—— The origin of the Fist Gang's master, the "Thousand-Pound Vajra" Jin Quan ——
He, too, had once been a child trampled underfoot.
He, too, had once believed there was such a thing as justice in this world.
Until the day he understood —
The fist is the only truth.
Jin Quan, master of the Fist Gang, the "Thousand-Pound Vajra."
No one remembers the name he was born with.
And no one ever asked how he became what he is today.
The first year of Hongwu, under the Shuntian Dynasty. In the Changfeng Republic, Spring Rain City was a city of glittering prosperity.
Merchant ships crowded the docks; the streets teemed with people; teahouses and taverns echoed with the clinking of cups. The city was famous all along the Western Sea for its free trade — they said anyone could grow rich here.
But in the corners the lantern light never reached, in the shadows cast by the high buildings, there were people who lived worse than dogs.
"Mud Lane," in the southern part of the city, was one such place.
It had no proper name, only a single muddy track that gave off a permanent stench. On either side stood crooked wooden shacks, their roofs patched with rags and thatch — when it rained outside, it drizzled inside. Even the poorest dockworkers in Spring Rain City looked down on the people who lived here.
At the very end of Mud Lane, in a broken-down hut, lived a ten-year-old boy named Jin Quan.
He had no father. His mother survived by taking in laundry, washing a hundred garments a day, her hands soaked in lye until they rotted, healed, and rotted again. Not one of her ten fingers was whole. Even so, what she earned was barely enough for two bowls of thin gruel — one for Jin Quan, half for herself, and the other half saved for tomorrow.
"Ma, you eat it," little Jin Quan would say, pushing half his bowl across the table.
"Ma's not hungry. You're still growing — eat more." His mother would smile and push the bowl back. The deep lines at the corners of her eyes were carved as though by a knife.
Jin Quan knew she was lying. But there was nothing he could do.
That sense of powerlessness — like a thorn that had been driven into his heart for as long as he could remember.
Mud Lane had no school, no clinic, no magistrate. It had only one rule — the strong trample the weak.
And Jin Quan was the weakest one in the lane.
He was thin as a bamboo pole, short for his age, and always dressed in patched-over rags. The older boys in the lane treated him as a punching bag whenever the mood took them.
"Jin Quan! Get over here!" a thirteen-year-old boy named Ah Hu shouted at him one day.
Jin Quan knew nothing good was waiting for him. But he didn't dare refuse. Ah Hu's father was a low-ranking foreman at the docks — in this neighborhood, that counted as someone with "a name." If Jin Quan didn't obey, Ah Hu would gather five or six friends and corner him, beating him until his face was swollen blue.
"Kneel down. Crawl through under my legs." Ah Hu stood with his hands on his hips. The boys behind him laughed.
Jin Quan bit his lip and stood where he was.
"Won't crawl?" Ah Hu kicked him hard in the knee. Jin Quan fell to the ground, the pain blinding. "Then I'll make you crawl!"
They pinned his head down and forced him to crawl through under Ah Hu's legs. The laughter around him was like a knife, cutting at his heart blow by blow.
That night Jin Quan sat alone on the stone block at the mouth of the lane, his face buried in his knees, weeping without a sound.
His mother found him there and gathered him into her arms. She said nothing.
He lifted his head, eyes red. "Ma — why do they pick on me?"
His mother was silent for a long while. Then, in a low voice: "Because no one taught them either, what's right."
"Then who will teach them?"
She gave no answer.
Later, Jin Quan would understand: no one was going to come and teach them. The ones who beat others had been beaten themselves. Everyone in Mud Lane abused someone weaker than themselves, just to prove they weren't yet the very bottom of the heap.
The year Jin Quan turned twelve, his mother fell ill.
The hands that had soaked in lye for years began to ulcerate. A fever set in and would not break. She wasted away until there was only bone left. Jin Quan couldn't afford a real doctor — all he could do was go to the herb stall at the head of the lane and buy a few packets of the cheapest medicine. The stall owner, seeing he was only a child, sold him moldy herbs at three times the price.
His mother grew worse.
One evening Jin Quan carried the medicine bowl to the door of their hut and heard voices inside. He looked through a crack in the door — it was their landlord, Zhao the Big-Nose, a fat-faced middle-aged man with jowls of flesh.
