Yi Yang ambled out from behind the ranks of Patrol Guards, his hands tucked into his sleeves and his feet dragging, no different from an old man late for the market.
Huang Yushu followed half a step behind him, one hand on his saber hilt, his back ramrod straight as he watched the people conducting their transaction across from them with wary eyes.
Torchlight fell across Yi Yang's Acting Patrol Commander robes, making the Red Cloud-Thunder Pattern gleam.
At the sight of the two men, Ye Yang's face turned ghastly pale.
Not the pallor cast by firelight, but the kind that came when all the blood drained from a face.
His lips moved twice. He still clutched the stack of banknotes, all ten fingers seemingly rooted to them, unable to let go.
"Steward Ye."
Yi Yang's voice drifted over from beyond the torchlight, neither loud nor soft, and even tinged with regret.
"You've sorely disappointed this old man."
As those words landed, Ye Yang's knees half buckled, but he did not kneel. Decades of clawing his way through the cracks between competing powers had given him a life tougher to stamp out than a cockroach's.
He clenched his back teeth, forced himself to stay upright, stuffed the banknotes into his sleeve, and dragged out a smile uglier than tears.
"L-Lord Yi, please let me explain. These pills were old stock piled up in the storeroom. I thought, rather than leave them to grow mold, I might as well sell them at a discount and add some income to the tower's books-"
"A discount?"
Yi Yang took two steps forward. The firelight picked out every crease in his face. There was no anger in those cloudy old eyes, only a disappointment that made the spine crawl.
"Grade-four Blood Qi Pills cost