Be a proper Taoist priest in The Condor Heroes

Meanwhile, at the Black Tiger Gang's branch...

The Black Tiger Gang's headquarters was a small, illegally occupied courtyard. The mud-brick walls were pitted and uneven from the rain, and waist-high foxtail grass grew on top of them. It was late summer and early autumn, and the grass was growing wildly, making the courtyard look even more messy. There were no decent furnishings in the courtyard, only a few bundles of moldy hay piled in the corner. The ground was compacted yellow earth, uneven from being walked on, and there wasn't even a proper bluestone slab.

Inside the room stood a octagonal table with a missing leg, propped up by stones. A large crack ran along the edge of the table, and several kinds of food, mostly coarse grains, were laid out on it.

The multigrain pancakes were still a bit damp, probably just scavenged from somewhere; a bowl of brown rice was topped with a few blackened pickled radishes, and a plate next to it was filled with cold purslane salad, a common wild vegetable in summer and autumn.

There was another rough porcelain bowl filled with murky rice water, with a few grains of rice bran floating on the surface.

In Taiyuan, where starvation was rampant, these things were considered "good things" that could fill one's stomach, and they were also the capital that allowed the Black Tiger Gang to recruit some idle young people.

The head of the hall, Zhou Biao, was in his early thirties. He was tall and burly, but he had a greasy, puffy appearance.

This is what it looks like to barely have enough to eat in chaotic times. He wore a patched-up thong and carried a rusty short knife, which was called a "weapon," but in reality, he only knew a little bit of ruthless farming. He had only gained the gang leader's trust by being ruthless and was put in charge of the protection money in this area.

At this moment, he sat imposingly on the broken wooden chair behind the table, his triangular eyes sweeping fiercely over the henchmen standing below. He slammed the jujube wood stick in his hand on the table with a "thud," making the grains of brown rice jump up.

The seven or eight henchmen at the table hunched over, their heads almost touching their chests, barely daring to breathe. Their clothes were even more tattered than Zhou Biao's, their short jackets patched upon patched, some with their trousers rolled up to their knees, revealing their sun-darkened, scarred calves, their toes sticking out of their worn-out shoes, covered in mud.

These people were originally desperate vagrants who joined the Black Tiger Gang just to get a full meal. They could only bully the weaker people on a daily basis, and they didn't even have the courage to fight back when they encountered tough opponents.

"Useless! All of you are useless! You just squatted down a door and someone died? Huh? What use are you guys?!"

Zhou Biao's voice was rough and hoarse. He was both surprised and angry when he heard them say that they had not seen the two people.

"Could...could it be that kid we were staking out killed him?"

One of the young henchmen mustered his courage and spoke, his voice trembling. Another young henchman quickly chimed in.

"It was getting dark, and there were only a few people hiding in the alley. I asked them all, but I didn't see any unfamiliar faces."

Zhou Biao, panting heavily, his eyes sinister and his heart burning with anger, grabbed a jujube wood stick that was lying to the side and indiscriminately struck everyone.

"You son of a bitch, tui!"

He only sat down on the table, cursing, and downed the bowl of mixed grain porridge in one gulp after kicking several people to the ground.

"You all stay here and wait. If we're going to die, we'll all die together!"

Given the Mongols' nature, once they've caught someone, they won't even need half an hour to come knocking on their door. And considering how cowardly Er Gou and Lai Zi are, it'll only be even faster.

He knew perfectly well that the Mongols only cared about the overall situation in Taiyuan Prefecture, while the tasks of plundering the people and maintaining "order" in the streets and alleys were left to these small gangs of Han Chinese.

But the Mongols were ruthless. Their curfew was no joke. His two men certainly didn't have the guts to escape. They were afraid of being caught by the patrolling soldiers. The Mongols had a clear rule that they would be treated as "spies who collude with the Mongols." If they were beaten to death, they would be fine. The real danger was that they would not know anything about it.

Who knows if the Mongols will consider everyone in the room "colluding with the gold" because of these two people? Relying on the Black Tiger Gang, they might at least deduct their monthly "shares," or worse, directly conscript them into hard labor.

Throw them into repairing city walls or digging ditches, and nine times out of ten they won't survive. His little gang, supposedly working for the Mongols, is really just a pawn they can discard at will.

The henchmen inside the room secretly glanced at the food on the table, their Adam's apples bobbing incessantly.

They seem to be better off than the refugees, able to occasionally have a full meal, but their lives are more miserable than those of dogs.

Every day, they had to leave early and return late to collect taxes and arrest runaways for the Mongols. Any slight negligence would result in being whipped by Mongol soldiers. Most of the collected goods had to be handed over to the head of the gang, and they could only get a little coarse grain to survive. Sometimes, if they were unlucky, they wouldn't even have cornbread to eat. The scars on their bodies were either from the resistance of the people or from the beatings and scoldings of the Mongol soldiers and Zhou Biao. They all lived in constant fear.

There was a seventeen or eighteen-year-old henchman whose stomach was growling with hunger. He had only drunk half a bowl of thin rice soup in the morning. Now he was staring at the purslane and cornbread on the table, looking incredibly tempted, but he didn't dare to reach out.

Zhou Biao had set a rule that he had to finish his food first before the rest of the men could have a share; anyone who overstepped that rule would be severely beaten. He was afraid that the unknown assailant would come knocking on his door, but he was even more afraid that the Mongols would blame him and he would lose his life. He secretly regretted that he shouldn't have made a foolish decision to join the Black Tiger Gang.

