Ch. 019| Fire in the Backyard

The market boiled over the moment day broke.

The news ran through the market like wildfire: the enforcement disciples of the Xuanzhao Sect had, at first light, sealed several of the Black Wind Hall's branch posts on West Street, hauled away a cartload of rush pills, and a stack of case files on dead rogue cultivators besides. The one leading them was a woman enforcer in green robes, her brow and eyes ice-cold.

Shen Ningshuang.

She had moved—faster than even Lin Que had wagered. One night of examining corpses, and she had drawn out the death-marks of the rush pills' meridian-rot and channel-burst, wholly different from those strange deaths she had spent half a year investigating. The blood-debt the Black Wind Hall had hidden for half a year was, in a single night, laid bare before the Xuanzhao Sect.

The finer Lin Que's inquiries, the clearer he saw how ruthless this move of Shen Ningshuang's was. She had not startled the snake in the grass, had not gone first to question the Black Wind Hall's people—instead she had, through the night, sought out two corpses dead of rush pills and, before the coroner's eyes, drawn out the death-marks of that meridian-rot and channel-burst one by one and entered them into the files. By the time the Black Wind Hall came to its senses, the ironclad proof was already in the Xuanzhao Sect's hands. What he had passed over was only a single thread-end; following that thread-end, Shen Ningshuang had in a few days woven a net that fell over the whole of the Black Wind Hall.

The Black Wind Hall was in disarray. Its posts sealed, the rush pills' line of money cut off, the hall's men—so used to throwing their weight around—now each drew their heads in. It was said the hall master had shut his doors through the night, and that Sun Heng and several of the stewards had been named by the Xuanzhao Sect for questioning.

Lin Que could not rest easy, and made a point of going around by West Street to take a look. Those few posts of the Black Wind Hall had the Xuanzhao Sect's seals pasted across their door-boards, the cinnabar stamps a fresh red, two sword-bearing enforcement disciples standing guard at the doors, no idlers allowed near. The hall's men who used to collect protection fees at the posts and bellow at all comers were nowhere to be seen, not one. He stood at a distance and watched for the better part of an hour, and never caught sight of Sun Heng—Sun Heng had truly been taken by the Xuanzhao Sect for questioning. This window was open.

The rogue cultivators of West Street, those who had long had protection fees wrung out of them and their meridians eaten away by rush pills, now poked their heads out one by one, their faces full of watching-the-show, of grudges settled, and a few parts disbelief besides—the Black Wind Hall, that had thrown its weight around all these years, had a day like this after all. Lai San sent word through someone, only four words: "West Street's sky has turned."

Lin Que stood in the back lane of the Hundred Herbs, listening to news come in piece by piece, and clenched his fist.

The tiger had bitten down.

But he had no time to be glad. This upheaval of the Black Wind Hall was his one and only window—while Sun Heng was tangled up with the Xuanzhao Sect, while the Black Wind Hall could spare no thought for him, he had to, this very day, get hold of the examination token, fill in the fifth layer of Qi Condensation, and leave the market. Past today, once the Black Wind Hall caught its breath again, this window would shut for good.

What was more, Shen Ningshuang—this tiger—would not necessarily bite only the Black Wind Hall. As she investigated on and on, that she would in time turn and recognize him, the medicine-boy who "knew the Black Wind Hall's affairs all too well," was only a matter of time. While she was still drawing in her net on West Street and had, for the moment, no thought to spare to look back at him, all the more he had to be quick. A step too slow, and the Black Wind Hall's blade or the Xuanzhao Sect's eye—one of them, in the end, would fall on his neck.

---

The market's black market was hidden in the cellar of a dead-end alley in the South Market. The one who sold gray goods such as outer-gate examination tokens was an old broker who went by the nickname Qian the Coin-Stringer.

When Lin Que hurried there, the cellar was in a mess. With the Xuanzhao Sect sealing the Black Wind Hall and tightening its searches along the way, a man doing gray trade like Qian the Coin-Stringer was scared enough to be packing up his valuables and lying low.

