Black Market

Late that night, the light in Jiang Yuexin's room had long since gone out.

Yi Yang sat at the kitchen doorway, wrapped the shaved-off piece of purplewood in three layers of old cloth, and tucked it into his robes.

Yi Yang changed into an old gray jacket and smeared some soot from the bottom of a pot over his face.

He wrapped his hair in a ragged cloth, leaving only half his dry, wrinkled old face exposed.

From behind, he still looked like an old country man.

From the front, he merely looked like an even poorer old country man.

Before leaving, he stood outside Jiang Yuexin's room and listened for a while.

The little girl slept soundly, her breathing rising and falling softly.

Yi Yang pushed the door bolt firmly back into place, then brushed over several sets of footprints beside the courtyard wall before taking his small bundle and leaving through the back gate.

Southeast of Cloud Pattern Town stood an old village that had been abandoned for years.

Outsiders only said it was haunted, with blue flames drifting through the burial grounds at night. The timid could have half their souls scared out of them before they even got there.

But the hunters of Three Trees Village had said in private that the place was no ghost den. It was the Black Market.

If they sold the live animals they caught in the mountains through proper channels, the authorities took their taxes and the town's brokers drove down the prices. By the end, the money left in a hunter's hands was shorter than a rabbit's tail.

So some preferred to take a roundabout route to the Black Market in the dead of night.

Yi Yang had heard such gossip years ago, but at the time, he had let it blow past his ears.

Who would have thought that at sixty, he would still have to slip out at midnight and play peddler?

He walked slowly.

The night wind slipped down his collar, carrying the smell of damp earth from the field ridges.

Occasional barking rose from wild dogs in the distance, only to be swallowed by the chirping insects.

After more than half a double-hour, the outline of the abandoned village emerged from the darkness.

Broken walls, crooked doors, and earthen houses half collapsed.

Two dim yellow lanterns hung at the village entrance. Black cloth covered them, letting out only narrow halos of light.

Two men squatted beside the gate.

One held a short club. The other had a bulge at his waist that looked like a concealed knife.

"One and a half copper coins to enter."

The man with the short club lifted his chin.

Yi Yang fished one and a half copper coins from his sleeve and dropped them into a wooden bowl.

The man glanced down and nodded.

"You know the rules. Go on in. Don't ask questions, don't go gawking. Whether you strike a deal is down to your own ability. Once you leave the village, whether you live or die is none of our business."

Yi Yang nodded and entered the village.

The Black Market was livelier than he had expected.

Oil lamps burned inside the ruined houses, and stalls lined the corners.

Someone was selling old porcelain bottles, claiming they had belonged to nobles of the previous dynasty. But the mud on their bases had not even dried. Even a ghost would find the scam slapdash.

Someone else sold medicinal herbs: dried ginseng rootlets, slices of deer antler, and liquor steeped with snake gall. The stallholder's spit flew as he talked, as though he could puff an ordinary blade of grass into an immortal herb.

Others sold crossbow bolts.

A crossbow mechanism lay half covered in black cloth, leaving only its menacing limbs exposed.

Several packets of Blood Qi Powder sat beside it, their paper seals stamped in red.

Most of the people passing through had covered their faces. Some wore bamboo hats; others wore straw rain capes.

Poor men hoped to find bargains, hunters hoped to sell their wares, and idle thugs hoped to catch a fat sheep to fleece.

Yi Yang looked around without lingering.

His goal tonight was clear.

Sell the purplewood and buy Blood Qi Powder.

No matter how tempting anything else might be, he would not touch it.

This old man was not blessed with the luck to find bargains.

He found a spot beside a wall, spread out the old cloth, and set the small piece of purplewood on it.

The purplewood was small, roughly a palm's length and two fingers thick.

The deep purple grain at the broken end gleamed darkly beneath the lamplight. Its woody fragrance was faint, only noticeable up close, with a medicinal note amid its clean bitterness.

Yi Yang did not call out his wares.

Nor did he approach anyone.

He sat at the foot of the wall with his hands tucked into his sleeves and his eyelids half lowered, as though he had come to bask in the moonlight.

The old man selling snake liquor beside him glanced over a couple of times, then could not resist striking up a conversation.

"Selling wood, old brother?"

Yi Yang grunted an acknowledgment.

"What kind? Looks pretty uncanny."

"Mountain wood."

"How much?"

"Don't ask if you're not buying."

Meeting that soft rebuff, the snake-liquor seller muttered a few words, then went back to boasting that his liquor could bolster a man's virility.

Yi Yang ignored him.

In a place like this, the more eager you were, the lower your price fell.

If you rushed to praise your goods, people knew you needed money, and their knives could slash your price right down to the bone.

About half an incense stick later, a tall, thin masked customer stopped before his stall.

