A Returning Customer

When the buyer saw the level-three Ironmane Bear hide, he first shut the shop door.

"Bring it in through the back."

Helian Yuan stood outside without moving. "Why?"

"There are outsiders on the front street." The buyer lowered his voice. "If you want them to see it, go ahead and come in through the front."

Helian Yuan went around to the back alley.

Once spread out, the bear hide covered nearly half the storeroom. The buyer examined the wound on its neck, then its belly and armored back. Finally, he rapped his knuckles against the best-preserved section.

"Stabbed an old wound?"

"Mm."

"What about the trap?"

"Didn't finish it off."

The buyer looked up at him, as if he wanted to ask for more details. In the end, he just pulled over his abacus. "Sixty for the hide, twenty-two for the gallbladder, forty-five for the Magic Crystal Core. I'll throw in some medicine for your right arm."

Helian Yuan took back the gallbladder.

"Fifty-eight for the hide, forty-five for the core. I'll pay full price for the medicine."

"I offer you more and you turn it down?"

"Gifts cost the most."

The buyer stared at him for a moment, then cursed. "You brat, no wonder you live alone in the mountains."

Despite his grumbling, he took a small medicine bottle from under the counter and pushed it over with the silver coins. "It's not a gift. The hide's torn at the neck, so I'm paying two coins less and making up the difference with medicine."

Only then did Helian Yuan accept it.

They both knew the bottle of medicine was worth more than five coins. But as long as it was recorded as part of the payment, Helian Yuan wouldn't owe a favor he'd have to repay, and the buyer wouldn't have to admit he was helping him.

The sound of a carriage pulling up suddenly came from the front of the shop.

The buyer's expression changed slightly. He quickly rolled up the bear hide and stuffed it onto the bottom shelf beneath a sheepskin. He kicked an empty wooden crate over. "Sit."

Helian Yuan sat down and hid his injured right arm inside his cloak.

The door swung open.

A young man in a short jacket came in, with gray trim sewn onto his cuffs. Instead of looking at the shelves, he first studied Helian Yuan's boots and pack.

"Boss, got any tiger goods today?"

"Tiger goods aren't that easy to come by." The buyer began working his abacus again. "I do have three wolf pelts, though."

"Bones will do too. Teeth, claws, fragments picked up in old dens-we'll take them all."

As he spoke, the young man took a small bag of silver coins from his robes and set it down. The mouth of the bag loosened, revealing a neat row of silver edges.

"The location of a den pays extra," he added. "If there are iron chains, wooden stakes, or an inscribed plate nearby, we'll double the price again."

Helian Yuan kept his eyes lowered, but his fingers went still on his knee.

The buyer gave a deliberate laugh. "Are you buying tigers or scrap iron?"

"Orders from above," the young man replied smoothly. "If you have any, we'll buy it. If not, forget it."

His words sounded casual, but his gaze remained fixed on Helian Yuan's pack.

"Is this fellow a hunter too?"

"He owes me money," the buyer said. "He's here to move goods."

Helian Yuan looked up. "How much is left?"

"Seventy-three coins."

"Wasn't it sixty-eight last time?"

"Interest."

The two went back and forth without the slightest hesitation. The gray-trimmed young man glanced at them, apparently deciding a poor hunter in debt wasn't worth asking about. He left the silver bag and departed.

The carriage rolled over the stone street again.

The buyer waited until the sound had faded before dragging the bear hide out from under the shelf.

"Since when did I owe you seventy-three coins?" Helian Yuan asked.

"Since just now."

"Then I'm not paying."

"I wasn't counting on it."

The buyer opened the medicine bottle and glanced inside. "See his cuffs? He's with the same bunch who came asking about the black tiger a few days ago. Today they've brought up iron chains, wooden stakes, and inscribed plates. If you really have seen any in the mountains, don't bring them here."

"Afraid of trouble?"

"I run a shop, not a grave." The buyer pushed the silver coins over to him. "But don't think you've hidden yourself that well, either. Every time you come back from the east, there's black mud on your soles. I'm not the only one in town who can recognize mud."

