Chapter 239: The Spirit Herbs Taken Back

Shao Ming hung the scale on the iron nail above the door and lifted the hand scale out of its wooden box, hanging it beside the big one. The beam swayed twice before it stilled. The market gate panels had been taken down and leaned against the wall. Inside, the plaque caught the sunlight and gleamed. The threshold of the grain shop's back courtyard had just been splashed with water; the wet marks were soaking into the brick seams. Under the third pillar from the wall, white smoke was already rising. Qian Duoduo let out a shout when he ladled the first pot of spirit meal, and everyone at the north end of Market Street turned to look.

The first to arrive was a rogue cultivator with a bamboo basket on his back. The basket held a layer of dried mushrooms, brittle from the sun. He hung the basket on the scale hook, and Shao Ming slid the counterweight, called out the number. The man reached over and slid the weight back to where it had been, leaned in to check the markings himself, and only then lifted the basket down.

"Three and a half jin. Not an ounce short," Shao Ming said.

"I'm not consigning anything. I just wanted to know the weight." The man sat down on the bench, hugging the basket. "Does the wharf buy dried mushrooms? Ask one question and get a face full of attitude."

"The wharf only buys spirit herbs," Shao Ming said.

Kuang Lun came through the market gate at the end of the Dragon hour. A carrying pole lay across his shoulders, a bundle of sun-dried spirit herbs hanging from each end. Tucked between the bundles was a cloth sack with hard edges showing through.

"Elder Kuang."

"Sect Master Xu." Kuang Lun lowered the pole in front of the counter. "Two bundles of spirit herbs. Also two other items—old things from Azure Brook Sect. If there's room, put them out. If not, I'll take them back."

He undid the cloth. Inside were two small medicine cauldrons, one missing half an ear. The bodies were burned black; he'd tried wiping them, but the stains wouldn't come out.

"Small implements sell in the market," Xu Yan said. "Put them on the counter's top row. Write your own price."

Shao Ming hung the herb bundles on the scale hook one by one, called out the numbers, took them down and weighed them again. Only when both readings matched did he set his brush to the market ledger. The cauldrons couldn't go on the hook, so he untied the cords and held each one in his hands, balancing them with the counterweight. He called out the numbers twice, then set the two cauldrons side by side in the inner corner of the counter.

Xu Yan opened the market ledger to a fresh page, wrote the date, and began entering line by line: Azure Brook Sect, two bundles of spirit herbs, nineteen jin six liang, price to be set by the consignor; two medicine cauldrons, eight jin and seven and a half jin. When he finished, he pushed the ledger across the counter for Kuang Lun to see.

Kuang Lun took a charcoal stick from the counter and wrote his own price tags. When done, he wedged them into the crack of the cabinet door, tags facing outward. The price on the two herb bundles was exactly the same as the last time, not a copper added. The cauldrons got their own tag, set beside the other two.

"On the tenth day of the Eighth Month, when accounts settle, Azure Brook Sect will come collect," he said.

"Good."

Kuang Lun didn't leave right away. He looked into the cabinet. Three shelves: top held talisman paper and a few rolls of dried spirit herbs; middle was scattered with sundries rogue cultivators had consigned; bottom was mostly empty.

"Your cabinet is emptier than it was in the Fifth Month."

"The goods belong to other people," Xu Yan said. "When they take them back, the cabinet empties."

"There's less rogue cultivator stock."

"The wharf pays cash," Xu Yan said.

Kuang Lun grunted but didn't follow up. The two cauldrons were old pieces rotated out of his sect—worth little, and they didn't take up much space. He didn't say any of that out loud. He only said, "If nobody buys the cauldrons, I'll take them back on the tenth, along with the herb bundles."

"Good."

He hoisted the pole and walked to the door, then stopped to look at the street. The stream of people heading toward the river hadn't let up—bamboo baskets on backs, grass bundles on backs, one after another, all going to the east end of town.

"It's more crowded at the wharf than at the market," Kuang Lun said, and walked out.

