Chapter 82 | A Merchant Doesn’t Bow

By first light, Feng was in the guest courtyard, tightening the tie around her hair.

She glanced over as Xu crossed the stones. "Work before breakfast?"

"You’ll manage."

"Probably." The small curve at her mouth disappeared. "What am I looking for?"

"A mouth repeating the retaliation story."

"That’s a wide street."

"Start with someone you can watch. If coin changes hands, follow it. Don’t bring me a faction because the name sounds right."

Feng finished the knot and let her hands fall. "So the mouth first."

"Yes."

"And if nobody pays him?"

"Then you found that."

A dry sound escaped her nose. "Finally. A job where nothing is still an answer."

"I know."

"You say that now." She stepped past him, then looked back. "I’ll bring you what I can prove."

Xu nodded.

Feng left the courtyard.

By noon, merchant street was loud enough to swallow an argument.

Porters shouldered bales between carts. Herbal dust hung in the warm air. Farther down the street, somebody shouted over dried root prices while a wheel with a bad axle squealed at uneven intervals.

A merchant at a spice stall cut off a low conversation when Su came near and bent over his scale instead. Farther ahead, a porter carrying a crate looked at Xu, then at the seller inside a receiving bay, before crossing the threshold.

Golden Crescent’s hired cart rolled behind Xu and Su. The driver kept close to the street edge, with the branch porters walking beside it.

Su carried the 2 supplier papers in her inner sleeve.

She glanced sideways at Xu. "If half the street suddenly remembers urgent business somewhere else, I’m blaming you."

"Only half?"

"Don’t get ambitious."

Her laugh was quiet and brief.

They stopped at a broad receiving bay. Medicinal-herb crates stood behind a low counter. Wrapped bales ran beneath the awning along the left. Farther inside along the right wall, empty packing sacks had been stacked clear of the cart lane. The rear warehouse door stood open behind the seller.

Su took the line in front of the counter. Xu settled behind her left shoulder. The sword rested in its scabbard against his left side.

The wholesaler looked up.

His gaze caught on Xu for a beat before returning to Su. Xu had seen that extra beat often enough since Sovereign Allure awakened.

A man in a clean pale robe waited beside the counter with a practiced smile.

"Mistress Su." He opened his hands. "I was beginning to think you’d make this difficult."

Su slowed. "I just got here."

"Exactly. Let me save us the ugly part."

The wholesaler’s jaw tightened.

The pale-robed man kept smiling. "The market’s nervous. No use pretending otherwise. Goods can pass through my house. Same herbs, same quality, with my house’s fee on top for the risk. Your branch gets what it needs, and our friend here doesn’t have to wonder whether some sect elder will kick his door in for helping the wrong people."

He pitched the last sentence toward the street. Buyers near the next stall glanced over.

Su looked past him to the crates.

"Your herbs?"

"I’m offering access."

"That wasn’t my question."

He chuckled. "Does ownership matter if the goods reach your shelves?"

"It matters to the person paying for them."

Su faced the wholesaler. "Those crates and bales belong to you?"

The pale-robed man started, "What Mistress Su needs to understand is—"

"I asked him."

Su didn’t raise her voice. The man stopped anyway.

The wholesaler rubbed herb dust from his thumb. "They’re mine."

"And you can sell them?"

"With my seal, yes."

"Any written notice telling you not to sell to Golden Crescent? Sect, city office, merchant guild?"

The wholesaler didn’t answer at once.

The intermediary’s smile thinned.

Su waited.

At last, the wholesaler glanced toward the street. "No."

"No?"

"No written notice."

The intermediary exhaled through his nose. "Paper isn’t the problem and you know it."

"Then say what the problem is."

"Retaliation." This time the answer came fast.

"Caravans get stopped. A warehouse door gets kicked in, or some clerk suddenly wants to inspect your warehouse papers again. Maybe nothing happens. Maybe it does. You want him gambling his warehouse because you’re feeling stubborn?"

"No." Su slipped a hand into her sleeve. "I want him to sell me herbs."

She set the supplier letter and returned order slip side by side on the counter.

"This supplier doubled the deposit after the tournament." She tapped the first paper, then the second. "This one turned my cart around."

The wholesaler read enough to recognize the seals.

Before the intermediary could lean closer, Su gathered the papers and returned them to her sleeve.

"Neither says I’ve got to buy through you."

"You can wave paper all afternoon. It won’t make people brave."

"Good. I’m not buying courage."

The wholesaler’s mouth twitched before he caught it. Su’s eyes flicked to the change before she faced him again.

She faced the man who owned the stock. "What do you charge if Golden Crescent collects the load itself?"

He hesitated. "Ordinary wholesale rate. This load only."

"No intermediary cut?"

"No."

The intermediary opened his mouth.

Su lifted a finger without looking at him.

He shut it again.

"Payment?" she asked.

"When the first load reaches your branch. Today."

"Your men put it on my cart here?"

"They will."

"And no exclusive clause."

The wholesaler frowned. "Wasn’t offering one."

"Good."

The wholesaler bent and retrieved the contract sheets from under the counter.

The intermediary’s voice lost some of its polish. "Think before you stamp that."

The wholesaler looked at him. "I am."

He signed his counterpart and pressed his shop seal into the paper.

Su took the Golden Crescent copy, signed it, and pressed her seal below the line.

The contract joined the other papers inside her sleeve.

Su turned toward the street and the waiting cart. "Release the first load."

The wholesaler drew breath to call his porters.