Helian Yuan looked down at his boot soles.

The soil around Blackwater Ravine contained iron, and its color was indeed darker than the soil in the northern mountains.

He set aside some of the silver coins to buy new hemp rope, iron nails, dried meat, and two torches. He also had the blacksmith fit his short spear with a sturdier socket. He kept the old spearhead; the blacksmith merely wrapped a layer of sheet iron around it to make the shaft harder for a demonic beast to bite through.

Helian Yuan fitted the new spear socket on the spot. As the blacksmith drove in the last pin with a wooden mallet, the gray-trimmed young man's carriage passed outside the shop. Black cloth covered the carriage, but its rear wheels were wider than those of an ordinary cargo wagon, and dark mud peculiar to Blackwater Ravine clung to the rims.

The carriage wasn't loaded full of heavy goods, yet its tracks were deep. It might have contained ironware, or some kind of cage framework its occupants didn't want anyone to see.

Helian Yuan gave it only one glance before returning his attention to the spear shaft. The blacksmith tugged at the joint to test it. "That's secure. Try using it to block a bear's paw again, and even if the shaft doesn't break, your hand will."

"That's why I won't block it."

The blacksmith snorted. "At least you know that."

When Helian Yuan paid, he made a point of using the purse on the outside of his clothes. Only a few loose silver coins remained in it, just what one would expect from a poor hunter who had just bought equipment. He never exposed the pouch he kept close to his body.

When he returned to the buyer's shop, the silver bag the gray-trimmed young man had left was still on the counter. The buyer hadn't mixed it with the payments for ordinary goods; he had tucked it separately under the ledger. Helian Yuan noticed that the open page bore no buyer's name, only a small circle drawn in the goods column.

"They don't leave a name?" he asked.

"People who leave a name don't offer prices that high," the buyer said.

Helian Yuan looked at the circle. No name, no deadline, no specific goods-just a mark that seemed understood by everyone, keeping the transaction going. Only the people paying truly controlled the rules.

This wasn't buying goods.

It was screening people.

Before he left, the buyer tossed him a small cloth bag of salt.

"Also part of the payment?" Helian Yuan asked.

"The bear hide got damp. I'm deducting one coin."

Helian Yuan weighed it in his hand. The salt was worth at least two coins.

He didn't call him out.

As he reached the door, the buyer suddenly said, "Someone's offering twenty coins for a route to a tiger den. Even if you're wrong, they won't ask for the money back."

Helian Yuan stopped.

"They won't ask for it back even if it's wrong?"

"Mm."

Then they weren't buying accurate information.

They were paying to see who was willing to talk and who knew where the tigers in the mountains were.

Helian Yuan looked back at the silver bag on the counter. "When are they coming again?"

"No set time. People like that never tell merchants when they'll be back."

Helian Yuan pulled his cloak tight and walked into the street.

He had intended to wait until his right arm healed before pursuing the iron chain. Now he couldn't wait. The other side had gone from asking about tiger bones to asking about inscribed iron plates. Sooner or later, they would find the level-three Ironmane Bear's den.

Before he left the shop, the buyer pushed a packet of clotting powder to the edge of the counter, then deducted the same amount from the price of the bear hide in front of the others. Neither of them mentioned a gift. There were too many eyes in town, and a single act of kindness for no reason was more likely to be remembered than a bag of medicine.

Helian Yuan settled the account, and the buyer preserved his appearance of caring only about money.

That evening, he inventoried his supplies outside town. The two torches would burn for only four hours, and he had twelve iron nails, twenty zhang of hemp rope, and enough medicine for three uses.

He still lacked an accurate map of Blackwater Ravine.

The only person in Greystone Town who could produce one was the old hunter in the tavern.

Helian Yuan slung his short spear over his back and turned toward the town entrance.

Outside the buyer's shop, the tracks left by the black-draped carriage had yet to be covered by dust. The wheels had turned east, toward Blackwater Ravine.