Ch. 002| The First Sale

For five nights running, Lin Que mended one pill a night.

That was all this eye of his could manage. After mending a single pill, the backs of his eyes would go dark and dry, as if scoured over with coarse sand. At first he refused to believe it and tried mending two in one night, but his hand shook on the second one, the fleeceflower powder went down crooked, the qi forked off, and that layer of death-black on the pill's surface not only failed to fade—it cracked into a fine fissure, swallowing even the half-portion of seed stock he'd put in. After that he learned his lesson: one pill a night, then rest.

Five nights, five revived Qi Condensation Powder pills, each wrapped in oilpaper and hidden in the seam beneath his pillow. By day he split firewood as usual, watched the charcoal, cleaned the vats, and took his couple of words of grief from Shopkeeper Zhou. The dryness behind his eyes never quite went away; stare too long at the charcoal fire and they would tear up, but he treated it as nothing.

He cleaned those last three vats with particular care. Sifting and re-sifting the dross settled at the bottom, he turned up 3 more death-black pills that hadn't been picked clean, and while no one was looking, slipped them quietly into his shirt. Counting the cloth sack he already had, it was enough to mend for the better part of half a month.

Pills could be mended now. But a mended pill still needed someone willing to buy it—and willing not to ask where it came from.

The Hundred Herbs pills bore a mark; every batch that left the front hall was logged in the books. This revived death-black pill of his had no traceable origin, and put before someone who knew his goods, a single glance would tell it was patched from a waste pill. One more question—where did the waste pill come from?—and the thread would lead back to Hundred Herbs, back to him.

He had to find someone who couldn't afford good pills, and who wouldn't ask much.

Lin Que already had someone in mind.

---

On the afternoon of the sixth day, he begged half an hour's leave from Shopkeeper Zhou, saying he was going to the South Market to pick up a single herb for himself. Out the Hundred Herbs door, his feet turned instead toward West Street.

West Street was the poorest lane in the market town. East Street laid out the finished pills the sects released and proper magic implements, and even the flagstones there were swept clean; on West Street more than half the flagstones were missing, the pits pooled with the black water of aged dregs, and the stalls held nothing but herbs the rogue cultivators dried at home, old talismans with their edges worn away, and scrap sold by the catty. The people who couldn't afford to cultivate on East Street all ended up shifting to West Street, cultivating while they waited for the day they couldn't hold on even here.

Walking down West Street, Lin Que drew no second glance. A set of coarse-cloth work clothes washed pale was too common a sight on this street.

At the far end, beneath Lame Yu's talisman stall, a man crouched year-round.

The man was surnamed Lai, third in his line. One leg had been half ruined in a qi deviation 3 years back, and now he dragged it as he walked. He too cultivated that copy everyone had, the Lesser Heavenly Cycle Breathing Art, but he'd stalled at the second layer of Qi Condensation and could climb no higher, while his qi sank a little lower by the day. Rogue cultivators like this could be had by the handful in the market town—unable to rise, unable to cut loose the longing to cultivate, they could only wear away, year by year wearing themselves down into a shadow against the base of a West Street wall.

Sometimes, looking at Lai San, Lin Que would think of a thing he didn't dare dwell on: if his own qi ever jammed dead and the eye that mended his pills was ruined too, would he end up just like this—crouched at the base of some street wall, waiting for his own qi to scatter on its own?

Lai San couldn't afford Hundred Herbs' Qi Condensation Powder. Hundred Herbs' lowest grade went for 3 copper coins a pill, and he couldn't scrape together more than a few in a month. When his qi sank hard, he would crouch beneath the talisman stall with his eyes shut and his teeth clenched, forcing himself to wait for the qi to ease back on its own; when it wouldn't, he'd tough it out through the night.

Lin Que halted before the stall. Without looking at Lai San, he first picked up one of Lame Yu's old talismans and gave it a once-over, as if he'd come to choose a talisman.

"Brother Lai San." He dropped his voice. "I've got something. Want to take a look?"

Lai San opened his eyes, his murky pupils making a circuit of Lin Que's face. "The Hundred Herbs errand-boy... I've got no money for your shop's pills."

"It's not from Hundred Herbs." Lin Que fished one out of his sleeve and spread it on his palm. "Two copper coins each."

Lai San's eyes stopped on that Qi Condensation Powder pill.

It was Qi Condensation Powder, no mistake, but there was a faint darkness to its surface, hard to put a name to. Anyone who knew his goods would see at once that something was off, and Lai San saw it too. His brows knit. "It's been mended?"

In the market town, "a mended pill" was no kind word. There was no shortage of black-hearted stalls that cut waste pills with fresh powder to fob off on rogue cultivators desperate for a fix; swallow one and at best it did nothing, at worst it injured the meridians. That leg of Lai San's, half of it was ruined years ago by a falsely-mended Spirit-Reviving Pill he'd taken, and he feared those three words—"it's been mended"—more than anyone.

"It's been mended." Lin Que didn't hide it. "Try it first. If it doesn't work, no charge."

That made Lai San pause for a moment. Not one pill-seller in the market town would let you try first—the ones who would were mostly hiding something in the pill, betting you couldn't catch it.

Hesitating, he took it, but didn't swallow at once. First he raised it under his nose and sniffed. The medicinal scent was true, without that stuffy reek of cut powder. Then he scraped off a touch of the pill's powder with a fingernail and tasted it; the faint bitterness that turned sweet on the tip of his tongue was true as well.

Lai San stared at Lin Que a while, then, as if making a wager, swallowed that half-pill down.

After about ten breaths, the shoulder that had been faintly trembling slowly eased.

The qi that had sunk for the better part of half a month dropped smoothly into his dantian, and settled.

