Chapter Eighteen: The Pit of Blood

Chapter Forty-Eight: The Pit of Blood

Tie Xinyuan returned once more to the pigsty. The pigs that had gone mad yesterday were nowhere to be found; in just a single day, they had ended up in the stomachs of the people of Tokyo.

Perhaps this was a cycle.

Old Liang said so; the aged butcher, when uttering these words, resembled a poet.

“The shorter the time spent in this world, the faster the cycle turns,” he added, a remark steeped in philosophy.

Tie Xinyuan silently wished those pigs a smooth journey, all the while grumbling inwardly that Old Liang, already sixty, still refused to die. It seemed the old fellow was enjoying life, unwilling to step lightly through the door of reincarnation, nor to sip the bowl of forgetfulness.

The pigs in the sty were actually graded. Those plump, robust ones whose faces disappeared beneath their fat were kept separately.

Such pork was the favorite of Tokyo’s residents.

The people of Great Song derived their main supply of fat from these pigs; those grown into lean meat were considered dullards in the pig clan, worthless.

The Tie family preferred the lean ones. Old Liang had repeatedly asked Wang Rouhua not to cheat customers. She should make the thick slabs of fatty meat fragrant and delicious for the patrons, rather than use the scrawny pigs that were all bone to deceive them; that, he said, was not the way to do sustainable business.

Clearly, the usually talkative Old Liang was distracted today. His gaze kept wandering to the tall building across the way, making Tie Xinyuan think the structure was about to collapse, and leaving him tense, bracing for some sudden event.

“Blood’s coming from the pit…”

A young man screamed hoarsely, then tumbled out of the pit, frantically stripping off his clothes, soaked in red mud, and pouring a bucket of water from the sweet well all over himself.

The water ran off his body, slowly turning into a pale yellow liquid. The young man shrieked in terror, tore off his last pair of shorts, and kept dousing himself.

Old Liang smiled faintly, then, with a bewildered look, hurried off to join the commotion, leaving Tie Xinyuan alone with a crowd of fat pigs.

So be it, sooner or later—it made no difference. Tie Xinyuan was long past the age of curiosity, so he continued searching for the strongest pig, only such a creature would suit his plans.

Today he did not feed the pigs mushroom powder. Instead, after confirming the number of pigs the butchers received daily, he left the sty to watch the spectacle.

The appearance of blood in the earth pit was indeed strange.

By the time Tie Xinyuan arrived, the best vantage points were already taken. He could only see red liquid steadily seeping from the walls of the pit, pooling at the bottom into a half-filled basin of blood. The men who had been pumping water were nowhere to be seen.

Tie Xinyuan glanced at the pit, then turned his attention to Old Liang.

“This is a collision with the Spirit of the Year!” Old Liang muttered quietly.

Hearing this, Tie Xinyuan prepared to leave.

No matter how bizarre the happenings, surely it was the Butchers’ Gang behind it. Old Liang, with his poetic flair, was likely the chief culprit.

If not for hearing someone say Lord Luoshui had arrived, Tie Xinyuan would already have returned to his shop.

These days, while reading “Tokyo Construction,” he came across a person named Luoshui. The account suggested this Lord Luoshui was intimately familiar with the “Code of Construction.” The book specifically mentioned how, after the Yellow River disaster, Lord Luoshui retrieved the iron oxen used to pull the bridge from the mud—a man of achievement and charm.

Yet Tie Xinyuan was perplexed. From the incident’s onset, at most only a stick of incense’s time had passed, and this nobleman had already arrived? How could he be so swift?

Tie Xinyuan fixed his gaze once more on Old Liang’s face, seeking answers from its uneasy expression.

Old Liang appeared lost, not even in the mood for gossip, staring intently at the elderly gentleman alighting from a carriage.

He was called an old lord mainly because the three wisps of long beard under his chin hardly suited the title of “lord.”

In Tie Xinyuan’s imagination, Lord Luoshui should at least be a graceful youth in white, matching the spirit of the River Goddess.

A middle-aged man with a face full of beard was hardly inspiring.

The overseer of the building hurried over, quietly explaining the strange events on the site to Lord Luoshui.

Lord Luoshui frowned, approached the pit, and stared in distaste at the pool of vivid red water. For a master of construction, tales of spirits and ghosts held little sway.

