Hot Soup- An Adventure in Old China

Leaping the fence, the man known as Little Gou hit the ground of the alley, did a somersault, and then came up to flatten himself up against a drainpipe.

On the ground in front of him, two long morning shadows appeared, cast by men at the alley's mouth.

"Where is he?"

"I saw him go down here."

There was a long pause, and Gou tried to follow an old Buddhist teaching and become one with the cracking and moss encrusted wall.

"He must be heading to his buddy Lo's. C'mon!"

The shadows vanished and running footsteps echoed off into the distance.

Gou let out a long held breath. That was too close, he decided. The pair had been waiting for him when he'd tried to return home after a night at the tables of White Fox Town's better gambling establishments. Given how much he'd lost, he didn't question where they'd come from, but he did need to find a way to pay whoever sent them quick.

Taking a peak out the alley mouth, he saw only the usual morning crowd and no sign of the pair that had been chasing him. Hunching over, he went in the opposite direction they had, thinking about where he could go to get a little financial assistance. He had many people who owed him money, but finding them and getting them to cough it up would be a different matter.

He was so lost in thought that when he heard someone calling his name, he almost jumped out of his skin!

"Little Gou!"

Cringing, and ready to run at a moment's notice, Gou swung his head around to look toward a bun seller's booth where a small crowd had gathered. There, on the other side of the crowd the pudgy old Wong who ran the stall was waving him over. Figuring he had nothing to lose, and desperately hungry, Gou decided to go see what was up. Free food was free food, right?

"Gou!" The steam bun seller gestured wildly to draw the crowd's attention to Gou as the handsome, muscular young man joined the group of people gathered around his stall. "You're just in time. Take a look at this!"

The crowd's eyes all turned to the somewhat baffled new arrival, who suddenly found a heavy piece of metal pressed into his hand. Not sure what he was supposed to do, Gou looked down at the object glinting silver in the morning sun. A little bigger than his thumb, and flat on the bottom, it was shaped like a small boat, or perhaps an Imperial Eunuch's hat turned sideways.

As he stared at it under the morning breath of the onlookers, a little voice in Gou's head announced exactly what he was looking at and the young man's eyes went wide. Then he caught himself and resumed a tired looking expression, making to return the object to it's owner. "Sorry, Wong. I'm so hungry I can't see straight."

The steam bun seller looked at Gou unhappily.

Gou looked at Wong expectantly.

If Wong needed him, Gou was going to take his payment up front!

A hot stuffed steam bun appeared in Wong's hand, and then quickly disappeared into the pocket of Gou's blue tunic.

With business done, Gou put his focus on the object at hand.

"Well, it's a silver tael."

A murmur ran through the crowd as the stall owner beamed. A silver tael was a piece of currency used by the merchant class, and represented more money than the richest person in that crowd was likely to see in a month. Heck, it was almost more than he currently owed. Almost.

"That ain't all!" Wong said with pride. "Take a look at the inscription on the bottom!"

Gou flipped the tael over and examined it carefully. Sure enough, there was writing on the underside, and if he wasn't already awake, what he read there would have done the job.