The cellar was low, the damp air laced with the smell of mold, a few half-open wooden crates piled in the corner, the crates holding gray goods he had not yet managed to carry off. Qian the Coin-Stringer was bustling in and out alone, stuffing his valuables into one large bundle, cursing under his breath, cursing the Xuanzhao Sect for cutting off a man's livelihood. Lin Que stood at the doorway and, for the moment, made no sound, those eyes of his sweeping the cellar over from end to end—only Qian the Coin-Stringer, alone, no ambush, no other eyes watching. Once he had made sure, only then did he walk in, unhurried.

"A token?" Qian the Coin-Stringer did not so much as raise his head. "Three hundred spirit stones, not a coin less. Without that sum, don't hold up my getting away."

In Lin Que's hand, principal and interest together, he could not scrape up a full two hundred and sixty.

He cast his eyes down, and those eyes swept over Qian the Coin-Stringer and the goods spread on his stall.

That token on the stall—he saw at a glance it was real; an outer-gate token of the Xuanzhao Sect could not be faked. But Qian the Coin-Stringer's hands as he packed were far more hurried than his mouth; within that fluster, there was a seam.

"Uncle Qian," Lin Que set out the spirit stones in his hand one by one upon that greasy low table, "two hundred and sixty. The forty short, I'll make up with this." From his robes he drew out that dulled broken jade and laid it beside the spirit stones. "An old piece of jade. Doesn't look like much, but the strand of qi inside it is pure—good stock, fit for refining tools or feeding talismans alike. Uncle Qian, you've trodden north and south; you know goods."

He did not mention where this jade had come from. Han Bosheng's words—he had not forgotten them for an instant: in this market, those who would kill over a thing like this were more vicious than even that man-eating seam. Letting its provenance rot in his belly was steadier than anything.

Qian the Coin-Stringer picked up the broken jade, turning it over and over in the cellar's dim light, then scraped it lightly over the jade's surface with a withered yellow fingernail. This old broker had spent a lifetime rolling about in heaps of gray goods—his eye was sharp, his fingertips sharper still. From that one scrape he felt that the strand of qi in this "unremarkable" old jade was indeed more alive, more pure, than the common sort. A flicker of brightness crossed the depths of his eyes, yet his face pulled down at once, and he set the jade back on the table.

"The jade's a good piece of jade. But what I want right now are spirit stones I can offload at once, not stock to keep at the bottom of a chest. You bring a piece of jade to make up forty spirit stones—you take me for a man so panicked he's lost his wits?"

"Aren't you the one getting away?" Lin Que kept his eyes down, his voice not high. "This jade you can trade for spirit stones anywhere along the road, and it won't draw the eye—steadier than carrying a token on you." He paused, then gently tore that seam open for Qian the Coin-Stringer to see. "It's this token, rather—these few days, the thing the Xuanzhao Sect has searched for hardest, sealing the Black Wind Hall, is the gray trade in outer-gate tokens. This thing, kept in your hands, is what's truly scalding. Uncle Qian, will you carry it through the checkpoints, or trade it for an old piece of jade no one can name a thing about, and offload it slowly along the road?"

Qian the Coin-Stringer stared at him, stared for a long while. In those muddy eyes the abacus clicked fast—with the Xuanzhao Sect searching this hard, this token slammed down in his hands was indeed a calamity that could cost a life; that old jade, pure of qi, easy to offload, and not eye-catching, was at this very juncture more dependable than a scalding token.

This medicine-boy, soft as he looked in the face, spoke every word straight into the place he feared most.

"Done." Qian the Coin-Stringer swept the broken jade and the spirit stones together into his robes in one motion and shoved that token into Lin Que's hands. "Take it and go, quick! Don't sit there being an eyesore."

The token in hand. At the touch of Lin Que's fingertips, the qi-seal of the Xuanzhao Sect upon it was real.

