Chương 19: Chapter 18

The descent into Hua City was considerably less dignified than Ling Tian would have preferred. That morning, he had climbed Crimson Peak like someone had quietly replaced the bones of a starving child with reinforced steel. He had crossed ledges ordinary gatherers avoided, scaled rock faces without rope, harvested rare herbs from places that barely qualified as accessible terrain, and beaten a dead pine apart with several kilograms of ancient bronze. Now he was using that same bronze weapon as a walking stick.

Ling Tian leaned heavily against the sealed scabbard as he followed the descending mountain trail. His legs were no longer shaking badly enough to threaten collapse, but the deep hollowness left behind by the metabolic crash remained everywhere. The Earth Qi inside his Dantian continued rotating steadily, offering the same passive reinforcement it had all day, yet even that now felt less miraculous than irritating. The machinery was intact. The warehouse was empty. Every step reinforced the conclusion.

His joints did not hurt. His muscles were not damaged. His breathing remained stable. Nothing about the body suggested he had spent hours climbing and training hard enough to destroy himself. He simply had nothing left to burn. The small amount of dried meat and bitter root he had eaten on the plateau had stabilized the worst symptoms, but it had not restored him.

Ling Tian suspected his body was currently drawing on whatever biological reserves remained after years of malnutrition, and the visual evidence suggested those reserves had never been impressive to begin with. He adjusted the herb sack over one shoulder. The movement dragged painfully against his neck. The sack was worth more than everything he owned combined. That did not make it lighter. Ling Tian continued downward at a pace that would have embarrassed him several hours earlier.

Whenever the trail steepened, he planted the bronze scabbard ahead of him and transferred part of his weight through it. The weapon handled the abuse without complaint. For something that had stopped functioning as a sword within twelve hours of acquisition, it was developing an impressive secondary résumé. Walking stick. Climbing aid. Counterweight. Blunt weapon aka potential murder instrument. The manufacturer had clearly underestimated the value of diversified functionality. Ling Tian almost smiled.

His stomach cramped again before the expression could fully form.

"Food first." The words came out hoarse. He had been repeating the instruction periodically during the descent, mostly because the increasingly primitive part of his brain had begun proposing alternatives. Eat the herbs. Terrible idea. Chew the Frostvein Moss. Possibly poisonous. Take one bite out of an Ironwood Root. The name alone suggested dental consequences. The Crimson Starpetals were the most dangerous temptation because they at least looked vaguely edible. Thick purple leaves, crimson sap, medicinal aroma.

They were also worth silver. And intended for cultivator alchemy. Eating one raw because he was hungry would represent a financial crime immediately followed by a medical experiment. Ling Tian declined. The trail eventually widened. Trees thinned. The distant noise of civilization began filtering through the forest. Hua City. Normally, Ling Tian found the city exhausting long before he entered it.

The shouting, smells, spiritual signatures, and constant movement created enough sensory clutter to make Crimson Peak seem peaceful by comparison. Today, the first thing he noticed was smoke from cooking fires. Then roasted meat. His entire body reacted. Ling Tian stopped on the road. The smell drifted uphill from somewhere beyond the outer buildings. Fat rendering over charcoal. Salt. Spice. Something sweet. His mouth filled with saliva. The response was immediate enough to become embarrassing.

"Behave." His stomach disagreed. Ling Tian tightened his grip on the bronze stick and kept walking. The vine-choked outer gates came into view soon afterward, little more than old stone markers separating the scattered mountain settlements from Hua City's expanding edge. People moved constantly through the opening. Farmers carrying baskets. Laborers pushing carts. Gatherers returning from lower ridges. Several men with weapons at their belts whom Ling Tian immediately classified as people worth avoiding.

He lowered his head. At least he looked poor. That required no effort. By the time he entered the city proper, the physical state of his body had become difficult to conceal. Dust covered the lower half of his tunic. Sweat had dried and returned several times across his face. His hair clung messily to his forehead, and dark shadows sat beneath his eyes. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The bronze sword helped complete the appearance.

