Now, Hua Yunlong heard what Liu Chang said but made no reply. The three of them ate supper and stayed at Liu Chang’s house outside the Qiantang Gate. After the drum had sounded the first watch1 Hua Yunlong could not sleep. He got up and looked: Wang Tong and Liu Chang were both asleep. He opened the bundle that held his clothes for moving in the dark and changed into them. He took off his daytime clothes, wrapped them up and tied the bundle slantwise at his waist, slid his steel saber into its soft leather sheath and turned the spring catch at the hilt2 tight. Only then did he leave the main room, pulling the door to behind him. He looked up: the sky was full of stars, with a hazy moon besides. He jumped the wall and left the courtyard.

The streets were quiet, with hardly anyone about. He came to the outside of the nunnery, twisted and sprang up onto a roof, and looked all around. The temple had three great halls, one behind another. On the east side of the main hall was a corner gate, which led to a separate east side courtyard. He went to the south end of the eastern building and looked. In that courtyard stood the main room on the north side, three bays wide, with side rooms of three bays each to east and west and a wall straight across the south. Pines and bamboo grew inside, and the courtyard was pleasantly quiet and tasteful. In the eastern inner room of the main room lamplight showed dimly, and faintly came the sound of sutras being chanted; there was lamplight too in the northern inner room of the east side room. He jumped down from the east side room, made straight for the steps of the main room and came to the outside of the window lattice. He wet the window paper till it broke and looked in. Inside, a kang3 ran along under the front eaves, and on it stood a small table with a lamp. Four little nuns, all fourteen or fifteen, sat there holding their sutra books, chanting. On the floor against the north wall stood a long side table piled with scrolls of scripture, and in front of it an Eight Immortals table with a chair on each side. In the seat of honour sat an old nun of sixty-odd, with kindly brows and gentle eyes. Hua Yunlong took a look. The young woman who kept her hair while living as a nun4 was not in here. He turned back and headed for the east side room.

Seizing his chance, Hua Yunlong leapt into the courtyard, twisted up onto the roof and went back the way he had come. Liu Chang had just woken. “Second Grand Master Hua, where have you been?” Hua Yunlong made no secret of it and told them the whole story of the flower-plucking7 he had just done, this and that. Wang Tong had woken too and heard every word. “Second Brother,” he said, “you’ve only just got here and already you’ve pulled a job this big. I’m afraid you won’t be able to stay here long.” Hua Yunlong smiled faintly. “It doesn’t matter. The few head constables they’ve got here — I’ve heard tell of them. They’re nothing to speak of.” As they talked, the two of them got up.

When day broke, Hua Yunlong said, “Liu Chang, go about your business. Don’t tag along loafing about with the two of us; you’ve got your own affairs to see to.” Liu Chang said he would and went off. Wang Tong and Hua Yunlong headed for the Qiantang Gate. The streets were thronged with people, and the two of them heard talk on every side: “They’ll be holding the inquest at Wuzhu Nunnery soon.” “Brother,” Wang Tong said, “let’s go and find somewhere quiet and tasteful to drink. Let’s not hang about here.” The two went into the city and came to the north side of Fengshan Street, where stood the Taishan Tower, a big wine-and-food house. They meant to go in for a cup or two, and in they stepped. Inside there was a counter and stoves, but nobody came to show them to a seat. They went upstairs and looked. A man sat behind the counter with a face like bluish powder. He wore a four-cornered headcloth of sapphire-blue satin and a big cloak of sapphire-blue satin. His brows were fierce and his eyes wicked, and his face was all lumps of ugly flesh. There were four or five waiters, and none of them looked like honest tradesmen. The two sat a long while, and nobody came over. Then they heard the bluish-faced man behind the fretwork counter say, “Lads, I wasn’t up yet just now. What was it you were all shouting about?” “Don’t ask,” said a waiter. “After you’ve had your rice, go and watch the fun. There’s a nunnery outside the Qiantang Gate, Wuzhu Nunnery, and there was a widow there keeping faith with her dead man, living as a nun with her hair on. Last night some lecher killed her, and cut up the old nun badly too. They’ll be holding the inquest soon. Isn’t that a strange business?” Then they heard the blue-faced proprietor say, “That thief is truly hateful! What a pity a chaste, virtuous woman like that was killed by a lecher. Somebody must have raped one of this thief’s elders, and now he’s come to take revenge.” Hua Yunlong glared, but he could not very well answer that. Fuming where he sat, he kicked the bench. “You lot have no eyes in your heads! Your Second Grand Master has been sitting here half the day — why don’t you come over? Are you running a business or not?” The waiter rolled his eyes. “Don’t you go shouting. If you’ve come to pick a quarrel, go and ask around whose business this is. I’ll tell you: since we opened we’ve beaten more than one. Just counting the local thugs, we’ve beaten a dozen or more, and when we were done we sent them to the county court with the boss’s card8. I’m telling you for your own good. Don’t go picking quarrels.” At these words Hua Yunlong’s eyes blazed. “Your Second Grand Master doesn’t care who owns it. Rile your Second Grand Master and I’ll set fire to your tower. Go and fetch your boss. Your Second Grand Master would like to meet him. Has he got three heads on his neck and six arms on his shoulders? Your Second Grand Master is picking a quarrel, all right.”