Heavy footsteps sounded behind Xu, deliberate rather than hurried.

The mouth of the receiving bay filled with 4 men.

The leader in the center carried an iron-shod hardwood staff. Rough qi moved through him, enough for Xu to place him in Qi Condensation, but not far into the realm. The cudgel man to his left felt like the strongest of the remaining 3, somewhere in late Body Tempering. The 2 on the right were weaker; the nearer carried a short club, while the rear man had empty hands.

The intermediary eased away from the counter.

"Mistress Su," the staff man said. "Leave the contract."

Su’s hand settled over her inner sleeve.

"No."

The iron end of the staff struck the floor.

tok.

The receiving bay quieted.

Merchant street kept moving outside. Carts rolled past. People slowed, but nobody came closer.

The intermediary lowered his voice. "Tear it up. We forget this happened."

Su looked at him. "You charge too much for forgetting."

His face hardened.

The leader lowered the staff across the open lane. The short-club man edged with him, tightening the gap.

Xu stepped forward without touching the sword hilt.

Su shifted back behind his right shoulder, clear of the staff.

"Open the way," Xu said.

The leader looked him over. "Not your door."

He drove the staff horizontally at Xu’s chest.

Qi hardened the shove.

Xu fed a thin current of qi through his arm and caught the shaft in his right hand before the iron cap reached him. The impact drove a dense shock through his palm and forearm.

His feet didn’t move.

The leader’s eyes widened.

Xu stepped inside the staff’s reach, turned the shaft down and right, and used the wood against the man’s wrist.

bang!

The leader’s shoulder hit the side post. His fingers opened around the staff, breath leaving in a grunt.

The cudgel man came from Xu’s left.

He was quick for a Body Tempering cultivator. Xu’s left hand snapped around his wrist before the cudgel completed its arc.

Xu’s right palm barely traveled before it hit the man’s chest.

thud!

The strike emptied the man’s lungs and broke his balance. He hit the floor hard, conscious but gasping.

The short-club man was already coming from the right.

Xu knocked the man’s weapon hand outward with his right forearm. His right foot hooked the man’s ankle, and his left palm shoved the shoulder.

The attacker went sideways into the stack of empty sacks.

whump!

The turn tugged the old bruise beneath Xu’s right ribs. Pain flashed and vanished before his next step.

The last man started forward.

Xu looked at him.

His step hitched.

Xu had seen that tiny catch before under Sovereign Allure, but the leader jammed against the post and the 2 men on the floor gave him the better reason.

He backed away.

Xu released the staff and let it clatter beside its owner.

The exit was open.

His breath remained steady. Tireless Genesis Engine left no exertion fatigue behind after the brief exchange, but the qi he’d spent stayed spent.

For a heartbeat, nobody moved.

Then Su stepped past his shoulder.

She ignored the men on the floor and looked straight at the wholesaler. "Your seal still good?"

The wholesaler glanced at his contract.

"Still mine."

"Then load it."

The wholesaler barked at his porters. Crates shifted. Golden Crescent’s workers came forward to take the first load.

Behind Xu, the intermediary swallowed whatever he’d been about to say.

"Get up," he snapped. "We’re leaving."

The staff man pushed away from the post and dragged his weapon up, face tight. The cudgel man took longer to stand. The short-club man shoved himself clear of the sacks.

Their empty-handed companion was already outside.

They left under their own power. The intermediary went with them.

Su watched until a crate crossed into Golden Crescent hands.

Only then did she turn to Xu.

"You waited."

"For what?"

"Don’t be difficult." Her fingers touched the sleeve holding the contract. "I had the seal before you moved."

"You were handling it."

"I was."

Her eyes stayed on him.

"And when they blocked the door?"

"Different problem."

A small laugh escaped her. She looked away for a moment, then back. "You can be surprisingly tolerable when you leave my paperwork alone."

"I’ll keep that in mind."

"Don’t. You’ll get smug."

The silver chime sounded inside his head.

[Ding!]

[Trust Level Updated: Su Meilin — 56%]

[Note: Subject’s guarded interest has deepened. Respect for her authority and decisive protection against coercion have strengthened confidence in the host.]

Xu glanced at Su. She had already turned back to the load and crooked a finger at a porter.

The panel faded.

The first load was nearly secured when Feng appeared at the mouth of the receiving bay.

Dust marked the hem of her clothes. Her expression had gone flat in the way Xu had learned not to mistake for boredom.

"Found a paid mouth," she said.

Xu turned. "How far?"

"To a warehouse mark. Not a name."

Feng came closer and pulled a folded scrap from her sleeve. She opened it in her hand.

A copied commission mark sat beside a short freight notation.

"I watched the runner work the same retaliation story through 3 stalls," Feng said. "After that, he waited. A courier paid him."

"Same courier all day?"

"I saw the payment I followed. Nothing more."

Xu nodded.

Feng tapped the copied mark. "The courier went to a commission warehouse. At the front desk, an outward freight sheet carried this mark. This notation was beside it."

Su stepped closer. She didn’t take the paper.

Her eyes narrowed. "I know that mark."

Xu looked at her. "Who?"

"Not who." Su leaned nearer to Feng’s hand. "A commission warehouse. They handle salvage consignments."

Her finger stopped just short of the notation.

"And that’s Cangyun."

Feng glanced at Xu. "That’s where the paper stops. It doesn’t tell me who put the first coin into the chain."

Xu studied the copied mark.

Behind Feng’s open hand, Golden Crescent’s first-load cart rolled out of the receiving bay and into merchant street.