"You're three months behind on the rent. Six taels of silver, all told. If you don't pay today, I'm taking the house back and throwing the two of you into the street!" Zhao slammed the table.
His mother lay weakly on the bed, her voice trembling. "Master Zhao, please — a few more days. When I'm well I'll go back to washing clothes. I'll pay it all, I swear…"
"A few more days?" Zhao sneered. "I've already given you three months! Today is the last day!"
Jin Quan pushed open the door, set the medicine bowl on the table, and pulled from his shirt a tattered cloth bundle. Inside were the few dozen copper coins he had saved from running errands for the dockhands these past months.
"That's all the money I have. Take it for now. The rest… I'll pay over time."
Zhao glanced at the pile of coppers and swept them off the table with a single slap.
"You think this is enough to send off a beggar? I want silver! Six taels of silver, not a copper less!"
He kicked the medicine bowl over. Black liquid spilled all over the floor.
His mother began to cough — hard, violent coughs.
Jin Quan bent down and began picking up the copper coins one by one. His hands were shaking — not from fear, but from rage.
"Why aren't you out finding more?" Zhao gave him a shove.
Jin Quan fell, scraping the skin off his hand. He pulled himself up and looked at Zhao's fat face, then at his mother dying on the bed, and suddenly he smiled.
It was not a happy smile. It was a very, very cold one.
"Fine. I'll go find the money."
He turned and walked out of the house.
That night, Jin Quan did not come home.
Spring Rain City's underworld held a place not many knew of — the "Beast Pit."
It was an illegal fighting ring hidden in the cellar of a dock warehouse. Every night, hundreds of gamblers gathered here — wealthy merchants, gang men, blood-thirsty spectators. In the ring, two fighters fought with bare fists until one of them went down and could not get up again.
The winner took five taels of silver.
The loser might never walk out of the pit at all.
Jin Quan heard of the place from a dockhand. He didn't hesitate. He went straight to the Beast Pit's manager — a one-eyed man known only as "the Vulture."
"You want to fight?" The Vulture looked the skinny boy up and down and gave a short laugh. "With that frame? You'll be killed up there."
"I owe six taels of silver," Jin Quan said. "A win's five taels. Two wins is ten. After two fights, I'll have paid the debt and have some left."
The Vulture studied him, then suddenly smiled. "Interesting. All right. You're on tonight. But understand one thing — in the ring there are no rules. If you die, no one owes anyone."
Jin Quan nodded.
His first opponent was a down-and-out fighter in his thirties, a full head taller than him and arms thicker than Jin Quan's thighs.
The iron cage of the ring slammed shut. Around them the gamblers began to lay their bets. Not one bet on Jin Quan.
The fight began.
The man swung. Jin Quan didn't even try to dodge — he was hurled clean across the ring, slammed into the iron bars, blood at the corner of his mouth.
"Get up! Get up!" the gamblers screamed.
Jin Quan staggered to his feet and took another fist. He went down again.
The fighter, impatient now, planted a foot on his chest. "Yield, and I'll let you walk."
Jin Quan spat out a mouthful of bloody foam — and suddenly seized the foot and yanked with everything he had. The fighter, unbalanced, crashed to the ground. Jin Quan threw himself on top of him and hammered his face with his fists — one, two, three… The bones in his hands cracked, his knuckles ran with blood, but he did not stop.
The fighter went limp.
The referee raised Jin Quan's arm. "Winner — Jin Quan!"
The gamblers erupted in mad cheers. Those few who had bet on the long shot had made a fortune, and they hoisted Jin Quan over their heads as if he were a hero.
Jin Quan stood in the center of the cage, drenched in blood, the five taels of silver in his fist, listening to the roar all around him.
It was the first time he had ever tasted victory.
And in that moment he understood — the fist truly does work.
Jin Quan fought his second match. He won again.
He gave six taels of silver to Zhao the Big-Nose. With the remaining four, he bought proper medicine and called a real doctor. His mother slowly recovered. But Jin Quan knew that fighting in the pit was no way to live long.
And yet, he could not go back to who he had been.
The Beast Pit was an abyss. Once you fell in, you did not climb out. Win and you wanted to win again; lose and you wanted to win it back; win again and you wanted to win more. And inside that iron cage, for the first time in his life, he had felt something like respect — not pity, not charity, but real fear, real awe, born from the heart.
Jin Quan began showing up at the Beast Pit night after night.
