A Phoenix Rising - An Untamed Story (Book 1 In Series)

Chapter 17

Wei WuXian perched one hip on the second floor balcony railing of the tea house. "There's going to be a robbery in a few minutes, so watch carefully. See if you can spot the thief."

Ouyang ZiZhen leaned so far over the railing so far that Lan SiZhui had to grab his robe to prevent him from falling. "How do you know that, Senior Wei?"

"I've been around a few more years than you have," Wei WuXian reminded them. "Watch."

"I don't know why we have to look for thieves!" Jin Ling grumbled. "I thought we were going to learn about spirits and ghouls!"

"Who told you I was teaching a lesson on spirits and ghouls today?" Wei WuXian questioned. "Aren't you supposed to be flirting with girls and thinking about getting married right now?" The juniors emphatically denied this. At sixteen and seventeen, ghouls were a far more interesting topic than writing poetry, which was that morning's activity. "You all just decided to follow me around. I have a wedding present to buy, and you lot are in my way. But you're here, so you might as well learn something."

Below them the street was the normal hustle and bustle of a typical city street. The air was full of the sounds of vendors hawking their wares and bargaining with customers, children yelling and laughing, and beasts of burden announcing their displeasure at having to work. Wei WuXian spotted something interesting. "It's beginning. Pay attention" he ordered. The juniors had no idea what they were looking for, but they obediently kept their eyes glued to the street. As they watched, one of the boys running around waving sticks as if they were swords and mock fighting bumped into a woman carrying a large basket full of fruits and vegetables, spilling her produce onto the ground. She yelled out at them, but they ignored her and kept playing. A girl, perhaps five or six years of age, and a street rat by the looks of her filthy clothing and beggar's bowl, helped pick up the produce, deliberately showing that she wasn't stealing anything. The woman rewarded the girl by handing her an apple. The woman continued on her way down the street; the girl returned to her spot begging, the apple having disappeared into her filthy robes. And Wei WuXian slid off the balcony to sit at the table and take a sip of his now lukewarm tea. He would have preferred wine but decided that he needed to remain fully sober since these juniors had decided to follow him around.

As the juniors left their spots at the balcony, Lan JingYi muttered, "I thought we were witnessing a robbery. Just some boys knocking a poor woman down, and a girl helping her."

Wei WuXian laughed. "Did none of you see the thief?"

"What thief?" the boys clamored.

"The one who stole two onions, a green pepper, a steamed bun, and two or maybe three apples. I couldn't see how many; he was quite good!" Unbidden came the memories of when he had been the one stealing back in YunMeng. Everyone in his little gang knew stealing was wrong, but when no one would hire them to run errands, scrub pots, peel vegetables, keep a fire burning, or any of the thousand other tasks street kids would do for food or a warm place to sleep, and the begging bowl stayed empty, what else could they do? The only options were to steal or to starve, his jiejies and geges said. So they distracted and he, as the smallest and nimblest, stole. And when he grew a bit taller, he became a gege to distract the crowd. When he became too tall, sometime in his seventh year; getting caught meant losing a hand instead of earning a beating. And he could potentially bring down the rest of his gang with him. Who wanted to be responsible for the rest of the gang losing a hand for stealing? So he, like his elders, struck out on his own. The seven and eight year old jiejies would hope to find work as a scullery maid or laundress but usually ended up in a whore house. The lucky ones were too ugly to work in the front of the house. The geges would hope to find work on a farm or as a proper day laborer. Sometimes, they reverted back to stealing, and if they got caught by the wrong people, the lucky ones ended up partially covered in a ditch or floating in a river somewhere. Wei WuXian had been one of the luckier ones; he had survived on scraps and day labor for a little over a year before Jiang FengMian found him and brought him to Lotus Pier.