all but rose, Yegyeol fled while Pit Viper tried to restrain Crooked Ear. He had no intention of dying as the target of some heterodox thug’s temper.

“On a day like this, they’d beat me even if I paid up…”

When their mood soured, they declared they needed an example and took to violence against the children. However frightening and hateful, there was no escape. Even if he left Red Blood’s turf, some other heterodox would be waiting for him. With levies owed them, there was no way to save money.

Yegyeol was always hungry. Even if he tried to put aside an emergency coin to buy food, it was impossible—the glares said the money wasn’t begged for but picked from pockets.

At times, the ordinary common folk were more cruel than the heterodox fighters. The heterodox, needing to use children like Yegyeol, at least dealt with him, but the ordinary avoided beggars like him. They resented the nuisance, thinking he might cling.

“What should I do?”

If he grew older like this, even living off alms would end. Quick‑witted and nimble even at a young age, he was precisely the sort Pit Viper meant to turn into a pickpocket. If he ran, the heterodox networks of Hangzhou would ensure he was caught again; they would tally food and bed as debt and collar him for life.

Thus he would run errands for such trash and, before twenty, die in a back‑alley brawl.

That was the fate given this boy.

The sound of rain drummed like tinnitus at his ears. Pain was already far away.

More vivid than pain was weariness. He was bone‑deep weary.

It was wearying to rub the dented edge of the coppers he’d begged and calculate whether he might avoid a beating today; wearying to be asked by strangers where his parents were; wearying to be offered leftovers and asked if he wouldn’t join the Hao information network; wearying that even if he filled his belly somehow, hunger would return.

He was so tired—and the thought that tomorrow would come anyway was wearying.

Then came the plink of a raindrop bounding off.

He lifted his head at the anomaly and saw a young lord. Whether he knew or cared that his costly silks were getting soaked, the boy tilted a paper umbrella over Yegyeol.

“It’s raining—what are you doing here?”

Even in youth, his carriage was impeccably proper, his features refined—he would be handsome in time.

“Sheltering from the rain.”

“The eaves are narrow; you’re getting soaked.”

“Never mind me—go on your way.”

“Your face is flushed. Do you have a fever? It won’t take long; come with me to see a physician.”

“I said… I’m fine.”

Yegyeol made a deliberately fierce face. Pit Viper would sometimes say the missing children had been seized and sold by traffickers—that they would be slaves for life, or end up on the tables of wealthy perverts.

He didn’t believe everything the man said. But since the vanished never returned, Yegyeol distrusted strangers.

“Though… it does feel like I have a fever.”

In a downpour, the rain had sounded distant—was that not mere tinnitus, but the herald of high fever?

Resigned to death, Yegyeol buried his face in his knees and curled up.

He knew he should move to where the rain was lighter, where it was dry and warm, but other children had surely taken the good spots.

More than anything, he had no strength to move.

“That won’t do.”

The young lord scooped Yegyeol up.

“A‑are you mad! Put me down! Down!”

His voice was loud, but his struggles were weak. With the scrape of nails, a line scored the boy’s cheek. Startled, Yegyeol stopped resisting; the young lord, unfazed by pain or displeasure, gripped him more firmly.

“I won’t be able to hold the umbrella… We’ll go quickly—bear with it a little.”

Hunched to shield Yegyeol as much as possible, he ran through the rain.

He was fast. Faster than the nimblest alley rat. The way he lifted Yegyeol with those arms—clearly, he had learned martial arts.

“How did someone like this end up in a back alley?”

Yegyeol, forgetting his weariness, looked up at the question rising in him; but he could find no answer in the face set straight ahead.

They entered an inn so large Yegyeol could never have dreamed of it. A server rushed out and hurried the boy to a side building.

“My goodness, young master—how did you get so drenched?”

A middle‑aged woman ran out and rubbed the boy’s face roughly with her own garment.

“Madam prepared rain‑clothes, and yet you left with just a paper umbrella—!”

