Chapter 2 The Black Scorpions
And so, Li lived for some years in the house of Wen-chi. The old man had
many books, and taught the orphan the classics of Chinese and world literature,
an appreciation of Chinese art and music, and a sense of Confucian ethics. Li
was an earnest student, attentive and intelligent and profited greatly from the
wisdom of Wen-chi. Liu, too, took part in many of the lessons, which surprised
Li. Who had ever heard of a girl studying such things?
One spring day, several years later, not long after Li had turned 23, the
old gentleman took him aside, as they strolled through the verdant gardens of
Wen-chi's estate. "Perhaps you have wondered, Li Chang, how it was that I came
to bring you into my house." The old man's brow was furrowed with worry, and
his ancient hand trembled slightly as he spoke. "My son, there is a terrible
scourge that haunts the people of Shanghai. My own son, Liu's father, died
trying to fight this terrible menace."
"There is a gang of criminals --some call them a triad, or tong --that is a
parasite upon the decent citizens of our city. They call themselves the Black
Scorpions. They extort money from every business, every family. They control
the iron triangle of vice in Shanghai - opium, gambling, prostitution. They
have enslaved the bodies of hundreds of young girls in their brothels, and the
souls of thousands of young men in their opium dens."
The old man's voice paused, quavering a little, as if in self-doubt. "I do
not have much time left in this world, nor much strength." So I brought you
into my house, that you might one day be my strong right arm. That you might
bring the Black Scorpions down. Perhaps this was unfair of me; I hope you can
forgive me."
"Of course, Wen-chi. But how are we to we bring down this evil empire?"
"It will not be easy. But there are thousands in the city who would love
to throw off their yoke. Many young students, in particular, know how these
jackals prey upon the citizens of our great city. And they will rise to fight,
if we can but give them hope. The key is that we must infiltrate the inner
ranks of the Black Scorpions, so that we know their every move before they make
it. If we can gain that kind of intelligence we can thwart their schemes."
"But how are we to infiltrate the Scorpions, Wen-chi?"
"Li, that is where you come in. You are bright, resourceful, and, I hope,
brave. You are our one hope. But to succeed, you must leave my house, forsake
your identity, and take up a life in the streets, and become one of their many
operatives. I have confidence that your cleverness will allow you to rise
rapidly within the hierarchy of the Black Scorpion. Within a year or two, if
all goes well, you will find yourself in their inner circle, so that you are
aware of their plans. If we know where the Scorpion intends to sting before he
strikes, we can oppose them successfully, I am sure."
For the next hour or so Li listened carefully as Wen-chi outlined his plans
to subvert the Black Scorpions. Later that evening, he was walking in the
garden alone, pondering this unexpected news when he saw Liu, clad in angelic
white, exit the house and walk toward a bed of freshly planted flowers, water
pitcher in hand.
While in some respects Wen-chi had treated them like brother and sister, Li
was unquestionably aware that his "sister" had blossomed over the years into an
exquisite young woman. She was less than five feet tall, and weighed less than
one hundred lbs., but was blessed with lustrous dark hair, soulful brown eyes,
and her tiny frame was perfectly proportioned. And she moved with the grace of
a whisper in the wind.
He recalled the occasion, perhaps a year earlier, when, thinking that she
and Wen-chi had gone to the market, he had unwittingly entered the room where
Liu was bathing. Liu had been lost in a dreamy reverie, and did not hear him
enter. Knowing that he should withdraw, but unable to tear himself away from
this erotic vision, Li slipped silently behind a screen, trying desperately to
control the breathing which seemed to rasp from deep in his chest, and the
rhythmic pounding of his heart as he watched her.
Liu stood at right angles to him, thigh-deep in a steaming tub of water.
One delicate hand held a sponge above the gently sloping contours of her
beautiful breasts, permitting the sensuous mixture of perfumed soap, steamy
water, and the most fragrant of bath oils to christen their silky softness. Her
other hand slid back and forth through the downy silk of her pubic hair, gently
stroking the sweet love-nook that no man's eyes had yet beheld. Li's eyes drank
in the whole of her shapely form, the slender, nicely curved legs, the tempting
concave curve of her bottom, the graceful lines of her torso. He lingered
longest on her tempting breasts, and the pert brown nipples, frothy from her
bath, that capped them. The droplets of water that fell from the sponge kissed
her soft skin with a moist embrace. One long, frothy rivulet of soapy water ran
down her graceful back and into the perfect cleft of her inviting buttocks.
Li watched silently, almost reverently, for some minutes as the oblivious
vision of loveliness before him washed herself. Li marveled at her appealing
figure, always before hidden away under layers of silk, as her tiny hands
explored her body. Little did Li know that Liu's thoughts were on him, that
even as he watched, she was fantasizing that it was his hands that were bringing
her body to such a sweet state of arousal.
When at last Liu stepped from the tub, leisurely towelled her glistening
body dry, and donned a robe of shimmering turquoise and slipped into her
adjoining bed-chamber, it was everything Li could do to restrain himself from
following her and throwing himself upon her. But to do so would have been a
violation of Wen-chi's trust. Even so, Li Chang stood motionless behind the
screen for long minutes trying to fix in his memory the voyeuristic vision that
he had chanced upon, of the slim young goddess in her bath.
..........................................................
The time soon came for Li Chang to leave the house of Wen-chi, as his
mentor had instructed. He had little trouble ingratiating himself with the local
boss of the Black Scorpions, and over time, seemingly proved himself to be a
loyal and resourceful member of the gang. A year or so later Li saw to it that
that local lieutenant "accidentally" drowned in the harbor. And Li was soon
entrusted with that position.
And then it was, in that year of 1881, that Li came to meet the Masters of
the Black Scorpion - the Chan brothers. "Richard" and "George" Chan had both
been educated at Oxford, where they had taken on the Anglicized names. The
Chans were organizational geniuses and had built a pyramid of power that
depended on countless nameless minions at the bottom, a cadre of loyal and
ruthless officers in the middle, and a council of twelve lieutenants at the top,
who answered only to the Chans.
Extortion was the cornerstone of the Chans' criminal pyramid, and nearly
every enterprise in Shanghai was enmeshed in its nefarious web. Any business,
no matter how small, that refused to pay the required tribute, soon ran into an
unaccountable streak of bad joss, a seemingly endless cycle of vandalism, arson,
and assault. The fate that befell the occasional entepreneur who resisted what
came to be called The Bite of the Scorpions, served only to further terrorize
the populace.
As Li worked his way up the ladder, he came to appreciate more fully the
wisdom of Wen-chi's plan - it was only by infiltrating the inner circle of the
Black Scorpions, only by knowing when and where the Scorpions would strike,
that, concerted resistance would be possible.
