Republic of China era: Actor? Please call me Martial Arts Master!

Chapter 172 The Soft Knife in the Late Spring Cold

In mid-March, Beijing should have been enjoying the beautiful scenery of "green grass seen from afar but not up close," but it seemed as if Mother Nature was playing tricks on us, as a sudden cold snap caught everyone off guard.

The wind was blowing in from Zhangjiakou, carrying yellow sand from beyond the Great Wall and shards of ice that hadn't completely melted. It lashed at people's faces like thin willow whips, stinging painfully.

In the backyard of the Lu residence on Qianmen Street, a new sight has appeared these past few days.

The once arrogant Brigade Commander Shi has now shed his yellow woolen coat as a general and put on a coarse cloth jacket.

Instead of practicing his boxing, he squatted under the old locust tree, holding an oilcloth in his hand, carefully wiping a German-made Mauser pistol.

"Click, splash."

Disassembling the gun, applying oil, and reassembling it—the movements were fluid and effortless; one could do it even blindfolded.

Shunzi, Lu Feng, and their group of young martial arts practitioners originally looked down on firearms.

In their eyes, the subtle and profound strength honed through countless trials is the foundation for a secure life.

But Brigade Commander Shi doesn't talk about grand principles.

He placed a copper coin a hundred paces away, raised his hand without even looking at it, and with a "bang," the coin exploded in the middle.

"No matter how high your kung fu is, you're still afraid of this iron peanut."

Brigade Commander Shi blew away the smoke from the muzzle of his gun, his eyes cold.

"Master Lu can dodge bullets? He's a god."

"You bunch of mortals, if you didn't know how firearms work, you wouldn't even know where you'd end up in the underworld if you died from a cold shot."

From that day on, disassembling firearms became an additional task for these wolf cubs.

Lu Cheng didn't stop him.

He still wore that simple, moon-white long gown every day, playing with two jade-like lion's head walnuts in his hands, sitting on the armchair under the eaves listening to Abing play his broken erhu.

He didn't spout any outdated ideas like "martial arts will inevitably defeat firearms."

The wheels of time keep turning forward; to close your eyes and pretend to be asleep is foolish.

A true Buddha never shies away from the mire of the secular world.

Just a few days into this peaceful period, a bucket of cold water was poured over the heads of the entire martial arts community in Beiping.

"Master, something has happened."

Zhou Daikui stumbled in from outside, the old man was covered in sweat, and even his melon-shaped hat was askew.

"A notice has been posted outside—a military order personally issued by Commander Xing."

Zhou Daikui swallowed hard.

The martial arts tournament at the Temple of Heaven, scheduled for ten days later, has been banned.

In the courtyard, the apprentices who were practicing horse stance all stopped their movements.

Brigade Commander Shi paused in wiping his gun, his eyes instantly darkening.

"Banned? On what grounds?" Lu Feng's eyes flashed with a fierce light.

"They say—they say someone sent a message in Nanjing accusing us of gathering a crowd to rebel and plotting treason."

Zhou Daikui was so anxious that he kept slapping his thigh.

"The notice stated that with the nation in peril and Japanese spies rampant, private associations and gatherings are strictly prohibited."

"Anyone who disobeys shall be punished for treason and executed without exception."

Jinling.

Upon hearing those two words, Brigade Commander Shi sneered and threw the rag in his hand on the ground.

"Song Peilun".

"That old fox, his son was crippled, and he doesn't dare to openly seek revenge against Master Lu, so he went to Jinling to ask for help and used administrative orders to suppress people."

Brigade Commander Shi understands the tactics of these politicians all too well.

"Commander Xing is new to the area and is just looking for an excuse to establish his authority."

"Once the pressure from Nanjing is applied, he will naturally be happy to go with the flow, and suffocate the spirit that our Beiping martial arts troupe has finally managed to gather under the covers."

Everyone looked at Lu Cheng under the eaves.

Lu Cheng, however, did not get angry.

He simply picked up the covered bowl beside him, gently skimmed off the foam from the tea leaves, and took a small sip.

"The water temperature is right."

Lu Cheng put down his teacup and looked at Zhou Daikui.

"Since gatherings are not allowed, then we will not gather."

"Return the post and inform all martial arts schools that we will not be going to the Temple of Heaven for the time being."

"What?!"

Lu Feng panicked.

"Master, how can we back down? If we back down, what will the people outside think of us?"

"They'll think we're afraid of that Marshal Xing!"

Lu Cheng raised his eyelids and glanced at Lu Feng.

With just one glance, Lu Feng's restless, evil fire was instantly extinguished, and he obediently shut his mouth.