The man's sleeves were wide, his fingers slender, and his nails neatly trimmed. He looked rather out of place among the rough folk of the Black Market.

He bent to examine the purplewood, then looked at the two lengths of wild ginseng rootlet beside it.

"Old sir, how much for these rootlets?"

Yi Yang did not look up.

"Not for sale."

The tall, thin customer chuckled twice.

"You put them out but won't sell them? You certainly have your own way of doing business, old sir. Just leaving everything to fate, are you?"

Before he finished speaking, he reached for the purplewood.

Smack.

Yi Yang's hand shot out of his sleeve and slapped the back of the man's hand.

The movement was simple, but very fast.

A patch on the back of the tall, thin customer's hand turned red at once.

His eyelid twitched, and he backed away half a step.

"Quite a temper you have, old sir."

Yi Yang looked up at him and said coolly, "Don't touch if you're not buying. Didn't your mother teach you that?"

Several nearby stallholders heard this and chuckled under their breath.

The tall, thin customer's gaze darkened.

But he did not lash out.

That slap was beyond someone without training. This old man was at least a Blood Qi First Stage martial artist.

No one who frequented the Black Market was truly stupid.

"Fine. You've got a temper."

The tall, thin customer shook his hand and turned away.

Yi Yang tucked his hands back into his sleeves and waited quietly.

Several more groups came afterward. Some asked his price, while others tried to pry out where the wood had come from.

Some offered inferior medicinal herbs in exchange, talking until flowers practically rained from the heavens: secret family formulas, exclusive supplies for martial halls. Yi Yang nearly wanted to roll up his stall and smack them in the face with it.

He gave the same answer every time.

"Fifty taels."

Most who asked cursed him for being mad, then walked away.

Fifty taels was no small sum.

In Three Trees Village, it could feed a whole family on coarse grain for two years.

Even in the Black Market, it was not money people could casually produce.

Yi Yang sat there for a long time.

As the oil lamp's flame dwindled, he decided that if no one else made an offer, he would pack up for the night.

Just as he reached out to wrap the cloth, a burly man squatted before the stall.

The man wore a bamboo hat, half his face hidden in shadow. His shoulders were broad and his palms thick, with calluses between his fingers from years of gripping a saber.

He did not rush to touch anything, merely lowered his head and examined the wood for a while.

"Purplewood?"

Yi Yang looked at him and asked with some surprise, "You recognize it?"

The burly man took out a small copper blade, gently scraped a little sawdust from the edge of the purplewood, and held it beneath his nose.

A moment later, he put the copper blade away.

"It's genuine."

Yi Yang said nothing.

The burly man looked up and asked, seemingly casually:

"Where did you get it?"

"Found it in the mountains."

"Just this piece?"

"Just this piece."

The burly man stared at him, and Yi Yang stared back.

With a piece of purplewood between them, the atmosphere grew tense.

The old snake-liquor seller stopped calling out his wares and stole glances their way.

At last, the burly man gave in first and spoke.

"Fifty taels is too much."

Yi Yang reached out to wrap the cloth.

"Then forget it."

"Ten taels."

Yi Yang's hands did not even pause.

The burly man frowned and said sourly, "Old sir, there's no point demanding the sky when you're doing business here. Ten taels is plenty. Take that back to your village, and you'll have enough for coffin boards for the rest of your days."

With the purplewood half wrapped, Yi Yang raised his eyes.

"That's bad luck. You'll have to pay extra."

The burly man froze, then laughed.

"You're an amusing old fellow. Fifteen taels."

Yi Yang kept wrapping.

"Thirty-five."

"Twenty."

"Thirty-two."

"Twenty-two."

"Thirty."

The burly man pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek.

"Twenty-five. Any more and I walk."

Yi Yang knotted the old cloth.

"Then walk."

The burly man stared at the cloth bundle, tapping his knee several times with his fingers.

"Twenty-eight."

At last, Yi Yang agreed with some satisfaction. "Silver up front."

The burly man took silver ingots and loose pieces of silver from his robes and placed them on the stall cloth.

Yi Yang did not rush to collect them. He weighed each piece in his fingers, then bit two of the loose pieces.

The burly man frowned at the sight.

"Old sir, do you take me for a swindler?"

Yi Yang tucked the silver into his robes.

"If I don't take people in the Black Market for swindlers, am I supposed to take them for my own father?"

Yi Yang pushed the purplewood over.

The burly man collected his purchase and soon melted into the crowd.

Yi Yang did not linger.

He headed to a medicinal herb stall, where Blood Qi Powder sat in a wooden tray, each dose in a paper packet marked with a crude red stamp.

The stallholder was a short, plump woman with small eyes, her abacus clacking sharply.

"Blood Qi Powder. Three taels a dose. No bargaining."

