CHAPTER ONE

SHI BAIZHE THE SCREWUP

You know what? 

I tried. 

I really tried. 

I mean, no one wakes up in the morning and thinks, “Today is the day I’m going to hire some goons to do my bidding.” 

At least most people don’t. 

And I thought I was most people.

Until I wasn’t. 

For years, I believed that I was an ordinary, law-abiding citizen, and thugs, goons, gangsters, and all that associated ilk were for criminals. Generally speaking, if you stayed out of getting involved with the world of the jianghu—the underworld of society known as the ‘rivers and lakes’—and kept yourself out of the politics of the fighters and sects of the martial world, you’d be able to call yourself a good guy. Sure, I may have done some work with some people that might have been a little questionable, but I thought I was one of the good guys—just another person living in the little town of Yuan’men. 

All that changed when my little sister, Binbin, got herself kidnapped by the local gang boss. I say little, but she wasn’t that young. She was sixteen—just about old enough that I should have been thinking how and when I should marry her off to someone. And maybe it’s because I was being selfish, and I wasn’t doing that part of my job of being a big brother that she went and got herself into trouble. I told her not to flirt with the gang boss, but did she listen? 

No. 

When I asked my neighbors for help, they weren’t exactly surprised to find out she was in trouble. 

“That useless Shi Baizhe and his sister Binbin! They’re good for nothing,” one complained. “They’re always trouble.”

“They’re bad luck! All they do is ruin everything!” said the other.  

They said these things as though I weren’t there, even though I stood right in front of them. You know, I want to say that this kind of remark hurts, but honestly, I’m so used to it these days that I barely even notice. 

I guess I should explain a little. My name is Shi Baizhe. I’m eighteen years old. My little sister and I have lived in the town of Yuan’men for most of our lives, and it’s true—people don’t think much of us. My family never really had what you would call a ‘great’ reputation around here. You couldn’t even put a honey glaze on it and call it ‘good.’ It was more like an oh-my-gosh-I-can’t-believe-no-one-has-killed-you-yet kind of reputation. So, maybe our reputation was just bad? 

The thing is, I don’t even know why they think we’re so unlucky. I mean, just because three of the last four houses burned down, and my business ideas have a slight tendency of backfiring, doesn’t mean anything, right? Of course not. We don’t actively invite bad luck into our lives. It’s not like we go around stealing oranges from ancestral altars or eat the offerings. We’re not that kind of people. We would never willingly offend the gods and spirits that way. That’s just plain stupid. 

I just wish that they didn’t bring Binbin into it. Most of those things were probably my fault, not hers. She didn’t deserve the scorn they showed her. 

It’s not fun being at the bottom of the social ladder—especially when people know you’re at the bottom. It’s not a great feeling being the ones that everyone looks down on. Even the local homeless man, that is secretly a spy for the beggar clan, looks down on us. Sometimes people cross to the other side of the road so they won’t have to say hello. I wave and sometimes they acknowledge me with an awkward nod of the head, but most of the time it’s just a look of disgust. 

We’ve tried to improve our standing in town. I taught Binbin to smile at everyone and be polite. I made her attend community events, even when she didn’t want to go because she was worried they would shun us. We’ve done odd jobs for people in town when they need an extra hand. We’ve even tried a whole slew of different businesses and given away free things at our grand openings.

Our most recent business is what I call a Tea Shop for Cats called the Cat House. I mean, cats aren’t my main customers—they don’t pay that well—but it’s a tea shop where you can sit with a nice pot of tea, enjoy nature, and pet a cat at the same time. I got the idea on a trip to the city of An’lin—the major cultural and trade hub in the region. 

As I was passing through the market district, I caught a glance of three young women petting cats in front of a café, and I stopped to stare—not at the young ladies, I’m not that kind of guy. It was the cats that caught my attention. I hung around a while until people started giving me strange looks and the young ladies made disgusted frowns. The shop was a good idea because the premise was simple. People like cats. People like petting cats. People like fawning over cats and making cute cooing noises when they see cats. People also like to eat snacks and drink tea. That cafe in An’lin combined both—cats and snacks—for a really successful venture. 

If they could make it there, they could make it anywhere! 

At least that’s how the saying went. 

With my head full of ideas and my heart full of excitement like a boiling pot of rice, I hurried back to Yuan’men, borrowed and scraped enough money to buy a small bit of land by the old cedar grove, and set to work with setting up the tea house. 

The only thing was that all the cats were indoors, so I thought, what if people could enjoy the cats and be outdoors at the same time? Our little town of Yuan’men had some great views of the Kuan river, and I thought it would be a perfect setup. I went out and bought twenty cats and the space for the shop just down the road from the Green Brocade Inn. Everything was perfect, at least, I thought it was. 

“This is our ticket to the easy life, Binbin,” I said to my sister as she stroked an ornery tabby named Lao Mao. “All our problems are going away.”

“I don’t think we should do this outside, brother. The cats won’t like it,” she said, frowning. 

“It’s okay! They’ll get used to it. We all have to get used to things in life,” I replied. 

How could things go wrong? 

Turns out, a lot of things can go wrong when you own an outdoor cat café. Apparently it’s hard to wrangle cats. I have the scars to prove it. Once outside, they didn’t like being told what to do. When I tried tying some to the fence posts, they were not happy with that. Anyone that tried to sit with them and pet them ended up getting so scratched up they were sadly recognizable anymore. The only one they respected was Binbin, and even with her cajoling and soothing and other cat noises, she couldn’t tame all of them.  

Cats are also kind of magical. I don’t know what spirit of the underworld they made a deal with, but they slipped out of every harness I ever made for them. In the end, I lost most of the cats, and before you get all huffy about it, let me tell you that they didn’t die. They just slipped out into the cedar grove, and I know they’re out there somewhere, making a new life for themselves. I leave food out for them and it disappears, so I’m pretty sure they’re still close by—just not in my custody. 

Near my custody. 

Not in it.

Funny enough, our town’s rat problem disappeared. The number of birds also went down too, but I don’t think that’s related. 

Since then, my cat tea house has turned into a bit of an everything shop. I sell homemade rice desserts, tea, and lots of different flavored mantou. They told me I was crazy to add different flavors to the otherwise plain and dense steamed bun, but it’s actually kind of delicious! Well, people don’t really come out to the Cat House for that. I bring it into town and sell. 

I guess it all comes back to what everyone says about us: my sister and I are screw ups. They go out of their way to make sure we know that and that we don’t belong in Yuan’men. That’s fine if they think that; I just wish they wouldn’t drag Binbin into it, because most of the screwing up was because of me and not her. I tried to protect her from it as best as I could, but I know she hears those remarks too. I taught her to put on a big grin and pretend like she didn’t hear it, because what can we really do about it? If they think we’re screw-ups then no amount of success will ever change their minds. That’s just how it goes around here. 

Still, it doesn’t stop me from trying, because one day we’re not going to be screw ups anymore.

I just didn’t think that breaking free from that would involve my sister getting kidnapped, hiring goons, and ending up on the region’s most wanted list.

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