Chapter 59 Winning Hearts and Minds

Ever since the first time he met Liu Yubai, Hua Shier had given the man one Hong Kong dollar every day. At the beginning of July, after collecting the second month's tuition fees from most of his disciples, he took advantage of a day off and spent a thousand Hong Kong dollars at a pawnshop to redeem Liu's family heirloom, the "Black Gold Precious Fan."

In the original plotline, Li Yutang had used this exact fan to persuade Liu Yubai to step in and single-handedly hold off dozens of assassins from the Qing court.

As for how Hua Shier knew which pawnshop held the fan, it was simple enough—he had simply asked Cheuk Yat-fei, a well-connected broker, to sniff around and find out.

When Liu Yubai, sleeping on the street corner against a wall, caught sight of his family's treasured fan, a ripple involuntarily stirred in his usually stagnant, dead-water eyes.

Hua Shier pushed the box containing the precious fan forward. "Your family heirloom. I've redeemed it for you."

Liu Yubai sat up, moved by the sight of the ancestral fan. After a long, silent moment, he slowly asked, "What do you want in exchange for this fan?"

"You know I've opened a martial arts school, right? I'd like to invite you to be an instructor. When I'm on duty, you can hold down the fort at the school. Not only will you get a salary, but I'll also cover all your daily expenses. What do you say? Surely that's better than sleeping in the wind and the frost and suffering like this every day!"

Hua Shier wanted to learn the internal martial arts style Liu Yubai often spoke of, but he also didn't want to let such a talent slip away. If he could bring Liu into his fold, it would be even better.

Unexpectedly, Liu Yubai pulled a liquor bottle from behind his back, tilted his head, and took a large swig. When he set the bottle down, his face was already glistening with droplets—whether from spilled alcohol or fallen tears, it was impossible to tell.

He slowly shook his head. "The suffering is of my own making. I did something wrong, and I want to punish myself..."

Hua Shier directly cut him off. "Aren't you just trying to torture yourself? Well, I can torture you too. Let me tell you, I've got some pretty twisted sides to me..."

Liu Yubai: "......"

The solemn, melancholy atmosphere was completely shattered by a single sentence. He genuinely wanted to ask this Shen Chongyang character: Are you certain your idea of torture is the same kind of torture I mean?

Seeing him fall silent, Hua Shier resorted to a threat instead.

"If you don't want this fan, I'm going to throw it right into a cesspool! Or maybe I'll toss it into a blacksmith's shop and melt it down into liquid iron to make a spitfire or a nightstool—it's decent material, after all!"

Veins bulged on Liu Yubai's forehead. This fan was his family heirloom, passed down from his great-great-grandfather's generation to the present day. Even if it was sitting in a pawnshop, he couldn't bear the thought of it being tainted by filth.

Hua Shier reiterated, "I'm a ruthless man, and I always mean what I say!"

Liu Yubai suddenly sighed. Hua Shier knew that at this moment, the man had agreed. But then this peculiar fellow hit him with an unrelated question:

"Tell me, is it wrong for a man to love a woman?"

Hua Shier felt a slight headache coming on. He knew what Liu was referring to; the root cause of Liu's self-inflicted torment lay right here—he had fallen in love with his father's concubine, which had literaly angered his aged father to death, leading the concubine to commit suicide.

Judging by Liu Yubai's current state, he was consumed by a mix of guilt and inner turmoil. He felt guilty toward his late father and the woman, and guilty that a proper family and prosperous estate had disintegrated because of his desires, impossible to piece back together.

Yet he was also torn, struggling with the fundamental question of whether love itself was right or wrong.

Hua Shier rubbed his chin. Michelle, a great beauty—truly, very few men could keep a cool head around her. But if he simply agreed with the man, it would completely clash with his own worldview.

Meeting Liu Yubai's yearning, seeking gaze, Hua Shier answered firmly, "Of course a man loving a woman isn't wrong. A man falling in love with another man, now that's troublesome, because the plumbing doesn't match, and forcing it makes it awfully hard to walk that path..."

Go walk your great-uncle's path!

Liu Yubai swayed, nearly knocked flat by the absurdity of the remark. He really wanted to curse this scoundrel out. Could you possibly say something proper for once? Flustered and exasperated, he immediately corrected him: "That's not what I mean! I'm asking: if a man falls in love with a woman whom others believe he shouldn't love, is that wrong?"

Feigning ignorance of the man's background, Hua Shier acted enlightened. "A modest, demure maiden is a fit partner for a gentleman. Of course loving someone isn't wrong, but the key is that feelings should arise from emotion yet be restrained by propriety!"