Yi Yang asked, "Ready to use?"

The woman rolled her eyes. "Obviously. Take it home and steep it in hot water before you train. If you overdo the nourishment and get a nosebleed, don't come crying to me."

Yi Yang counted out twenty-four taels.

"Eight packets."

Only then did the woman give him another look.

"Who are you buying these for, old sir? A youngster at home practicing martial arts?"

"Yes."

"Use them sparingly. For poor folk practicing martial arts, Blood Qi Powder is only a supplement. If you really want to get stronger, you still need lean meat and medicinal meals. Don't force it if you haven't got the money. Ruin yourself training, and no one will collect your corpse."

The words were harsh, but honest.

Yi Yang put away the eight packets of Blood Qi Powder.

"Thank you for the warning."

"Thanks, my ass. It's just business."

Yi Yang turned and left.

He had only taken a few steps when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a scar-faced man standing beside a crumbling wall.

The man leaned against the wall with his arms folded, his eyes following Yi Yang the whole time.

The scar ran diagonally from his left eyebrow to his jaw, the flesh grotesquely torn and curled, as though a wild beast had gnawed on it.

Yi Yang paused at a stall selling crossbow bolts, then circled over to a dilapidated house selling old porcelain.

The scar-faced man changed positions too.

Neither too close nor too far, he clung like glue.

Yi Yang tapped his fingers lightly inside his sleeve.

Trouble had come.

He had just over four taels left from selling the purplewood, along with eight packets of Blood Qi Powder.

It might not be the silver the man was after.

Perhaps it was the purplewood.

Yi Yang left the Black Market.

The two guards at the village entrance merely glanced at him. Neither interfered.

The rules had been laid out already: once outside the village entrance, whether you lived or died was your own affair.

The road was darker still at night. As Yi Yang passed the abandoned fields, he began to quicken his steps.

The footsteps behind him quickened too.

He turned onto a country path, where weeds rose above waist height on either side. The ground was full of ruts and holes, making it easy to twist an ankle in the dark.

The scar-faced man who had been following him dropped the pretense.

"Old man, what's the hurry?"

Yi Yang did not turn around, and the scar-faced man snorted.

"Don't be scared. I just want to ask you a few questions. Got any more purplewood? If you do, we can make a big deal."

Yi Yang kept walking.

The scar-faced man cursed and broke into a run after him.

But as he reached a clump of weeds, the figure ahead suddenly vanished.

The scar-faced man stopped short.

"Old bastard?"

The weeds rustled.

In the next instant, white lime powder flew up from the side, coating his face.

"Aah!"

The scar-faced man stumbled backward, clutching his eyes, his voice cracking.

Yi Yang sprang out of the weeds, clamped an arm around his neck, braced a knee against his lower back, and wrenched backward with both arms.

The scar-faced man clawed wildly with both hands.

He had never entered the martial path.

He was only a little stronger than an ordinary hunter.

With lime blinding his eyes, he could not even tell which way he was facing. His struggles relied entirely on brute force.

Yi Yang tightened his arms.

The blood and qi cultivated through the Yi Wood Life-Nourishing Art coursed beneath his flesh, making his aged body terrifyingly steady.

Broken, strange noises squeezed from the scar-faced man's throat.

"Spare... we can talk..."

Pressed against his back, Yi Yang spoke in a very low voice.

"Next life, don't fight an old man for the night road."

His withered arms tightened as far as they could go.

The scar-faced man twitched a few times, then went still.

Yi Yang waited another dozen or so breaths before letting go.

Being cautious did not mean being timid.

Finishing the job was the true virtue of an upstanding man.

He searched the corpse.

Three taels of silver, a short dagger, a few small coins, and a folded sheet of paper.

Yi Yang did not unfold it.

He tucked everything into his clothes, dragged the corpse deep into the weeds, covered it with dry grass, then trampled the nearby tracks.

This place was not far from the Black Market. Even if wild dogs dug the body out tomorrow morning, no one would trace it to an old woodcutter from Three Trees Village.

Yi Yang did not return by the same route. Along the way, he guessed the man had suspected he still had more purplewood. After all, how could an entire tree yield only that little?

He circled around the abandoned fields, crossed a low-lying stretch of gullies, then washed his hands and the soles of his straw sandals by a stream.

By the time the outline of Three Trees Village emerged in the darkness, the horizon had already begun to pale.

Yi Yang climbed into the back courtyard and secured the door bolt.

The house was quiet.

Jiang Yuexin had not woken yet.

Yi Yang returned to his room and took out the eight packets of Blood Qi Powder. Of the twenty-eight taels he had received for the purplewood, only a little over four remained. Adding the three taels he had taken from the scar-faced man, he had not come out badly overall.

Finally, he took out the folded sheet of paper.