Lai San's eyes flew open. First he stared at Lin Que, then bowed his head to stare at the half-pill left in his palm, his throat working, unable to speak for a long moment.

"...This pill," he said, his voice gone a little hoarse, "goes down smoother than Hundred Herbs' 3-copper one."

It wasn't that he'd never had Hundred Herbs' Qi Condensation Powder; years ago he'd saved half a month before he could bear to buy a single one. That proper pill had filled his qi all right, but filled it with a swelling, ramming force. This revived one of Lin Que's settled the qi evenly and smoothly, without the least ramming.

"Two copper coins," Lin Que repeated. "I've got 4 more on me."

Lai San all but snatched them. He turned out every pocket, scraped together 7 copper coins, and forced them on Lin Que. "Take these 7 first, put one on my tab—next time... next time I'll make it good for certain."

Lin Que looked at the 7 copper coins, said nothing to the part about the tab, and gave him all 4.

Lai San cradled the 4 pills in his hands as if cradling something that might break, counted them over and over several times, and only then tucked them carefully into the inner fold of his shirt. He looked up at Lin Que, something added now to his murky eyes, like a man at the end of his road suddenly catching sight of a way through. "Little brother," he said, his voice unsteady, "this pill of yours... will you keep mending them? This life of mine, from here on it leans on this." Lin Que didn't pin the promise down, only said, "If I've got them, I'll come find you on West Street." But he marked it in his heart: this was the first—the first person truly helped by these eyes of his.

Seven copper coins. He'd been an errand-boy 3 years, and his monthly wage came to only a few dozen; after rent and after food and use, he couldn't save up more than a few spirit stones in a year. But these 7 copper coins were the first he had ever traded back by his own eyes, by the thing he'd mended night after night.

Gripped in his palm, those few thin coppers worn bright weighed heavier than the 5 spirit stones he'd saved over 3 years.

He ran the figures quickly in his head. One cloth sack of death-black pills mended out came to at least a dozen-odd, and at 2 copper coins each that was twenty or thirty coppers; mend a little harder, pick a few more from the vat bottoms, and pulling together a spirit stone or two a month wasn't hard. The outer-gate examination token he needed to leave the market town—the black market had never priced it below several dozen spirit stones—it was a slow road, but for the first time, he saw a road.

---

Lin Que turned to go, but Lame Yu craned his head out from behind the stall and called him back in a low voice.

"Boy." Those eyes that had read talismans for half a lifetime swept once over Lin Que's face. "This pill of yours—it's mended clean."

Lin Que's chest tightened; his face didn't move. "Uncle Yu jests. Waste pills I picked up, cut together any old way."

"Cut any old way, and Lai San would've gone down by now—still praising your pill for going down smooth?" Lame Yu gave a snort, but didn't expose him; instead he leaned a little closer. "Let me pass you a word. Over at Well-Bottom Lane, lately someone's been buying mended pills—doesn't matter dead pill or live, anything that can be mended back he'll take, and at a far fairer price than what you sold Lai San. The man's also put it about, asking whether anyone in the market town knows how to mend pills."

The hand gripping Lin Que's coppers drew in, almost imperceptibly.

"Someone who knows how to mend pills?" His tone was flat. "Mending pills is alchemists' work. Rogue cultivators don't do that."

"The man's not looking for an alchemist." Lame Yu gave him a meaningful glance and drew back behind the stall. "An alchemist wouldn't deign to touch these few waste pills. Boy, if you've still got mended pills on you, don't sell them piecemeal here on West Street—you'll spoil the going rate. East end of Well-Bottom Lane. Go ask for yourself."

Lin Que gave a sound of acknowledgment, and with those 7 copper coins on him, did not head for Well-Bottom Lane, but went back to Hundred Herbs first.

The whole way he held those 7 copper coins, but what turned over and over in his mind was that thing Lame Yu had said.

Someone was buying mended pills, and looking for someone who knew how to mend them.

His pill-mending, he'd thought, was hidden away dead tight. So it turned out there was already an unseen net spread across the market town, waiting only for someone who knew how to mend pills to surface on his own.

Whether that net was good or ill, he couldn't yet tell. Well-Bottom Lane might offer a high price, but a man willing to pay high for waste pills was after far more than just a few waste pills.

He paused at the head of West Street and looked back. People came and went along the long street; no one was watching him. But Lame Yu could tell at a glance that his pill was "mended clean," and that man at Well-Bottom Lane could put it about across the whole market town that he was hunting for someone who knew how to mend pills—the secret these eyes had hidden for 3 years was perhaps not as tightly sealed as he'd thought. The pills had to be sold, but how to sell them, who to sell to, how much of the secret to let leak—he had to be more careful than with the mending itself. That road to Well-Bottom Lane, he'd walk it sooner or later; only not in a hurry today. First steady his hand at mending the pills, tuck the secret away well, and then go sound out what sort of man this pill-buyer was.

But one thing he reckoned plainly: if those 7 copper coins were traded at Well-Bottom Lane's price, then the stake he needed to leave the market town—he wouldn't have to wait another 3 years.

Back in the shop's rear court, Shopkeeper Zhou was standing by the waste-pill vats, his back to Lin Que, staring at those emptied last three vats for who knew how long.

Hearing the footsteps, Shopkeeper Zhou didn't turn his head, only asked mildly, "The herb from the South Market—got it back?"

The 7 copper coins in Lin Que's palm lay flush against his skin; he didn't dare let them clink.

"Got it back," he said.

Shopkeeper Zhou gave an "Mm," still staring at those emptied vats, and asked nothing more. Lin Que skirted around him toward the woodshed, that gaze at his back like something pressed to the nape of his neck, until he turned into the woodshed and only then felt it let go.

【Ch. 002 End · the West Street talisman stall → the Hundred Herbs Pill Shop】