Zhou Biao took two bites of the multigrain pancake, wiped his mouth, and threw the remaining half back into the rice bowl, where there were still quite a few multigrain pancakes.

Looking at the group of young people in front of him, he sighed inwardly. How could he not regret it? But what could he do? If he hadn't taken this path, he would have starved to death in some corner like those refugees.

At least being alive means I can still have two full meals, so it's worth it.

"Eat up, it's good to die with a full stomach. If nothing comes up tonight, check where they went tomorrow."

As he spoke, he walked out of the house and squatted in the corner of the wall, lost in thought, enjoying the late summer breeze.

Whether it was the mother who starved to death or the wife who was killed by the Mongols, they might have thought of both, but who could they blame? Should they blame themselves for being born under the Mongol's iron heel, blame the Mongols' cruelty, or blame the Southern Song emperor for inaction?

He's just an ordinary citizen, who can he blame but himself for his bad luck?

The monks in the temple often talked about cause and effect, karma, and how suffering in this life is caused by sins committed in the previous life. Sometimes he wondered if the world he lived in was hell itself.

otherwise

Where does all this human suffering come from?

The young people inside were already starving, and they would exchange a beating for a full meal.

For them

value!

For those who can't even fill their stomachs, talking about fate is something only those who are well-fed should think about.

Their thinking was simple and practical: how to fill their stomachs.

As for karma and cause and effect...

They don't understand; all they know is that today they must not steal, rob, or oppress those who are weaker than them.

They would have to go hungry, and going hungry might... lead to death.

What karmic retribution could be worse than not having enough to eat?

The nights at the end of summer are a little longer than those in the height of summer, but not by much. Just before dawn, a faint white line can be seen in the distance in the eastern night sky.

This is when the patrolmen relax their vigilance. Although the Mongols' control is very strict, the Mongol soldiers are still human, and humans are prone to laziness.

The patrol torches on the streets were sparse, like stars blown away by the wind, scattered among the broken walls and alleys, showing no sign of a heavily fortified city.

The Mongol army was known for its strict discipline, but after occupying Taiyuan for so long, the rules for night patrols had long been worn down, and the soldiers' laziness mixed with the weariness of the chaotic world permeated the deep night.

Nine out of ten patrol teams on the streets are Han Chinese.

Whether they were young men forcibly conscripted or refugees who had nowhere else to turn, the real Mongol soldiers were just two or three mixed in with every two or three squads, riding short horses to hold the line, just to make a show of it.

The leather armor on the Mongol soldiers gleamed coldly in the torchlight. They gripped scimitars in their hands, looking fierce, yet they walked slowly. Their horses' hooves pounded on the uneven cobblestones with a dragging, weak sound. Occasionally, they would shout a few words in broken Mongolian, seemingly reprimanding the night patrolmen, but their eyelids drooped, and they were too lazy to even grip the stirrups, clearly dozing off.

In the shadows of the alley, a figure carrying a long, narrow object dodged a patrol of soldiers, scouted around briefly, and then climbed over the wall into the courtyard where the Black Tiger Gang's headquarters were located.

They landed silently. The room was pitch black. After waiting for an hour, the Black Tiger Gang members completely relaxed their guard and lay down in the corners in various positions, fast asleep. Some of them even had smiles on their lips and occasionally murmured in their sleep.

The figure was none other than Su Yan, who had just woken up from a nap. He had been thinking about this group of people the whole time.

I tiptoed closer to the window, listening to the breathing and snoring coming from inside.

Having roughly determined the location and number of people inside, Su Yan was wondering whether to break down the door or climb in through the window when he heard someone inside get out of bed.

Su Yan felt a sudden unease and immediately held her breath, hiding in the shadows under the moonlight.

Accompanied by a few curses, a young man who looked like a vagrant staggered open the door, seemingly intending to use the toilet in the corner.

Su Yan thought to himself, "What a good opportunity!"

Taking advantage of the man's back being turned to the toilet, he immediately darted forward, covered his mouth, and slit his throat with his iron sword.

It was gently laid down on the ground without making a sound.

Looking at the open door, he could only sigh that even God was helping him. He slowly walked into the house, and the sleeping henchmen were dismembered without even feeling any pain.

In his drowsy state, Zhou Biao suddenly sensed something was amiss, something was missing, it was too quiet. The usual annoying snoring and teeth grinding seemed to have fallen silent, replaced instead by the sound of dripping water. And it was very close to him!

Tick-tock, tick-tock

As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw a person standing by the bed, holding a sword in his hand, the blade reflecting the moonlight from outside the window.

The bright red blood is human blood!

Just as he was about to scream, a tremendous force pressed down on his head, and with a sharp pain in his hair, he was uncontrollably slammed into the wall.

thump, thump, thump

After being smashed several times, some brown marks appeared on the originally dilapidated mud wall. With a flash of sword light, under the moonlight, a round object was tossed high into the air, still connected to its original shape, and then fell heavily back down.

Su Yan found a relatively clean cloth to wipe the stains off the sword before starting to search the room.

Several intact multigrain cakes and steamed buns, a few pieces of silver and a small bag of copper coins, probably two or three hundred in total. This should be the allowance collected recently, but it was a bargain for him.

After packing their things, they sped away under the cover of night.