Used as a support beneath one arm, it looked less like a weapon and more like an exceptionally inconvenient cane. That was useful. The market was already crowded. Heat gathered between the tightly packed stalls, carrying overlapping waves of smoke, sewage, damp wood, spices, animal waste, and human bodies. Merchants shouted prices from beneath faded awnings while customers argued over vegetables, meat, grain, cloth, tools, and anything else capable of changing hands for copper.

Ling Tian's previous visits had trained his mind to filter most of it. Today, hunger overruled the system. Fish. His head turned. Grilled pork. Turned again. Steamed buns. Dangerous. A woman passed him carrying a basket of fried dough. Extremely dangerous. Ling Tian looked straight ahead. He was carrying rare herbs potentially worth several months of food. Stealing a bun now would represent a failure of executive function so severe that his previous employer might have rehired him out of professional sympathy.

Liquidate inventory. Then eat. The order mattered. He moved through the wet market. The crowd pressed around him in waves, forcing Ling Tian to protect the herb sack carefully with one arm. Losing a Crimson Starpetal because someone elbowed him into a cabbage stall would be financially devastating. His destination sat in the same shaded corner as before. Auntie Mei's herbal stall looked completely unchanged. The old woman sat behind the heavy wooden counter, grinding dried yellow root inside a stained mortar.

Bundles of herbs hung from hooks behind her, while clay jars and paper packets occupied every available shelf. The rhythmic scrape of the pestle carried through the market noise. Ling Tian approached. Auntie Mei did not look up immediately.

"If you're going to die in front of my stall," she said, continuing to grind the root, "move three steps left. Blood stains the good boards." Ling Tian stopped. The old woman finally raised her eyes. Her expression changed. Not dramatically. Just enough. She looked over his pale face, the dried sweat along his hairline, the dust coating his clothes, and the bronze object currently supporting part of his weight.

"What happened to you?" Ling Tian placed one hand against the counter.

"Calculation error." Auntie Mei stared. He took a slow breath.

"I overestimated myself."

"You look like a corpse that got rejected by the cemetery."

"That is roughly consistent with current projections." Her eyes narrowed.

"What did you fight?"

"Exercise." Silence. Auntie Mei slowly placed the pestle down.

"Exercise fought back?"

"Decisively." The old woman looked at him for another moment, evidently deciding whether this explanation was worth pursuing. Then her gaze dropped toward the bulging sack on his shoulder. Ling Tian noticed. Good. Business. He unslung the canvas carefully and placed it on the counter. The sack landed with a dense, heavy thump. Auntie Mei's eyebrow rose.

"That's not Cloudmint."

"No." Ling Tian leaned against the bronze stick again.

"I have revised the product line." Her expression became immediately suspicious.

"Boy."

"The margins on common herbs are terrible."

"Boy."

"Eight small copper for several hours of labor is not sustainable."

"Ling Tian." He looked at her. Auntie Mei pointed at the sack.

"If you climbed into some poisonous ravine and filled that with weeds because you suddenly think you're a merchant, I'm charging you for wasting my time."

"That seems reasonable." He pushed the sack toward her.

"Appraise it." Auntie Mei gave him a long look. Then she untied the cord. Ling Tian watched her expression carefully. The first layer contained ordinary protective leaves. She pulled them aside. Purple appeared beneath. Auntie Mei stopped moving. Completely. Ling Tian said nothing. Her hand remained suspended above the open sack. Then she reached inside with sudden precision and unfolded the damp fern wrapping around the first Crimson Starpetal. The old woman inhaled sharply.

That was more reaction than Ling Tian expected. Auntie Mei immediately looked around the market. Then she grabbed a stained cloth from beneath the counter and threw it over the entire open sack. The movement was so fast Ling Tian almost stepped backward.

"Closer." Her voice had dropped. Ling Tian blinked.

"There is nowhere closer." Auntie Mei glared at him.

