6. The Rescue

Ying’er said they needed to rethink their plans, but to be ready to leave that night. Then he jumped back up into the rafters and disappeared into the dark (impressing Meng Shi and her son a lot). It was early evening, and the brothel was opening for business soon, so Yanli left Meng Shi’s room in order for mother and son to have a private goodbye.

She had given the money pouch to Ying’er, knowing he would probably hand it over to A’Cheng for safe keeping. Meng Yao’s fingers had twitched at that, but his mother did not object so he stayed quiet. They both knew that his life—his future—was in her hands, money or not.

And then they waited.

The problem with escaping the brothel was not a lack of exits. There were windows and doors a plenty, many of them kept open for air circulation, especially on the third floor. The problem was privacy.

The hired security there to “protect the girls” was also there to make sure “the girls” did not slip out of an exterior door without permission or crawl out of a window unobserved. Given all that, Yanli assumed that her boys would simply knock out a guard and sneak her and Meng Yao out after everyone had retired in the early morning hours, as that seemed easiest.

She should have known better.

Late in the evening when the clientele had settled down, some retiring to private rooms or just too drunk to be rowdy anymore, Yanli was helping sort tea sets in the kitchen when an all mighty crash reverberated throughout the building, along with a lot of shouting, followed by a furious stampede.

As in, a hooved stampede, punctuated by the angry braying of dozens of goats.

The kitchen staff just stood there, frozen, unsure of what to do, until a swarm of goats ran in and started jumping all over the work surfaces and knocking down shelves. The instantaneous pandemonium had people screaming and throwing things at the already enraged goats while trying to protect the stoves and ovens using pots and ladles.

Yanli pressed herself up against the wall and grabbed a talisman stuck to a passing goat. She recognized Ying’er’s handwriting but not the talisman in question, although she knew a sigil for “chaos” when she saw one. She dived out the door down the hall into the main room, dodging goats who were frantically running back and forth, jumping off and on furniture, and continuing the stampede right up the stairs to the upper floors while Madam Lin ran around screaming at security to “do something, you fucking worthless toads!”

“JieJie!” Ying’er said, materializing beside her wearing a bright red and black festival mask. “Get upstairs to the eastern corridor! A’Cheng will get you and Meng Yao out!” He grinned and then slapped another talisman on a goat who had hopped up on a table. It immediately brayed and flatfooted a jump to the top of a large shelving unit filled with decorative statuettes and porcelain vases that majestically tipped over with loud crash. Ying’er was gone in the next moment, leaving Yanli to dodge her way through goats and destruction to dash up the stairs. Meng Yao and Meng Shi were at the top of it, wide eyed.

“Thank you for all your help!” Yanli said to Meng Shi, quickly grabbing Meng Yao’s wrist and bee-lining for the eastern corridor. It was the administrative side of the brothel, with Madam Lin’s office and storage rooms. At the end of the hallway, A’Cheng stood, waving at them, also wearing a festival mask.

“Wait!” Meng Yao stopped and yanked his hand out of her hold.

“What? No! We have to go!” A’Cheng hissed at them as he ran up.

Meng Yao did not answer, instead going into Madam Lin’s office. It was only then that Yanli realized the door was open, not locked up tight like it normally was. The goat crisis must of have had her running out without securing it.

“Meng Yao!” Yanli pulled at his jacket.

“If I find mother’s contract, I can destroy it!” He had a manic gleam in his eyes.

“We don’t have time!” Yanli said. The noises from downstairs and other rooms were already dying down as people began herding the panicked goats back outside.

Meng Yao looked at the wall of records and bookkeeping in frustration. Then he eyed a large, fancy box on her desk and ran to it. It was a lockbox, but it only took him two tries to open it. He reached in and pulled out several strings of coins.

“Oh! Hey, here,” A’Cheng said and opened a qiankun pouch.

“That’s stealing!” Yanli said, peering back out into the corridor.

“It’s taking what is due to my mother,” Meng Yao said, his expression mean and determined as he piled string after string of coins into the pouch.

“Enough! Let’s go!” A’Cheng tucked the bag away and ran into the hallway. “This way!”

Meng Yao slapped the box closed and relocked it. As he walked out, he paused at the door, but Yanli grabbed hold of his wrist again.

“I’m coming back for her,” he snarled, and she might have been scared of him for a moment, if she weren’t already feeling panicked.

“Yes! You will! We will! But we have to go, Meng Yao!”

They ran after A’Cheng who took them up another small set of stairs Yanli had never seen before, but Meng Yao clearly knew about. “I can’t believe you!” He hissed at A’Cheng.

“I don’t know who you are, mister, but you better believe me!” A’Cheng said, leaning out of a window that had the latticework broken out already. Given that the remains of the latticework were strewn across the floor, Yanli had a good idea of how A’Cheng got in.