A word of explanation: this wine tower had been opened by Qin Lu, called the Street-Clearing Grand Duke9 (Jingjie Taisui), nephew of Qin An, steward to Chancellor Qin. The tower was not really there to sell seats to passing customers. It was there for people who had to stand trial and wanted strings pulled10: they came looking for Qin Lu to make approaches for them at Chancellor Qin’s mansion. All the custom he drew in was officials and gentry, and he was a thorough snob. Today, when he heard Hua Yunlong speak up like that, Qin Lu came out from behind the counter. “What sort of thing are you, to throw your weight around in my place? Men, beat him for me, and when you’ve beaten him, take my card and send him to the county court.” At this Hua Yunlong’s anger surged up. He reached back and drew his saber. “You dare to kill?” said Qin Lu. “So you’ve got a saber — so what? Go on, cut!” Trusting in his powerful connections, he stuck his head forward. “Killing you is less than squashing a bedbug,” said Hua Yunlong. Up went the saber, down it came, and Qin Lu’s head parted company with his body. The waiters were scared out of their wits. “Mother!” one yelled, and ran for the stairs, but his legs gave way under him and he went tumbling — bump, bump, bump — down the staircase.

At once someone ran to the local ward station to report: “Two men came up into our wine tower and killed our boss!” “Catch them, quick!” said the officers. But by the time they all got upstairs and looked, there was nobody there. Hua Yunlong and Wang Tong had long since jumped out of the tower window and were standing in the crowd watching the excitement. They saw the Taishan Tower ringed with people, all saying, “The thief has got away!” Someone said, “Never mind, this thief won’t get away. Our prefect’s yamen has four head constables, Chai Yuanlu, Du Zhenying, Lei Siyuan and Ma Anjie. Those four are old hands at catching famous great bandits. A thief like this, they’ll have him in less than three days.” Hua Yunlong heard it all clearly from the crowd and stored it away in his mind. With Wang Tong he found an out-of-the-way spot, went into a wine shop, sat down in a private room and drank. “My worthy brother,” Wang Tong said, “you’re going too far. You only got here yesterday, killed one last night, and today you’ve killed another.” “I’ll tell you, Elder Brother,” said Hua Yunlong. “Now that I’ve come here, I mean to do a few things that will shake heaven and earth. And he was asking to die anyway. Just now I heard that there are four mounted constables11 here who can handle cases. I’d like to take them on. Tonight I’ll go to Chancellor Qin’s mansion and take the head off the reigning chancellor, Qin Xi12. I’ll stay half a year in Lin’an and see what sort of men they send to catch me.” “My worthy brother,” said Wang Tong, “do you really have the nerve?” “When have I ever said a thing and not meant it?” said Hua Yunlong. “My worthy brother,” said Wang Tong, “if you really dare to do this, this foolish elder brother of yours will come along too. The two of us have had a few cups too many, after all.” Wang Tong had goaded him with his words, and Hua Yunlong’s anger surged. When they had finished drinking, the two went straight to Qinhe Ward to scout the way. When they had done scouting, they found a quiet wine shop and sat talking heart to heart.

They waited until it was dark, then went to a deserted spot, opened their bundles of night clothes, changed out of their daytime clothes and packed those into the bundles. They came to Chancellor Qin’s mansion, twisted up onto the wall and leapt over roofs and across ridges as if on level ground. When they reached the inner quarters of Chancellor Qin’s mansion, they searched everywhere and saw lamplight flickering in the main room on the north side of the rear compound. The two of them thought, “These are the inner quarters. This must be where Chancellor Qin sleeps.” They saw two maids inside, both fourteen or fifteen, sitting up on night duty, with a candle burning on the table. The two sprang up onto the roof, took out a stick of stupefying incense13, lit it and sent it into the room. In a little while both maids had been overcome by the fumes. Only then did Hua Yunlong go into the middle room and look. He had expected it to be Chancellor Qin who slept there, but it turned out to be Madam Qin’s bedchamber. Hua Yunlong looked and saw a bracelet pouch lying on the stand, and inside it a pair of Exquisite Translucent White Jade Bracelets, half the work of nature and half of human hands, truly a tribute gift from a foreign land, which Chancellor Qin had kept for himself. “Second Brother Wang,” said Hua Yunlong, “you have these!” “I don’t want them,” said Wang Tong. “You have them!” Turning round, Hua Yunlong saw a phoenix crown14 box over there, and in it thirteen strings of jewels and a phoenix crown hung with pearls. He picked these up too and put them in his pouch. Then he came out. Seeing a brush and an inkstone on the table, he picked up the brush and wrote two poems on the wall, tossed the brush onto the table, turned and went outside, and he and Wang Tong made off.

Chancellor Qin rose early to attend court, and he always came into the inner quarters first. Finding the maids senseless and unable to wake, he went into the room and looked: the bracelet pouch, the jade bracelets and the phoenix crown were gone. He hurriedly sent people to bring his wife and the maids round first. Then he looked at the wall, and knew that the thieves were long gone.

What poems had been written on the wall? To learn what happened next, read the next chapter.