The Gray-Robed Man Returns

When the buyer saw Helian Yuan, he first lowered a wolf pelt beside the shop door.

A bronze mirror had hung behind the pelt. It reflected the street corner and showed whether the black-cloth carriage had stopped.

"Once the day before yesterday, once yesterday," the buyer said quietly. "He hasn't come today."

"What did he ask?"

"The first time, whether anyone had gone into Blackwater Ravine. The second time, whether anyone had sold old chains. Yesterday, he asked about an iron token."

Each question was narrower than the last.

Helian Yuan put the level-three Split-Tooth Lizard Magic Crystal Core on the counter. "Buy it as usual."

"You still dare come here as usual?"

"Not coming would look more like I'm hiding."

The buyer cursed him, but brought out the scales anyway. He deliberately offered a very low price, speaking loudly enough for the street to hear. "This core's cracked. Twenty-eight coins, take it or leave it."

"Twenty-eight," Helian Yuan replied.

A poor hunter desperate to buy medicine shouldn't seem relaxed about the price. But he couldn't suddenly act too stupid, either. Their transaction would look most normal if they kept up their usual rudeness toward each other.

The Magic Crystal Core had barely gone into the cabinet when the black-cloth carriage appeared in the bronze mirror.

The buyer gestured with his chin toward the curtain over the storeroom entrance. Helian Yuan didn't go in. Instead, he picked up a bundle of animal hides waiting to be moved and stood by the back door, like a laborer hired temporarily by the shop.

When the gray-robed man entered, his gaze fell first on the Magic Crystal Core.

"Level-three Split-Tooth Lizard?"

"Just bought it," the buyer answered.

"Who sold it?"

"The one who owes money."

The gray-robed man looked at Helian Yuan. "You again."

Helian Yuan held the hides without speaking.

"Blackwater Ravine recently collapsed, and you're still going to East Mountain?"

"There's more to East Mountain than Blackwater Ravine."

"Have you seen anyone handling an iron token?"

"What token?"

The gray-robed man took a sample token from his sleeve and put it away after letting him see it for only a moment. The face was engraved with a seven, and the gray mark on its edge matched the one on the real token in the iron box at the cold pool.

"One like this."

Helian Yuan frowned as though seeing it for the first time. "How much would it sell for?"

"Depends on where you picked it up."

"Then it's worth nothing."

The gray-robed man's smile faded a little. "You only care about money?"

"The medicine shop doesn't take stories as payment."

The buyer laughed beside them. "I told you, this kid owes so much he only has eyes for silver coins."

The gray-robed man asked Helian Yuan no more questions. Instead, he turned to the buyer. "If anyone carries an iron chain out of Blackwater Ravine, keep them here for me. We can discuss the price."

"How am I supposed to keep them here?" the buyer asked. "Tie them up with rope?"

"Ask them to sit for a while."

"My shop doesn't hold people."

It was the first time the buyer had refused him to his face. He still spoke as though negotiating a deal, but he had clearly drawn a line around a risk he was unwilling to take.

The gray-robed man looked at him for a moment, then put down a silver coin. "Then just pass along the information."

As the gray-robed man stepped over the threshold, another figure remained in the bronze mirror. A middle-aged salt seller had stopped at the street corner. He hadn't made a sale for a long time, yet he kept his handcart facing the buying shop. Only when the black-cloth carriage turned the corner did he pack up his bags of salt.

Helian Yuan didn't point him out then. If there was a second layer of surveillance on the shop, suddenly closing the door, holding a whispered discussion, or chasing after the man to investigate would all serve as an answer. He continued moving two more bundles of hides, and the buyer cursed him for being slow as usual.

Only after the salt cart disappeared from the street corner did the buyer tap the counter with the scale beam. "He's not from town."

"I know."

"You knew and still stood there that long?"

"Leaving now would look even more suspicious."

Neither of them felt any more at ease because of it. Acting normal couldn't make the surveillance disappear; it could only keep the other side from reaching a definite conclusion for the time being.