"The martial arts tournament is just a formality."

"Also, it's not that we're not going, it's just that it's been postponed for now."

"Sometimes, a little warm-up is better."

Lu Cheng opened the Xiangfei bamboo folding fan and gently shook it.

"Besides, if one really wants to preach, where in Beijing can't one do it?"

"But—" Zhou Daikui wanted to say something more.

"Master, go and inform the storeroom."

Lu Cheng interrupted him, "Take stock of the several truckloads of smokeless coal and flour we've stored for the winter."

"This late spring cold snap probably hasn't ended yet."

Lu Cheng's words proved prophetic.

Song Peilun's revenge in Nanjing was far more complex than simply issuing a ban.

Knowing full well the terror of a Grandmaster of Transformation, he dared not send troops to directly besiege the Lu residence. Thus, he used an extremely insidious "soft knife" to slash at the throat of Qianmen Street.

Three days later, a rare heavy snowfall began to fall in Beiping.

The peach blossom snow turned into a white blizzard, the temperature plummeted, and water froze instantly.

In this freezing weather, several major intersections on Qianmen Street were suddenly fortified with barbed wire and barricades by soldiers under Commander Xing.

The leader of the group was none other than Marshal Xing's spoiled nephew, Fatty Liu.

Last time, Fatty Liu was terrified when Lu Cheng shattered a bluestone slab with a single kick in the theater. Now, with his uncle's army backing him up, his arrogance and petty smugness have doubled.

"Listen up, all of you."

Liu the Fat Man, wrapped in a thick black mink coat and holding a tin megaphone, shouted at the trembling civilians and vendors blocked at the street corner.

"We have received intelligence that a large number of Japanese spies have been lurking in the southern part of the city. In order to protect the safety of Beiping, starting today, Qianmen Street will be under military control and subject to inspections."

"No coal or grain trucks are allowed inside. Anyone who dares to force their way in will be met with a gun that doesn't discriminate."

This isn't about catching Japanese spies.

This is clearly a case of being cut off from food and charcoal.

These days, how can ordinary people have any surplus grain?

They relied entirely on buying a few pounds of cornmeal and coal briquettes every day to make ends meet.

At the height of the late spring cold snap, running out of coal and flour could be fatal.

Within two days, prices on Qianmen Street skyrocketed like a runaway horse.

The flour that originally cost two silver dollars a bag was hoarded by unscrupulous grain merchants and its price was driven up to ten silver dollars in a single day.

Coal briquettes, which usually cost a few coins per pound, were being sold for two cents.

Ordinary poor people, where can they afford to eat or burn food?

In the alley, corpses of people who had frozen or starved to death began to appear.

Even worse off are the small, low-level martial arts schools.

Martial arts practitioners have big appetites and are inherently poor.

With grain prices soaring, the disciples are so hungry they're emaciated and can barely stand in the Three-Body Stance. How could they possibly care about anything else?

"Martial Arts Alliance Leader" and "Resisting Foreign Invasion"?

"What a disaster! These damned scoundrels are trying to kill us!"

"What do you mean, 'catch Japanese spies'?"

"I heard—it's because Lu Cheng from the Qingyun Class offended someone high up, and they're setting him up. We're all being dragged into this."

"Alas, although Master Lu is a good person, in this world—you can't fight city hall."

"No matter how skilled he is in martial arts, can he conjure up flour and coal?"

Rumors spread rapidly in the cold wind.

When people are on the verge of starvation or freezing to death, the last bit of courage in their hearts is easily crushed by the instinct for survival, and then turns into resentment towards the "troublemaker".

This was precisely Song Peilun and Fatty Liu's most insidious scheme.

They wanted to use the pent-up resentment of the people to turn into the sharpest knife to shatter the "statue" that Lu Cheng had just erected.

The backyard of the Lu residence.

The people in the room were as anxious as ants on a hot pan.

"Master, the people outside are starving. That bastard Fatty Liu even has people cooking meat soup at the entrance of the alley. Anyone who dares to curse you to your face gets a bowl of soup."

Lu Feng's eyes were bloodshot.

"Let's fight our way out and take out those checkpoints."

"Foolish."

Brigade Commander Shi shook his head.

"Do you think this is a gang fight? Those outside are regular troops."

"If you fight your way out, you'll confirm the charge of 'plotting a rebellion.' When the machine guns go off, it won't just be us who die, but hundreds or even thousands of civilians on this street."

-

"What can we do? Just watch our neighbors starve and freeze to death? Watch them be made a fool of like monkeys?!" Lu Feng tugged at his hair in anguish.

Just then, Lu Cheng came out from the inner room.

