The main courtyard of the Pei Manor smelled of wet coal smoke and cold fear.
Snow flurries drifted down from the grey roof edges, melting upon the grey flat stone slabs. Around the outer edge of the courtyard, thirty members of the Pei Clan—junior wagon drivers, kitchen servants, and minor branch elders in faded wool robes—huddled beneath the rows of stone pillars. Their faces were pale, their eyes fixed on the center of the yard.
Standing before the stone steps of the Ancestral Hall was Zhao Bao.
He wore an unbuttoned vest of wolf pelt over a tunic of greasy yellow canvas, his massive chest muscles exposed to the freezing wind. In his right hand, he held a six-foot heavy club carved from mountain ash, treated in boiling linseed oil and banded at three-inch intervals with cold-forged iron ferrules.
Behind him stood five Zhao Clan guards, each armed with short iron-headed clubs, their arms crossed over broad, thick chests.
On the top step of the Ancestral Hall stood Patriarch Pei Canghai and First Branch Elder Pei Rong.
Canghai was sixty-five, his beard yellowed with age. His fingers shook as they clutched the carved rosewood head of his walking cane. Behind him stood First Branch heir Pei Feng, eighteen years old, whose three-inch cloudy earth root had made him the clan’s favored prodigy. Feng was dressed in a clean robe of dark green silk, but his lips were bloodless. His knees shook so visibly that the hem of his robe fluttered against his shins.
“Patriarch Pei,” Zhao Bao called out. His voice was a rasping, heavy deep that bounced off the courtyard tiles. “The sun is past the fifth watch. The Zhao merchant guild doesn’t wait on old men.”
Elder Pei Rong took half a step forward, his voice cracking with anxious deference:
“Nephew Zhao Bao... The iron ore cart toll at the South Gate was paid yesterday. Third Brother Hongcheng handed over ninety copper cash in full to your own hand.”
“The ninety copper paid the basic wagon entry fee,” Zhao Bao interrupted, slamming the iron metal ring of his ash heavy club into the flat stone slabs.
CLANG.
A shower of sparks exploded against the wet stone.
“It didn’t cover the late check penalty,” Zhao Bao sneered. He spat a wad of red betel nut juice into the mud. “Nor did it settle the disrespect shown to my uncle, the toll work boss. The total outstanding debt on the South Gate register stands at fifty silver coins. Compounded daily.”
Fifty silver coins.
The courtyard went dead silent. Fifty silver coins was more than the entire gross revenue of the Pei Clan’s southern iron vein for six months. It was an impossible sum, calculated specifically to force a seizure.
“Fifty silver...” Patriarch Canghai gasped, his cane rattling against the stone step. “This is banditry! The County Judge’s commercial code permits no such late fee!”
“Then go complain to the Judge,” Zhao Bao laughed, his five guards joining in with coarse guffaws. “My uncle had tea with Judge Liu this morning. If the silver can’t be produced before noon, the Zhao Clan will take the deed to the South Iron Vein in settlement.”
He took three strides forward, his boots crunching over the frozen flurries. Then he pointed his iron-banded staff at the trembling First Branch heir, Pei Feng.
“Or, if the Pei Clan wishes to preserve its old family dignity, we follow the old frontier code of Azure Province: the Debt-Striking Custom.”
The Debt-Striking Custom.
In the mining borderlands of Great Yan, when commercial accounts fell into irreconcilable dispute between martial families, the creditor was allowed three unblocked strikes with a staff against a representative of the debtor’s younger generation.
If the youth survived the three strikes on his feet without yielding, the disputed debt was wiped from the books. If he died, collapsed, or fled, the asset was forfeited.
It was a law designed for frontier barbarians, where physical violence was the ultimate arbitration engine.
“A junior must take the strikes,” Zhao Bao snarled, his eyes locking onto Pei Feng. “Come down the steps, young genius of the earth root. Take three blows from my ash staff. If you’re still standing when the snow settles, the fifty silver debt is canceled.”
Pei Feng recoiled as though struck by lightning.
“Father!” Feng choked, grabbing Elder Pei Rong’s sleeve with white fingers. “His staff weighs twenty-four pounds! He has reached Tier Two of Flesh Forging! An overhead blow from that iron metal ring will crush my shoulder into powder! I... I’m the future of the clan! I can’t be crippled for a dry iron mine!”