After he left, the buyer didn't touch the silver coin.

"Take it away," he said.

"He gave it to you."

"Next time he comes, he'll ask why I took it. Take it and throw it in the river."

Helian Yuan wrapped the silver coin in cloth without touching it directly. A very faint scented oil had been applied to its edge. If carried on the body, the scent could be tracked by a trained hound or magical beast.

The gray-robed man hadn't left only money.

He had also left a marker.

Helian Yuan slipped the silver coin into the purse of a gambler at the street corner. The man was sleeping slumped over a table; when he woke, he would only think his luck had suddenly improved.

After leaving Greystone Town, he didn't return directly to Sunken Bone Slope. He first went to an old hunting shelter outside town to retrieve the medicine he had hidden there. As he reached for the doorframe, his fingertip touched an unfamiliar iron nail.

The nail's head was square, positioned at exactly the height where he usually hung his medicine pouch. The wood chips around the hole were fresh, at most a day or two old.

Helian Yuan pulled out the nail.

A gray thread was wrapped around its shaft, the same as the loose thread in the half-volume from the records room.

They had been to the hunting shelter but hadn't searched it and taken anything. They had only left a square-headed nail.

It could be an internal marker meaning "this place has been checked," or a silent warning to the person living here: We know you'll come back.

Helian Yuan restored the area around the nail hole to its original state, but didn't throw away the square-headed nail.

The gray-robed man was still asking "who had handled the iron token," which meant he hadn't identified Helian Yuan. Since the other side was using the nail to identify people who passed through, Helian Yuan would first find out exactly who the marker was meant for.

In the grass outside the hunting shelter were boot prints left by someone who had stood there for a long time.

The toes pointed toward Greystone Town rather than the door.

Helian Yuan followed the boot prints backward. The traces ended on a patch of loose stones, but a small piece of bark had been scraped from a nearby tree, exposing damp, pale wood. The visitor had waited with his back against the tree, a hard object at his waist pressing against the same spot for a long time. There were also two crumbs of tobacco beneath the roots. Their smell was pungent, unlike the cheap kind commonly sold in Greystone Town.

Half an hour later, another set of footprints approached from the west. The soles had no round-headed nails, but the stride was similar to that of the gray-robed man's guard in the shop. After meeting beneath the tree, the two had gone east together. That meant the square-headed nail wasn't left for a regular patrolman, but for different people to confirm that "the target had returned."

Helian Yuan didn't follow any farther. The two had left days ago, and their footprints would ultimately lead him only to a guarded road. He returned to the hunting shelter and moved the real medicine to an empty badger burrow three li away, leaving only half a bottle of expired herb powder in its original hiding place.

He then nailed the square-headed nail back into the doorframe at the same depth as before, but reversed the direction of the knot in the gray thread. If the gray-robed man only checked whether the nail was there, he wouldn't notice; if someone removed it for a close inspection, Helian Yuan would be able to tell from the knot when he returned how much the other side had read into it.

He also had to reduce contact with the buyer. Helian Yuan didn't enter the shop again. Early the next morning, he simply put an ordinary Split-Tooth Lizard scale in an old wooden barrel in the back alley. Face up meant it was safe; face down meant someone was watching the shop. The signal conveyed only the situation, not locations or plans. Even if someone discovered it, they couldn't deduce the full extent of their cooperation.

There was also a new scratch from a scale beam beside the barrel, pointing toward the south road out of town. The buyer hadn't asked him to return to the shop for money or goods, only indicated where the watchers might follow him from next time. The information was enough for Helian Yuan to avoid that route, but not enough to tell him what had happened inside the shop.

That night, the scale in the barrel was turned face down.

The buyer hadn't asked him to return, nor promised to keep covering for him. He had only given him one fact: the shop was still being watched.

Helian Yuan therefore avoided the main road through Greystone Town and returned to Sunken Bone Slope with a small amount of supplies. The gray-robed man thought the square-headed nail marked a residence; from then on, the hunting shelter was only an empty shell that would continue to produce false information.