He was still wearing that faded gray cloth long gown, without even adding a cotton robe.

Despite the freezing weather, he radiated warmth.

He ignored his apprentices' argument and instead looked at Shunzi, who was standing to the side.

"Shunzi" (a type of Chinese character)

Lu Cheng spoke in a flat tone.

"Go, open the cellar."

"A cellar?" Shunzi was taken aback.

That was where Lu Cheng hid the "ill-gotten gains" he had confiscated from Commander Zhang's underground fortress in Fengtai Camp.

Several large boxes of gold bars, and hundreds of thousands of foreign bearer promissory notes.

"Go to the French Concession and find Master Yuan. Also, send an urgent telegram to Old Master Huo in Tianjin."

Lu Cheng walked to the desk, picked up the wolf-hair brush, dipped it in thick ink, and quickly wrote a few lines on the rice paper.

His handwriting was no longer as elegant as before; instead, it conveyed a sense of dullness, like a heavy sword without a sharp edge.

"Tell them that Lu Cheng didn't borrow a knife, he borrowed grain."

"Spend all this money on it."

"I want to see trains carrying grain and coal enter Beiping before dawn tomorrow!"

After saying that, Lu Cheng folded the letter he had written and handed it to Shunzi.

"Master————"

Shunzi took the letter with both hands, feeling as if it weighed a ton.

That's wealth that could rival that of a nation!

They just threw it all away like that?

"Go and do it."

Lu Cheng turned around and looked out the window at the leaden gray sky.

"The snow and wind that fill the city cannot freeze our bones."

"Are they trying to undermine us?"

"Then I, Lu Cheng, will give this Beijing—"

"Add a blaze to the sky."

""

That night, the snow fell even more heavily in Beiping.

Liu Pangzi, wrapped in a mink coat, hid in the sentry post tent at the crossroads, guarding a small red clay stove. On the stove, a pot of strong liquor was burning, and a few pieces of mutton were roasting, sizzling and dripping with oil.

"Young master, that was a brilliant move of yours."

The adjutant beside him fawned over him, offering him a glass of wine.

"If this snow continues all night, tomorrow morning, Qianmen Street will be littered with corpses of the starving."

"Won't those ignorant masses tear that Lu guy to pieces then? We won't even need to lift a finger; the reputation of 'National Martial Arts Light' will be drowned in the spittle of the people."

"Heh heh, that's what you call subduing the enemy without fighting."

Fatty Liu took a smug sip of his drink and narrowed his triangular eyes.

"What good is martial arts if you're so skilled? In the face of real money, guns, and government power, Lu Cheng is nothing more than a beggar actor."

""

However, at dawn, Fatty Liu's dream was ruthlessly shattered by a deafening roar that shook the very earth.

"Boom—!!!"

This is not thunder.

This is the terrifying sound of hundreds and thousands of heavy wooden wheels rolling over the snow-covered cobblestone road.

"What happened?"

Fatty Liu suddenly pushed open the tent flap, and was nearly choked by the cold wind outside.

At the end of Qianmen Street, amidst the hazy snow, a long convoy suddenly appeared.

That wasn't just a dozen or dozens of vehicles.

That was a massive convoy that stretched as far as the eye could see, like a long dragon!

On each of those large rubber-wheeled horse-drawn carriages unique to the North, piles of [items] were stacked as high as small mountains.

On one side was a snow-white, top-quality foreign-made noodle branded with the Tianjin Wei Foreign Firm label.

On one side is jet-black, shiny, and burning hot smokeless coal.

What's even more chilling are the people escorting these convoys.

They were not wearing military uniforms.

But those hundreds of strong men, dressed in black short jackets with red cloth belts around their waists and carrying long sticks and short axes, exuded a wild and murderous aura that was even more terrifying than that of a regular army.

Those were the two Red Sticks of the Tianjin Wei Qing Gang and Hongmen.

And at the very front of the convoy.

A huge apricot-yellow flag was flying high.

A huge character was written in thick ink above it—【霍】!

The foremost martial arts family in Tianjin.

The Huo family's merchant ships used the last stretch of waterway on the Grand Canal to transfer to trains overnight, forcefully breaking through all the checkpoints along the way.

Money makes the world go round.

Several large boxes of gold bars and US dollars were thrown down, and even the money-grubbing warlords along the way turned a blind eye and let them pass.

"Stop! Who are you? This is a military restricted area."

Fatty Liu's adjutant steeled himself and rushed forward, drawing his sidearm, but his voice was trembling.

"Military restricted area?"

One of the old men from the Green Gang who was escorting the truck sneered and spat a mouthful of phlegm into the snow.