"Then stop standing where every bastard walking past can see your face." Ling Tian shifted beside the counter. The old woman leaned across the table.

"Where did you get that?"

"Crimson Peak." Her eyes became dangerous.

"Do not become clever with me."

"I'm not."

"That is an intact Crimson Starpetal."

"Yes."

"Intact." Ling Tian nodded.

"I noticed." Auntie Mei's mouth tightened. She pulled the covering back only far enough to inspect the specimen without exposing it to the passing crowd. Her fingers moved carefully over the leaves, stem, and root system. Then she uncovered the next one. Another Starpetal. Then another. By the fourth, Auntie Mei's expression had settled into something Ling Tian could only describe as professionally horrified. She dug deeper. Found the Frostvein Moss. Her eyes narrowed further. Then the Ironwood Roots.

Auntie Mei slowly lowered the cloth.

"Are you insane?" Ling Tian considered the question.

"Statistically?"

"Do not joke."

"I wasn't." She leaned closer.

"These don't grow on gathering trails."

"I am aware."

"You have to climb the upper crags for Starpetal. Frostvein Moss only survives around shaded glacial water. And this—" She tapped one Ironwood Root.

"—usually requires cutting through half a damned tree to reach."

"I got lucky." Auntie Mei stared directly into his eyes. Ling Tian maintained the expression of a harmless child whose hobbies definitely did not include magically detecting hidden plants through stone and vegetation. The old woman was not convinced. Fortunately, suspicion was different from information.

"How?"

"Carefully."

"Your father was careful." That landed harder. Ling Tian's expression changed slightly. Auntie Mei noticed. Her voice lost some of its edge.

"And the mountain still took him." Ling Tian looked down at the covered sack. The original boy's memories surfaced briefly. A man coming home late with blood on one sleeve. Hands permanently stained from roots and sap. Patient explanations about which leaves could be sold and which ones killed people. Then nothing. Ling Tian exhaled.

"I know." Auntie Mei studied him for several seconds. Then she pulled the cloth back. Business returned. She checked every plant individually. The process took time. Ling Tian was grateful for that. He wanted a real appraisal, not an emotional number based on surprise. Auntie Mei checked the moisture retained around the Starpetal roots, pinched the stems gently to test firmness, examined the crimson veins beneath the leaves, and inspected the Frostvein Moss for damage caused by excessive heat.

Finally, she weighed one of the Ironwood Roots in her hand. Then she covered everything again.

"Five Silver" Ling Tian stopped breathing for half a second. Auntie Mei continued before he could ask.

"That is my honest purchase price. I can make more after reselling to an alchemist or larger herbal house, but I take the risk and transport. You get immediate payment." Ling Tian's mind immediately began translating the offer into practical terms.

"Two silver. Twenty big copper. One hundred small copper." Two silver represented the reserve. Serious money. The kind that should not appear casually in the hands of a starving orphan. Twenty big copper would handle larger purchases without forcing him to count piles of small change in public. The hundred small copper could cover ordinary market expenses, food stalls, cheap materials, and anything else where producing a larger denomination would attract unnecessary attention. Much better.

This was what a functional currency system was supposed to do. Ling Tian nodded.

"I accept." Auntie Mei watched him.

"You don't want to haggle?"

"Is the price unfair?"

"No."

"Then haggling wastes time." The old woman stared.

"You are a terrible merchant."

"I prefer an honest transaction."

"You are definitely a terrible merchant." She crouched behind the counter and unlocked the iron-bound chest beneath it. A moment later, she began laying out the payment. The small copper came first, dull and familiar. Then the larger copper coins, heavier and more substantial, each worth enough that Ling Tian could buy ordinary provisions without producing silver. Finally, Auntie Mei placed two silver coins on the table. Ling Tian's attention sharpened. Silver looked dangerous. That was his immediate reaction.

The metal was cleaner than copper, the coins broader and far less worn than the small change circulating through the wet market. Even beneath the shade of the stall, they caught enough light to stand out against the splintered wood.