Ying went on to win the Fight Club Championship and was appointed a major within the Emperor's ranks. His face was a powerful tool, striking fear into the hearts of the men he fought in the arenas and into the souls of the young men he commanded. Ying would simply curl back his lips, and his soldiers would jump over the moon if he told them to. They even took his direction on a suicide mission against Cangzhen Temple, where two thousand of his men went in and only two hundred came out. Several weeks later, he sent his remaining men on another suicide mission against the stronghold of the region's most powerful bandits. All he had had to do was scowl, and they had obeyed.
However, now that Tonglong had betrayed him and he was officially an escaped prisoner, Ying's face was a burden. He could no longer show it. Leave it to Tonglong to twist Ying's successes at Cangzhen and the bandit stronghold so that the Emperor would lock him in prison. Apparently, fear was not the only tool a person could use to accomplish his objectives. Tonglong had used strategy. Tonglong's plans had unfolded so slowly, Ying had been oblivious to them. Ying would never fall for such subtle trickery again.
Ying took another deep breath of putrid air beneath the wet blanket and popped his knuckles, one at a time. He had already taken care of Grandmaster. Next on his list was Tonglong.
Ying spent most of the following day beneath the wet, tattered blanket, only lifting one corner a few times to drink from the heavy rain that continued to fall. He was soaked to the bone and hungry, but there was little he could do about it. He had shown his face and men would be looking for him, especially in the daylight.
The clouds broke just before sunset, the rain softening to a fine mist. Not ideal conditions, but they would have to do. It was time for the hunted to become the hunter.
Ying peeled back the rotting blanket and squeezed dirty rainwater from his short black hair. The foul liquid coursed through the grooves in his carved cheeks, dripping down onto his Pit Cleaner's uniform. He made a mental note to get new clothes soon.
Ying tore a section of the blanket loose and tied it around his head and face, like a leper, leaving only his eyes showing. The cloth reeked of mold. He stifled a cough and looked at the qiangs beside him.
Foreigners’ weapons, Ying thought. Weapons for the weak.
All five qiangs were slightly different in appearance but worked the same way. Ying had learned about them while serving the Emperor. The user pulled a metal hammer back with his thumb until the hammer locked in place. The hammer was fitted with a small piece of fire stone, and when a trigger beneath the qiang was pulled, the hammer released, causing the fire stone to swing forward and strike a metal plate. The fire stone would release a spray of sparks. Most times, one of the sparks would drop through a small hole into a pan that contained explosive black powder. The powder would ignite, in turn igniting a larger quantity of black powder that had been loaded directly into the qiang barrel behind a ball of lead. The resulting explosion would propel the lead ball out of the qiangs barrel at amazing speed.
Ying knew that Chinese had invented black powder hundreds of years earlier, but it was mostly used for fireworks at celebrations. It was foreigners who had taken black powder and developed these weapons.
Foreign qiangs came in many shapes and sizes, from the size of a person's hand to huge “cannons” that shot iron balls the size of a man's head. Ying knew this firsthand, as it was only through the power of qiangs that he was able to destroy Cangzhen Temple with his army of young, unseasoned soldiers. It was a test of the qiangs’ capabilities, the Emperor had said, and the results were undeniable. The qiangs had done the job better than Ying or anyone else could ever have imagined. Ying had even used a short qiang hidden up his sleeve to take care of Grandmaster.
Even so, Ying disliked qiangs. Using one took little skill and even less honor. Any monkey could fire a qiang. He saw them only as a weapon of last resort, nothing at all like the chain whip he wore around his waist. The chain whip was intimate. Using it required you to be close enough to look your opponent in the eye. It was his favorite. However, what he needed to do now required distance.
Ying ran his hand over each qiang, selecting three that had covers to protect their firing mechanisms from the weather. He would leave the other two behind.
Ying wrung out the blanket, wrapped up the three choice qiangs, and headed out of the alley.
Tonglong stood in the waning daylight, surveying the remains of the Jinan Fight Club. He was surprised by how quickly it had been reduced to rubble.
The building had collapsed upon itself during the fire, leaving little more than a tiered ring of stone walls around the deep pit arena. Fortunately for the city of Jinan, only a few sections of the surrounding buildings had burned, thanks to the heavy rains. Now that the rain had finally stopped, twenty men were in the pit, methodically sifting through charred roof timbers and other rain-soaked debris. Fifty more men combed the fight club's vast network of tunnels, searching for clues to where the children and Ying might have fled.