2 – Shao Qing
Y ao was annoyed with him. This was nothing new.
Shao Qing sat a little apart from the rest of the thieves in the forest clearing, leaning against a thick stalk of bamboo. The others were gathered in a circle around a crackling fire, chortling and slapping each other’s backs in boisterous celebration. In their midst, Yao shot him occasional glares between gulps of chrysanthemum wine.
Shao Qing figured the thief lord would take him aside for a heady lecture in a minute. He studied the duck leg in his bowl drenched in a rich, dark sauce. The dense meat tasted like ash in his mouth. Still, he ate.
Finally, a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Shao Qing looked up to see Yao glowering at him from beneath bushy brows.
“A word, Brother Qing.”
Shao Qing set his bowl down and rose slowly from his seat. The others carried on, too drunk on wine and their own egos to notice Yao and Shao Qing step behind a cluster of overgrown bamboo.
“Is there a problem?” Shao Qing asked, knowing full well that there was.
Yao’s face was red and splotchy from the alcohol, but his words were sharp enough. “What were you thinking, exposing yourself so recklessly?” he demanded. “In a magistrate’s manor, of all places! That man could have you hanged with a flick of his pinky finger!”
Shao Qing shrugged a shoulder. “I didn’t get caught.”
“Yet!” Yao bellowed.
“I never get caught.”
Shao Qing had once slipped a jade bangle off an old woman’s wrist without even rustling her sleeve. He had helped her up after she stumbled over a strategically placed twig. The he tian jade was warm in his palm before the old woman had finished thanking him. Yao had been impressed enough by that, lauding him as swift, decisive, and steady. It was the theft that had earned him a spot in the gang.
“ You never get caught but someday you’ll get us caught,” Yao said. “You’re too reckless. Too cocky. Magistrate Bu may be a poor thief catcher, but you cannot count on his shortcomings to protect yourself.”
Shao Qing had yet to have his abilities proven wrong, so he said nothing.
Yao pointed a meaty finger at him. “Everyone else has the sense to listen to me and follow caution. We do this to build a life for ourselves. This is all we petty thieves have! What’s important to you, Brother Qing? Chasing the next high? Provoking ill-fortune and slipping away again just because you can?”
Shao Qing’s gaze drifted past Yao’s shoulder. These days the bamboo forest looked more gray than green.
It’s getting worse , he thought. He supposed he should’ve been alarmed, but even that had deserted him.
Yao made an irritated noise. “Is there a single thought in that brain of yours?”
“Apologies. I was distracted.”
The thief lord shook his head. “Magistrate Bu’s manor. Honestly! You’re lucky that painting you took already has an interested buyer. We can’t hold onto it for much longer if we want to keep our necks.”
Shao Qing clasped his hands and bowed. “You work impressively fast, Elder Brother Yao.” He knew the man was easily placated by respect and praise, if not proper remorse. Shao Qing was not feeling particularly remorseful.
It had been far too easy to infiltrate Magistrate Bu’s manor during his banquet. His guards were careless, their senses dulled by celebratory drink, gone soft with the idea that no one would dare steal from the city magistrate. The entire gang had gone over the walls with no misstep. It would’ve been too routine to stay under Yao’s cautious command. Shao Qing would’ve been numb to the entire heist.
Snatching the painting from the magistrate’s own banquet table before an audience of shocked spectators had made his heart race and heat flood his veins. Shao Qing had felt weightless, like an immortal floating on clouds, as if something had awakened within him when he passed those manor gates.
“If you jeopardize us again, I’ll have no choice but to kill you,” Yao said darkly. “I have children to feed, for heaven’s sake!”
It was an empty threat and they both knew it. He punched Shao Qing’s shoulder and rejoined the group.
Yao was an odd combination of sentimental father and hardened criminal. He often liked to moralize about respect and filial piety, as if he were the head of a wealthy household instead of a group of immoral riff raff who would do anything for coin. Some of the thieves were like him and had relatives to feed, but the rest were exactly what Yao thought Shao Qing was—youths who indulged in vice and recklessness for the sake of it. They were wasting their lives, whereas Shao Qing’s had already been wasted.
He rubbed his shoulder—the pain had already dulled—and headed back to the clearing where the rest of the thieves sat. Their black robes were stark against the blazing fire in the center.
“Eat well, brothers!” Yao called out, already in a better mood. “We’ve earned it tonight!”
The men cheered.
As Shao Qing returned to his seat, someone sidled up to him.
“How do you do it, Brother Qing? Jump in like that without a care?” Wei asked breathlessly, his too-large eyes glimmering with awe. He was the youngest in the gang, no more than fifteen and as skinny as a mantis. “I thought that stunt was going to land you in prison!”
Shao Qing swallowed a bite of duck with some difficulty. “It was unwise,” he said, feeling Yao glaring at him again.
“He is utterly fearless!” Xuan Bo, a stocky, middle-aged thief exclaimed.
The others cheered. Shao Qing forced a smile, though the corners of his lips felt stiff.
“So, did you get a little dragon for your collection this time?” Wei asked.
Nan You, a wiry thief with a dark goatee, hiccuped. “No one wants to see your little dragon, Shao Qing!”
The group guffawed uproariously.
“I did not,” Shao Qing said shortly.
Wei sighed. “That’s too bad. You could’ve had the coin to treat us to more wine.”
“With the amount of art Brother Qing has stolen he should be rolling in gold,” Xuan Bo interjected. “How much have you sold those pieces for?”
Shao Qing picked up his duck again. They had never asked him so many questions before. Despite having traveled together for three years, the other men still found him unsettling. He supposed it was his apathetic nature and his pale eyes. Demon’s eyes, Yao had called them. He wasn’t entirely wrong.