Elder Pei Rong looked desperately across the courtyard.
His gaze swept over the second branch wagon drivers, who looked away in cold disgust, until his eyes settled on the path leading to the West Pavilion.
“Third Brother!” Pei Rong shouted, spotting Pei Hongcheng walking rapidly into the courtyard. “Your branch operates the southern mine! This debt was incurred by your ore cart! The responsibility belongs to your lineage!”
Pei Hongcheng stepped into the center of the yard.
He didn’t look at Pei Rong. He wore his soot-stained forge apron, his long bamboo tobacco pipe gripped tightly in his right fist. The brass bowl of the pipe was cold, unlit.
Hongcheng stood between Zhao Bao and the stone steps.
“The cart was mine,” Hongcheng said, his voice flat, gravelly, and unbending. “The boy Feng has nothing to do with the foundry. I’ll take the three strikes.”
Zhao Bao grinned, shaking his head with dramatic disdain.
“Third Elder Hongcheng, you’re fifty years old. The frontier custom specifies junior against junior. An elder taking blows for a debt is a breach of protocol. Unless...” Zhao Bao let his gaze wander toward the courtyard entrance, “...unless the second branch admits that all its seed is rotten.”
Hongcheng’s jaw muscles bunched, forming two hard knots beneath his weathered skin. His left fist rose, the knuckles whitening as his breath steamed in the cold air.
Behind him, First Branch steward Pei De hurried down the steps, his voice shrill:
“Where is Pei Jing? The third son of the second branch! He’s sixteen! He has no spiritual roots to preserve! Let him take the strikes for his father’s mine!”
A murmur of disgust rippled among the junior wagon drivers. To send a sixteen-year-old youth who had been beaten half to death three weeks prior to face Zhao Bao’s twenty-four-pound iron heavy club was nothing less than murder by office proxy.
Hongcheng didn’t turn around.
“Pei De,” Hongcheng spoke without raising his voice, “if you speak my son’s name again, I’ll crack your skull with this pipe.”
Before the steward could reply, the latch on the western courtyard gate clicked.
The sound was not loud. But in the tense, frozen silence of the courtyard, the dry squeak of the pine gate carried across thirty paces like the cocking of a crossbow.
Footsteps sounded on the flat stone slabs.
Slow. Measured. Perfectly rhythmic.
Pei Jing walked into the courtyard.
He wore his coarse, patched wool tunic, tied with hemp rope. His hands hung loosely at his sides, partially hidden by his wide sleeves. His stance was upright, his balance point settled deep in his hips. His boots left clean, precise prints in the light dusting of snow.
His floating sight screen activated in cold slate monochrome:
Pei Jing walked past the cowering First Branch heir, past the sweating elders. Then they halted five paces in front of Zhao Bao.
“Jing’er!” Hongcheng reached out to grab his son’s shoulder. “Step back. This isn’t a matter for you.”
Pei Jing gently placed his right hand over his father’s wrist.
The touch was calm, steady, with zero tremor. For the first time in sixteen years, Hongcheng felt the strength in his son’s fingers. It wasn’t the weak grasp of a sick boy, but an iron vise that held his forearm with shocking, unmovable balance.
“Father,” Pei Jing said, his voice quiet enough that only the two of them could hear. “The ledger can’t be settled with your blood. Your labor generates the ore. Your life maintains the smelting margin.”
He turned his eyes toward Zhao Bao.
“You want three strikes to settle fifty silver coins?” Pei Jing asked.
Zhao Bao stared at the boy. For a fleeting second, the guard felt a gut, primal prickle of unease—the boy’s eyes didn’t look at him like a victim. They looked at him the way a butcher inspected a dead hog hanging from a hook.
Zhao Bao shook off the feeling, his face twisting into a cruel grin.
“Three strikes, little cripple,” Zhao Bao growled. He lifted the twenty-six-pound ash heavy club with both hands. “No dodging. No weapons. If your feet leave the stones, the mine belongs to the Zhao Clan.”
“A valid contractual offer,” Pei Jing said, stepping forward onto the central flat stone slab.
He widened his feet to shoulder width, lowered his hips by two inches. Then he folded his hands behind his back. Beneath the hemp fabric of his waistband, his left thumb gave a single, calming press against the Black Mountain Whetstone tucked at his spine, feeling the unbending dark rock anchor his nerve.
“Begin the audit.”