Making a Move

The handcart wheels rolled over the rutted dirt road, drawing a few furtive glances.

But as soon as they saw the shape beneath the straw mat on his cart, they quickly looked away.

With his face wrapped in cloth, Chen Mo stopped in the shade near a dead old locust tree. The spot was inconspicuous, yet gave him a view of most of the trading area.

He didn't make a move right away. Leaning against his cart like an ordinary peddler waiting for buyers, he calmly scanned his surroundings.

The Ghost Market had its own rules. No hawking, no showing your wares outright. If something caught your eye, you approached and asked the price in a low voice. Once money and goods changed hands, you parted immediately.

He saw someone trade a few silver dollars for a muddy bronze tripod, while someone else exchanged goods wrapped in red cloth that gave off a faint, fishy stench.

Along with the earthy smell, a sickly-sweet odor hung in the air.

Sure enough, they traded yin soil here, too.

About half an hour passed.

A skinny man in a black Chinese jacket, built like a monkey, soundlessly sidled up to Chen Mo's cart.

First, he circled it from a short distance, seemingly sizing it up. Then he slowly came closer, his eyes gleaming in the dim light.

"Brother, what've you got there? You don't come here with an empty cart." The skinny man spoke in a low voice, with a local Jin City accent.

"Some country goods. Looking to trade them for travel money." Chen Mo's voice was even.

"Country goods?" The skinny man chuckled under his breath and discreetly sniffed. "Doesn't smell like grain or vegetables. Mind letting me take a look?"

Chen Mo didn't move. He only glanced at him. "I know the rules, but can your eyes see well enough? Don't come looking if you can't afford it. No need to invite bad luck."

The skinny man took the jab without getting angry. Instead, he leaned in closer. "Don't worry, brother. Anyone trading at the White Bone Tower has to have a sharp eye and guts, or they wouldn't last long. If it's good soil, I'll offer you a price you'll like."

Only then did Chen Mo turn slightly and lift a corner of the straw mat, revealing a rectangular bundle beneath, sealed tight with oil paper and wax.

He pressed a particular spot on the bundle with a finger. A tiny bit of dark brown matter showed beneath the wax seal.

The skinny man's eyes lit up at once, like a hyena scenting blood.

In the faint light, he examined the paste's color closely, then leaned in and took a deep breath of its almost imperceptible, sickly-sweet smell. A satisfied look appeared on his face.

"Yin soil? That's good stuff... How much have you got, brother?"

"Not much. Enough for a boat ticket south and a little food for the road." Chen Mo gave a deliberately vague figure.

"Deal!" The skinny man rubbed his hands. "For this amount, at the current rate, I'll give you this much."

He extended his sleeve and made a gesture underneath. It was the Ghost Market's customary way of haggling.

Chen Mo glanced at it and shook his head. He extended his own sleeve and signaled a slightly higher figure.

The two silently haggled beneath their sleeves for several rounds, then finally reached an agreement.

The skinny man pulled a small cloth pouch from his robes.

Chen Mo took it and felt inside with his fingers. There were crisp banknotes and several small gold bars, worth roughly what he'd estimated.

He nodded, pulled the bundle of yin soil from the bottom of the cart, and handed it to the skinny man.

The exchange took only an instant. Both men discreetly turned their bodies to block any possible onlookers.

"You're a straightforward man, brother." The skinny man swiftly stuffed the bundle into a battered hemp sack he'd brought along. "If you get any more good stuff, come back here. Just ask for Night Cat."

Chen Mo gave no answer. He tucked the banknotes and gold bars close to his body, took hold of the cart, and left.

The skinny man immediately hoisted his sack and disappeared into the shadows on the other side.

Trades in the Ghost Market were quick and clean. No questions about where the goods came from or where they were going.

Chen Mo made a circuit outside and stowed the banknotes and gold bars safely in a specially made inner pocket.

Seeing that no one was watching him, he discarded the cart and headed toward the deeper part of the Ghost Market from another direction.

The outer area dealt in little more than antiques and yin objects. The truly good stuff was never laid out in the open.

The farther in he went, the narrower the terrain became.

Crooked, crumbling brick walls lined both sides. In front of them stood ramshackle structures screened off with heavy, dark canvas.

Only a two-meter-wide passage remained in the middle.

The light had almost disappeared. Now and then, a tiny oil lamp no bigger than a mung bean glimmered beside a stall owner's hand, illuminating the indistinct shapes of wares on the table.

The people here were quieter, almost like carvings in stone.