“You’re going to have to use a little qi, JieJie! Get ready!” He picked up a short, thick rope that looked waxed, and had a knot at each end. He slung it over a thick corded rope that she just then noticed was tied to the rafter and ran down in a gentle slope over the roof of the neighboring building to a second story patio of what looked like an inn, at least from the back. He helped her up to the ledge and kept her steady as she grabbed the rope just above the knots.

“Use your qi to keep hold of the rope and slow your descent, and try to tuck your knees up to your chest!”

She nodded and kicked off, sliding quickly down to the patio. As soon as she let go and dropped to the floor, the rope hand hold was whipped back up to the brothel window. She had not even noticed the string attached to it.

“You doing alright, Miss Yanli?” Lao Wang, said, helping her get her feet under herself again.

“I am, thank you, Lao Wang. It is very good to see you!”

A thump followed as Meng Yao dropped in. He pulled the rope hand-hold hard to snap the anchor string and untied the heavy cord they had ridden down.

“A’Cheng!” Yanli said, running to the edge.

“He told me to do that,” Meng Yao said defensively. “He said they had something they needed to take care of.”

“Probably to herd the fucking goats back to their pens, knowing Ying’er. I told him to just leave them alone, but he felt bad for the farmer. Stupid brat.”

Meng Yao stared at Lao Wang. “Who are you?”

Yanli started laughing so hard she cried, falling onto a floor cushion and holding her face in her hands. Lao Wang acted annoyed about it but quickly brewed up some tea, while explaining in colorful language that Meng Yao was now in the presence of the Grandmaster Pickpocket of Yiling, in the flesh!

The boys snuck in later, without the masks and absolutely covered in mud and reeking of goat. They apologized and hustled into a side room where a tub had been set up earlier.

Yanli looked around at the rather upscale suite of rooms, then very purposefully decided not to ask how Lao Wang had managed to afford it. It meant that everyone got their own sleeping mat while Yanli was given the bed. Part of her wanted to flee the city immediately, but she fell into an exhausted sleep before she even finished the thought.

The next morning, refreshed and well fed on the extravagant breakfast that Lao Wang ordered using his mysterious funds, Yanli emptied the qiankun pouch A’Cheng had given her, filled with both Meng Shi’s savings and all the purloined riches of Madam Lin.

“Perhaps we can buy a rickshaw? The boys and I can take turns pulling Lao Wang and our supplies.” Meng Yao looked critically at the money. All together, it was a significant amount, but he knew as well as she did that they would need to make it last for a while.

Yanli was not keen on the idea, as walking the whole way back to Yiling would take seven to ten days. She and Meng Yao were, technically, “escaped property” of Madam Lin and surely there would at least be a few local authorities looking for them.

Which made her think of Meng Shi. She looked up at Meng Yao. “Would this have been enough to buy her debt?”

He shook his head. “No.” He pursed his lips and his hands, resting on his knees, clinched his robe. Yanli gently reached out to place her hand on top of his, but remained silent. There was nothing she could say that would not hurt both of them. His mother was alive, but trapped. Her mother had been as free as a woman could be, and was dead.

A’Cheng walked up and looked the pile of coins over, hands on his hips. Yanli struggled not to smile fondly at him, as she knew it would just make him self-conscious.

“What do you think, A’Cheng?”

“Hmph. A small open-air cargo wagon, that black ox that was for sale on the edge of town, and travel supplies. We can sell the ox later, get that money back.” He squatted down and started doing mental calculations, sorting coins as he did so. Meng Yao looked at him in surprise.

“Can’t do much cooking on the road, takes equipment we don’t have and too long to set up and break down. We need to keep moving. If we travel like it’s a night hunt, Ying’ge and I can do some hunting along the way. Pheasant, fish, small game; things you can cook over a make-shift spit, JieJie! Then we only need to buy some salt, a few spices, and bread.”

Ying’er had wandered over by that point, looking over A’Cheng’s shoulder. “Do we have enough to buy a few sets of robes?”

“I bought JieJie a set to change into,” A’Cheng glanced up at him, confused.

“But we’ve got the other peacock now,” Ying’er said. Yanli almost laughed at how affronted Meng Yao looked at that as Ying’er continued.

“We need robes for him. Nothing he’s wearing is good for travel, and it stands out. Also, I think JieJie should dress up like a boy, at least for a few days.”

“What? No!” A’Cheng looked horrified, but Yanli nodded.

“They will be looking for a girl and a boy, not four boys,” she said. “It’s a good idea.”

A’Cheng grumbled but would not contradict anything she said, so she knew they had won that round.

When they loaded up and headed out of Yunping late the next morning with their new ox and cart and robes and boxes of supplies, Yanli considered pointing them towards Gusu, or even Qinghe, instead of back to Yiling. Someplace far enough away from Yunmeng that they would not be recognized, as Ying’er had suggested from the start.

However, before she could voice her thoughts, Lao Wang said loudly, “Time to go home!” and both A’Cheng and Ying’er, still high on the success of Operation Goats Release Chaos, had cheered, “To Yiling!”

And that was that.