Four fights a month, two wins and two losses. Three months later, four wins out of five. Half a year on, he was the Beast Pit's "star fighter," and his purse had climbed to twenty taels per match.
He was no longer the bone-thin boy he had been. Years of fighting and training had forged his body into something like steel. His fists could shatter brick; his ability to absorb punishment made his opponents despair. They gave him a nickname — "Iron Fist."
But the price was steep.
His right hand had been broken three times. Five of his ribs had snapped. His left eye had taken a heavy hit and now blurred when he looked far. Every time he stepped down from the ring, he could feel his own body being chipped away, piece by piece. But he didn't know what else to do besides keep fighting.
His mother did not know he was a pit fighter. Each time he came home, he hid the wounds, set the silver on the table, and told her he had earned it at the docks. She never suspected, only grieved to see him grown thinner, darker.
Until the day she found out.
The year Jin Quan turned fifteen, a new fighter appeared in the Beast Pit — Zhang Tieshan, called "the Giant Bear," a wandering brawler from the north. He weighed twice what Jin Quan did, and they said he had once killed an ox with a single punch.
Everyone said Jin Quan was going to lose.
Jin Quan didn't care.
The match began. Zhang Tieshan's fists came down like hammers. Jin Quan was driven into a corner, and Zhang Tieshan straddled him and hammered him, again and again. Jin Quan's mind began to blur. All he could hear was the gamblers' screaming.
"Kill him! Kill him!"
And then, faint as a whisper, but cutting into his heart like a blade — a voice.
"Quan'er!"
Jin Quan's eyes snapped open.
Outside the iron cage, his mother was standing there, her face white as paper, her eyes full of tears. He never knew where she had heard the news. She had come through the night, only to see her son being beaten half to death by a giant.
Something in Jin Quan's head detonated.
From somewhere a strength surged up that he did not recognize. He shoved with both arms, and Zhang Tieshan was thrown clear off him. He rolled to his feet and slammed his fist into Zhang Tieshan's temple. The giant swayed. Jin Quan hit him again. And again. And again.
Zhang Tieshan came down like a felled wall.
The whole pit went silent.
Jin Quan stood in the center of the cage, dripping blood, gasping for air. He turned his head toward his mother.
She was still standing there, tears streaming down her face, her lips trembling, unable to speak a single word.
Jin Quan stepped down from the ring and walked to her. He wanted to say, "Ma, I'm all right" — but his throat was closed, and no sound came out.
His mother reached out and lightly touched the wounds on his face.
Then she turned and walked, one step at a time, out of the warehouse.
Jin Quan ran after her and caught her sleeve at the mouth of the alley.
"Ma. I'm sorry."
His mother did not turn around. She said only one thing, very quietly: "Quan'er, you've changed."
That same night she packed a small bundle and left Spring Rain City.
She did not say where she was going. Jin Quan did not ask.
He knew — it wasn't that she didn't want to take him with her. She couldn't. He was no longer the boy she needed to protect. He had grown into a beast.
After his mother left, Jin Quan had nothing left to hold him back.
He poured all his rage, all his hatred, all his unswallowed bitterness into the ring. He no longer fought just to win. He wanted his opponents to fear him. He wanted the crowd to fear him. He wanted everyone to fear him.
He began to use crueler methods — snapping bones, tearing off ears, beating opponents long after they had gone down. The gamblers went wild. They had never seen anyone so vicious. Every time Jin Quan came out, the place came to a boil.
The Vulture was very pleased. The money Jin Quan brought him in a single match was more than ten ordinary fighters could earn combined. But as Jin Quan's name spread, others began to approach him privately, looking to pull him away.
Those others came from Spring Rain City's largest underworld faction — the Fist Gang.
The leader of the Fist Gang was a middle-aged man called "Iron Face" Zhao Heng. Under him were three hundred enforcers, and he controlled half of the city's underground trades. He had heard Jin Quan's name, and he sent word — join the Fist Gang, the pay would double, no more risking his life in the Beast Pit.
Jin Quan did not hesitate.
That night he called the Vulture into the back office.
"I'm leaving," he said.
The Vulture's expression changed. "You —"
Jin Quan did not give him a chance to finish. He drove a knife into the Vulture's thigh. The Vulture screamed and crumpled. Jin Quan crouched down and patted his face.