At the Snake hour, Qi Qi came down with ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder. He handed them to Qian Duoduo at the stall, then went inside to haul out empty baskets. The baskets dragged from the back room and knocked against the threshold, knocking off a layer of dust.

A rogue cultivator came in.

His face was burnt dark by the sun, peeling on both cheeks. An empty hemp rope hung over his shoulder, the ends worn to fuzz. He stopped at the counter, hand flat on the surface. He wasn't consigning anything, and he wasn't asking for a weighing.

Xu Yan knew him. On the tenth day of the Sixth Month, at that market day, he'd brought in three bundles of spirit herbs, weighed them one by one, written his own price tags, and asked whether it cost money to leave them in the cabinet. Shao Ming had told him no.

"Picking up my goods," the man said.

Xu Yan flipped the market ledger to the page for the tenth day of the Sixth Month, and ran his finger down the lines. The man's three bundles were in the middle, twenty-three spirit stones total. The price tags were still legible, nothing written beneath.

"All three bundles are still in the cabinet," Xu Yan said. "Not one sold."

The man's throat moved. "Mm."

Xu Yan lifted his brush and, beneath that entry, wrote: Goods retrieved. Then he crossed out the prices above and wrote the date beside them.

"You don't blame me?" the man said suddenly.

"The goods are yours." Xu Yan set down the brush. "Leaving them here is consignment, not pawning. If they don't sell, you take them back. If they do, the money goes under your name, and you collect on the tenth day of the Eighth Month."

"The tenth day of the Eighth Month." The man rolled the words around in his mouth, then said nothing more.

Xu Yan unhooked the bronze key from his waist and opened the cabinet. A smell of dry grass rushed out as the door swung open. He carried the three herb bundles out one at a time and set them on the counter. The knots on the cords were still the ones the man himself had tied, rope ends left long.

"In the Sixth Month, the market was thin," the man said as he squatted down to work at the knots, his voice flat. "Hauling them back and forth, the grass would spoil and the price would collapse. For half a month I've been occupying this shelf for nothing."

"Occupying a shelf costs nothing," Xu Yan said.

"I know it costs nothing." The man slipped the bundles into the rope loops over his shoulder, one on top of the other. "What I want is money."

"If you carry them to the wharf, how much will you get?"

"I get whatever the scale says." The man cinched the ropes tight, then added, "Same day."

The other two rogue cultivators inside had stopped what they were doing. The one with the bamboo basket nudged it aside to clear a path. The one holding half-dried spirit herbs lifted the bundle higher, watching the stray grass on the counter.

When the man stood, he braced with one knee first, and only straightened his back once he was up. The counter was dusted with grass bits. He brushed at them with his sleeve, twice, then gave up.

Two or three steps out the door, he turned back, voice low: "At the wharf, the scale reads, and they pay."

Xu Yan gave a grunt of acknowledgment.

The man headed toward the river with the three bundles on his back. Market Street was crowded; he edged sideways through the gaps. The grass tips swayed as he rounded the earthen wall at the corner of the grain shop's back courtyard, and then he was gone.

Shao Ming's hand had rested on the scale beam the whole time. Only now did he take it away.

The man on the bench with the bamboo basket asked him, "That stuff of his—the wharf takes it?"

"They take spirit herbs," Shao Ming said. "Weigh it, pay you."

"Not here at the market?"

"Here, we sell on your behalf." Shao Ming straightened the scale hook. "If it doesn't sell, he takes it back. Nobody withholds his goods."

The man grunted, got up hugging his basket. The one with the half-dried herbs lifted his bundle once more, but in the end didn't put it on the counter. He had it weighed and left too.

Before noon, Xu Yan counted the goods in the cabinet. What remained of rogue cultivator consignments: four bundles of spirit herbs and three small sundries. The goods from Ink Pool Gate, Willow Bank Gate, and Azure Brook Sect—not one bundle had moved, tags all facing outward.

At the end of the Snake hour the market broke up. Two pots of spirit meal sold out, and the stall came down. At the end of the Horse hour the market closed. Shao Ming lifted the door panels into place one by one, pounding the wedges in with the heel of his palm. Xu Yan put the market ledger into the market box and hung the key back on his belt.