Chen Mo swept his gaze over a few stalls. The goods for sale were bizarre in every way.

Several black-edged copper coins covered in runes, as if they'd been pried from the mouths of corpses in their tombs to serve as burial coins.

Three fingers, withered as sticks but tipped with long, black claws, were bound together with red string and gave off a chilling aura.

There was also a stall selling jars. Mud sealed the mouths of the coarse pottery jars, yet faint scratching and sobbing seeped out. The stall owner sat with his eyes closed, paying no heed to the sounds.

Chen Mo kept walking until he reached a corner.

The stall owner there was a stooped old man, wrapped in a faded gray robe and huddled in the deepest shadow of the corner.

A few things lay on the stall in front of him.

A broken beast bone wreathed in grayish-white wisps, several dark red crystals with blood-vein patterns that seemed to flow across their surfaces,

and a few gray-black stones of different sizes. Their surfaces were rough, and they looked entirely unremarkable.

"How much for the Red Sun Blood Crystals?" Chen Mo crouched in front of the stall and asked in a low voice.

The Ghost Market had a rule: without the stall owner's permission, you couldn't reach out and touch the merchandise.

"Five hundred silver dollars each. No haggling. Or trade me materials of yin nature."

That was expensive!

All his money would only be enough to buy six.

Chen Mo hesitated for a few seconds, then took Resentful Bone fragments and Wraith Fluff from his cloth bag and placed them in front of the old man.

The old man raised his eyelids and inspected the materials. Then he reached out a bony finger, nudged the dark red crystals, and pushed six of them over. "That's all they're worth."

Chen Mo nodded and pocketed the six Red Sun Blood Crystals, which felt warm and smooth to the touch.

The trade was complete. He should have left.

But that chilling aura around the old man, so different from that of ordinary cultivators, suggested he might know a method—or at least something—about extending one's lifespan.

At the very least, he could ask about the basics of the cultivation world. Those were things Chen Mo sorely lacked.

He steadied himself and bowed again, choosing his words carefully. "Elder, you are widely learned. This junior dares to ask for your guidance. Since the Red Moon, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth seems to have changed. May I ask, is there still a clear path ahead? Or... another way to follow?"

Chen Mo asked with great caution.

The old man's bowed head lifted almost imperceptibly.

His cloudy, gray-white eyes looked straight at Chen Mo for the first time, in the cold light of the oil lamp.

The surrounding chill abruptly tightened. The bluish-white flame on the table shrank inward, then slowly returned to normal.

The silence lasted much longer than before. At last, the old man's cracked lips moved slightly. "With the Red Moon hanging in the sky, the Dao Path is cut off."

He spoke plainly of the forbidden truth, his voice betraying no emotion. "The old methods of drawing in qi, Sha-Condensing, Foundation Establishment... They're nothing but ladders in a dream, burned to ash long ago. Anyone still trying to climb over the ashes is either mad or already dead."

Chen Mo's heart lurched. Was the path of cultivation severed? Chen Dachuan had never told his original self any of this.

The old man's gray-white eyes seemed to reflect no light or shadow as he continued. "Those who can still manage to get by these days fall into a few broad categories."

"Some worship gods. Not the Orthodox Gods of the old Celestial Court, but things that, after the Red Moon, either by chance or through sheer desperation, can still draw Incense and Fire Prayer Power.

"You trade with them and borrow their power, but you become their sustenance, too. The price... depends on the god's mood, and on how tough your life is."

"Others temper their bodies. With spiritual energy cut off, certain people have instead unearthed the potential in their flesh and blood. They follow a path of hammering their bones and sinews, awakening their bloodlines.

"That path is comparatively upright, but also the hardest, and..." The old man hesitated, then said no more, as if wary of something.

"There's one more kind."

His gaze seemed to pass over Chen Mo, or perhaps toward some far-off void. "Sha-eaters."

"I don't know much about them myself. I only know they advance extremely quickly, and their power is often bizarre and ruthless. But nine times out of ten, they meet a terrible end, eventually becoming monsters that are neither human nor ghost."

"As for the other stranger, more obscure methods—refining corpses and raising ghosts, possessing another body to extend one's soul, studying ancient broken formations and strange artifacts—they're nothing but feeble struggles at the end of the road. They'll never amount to anything."

When the old man finished, he lowered his eyes again and resumed his expressionless, carved-wooden stillness.

"Are there any methods or paths to extend one's lifespan, or restore it?"

Chen Mo couldn't help asking again...