Chương 69: Chapter 63: Cash Cow

The first person to tell Joe about the price difference was not a merchant. It was Cole. They were sitting beneath the awning of a noodle shop near the western guard lane when Cole tore opens a small recovery packet with his teeth and poured the powder into hot water. Joe recognized Edwin's wrapping immediately.

"You bought that from the east market?" Cole looked at the packet.

"Yesterday."

"How much?"

"One silver." Joe stopped eating. Simon noticed first.

"No." Cole glanced between them.

"No what?" Joe held out his hand. Cole passed him the empty wrapping. Edwin's normal retail price for that grade was a little over half a silverling.

"Who sold it?"

"A man with a table near the old tannery lane."

"At one silver?"

"That was the cheap one." Joe looked at him. Cole shrugged.

"Don't look at me. Patrol went late. Shops were closed." Daren, sitting beside him, said, "He could have waited until morning."

"I was sore."

"You are always sore."

"Because I work." Daren ate another noodle.

"You talk while working. It confuses the body." Simon nodded as if this were wisdom. Joe barely heard them. One silverling. Nearly double the normal price. For the same packet.

"Why are they paying that?" he asked. Cole drank the medicine and grimaced.

"Because the legal shops close."

"That's not enough." Daren wiped his mouth.

"Some people don't want their names in shop ledgers."

"Why?"

"Hunters carrying things they didn't declare. Mercenaries working for people they don't want connected to them. Men who got cut somewhere they shouldn't have been." Cole added, "People who owe money to one shop and don't want the owner asking questions." Simon looked at Joe.

"Oh, no." Joe looked back.

"What?"

"That face."

"What face?"

"The one before you start calculating." Joe returned to his noodles. Cole frowned.

"What is he calculating?" Simon sighed.

"Money." Joe took another bite. Cole looked at the empty packet. Then at Joe.

"No." Joe didn't answer.

"You make those?"

"No."

"You are lying."

"Edwin's workers make those."

"You make the medicine."

"Sometimes." Cole leaned closer. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"How much would you charge me?"

"One silver." Cole threw the empty wrapping at him. Joe did not immediately start selling packets in the black market. He spent nine days watching. The unofficial medicine trade did not operate from one hidden underground bazaar with masked criminals and secret passwords. Most of it looked embarrassingly ordinary. A narrow street behind the old tannery sold tools during the day and goods of questionable origin after dusk. A tea shop kept a locked cabinet of imported medicines without local stamps.

Two hunters sold beast parts out of a rear courtyard. One itinerant trader bought sealed packets in bulk, removed the manufacturer's wrapping, and resold them individually. There were stolen goods. Smuggled goods. Perfectly legal goods sold without records. The lines blurred. Joe disliked blurred systems. He studied it anyway. His agreement with Edwin allowed him to produce limited quantities independently if he did not use Edwin's workers, premises, or protected distribution contacts without permission.

That clause had originally seemed unimportant. Now it was worth money. Joe prepared eighty nourishing packets himself over several nights. The work was almost relaxing compared with the production hall. One person. One pot. No worker variation. No schedule collisions. His process was good enough now that only two packets fell below his intended quality. He kept those for himself. The remaining eighty went into plain wrapping. No Edwin mark. No distinctive string. Nothing linking them to the medicine hall.

He did not sell them personally at first. That would have been stupid. An intermediary named Hobb handled unofficial medicinal goods from a stall that sold lamp oil in daylight. Hobb was thin, gray-haired, and had the resigned expression of a man who expected every customer to lie. He inspected one packet. Then another.

"Good." Joe said nothing.

"Too good for this wrapping." Still nothing. Hobb looked at him.

"You make them?"

"No." Hobb smiled without humor.

"Of course not." He offered six-tenths of a silverling each. Joe stood. Hobb sighed.

"Sit down." Joe remained standing.

"Seven-tenths." Joe looked toward the door.

"Eight." Joe sat. Hobb rubbed his forehead. They settled on a structure where Hobb took a fixed fee plus a smaller margin, allowing Joe to keep roughly one silverling per packet when demand was high and slightly less when it was not. The first batch sold in three evenings. Joe did the numbers privately. Revenue: just under eighty silverlings after Hobb's cut. Raw ingredients and processing: around twenty-eight. Fees, wrapping, transport, incidental expenses: a little under ten. Profit: just over forty silverlings.

Joe stared at the total. His guard job paid him thirty silverlings gross each month. Ten went toward his obligation to Theodere. He kept twenty. This one small side batch had made twice that. He leaned back in the chair of his rented room. Forty silver. From medicine he could produce repeatedly. No patrol. No rain. No drunk merchant threatening to complain to the magistrate. No spending half a night separating two laborers who had decided a gambling debt should be settled with stools.