"You know how much you've made off me this year. I'm not going to kill you — call it paying back a debt. From today on, we're square."
The Vulture clutched his leg, in too much pain to speak.
Jin Quan walked out of the Beast Pit and never looked back.
When Jin Quan joined the Fist Gang, he was only seventeen.
He was the youngest member of the gang, and the most dangerous fighter in it. Whoever Zhao Heng told him to hit, he hit, without ever asking why. It wasn't that he didn't wonder. He had simply learned long ago that in this world, asking "why" was pointless. The only thing that mattered was the result.
He smashed three smaller gangs for the Fist Gang and seized control of two commercial streets. He walked alone into a rival boss's lair, dragged the man out of his own bed, and broke both his arms and both his legs.
Zhao Heng was pleased.
"Jin Quan, you're the best fighter I've ever seen." Zhao Heng slapped his shoulder. "Keep this up, and there'll be a seat for you in the gang one day."
Jin Quan said nothing. He only nodded.
But what he was thinking wasn't "a seat."
What he wanted was — everything.
Over the next ten years, with fists and with cunning, Jin Quan climbed step by step to the top of the Fist Gang.
He was no longer just a brute who knew nothing but killing. He had learned to calculate, to cultivate allies, to wear the right face at the right moment. He befriended the gang's true power-holders — gave them money, women, favors. He placed men loyal to himself in the key positions, and one by one he removed those who might block him.
People began to call him "Thousand-Pound Vajra" — not because he could actually lift a thousand pounds, but because, like a vajra-guardian, he could not be moved.
Zhao Heng was growing old. He had sunk into drink and women and was paying less and less attention to the gang. Jin Quan seized the chance to absorb more and more business into his own hands. Zhao Heng noticed, but he believed Jin Quan was his own creation, raised by his own hand, and would never betray him.
He was wrong.
The year Jin Quan turned thirty-two, Zhao Heng "suddenly" died after a banquet. The doctor said it was excess drink, heart failure. No one looked into it, because no one dared.
Jin Quan, by every appearance of legitimate succession, took the seat of gang master.
Jin Quan sat on the seat of the Fist Gang's master and looked down on Spring Rain City.
He had a thousand men under him. His wealth could buy half a street. His name made children burst into tears, and made grown men lower their heads.
But he was not happy.
Late at night, when the household was still, he would sit alone in the courtyard, drinking, looking up at the moon. He would think of Mud Lane. He would think of his mother. He would think of that bowl of medicine kicked over on the floor.
And he would ask himself: What have you become?
And he would answer himself: You have become the very kind of man you used to fear most.
But — so what?
This world had never been a reasonable place. If you were weak, you deserved to be trampled. If you were strong, you could trample anyone. There was no right and wrong. There was only weak and strong. He had chosen to be one of the strong, even if it meant making an enemy of the whole world.
He set down the cup, stood, and walked to the stone post in the middle of the courtyard.
One punch.
A crack opened down the stone.
Two punches.
Fragments flew.
Three, four, five…
He punched for a long time, until his fists ran with blood, until the stone post had broken into a heap of fragments on the ground.
He stood gasping in the moonlight, looking down at his own bloody hands.
And then he smiled.
"Jin Quan, oh Jin Quan," he said softly. "You've finally come this far. No one can ever trample you again. Never again."
Years later, Jin Quan met Zhuge Yanwen.
That scholar in white robes, with nothing but a wooden sword, made his fists taste powerlessness for the first time.
They fought many times. Neither could defeat the other.
Jin Quan hated him — hated his pride, hated his righteousness, hated the way the scholar looked at him. That look carrying a trace of pity reminded Jin Quan of his mother's back as she walked away.
But one day, after one of their bouts, Zhuge Yanwen suddenly asked him a question.
"When you were a child — did you never hope that someone would come and help you?"
Jin Quan stood there for a long time.
He thought of Mud Lane. He thought of the children who had laughed at him. He thought of the medicine bowl kicked over on the floor.
He did not answer.
He turned and walked into the night.
After that, he never said another word to Zhuge Yanwen.
But every time he saw that white-robed figure, he would remember the question.
And he would never, ever admit —
That in countless sleepless nights, he had secretly hoped, somewhere deep down, that there might be one person who, in his most hopeless moment, would have reached out a hand to him.
That person had never come.
So he had only himself to rely on.
【The End】