“Nurse. Make up the bed and warm the room. Then bring a physician.”

“But, young master, where did you pick up such a sme—”

“Nurse.”

He cut her off, firm.

“Have you brought back a child?”

She was likely going to say he stank. Yegyeol took no wound. Such words were nothing new.

But that a boy he’d never met would take his side and scold her felt strange.

“Fetch the physician first.”

“Right away. Oh, if the madam hears…”

Muttering, she rushed out.

Dumped on the bed, Yegyeol looked around.

It was another world. Whether it was feverish hallucination, or truly the most expensive, splendid things he’d ever seen—he couldn’t tell.

As he flopped down, dizzy, the young lord wiped his face with a hot wet cloth brought from somewhere. The hands were clumsy to the point of comedy. But perhaps from the constant rain, his body was shaking, and even that bit of warmth was welcome.

Having managed to wipe his face, the young lord asked,

“What is your name?”

“What do you want with it?”

The surly tone jumped out. He knew standing on ceremony in some unknown young lord’s quarters wouldn’t help, but this was too important to Yegyeol.

Pity is warm and gentle, and easy to get drunk on. But if pity had weight, it was less than a feather’s. One must not give meaning or hope to a feeling given as easily as it is withdrawn.

Living on—left in that distance alone—was Yegyeol’s burden.

He was a fine‑bred young lord. So even if he’d been shocked by a beggar brat and brought him here, he wouldn’t take responsibility for long.

“I wish to know what to call you.”

The child‑soothing tone rankled.

“Gutter rat. Beggar brat. Ragamuffin. Black‑haired beast. Half‑wit. Thieving trash.”

The more Yegyeol reeled off, the more the other’s face hardened.

“Call me whatever you like.”

That should quiet him, he thought, smirking. But the other was a tougher opponent than he’d thought.

The boy took Yegyeol’s hand and held it gently. There were scratches everywhere; the nails were black—yet he did not hesitate.

Soft.

“My name is Haryang.”

Haryang?

He didn’t know the meaning, but it suited the upright young lord.

“I don’t know what a good name is—would it be all right if I call you Aso for a time? It means ‘little one.’”

Who’s little?

Yegyeol disliked being small for his age—poor food and sleep had stunted him. Pit Viper would intentionally starve children, saying small bodies moved more nimbly.

“Mun Yegyeol.”

He blurted it out—it was too late to take back. Haryang smiled brightly, not in the least upset by the crooked answer.

“Mun Yegyeol—Yegyeol, is it.”

“What a strange young lord,” thought Yegyeol.

A pleasant scent came from him, so close.

“What is that smell?”

It was unlike the stink of Hangzhou’s alleys, the musk drifting from brothels, or the reek of wine and blood from Crooked Ear and Pit Viper.

Calm and kind—perhaps the scent of sunlight. A little cool, and somehow sparkling.

To hide the ticklish thought, Yegyeol lowered his eyes and shut his mouth.

“It’s a very good name. Do you remember who gave it to you?”

He didn’t ask if it was the parents; asking whether he remembered who had given it—that pleased Yegyeol, and he answered docilely,

“An old man.”

Under a bridge, he’d met an old man who gave him a name.

Claiming he could read the heavens, the man called the beggar boy Mun Yegyeol.

“Is that my name?”

“Yes. In a manner of speaking.”

Sensing instinctively that this was something even Crooked Ear and Pit Viper could not take, the boy made that name his own.

This was the first time he’d told another. If he told, he’d be ridiculed for a parentless orphan daring to give three characters like he was somebody.

But the young lord called Haryang did not seem the sort. That was a relief.

“A man to be thanked.”

Not knowing how to respond, Yegyeol glanced aside.

Right then, the nurse returned with a physician.

“Young master, I’ve brought the physician.”

Footnotes

• Red Blood Sect and heterodox networks: In wuxia settings, heterodox gangs (sapa) run territorial, exploitative systems—levies, child exploitation, coercion—forming informal “tax” regimes in backstreets.