The first thing for leaving the market—obtained.

---

But the moment he crawled out of the cellar, there was a man standing at the mouth of the dead-end alley.

Sun Heng.

He was in a sorry state, his silk gown torn, wounds on his face—plainly just wrenched free from the hands of the Xuanzhao Sect. Those eyes were fixed dead on Lin Que, one blazing red.

"It's you." Sun Heng's voice was hoarse. "The Xuanzhao Sect setting its eye on the rush pills… you drew them in."

Lin Que's heart sank to the bottom. Sun Heng had found it out after all.

"The hall master's up for questioning, the rush pills' line of money cut off—all because of you, a medicine-boy." Sun Heng pressed closer step by step, the momentum of his hard-forged body bearing down till a man could not breathe. "Take you in? No need for that. I'll pay your life to the hall master first."

This dead-end alley—both walls sheer high walls, the mouth blocked by Sun Heng, the far end walled shut. This half year, he had lived entirely by dodging and hiding, had never let himself be driven into a dead corner; yet this once, in the end, he had been driven into one all the same. There was no fleeing—Sun Heng had hard-forged for years, a body of brute strength; he himself at the fourth layer of Qi Condensation would not get three steps before a fist smashed him to pieces in this alley. Nor could he take the blow. There was no taking it.

The one road to life was that deep-hidden, secret wound below Sun Heng's right rib—that flaw. But to strike at that flaw, he needed a blow fast enough, true enough. The fourth layer of Qi Condensation was not enough.

He had to fill in the fifth layer. Now, at once.

Lin Que backed against the alley wall, one hand pressing to the green-jade paperweight at his breast.

Mending a flaw needed stillness, needed time—of these, he had at present not the half of either. Sun Heng had already bullied his way within three paces.

He shut his eyes and drove that strand of pure qi from the green jade, all at once, into the flaw below his left rib.

Last time, filling in the fourth layer, he had fed it in thread by thread, slowly. This time, he was force-pouring the whole living current into the flaw.

This pouring was a hundredfold the danger. The instant the pure qi entered his meridians, the flaw below his left rib drank greedily, like long-parched cracked earth; but it drank too fast, too fierce, and the meridians on either side of the gap were strained till they trembled, the qi reaching the third turn and choking to a halt—about to backflow and break from the true path. The moment it broke loose, that was qi deviation on the spot, the meridians snapped to splinters; he would not even take Sun Heng's fist before he died first himself.

A fierce pain came at his left rib, that flaw forced wide open and then hard-filled with living qi. Cold sweat streamed at Lin Que's brow, his teeth ground to shards, yet those eyes were nailed dead on that flaw below his own left rib: which spot was strained most perilously, which way that current pulled awry, all of it lay within his gaze. By that sliver of being able to see, he forced his spirit-sense to bear and pried the current that would break loose, sliver by sliver, back off the crooked path, pressed it inch by inch back onto the true road.

In the very instant Sun Heng's fist came thundering—

The flaw below his left rib closed.

The qi ran through. That threshold of the fourth layer of Qi Condensation broke open.

The qi of the fifth layer of Qi Condensation flooded across his meridians in a flash. Though it was only a single layer higher, when the wind-pressure of that fist slammed against his face, Lin Que felt for the first time—that he, himself, could take it.

What mattered more: filled to the fifth layer, those eyes of his were keener than before. The deep-hidden secret wound below Sun Heng's right rib, in this instant, lay bright and clear within his gaze.

Sun Heng's fist was already at his eyes.

Lin Que did not retreat. He fixed his eyes on that flaw below Sun Heng's right rib, and in his hand, quietly gripped tight that sharpened wooden sliver he had carried against his body all along.

That time with Hu Biao, he had used a single sentence to puncture a seventh layer. This time, he would use this one wooden sliver to drive into the flaw a hard-forged master had hidden a whole lifetime.

Make it or not, it was all in this one stroke.

【Ch. 019 End · the South Market black market / the dead-end alley】