When Tie Xinyuan saw Lord Luoshui scoop up some bloody water from the pit, sniff it carefully, and then, without hesitation, draw out a three-inch iron spike and stab it into Old Liang’s thigh, he knew trouble was coming.

Old Liang cried out, instinctively kicked out with his left leg, and the man standing before him stumbled forward. Thankfully, Lord Luoshui blocked his fall, but in doing so, he and his wooden basin tumbled into the pit.

Old Liang, furious as a tiger, cursed loudly in the crowd, glaring around for the culprit who stabbed him.

Tie Xinyuan’s bewildered look was perfectly natural; he watched the enraged Old Liang warily, retreating in fear. Old Liang didn’t suspect Tie Xinyuan at all, instead focusing his anger on a burly fellow he’d never gotten along with, and without a word, smashed his fist into him.

The crowd instantly erupted in chaos. The overseers rushed to pull Lord Luoshui, clad in white, from the pit, while Old Liang and the unknown man brawled fiercely.

The young man, who had finally cleaned himself, wrapped in a tattered hemp cloth, pointed at Lord Luoshui splashing in the bloody water and shouted, “I knew it! This place isn’t clean!”

With that, he bolted out of sight.

Fear is contagious. The young man fled, and the rest, even if skeptical of ghosts, kept retreating. Why risk provoking the Spirit of the Year for someone else’s trouble?

Tie Xinyuan returned to the noodle shop. Seeing his mother craning her neck to look that way, he laughed, “The water in the pit suddenly turned red, who knows why.”

“They collided with the Spirit of the Year…”

“How did you know?”

“Someone just ran past the front of the shop, shouting about it. I heard it clearly—how could I not know?”

Tie Xinyuan chuckled, “We have sixty Spirits of the Year in total; bumping into one or two isn’t surprising. But that Lord Luoshui in white really did fall in.”

Wang Rouhua sighed, “Let’s hope they truly did provoke the Spirit of the Year, otherwise those men are doomed.”

Tie Xinyuan looked in the direction his mother pointed. Under the eaves opposite, a crowd squatted, their carrying poles leaned against the wall in dense clusters.

“Once the tall building is finished, that cargo wharf will close. They’ll build a bigger one, but then the wharf won’t be for cargo boats anymore—it’ll become a berth for pleasure barges.

These porters will have no work then.”

“They already have no work.”

“Exactly. Mother, they used to be busy every day—how come there’s no work at all lately?”

Tie Xinyuan sat opposite his mother, smiling, “If all these people were busy, who would cause trouble for those building the tower?

The appearance of blood in the pit is just the first step—who knows what’s next. When the tower collapses, the West Water Gate will descend into chaos. Mother, in seven or eight days we should close the shop.

It’ll soon be the first of October, the day to send winter clothes to the dead. We must burn clothes for Father—you said you’d make extra this year.

Start early and make them fine, so Father will protect us.”

Mentioning her late husband, Wang Rouhua instantly forgot the crowd across the street. Remembering the tree before the Tie family’s ancestral hall, she said, “Son, I heard the land at Tie Family Village has emerged above water. On October first, let’s take a boat to visit—our ancestors must be honored. Who knows how those relatives sent to the frontier are faring…”

Lord Luoshui, drenched in blood, was being helped toward the noodle shop. Wang Rouhua immediately blocked the way, saying, “You cannot enter. If you come in covered in blood, and the Spirit of the Year takes offense at our home, what will we do?”

The disheveled Lord Luoshui retorted angrily, “Collided with the Spirit of the Year? Nonsense! Some villain deliberately scattered turmeric powder everywhere. If turmeric meets lime and doesn’t turn red, that’s the real oddity.

Shopkeeper, lend me a clean room to wash and change—later I’ll pay you well.”

The famous Lord Luoshui’s words carried authority.

Wang Rouhua pointed to a side room, usually occupied by two idle women for afternoon naps when there were no customers—now it served perfectly.

Tie Xinyuan was long accustomed to the wit of the clever men of Song. Though they still lived on the ground, they were already planning to fly. Half a month ago, a man named Shen Sheng strapped huge wings of chicken and duck feathers to his arms, leaped from the city wall of Tokyo, and broke his leg—a laughingstock among the people.

Tie Xinyuan didn’t dare laugh. He knew how humans eventually learned to fly, and what the world lacked most was fools like Shen Sheng.

He might not admire Lord Luoshui’s character, but he must respect his learning.

Tie Xinyuan carried a basin of warm water into the side room…