Joe looked at the numbers again. Cash cow. Then he immediately crossed out the thought. Too easy. Easy money attracted attention.

The tannery lane looked different after dark. During the day it smelled of treated hide and dirty water. At night the leather workers closed their shutters, and smaller stalls appeared in the spaces between permanent shops. Oil lamps hung beneath awnings. Someone grilled skewered meat near the corner, collecting smoke beneath the roofline. A woman sold old tools from a blanket. Two men quietly inspected a short sword whose previous owner probably had not volunteered it for sale.

Joe wore a plain brown coat and kept his hair tied differently. Not a disguise skill. Just enough to avoid being immediately recognizable from a distance as Simon Vale's younger brother. He had come to collect payment from Hobb. Hobb saw the three men approaching before Joe did. His expression changed. Barely. He began packing lamp wicks into a wooden box. The largest of the three stopped beside Joe.

He was perhaps thirty, broad through the shoulders, with the rough hands of someone who had fought rather than simply worn weapons.

"New medicine?" Joe looked at him.

"Sometimes."

"Selling well." Joe waited. The man smiled slightly.

"That's good." Joe still waited. The smile faded a little.

"This street has costs."

"Hobb paid his stall fee."

"Not that cost." Joe looked at Hobb. Hobb became deeply interested in lamp oil.

"How much?" Joe asked.

"Quarter."

"No." The man seemed surprised by how quickly the answer came.

"Quarter of profit."

"No."

"Then twenty percent." Joe looked at him. The man laughed.

"Do you negotiate?"

"Not this." One of the two behind him stepped closer.

"Everybody contributes." Joe looked at the street. Three exits. Six other people nearby pretending not to watch. Hobb behind the stall. The men were ordinary fighters. Maybe Skin Tempering. The large one could possibly be Late Skin. No threat. Unless weapons became involved. Joe's packets sat inside a small case on the stall. The second man reached for it. Joe said, "Don't." The hand continued. That was the end of the conversation. Joe caught the man's wrist before his fingers touched the case. He stepped inward.

Turned. The man's balance disappeared. He hit the side of Hobb's wooden stall hard enough to collapse one leg beneath it. Oil jars rattled. Hobb made a sound of personal suffering. The third man lunged immediately. Joe shifted half a step. The punch passed his shoulder. Joe struck him once in the chest with the heel of his palm. Not full strength. Nowhere near it. The man left his feet anyway and crashed backward into a stack of empty baskets. The leader's hand went to the short club at his belt.

Joe closed the distance before it cleared leather. His forearm struck the man's arm. The club fell. Joe drove a shoulder into his chest and sent him backward across the lane. The first man was already pushing himself upright. Joe crossed the space and kicked his legs out from under him. He went down again. Someone shouted from farther along the lane. Not alarm. Excitement. Joe ignored it. The third man had found his feet and pulled a knife. That changed the calculation. Joe picked up the fallen club.

The man came forward. Joe struck the knife hand once. The blade clattered against stone. A second strike took the man's legs out from beneath him. Joe tossed the club aside. The leader charged. Joe met him directly. No circling. No testing. A short strike folded his posture. Joe caught the back of his coat, redirected him into the wall beside Hobb's stall, then let him fall. The lane went quiet. Not silent. The city was never silent. But the people nearby had stopped pretending not to watch.

The leader tried to rise. Joe stepped over and put him back down with one heavy shove of his foot against the shoulder. A sickening crack from the ribs sounded in silence. The man remained still. Joe waited two breaths. Nobody moved. He picked up the medicine case. Hobb stared at the broken stall leg. Joe looked at it.

"How much?" Hobb blinked.

"What?"

"The repair." Hobb looked at the three men. Then at Joe.

"Two silver." Joe set two silverlings on the counter. Hobb looked at the coins.

"You didn't have to—" Joe turned and walked away. Nobody followed. He did not threaten them. There was no point.

The story spread faster than the medicine. Joe knew because two days later Hobb charged him a slightly smaller fee. Joe kept the private batches small. Forty silverlings were useful. It was not worth building an organization around. More importantly, he had learned something about himself. Before reincarnation, Joe had never been a violent person. In Green Hollow, he had spent years avoiding unnecessary conflict. That had not changed. But something else had.

When violence became unavoidable, he no longer felt any need to perform fairness. No exchanged warnings. No proving who was stronger. No allowing the other person to regain footing because it looked honorable. End the danger. Then stop. That was all. He found the simplicity almost comforting.