He pulled out a "disaster relief pass" from his pocket, stamped with the official seals of various foreign concessions and consulates, and specially approved by a powerful elder in Nanjing, and slapped it directly onto his adjutant's face.

"Are you blind? This is humanitarian aid supplies being transported to Beiping by the Tianjin Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with the French and British concessions."

"Who dares to stop you? Are you trying to provoke an international conflict, or are you trying to block the livelihoods of ordinary people all over the world?"

The adjutant was so frightened by the official document and the overwhelming aura of martial arts that he took three steps back and sat down hard on the snow.

Fatty Liu's face turned green as he looked at the endless convoy.

He knew that his "cutting off the fuel supply" tactic had been completely shattered by the opponent's overwhelming power.

"Go into town."

With a loud shout.

The massive convoy moved as if it were empty, pushing aside the barricades that symbolized the blockade, and drove into Qianmen Street in a grand procession.

Its daybreak.

When the people of the southern city, who had been starving for three days and were shivering from the cold, pushed open the door panels covered with frost flowers.

They witnessed a scene they would never forget.

In the wind and snow.

The disciples of the Qingyun Troupe, along with the men of the Green Gang, were distributing grain and coal briquettes from house to house.

There is no condescending attitude of giving alms.

Only the most mundane transactions.

"Auntie, flour, two silver dollars a bag, original price. If you don't have cash, put it on the Qingyun troupe's account, and pay when you have it."

Shunzi carried a 200-pound sack of flour and placed it steadily in front of an elderly woman living alone, smiling kindly.

-

"Grandpa, this fine coal costs a dime a basket, and it burns really well."

With the hands that had once killed people, Lu Feng carefully helped an old boxer carry coal briquettes into a drafty house.

The people were stunned.

They looked at the snow-white flour and the black coal lumps.

Then think about all the rumors and gossip circulating these past two days, saying that Master Lu caused trouble and implicated everyone.

Suddenly, someone in the crowd burst into tears.

"A living bodhisattva—a living bodhisattva indeed."

An old man with white hair knelt down in the snow with a thud and kowtowed hard in the direction of the Lu residence.

Followed by.

Two, three, ten, a hundred —

Along the entire Qianmen Street, countless ordinary people spontaneously knelt down in the wind and snow.

No one cared about any military control order, nor did anyone care about any excuses about Japanese spies.

In this chaotic world of hunger and cold, whoever gives them a full meal and a piece of charcoal to keep warm is their true god.

"Master Lu, your benevolence and righteousness are unparalleled."

The noise and expressions of gratitude outside rose in waves.

But the backyard of the Lu residence was as tranquil as a traditional Chinese ink painting.

On the small red clay stove, the water in the copper kettle bubbled and churned, steam rising from the bottom.

Lu Cheng did not go to the front yard to receive the grand spectacle of ten thousand people bowing and worshipping him.

He was still wearing that gray cloth gown, lying on that bamboo rocking chair.

He was holding a thread-bound fragment of the Tai Chi Chuan manual in his hand, reading it with great interest.

The exquisite mind sees that the five aggregates are all empty.

Whether he gained fame or lost his fortune, it didn't stir a ripple in his heart.

"Master."

Shunzi rushed in from outside, covered in snowflakes, but his honest face was radiant with a triumphant glow.

"That fat Liu outside was so angry his face turned green. He led his soldiers and slunk away, without even having time to move the barricades."

"The neighbors are building a shrine for you in the street, saying they want to bless you with a long and healthy life."

Shunzi was so excited that he danced with joy; he had never felt so happy in his life.

"Um.

""

Lu Cheng's gaze did not leave the boxing manual; he simply responded softly and casually turned a page.

"Master, that's tens of thousands of silver dollars!"

Little Bean, standing nearby, was so distressed that he kept clicking his teeth.

"Are we just going to throw everything away like this? What will the opera troupe's livelihood be like from now on—"

"The money was distributed, but the people gathered."

Lu Cheng finally put down his book, picked up the purple clay teapot next to him, and poured himself a cup of piping hot tea.

"The people of Beijing have a sense of justice."

"If you treat them as human beings, they will revere you as a god."

Lu Cheng picked up his teacup and gently blew away the floating tea leaves.

Through the rising steam, my gaze fell upon the old locust tree that stood tall and straight in the wind and snow, even faintly revealing a hint of green.

"This fire is burning quite brightly."

Lu Cheng took a sip of tea, savoring the sweet aftertaste following the bitterness.

"Go and add two more pieces of charcoal to the floor heating system in the house."

"This late spring cold snap should be over by now."

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