Liu Yubai's eyes lit up. "Precisely! Arising from emotion, restrained by propriety. I was not wrong..."

Seeing this, Hua Shier understood that this fellow and the concubine had likely only connected on a spiritual level without committing any actual transgression—they hadn't had the chance to do anything truly scandalous.

It was probably just exchanging longing glances until, somehow, the old master found out. Coupled with the old master's poor health, he had dropped dead from sheer fury before even sorting out the details.

He shook his head, thinking that this family was simply cursed by bad luck; otherwise, how could timing have been so ruthlessly cruel?

Changing the subject, he returned to the previous matter: "Brother Liu, have you given it some thought? Do you accept my proposal or not?"

Liu Yubai grabbed Hua Shier's hand. "Brother Shen, a scholar dies for one who truly knows him! After all these years, you are the first person who understands me!"

"You flatter me!" Hua Shier felt a twinge of guilt.

Back then, when Liu Yubai had fallen for his father's concubine, consumed by thoughts of her day and night, he hadn't intended for anything to happen. He had only wanted her to know his feelings, never imagining the consequences would be beyond his endurance.

Overnight, Liu Yubai had fallen from a wealthy young master, a martial arts champion of the imperial court, and an official-in-waiting, into a sinner who had practically murdered his own father.

Upon learning of this, the court had immediately stripped him of his official candidacy.

An avalanche of blame and incomprehension had crashed down on him from that day onward.

Yet who could ever understand his agony and his feelings?

Now, Hua Shier had inadvertently voiced his exact inner thoughts: loving someone is not wrong, as long as it is reined in by propriety.

Yet in this era, who would care about such nuances? Having the desire at all was a sin; harboring the thought was a crime punishable by death.

For all these years, Hua Shier was the first person to truly understand him. Those words had finally pierced deep into his heart.

Initially, Liu Yubai had merely acquiesced to becoming the martial arts instructor under the threat of having his family heirloom defiled, but now, a sense of validation made him somewhat willing.

Hua Shier first took Liu Yubai to a tailor's shop to buy a new set of clothes, then led him to a bathhouse to wash away the grime.

Finally, he dragged Liu to a Western-style barbershop, having the period's local stylist thoroughly trim his hair and beard.

As for the hair, a Western-style slicked-back pompadour would do. The Qing dynasty queue was not going to be kept; it was an eyesore and attracted flies.

While Liu Yubai was getting his hair cut, Hua Shier caught his own reflection in the barbershop mirror. By this point, his physical appearance had changed drastically from before.

Ever since entering the mission world, Hua Shier hadn't mistreated himself. Especially after accumulating wealth, he lived in relative comfort, and his nutritional intake had caught up. Shen Chongyang's original dark, withered complexion had been completely restored and revitalized.

The Shen Chongyang in the mirror had hair that had grown out considerably, radiating a vibrant, energetic spirit. Not only had he regained the appearance proper to a man in his twenties, but through repeated victories, he had also cultivated the poised, towering aura of a grandmaster. For a visual reference, one could look to Ip Man 1—though he was considerably younger than Master Ip was in that film.

In short, Hua Shier was extremely satisfied with his current appearance.

Once Liu Yubai's hair was cut and his beard shaved, aside from a sun-kissed tan identical to Shen Chongyang's from exposure to wind and sun, he looked the absolute spitting image of Leon Lai—scholarly and handsome.

Even with an ego as inflated as Hua Shier's, he had to admit that this fellow was a tiny bit more handsome than himself. Of course, he refused to attribute this to any shortcoming of his own; it was simply that Donnie Yen's cinematic aura was hard to beat.

Hua Shier brought him back to his martial arts school and introduced him to the disciples, announcing that Liu was his sworn brother and instructing everyone to address him as "Uncle Master."

Cheuk Yat-fei and the rest of the martial brothers dutifully stepped forward, saluting and addressing him respectfully as Uncle Master. Hua Shier then pulled out a stack of cash and handed it to Liu Yubai, telling him to distribute red envelopes to the disciples.

Perhaps having gone far too long without experiencing respect from others—receiving both deep validation and long-overdue dignity today—Liu Yubai's eyes brimmed with tears before he even realized it.

To win someone over, you must win their heart. Ever since Liu Yubai's family fortunes declined, his former friends had avoided him like the plague.

From the moment Hua Shier had called him "brother," Liu Yubai had regarded him as a true brother in return, even though he could sense that the other man had certain ulterior motives.

As it turned out, Liu Yubai regretted joining the "Number One Martial Arts School Under Heaven" on his very first day, because Hua Shier used the excuse of throwing him a welcome banquet to get him roaring drunk, and then tied him up tightly like a zongzi and threw him onto the bed...