Zhou Cheng

Zhou Cheng sleeps at the door of Madame Gao's compound in Anzhou and gets up to open it when she arrives. Guarding it is his post, and he holds it in a more or less permanent drunken stupor with a flask in his hand. He introduces himself as the disciple of Ch'i-Lin and the sword defender of the Hand, and when the drinking is put to him he answers that his master insists on it: other men chase the dragon, he says, and his has to be kept sedated or bad things happen. He fights the way he talks, mocking, offering his opponent a taste from the flask, dozing off for a second between exchanges, and he is extremely hard to get past. He speaks Chinese and English.