“I don’t sell them,” Shao Qing said. He was fine living off the wages Yao gave them from their collective heists, but he had a habit of snagging any painting with a dragon on it if it caught his eye. The art itself was worthless to him. Some he put back, others he threw into the river or dropped in the streets. None of them were ever what he thought they’d be.
Wei gaped at him. “Could it be that you actually admire the art, Brother Qing?”
“What’s so unusual about that?” Yao snapped. “We should have appreciation for the things we sell. The better we know the subject, the better we can assess their value.”
“But why have a rotten piece of paper when you can have gold?” Nan You complained. “I’d rather have a feast every day and Peony Pagoda songbirds on each arm than a dusty scroll on my wall.”
“Then you’re a prime idiot!” Yao slurred his words, having had several more gulps of chrysanthemum wine. He fumbled with the scroll at his belt and unrolled it, exposing the painting Shao Qing had stolen. “See here. An excellent mountain and river piece by an up and coming scholar painter. Exquisite brushwork, exquisite composition. I could just... dive right into this waterfall!” Yao made a swooping motion with his hand. “There aren’t many paintings like this. This has a freshness to it, like a spiraled orange peel!”
“Brother Yao, I think you’ve had too much to drink.”
The others murmured their assent, their attention now removed from Shao Qing. Wei, however, still lingered.
The boy withdrew a fruit from his sleeve. “I saved you a peach. You didn’t take one earlier.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Wei shrugged and bit into the peach, juice dribbling down his chin as he peered at Shao Qing’s bowl. “Are you going to finish that, then?”
He shook his head and offered the rest of the duck to Wei. It had since grown cold, and he was hardly tempted to finish food that tasted like cold, slimy ash.
Wei took a large bite into the meat and groaned. “This is good stuff! They know how to make it right in the South Street Market.” He chewed and swallowed. “Do you not like duck, Brother Qing?”
He did, once.
The sound of booted feet hitting the earth made Shao Qing pause. Spots of yellow torchlight flickered to life at the forest line.
“Drat.” Yao stood unsteadily. “The constables are here.”
The gang scrambled to their feet. Someone raked dirt over the fire, plunging the clearing into darkness.
“Do you reckon they’re looking for us?” Wei squeaked.
“Of course they are,” Yao whispered harshly. The proximity to danger seemed to sober him. “The magistrate sent them.”
Shao Qing couldn’t see, but he figured the thief lord was shooting an accusatory glare at him.
“What do we do? Go to headquarters?”
The abandoned building they congregated in was only a mile from the forest. It was too close, too obvious.
“No. Everyone, scatter. If they catch one of us they catch all of us,” Yao said darkly. “Go!”
Footfalls rustled the forest floor, then, nothing. It was good they were all light-footed—but whether they were good at hiding was another thing. Shao Qing assessed the torches. He could go deeper into the forest and wait, or he could pass the guards without detection. They wouldn’t expect a thief to go back into the city.
So that’s exactly what Shao Qing did.
***
N IGHT LIFE IN ZHU CITY was limited to the outskirts where the poor and middle class dwelt. Tea houses, shops, restaurants, and brothels towered over the stall-lined streets. Shao Qing passed the restaurant on the South Street Market where they had purchased the duck, its tiled eaves dangling with red paper lanterns. It lay before the foot of the massive bridge that connected the outer wards of the city to the inner wards where the wealthy were situated.
On either side of the bridge, vendors hollered their wares behind stalls. Hawthorn fruits gleamed on skewers, glazed in hard sugar shells. The smoky scent of green onion pancakes and other street food was thick in the hazy air. People bustled past, chattering and shouting, as children ran underfoot, kicking a tasseled ball between the feet of passersby.
Shao Qing kept his gaze on the paved ground as he crossed, weaving through the crowd at a leisurely pace so as to not arouse suspicion. He would have to find somewhere in the city to hide. But where?
The noises and crowd faded as he approached the opposite end of the bridge. When the high walls of the courtyard houses came into view, Shao Qing was struck with a thought. It was true the constables wouldn’t expect him to return to the city, but they would expect even less that he would return to the scene of the crime so soon.
Offending a magistrate was a hefty felony. Anyone with a healthy dose of fear would stay away.
The ward gate loomed before the end of the bridge, manned by two guards on either side. It towered two stories high, separating the rich from the rest of the city. Only the wealthy or tradesmen on official business could pass through freely—heaven forbid a lowly carp jump over the dragon’s gate.
Shao Qing turned left into an alleyway between the gate and another building before the guards spotted him, running his hand along the rough wall. At the very end was a gap just big enough for a person to slip through undetected. He did so now, wedging himself through the uneven stone and emerging on the other side. It was a good thing the gate was severely understaffed.
He wove through cleanly swept streets until he stood beneath Magistrate Bu’s manor. The west wall was grown over with strong, flourishing vines to conceal a crumbling hole at the foot of it. The magistrate’s vanity was the precise reason Yao was able to find a way into the manor.
Shao Qing braced his foot against the wall and began to climb.
One of the benefits of his condition was that his inner stillness manifested outwardly. Fear and hesitation made thieves stumble—Shao Qing never stumbled. His limbs were steady even as some of the vines pulled loose and the rough stone scraped his knuckles. The journey up the wall was swift. He landed silently on the tiled roof and crouched beside a row of guardian statues that lined the ridge, hoping his silhouette blended in with the stone creatures.
This was the front section of the west wing where Shao Qing figured the magistrate housed his servants. People of less importance were always placed away from the inner courtyard, which meant there was less security here. The room beneath him had a dim light that shone through a latticed wooden door. A pair of plain shoes were set by the entry, small and dainty. A maidservant, perhaps. Someone he could easily overpower.
Shao Qing peered over the raised lip of the eaves. No guards.
He leapt down and slipped silently into the room.