They left town at the Monkey hour. The sun was punishing. The road's packed dirt had been ground pale by cart wheels; every step kicked up a layer of dust.

Qian Duoduo walked at the front, carrying two empty pots on a pole; the pot rims clanked against the wood with every step. Du Xiaochuan carried the cloth sack that held the bowls, empty now, slumping soft against his back. Qi Qi shouldered a load of empty baskets, ropes biting into the pole ends. He walked fast and was soon ahead.

Shao Ming fell in beside Xu Yan, half a step between them.

Halfway up the ridge, the trees blocked half the sun, and loose stones scattered the path. Shao Ming spoke: "Sect Master."

"Mm."

"Could the market advance them money?"

Xu Yan didn't answer right away. The road was narrow. He pushed his sleeves up and walked another dozen or so paces before saying, "If we advance money, then Qingya is buying their goods."

"Buy now, sell later," Shao Ming said.

"And if they don't sell?"

Shao Ming thought. "Then Qingya holds them."

"Holding them is a loss." Xu Yan said, "One loss or two doesn't matter. But if the losses drain the market's money, the market closes."

Shao Ming shifted the pole from his right shoulder to his left. "His three bundles, twenty-three spirit stones. Qingya can afford that."

"We can afford it." Xu Yan said, "We can afford it today. What about later? We can afford one rogue cultivator. What about ten?"

Shao Ming stopped calculating in coins. He changed tack: "There's money in the market box."

"The money in the market box belongs to other people."

Shao Ming's step hitched. "Whose?"

"The people who consigned goods and are waiting to collect on the tenth day of the Eighth Month." Xu Yan said, "If we advance one spirit stone today, then on the tenth day of the Eighth Month there's one person we can't pay in full. Keep advancing money until the tenth, and what we're spending isn't just Qingya's spirit stones—it's money that came from selling other people's goods."

Shao Ming shifted the pole back to his right shoulder and walked a few steps.

"What about half," he said anyway. "Six months of his herbs—give him half up front."

"Half is still buying." Xu Yan said, "Once money changes hands, Qingya has to take possession of the goods, no matter whose they are. The day we take possession, we become the buyer. We'd have to find somewhere to sell them, and if they don't sell, we eat the loss ourselves."

"Then this market only does three things."

"Weigh, consign, keep the books." Xu Yan said, "Add a fourth, and the first three stop being clean."

Up ahead, Qi Qi's basket ropes creaked—one, one, one. He didn't look back.

"At that point, what's the difference between this market and a table down at the wharf?" Xu Yan said.

"The market doesn't buy." After a moment, he closed the subject himself.

"Mm," Shao Ming said.

After that, no one spoke. Gravel skittered underfoot. Ahead, Qian Duoduo turned and called back, "Sect Master, there's still a bowl of porridge in one pot!" Xu Yan said, "We'll talk when we get back." At the ridge top, wind came over from the back mountain, and the pot rims went quiet.

They reached the mountain gate at the Monkey hour. Nie Bo was sweeping just inside, drawing the broom along the edges of the stone steps. Not much dust; even fewer fallen leaves. Shi Po came from the veranda and took the empty pots one-handed back to the kitchen, the pole clamped under his arm. Under the veranda, that thrust was still extending and retracting, the pits in the wooden target a little deeper. Huo Qing hadn't stopped.

Xu Yan turned off toward the Medicine Hall.

The charcoal stove still held a banked fire. The third batch had been started on the twenty-first and wouldn't come out until the twenty-eighth. An iron dustpan sat by the door, stove ash swept to seven-tenths full. Cheng Banshan stood in the doorway, one hand resting on the door frame, his formation hand hanging at his side, the wooden fingers curled faintly.

"Little Xu."

"Elder Cheng."

"The materials for the next batch of pills—any leads?"

"Yes."

"From whom?"

"Azure Brook Sect's spirit herbs are in the cabinet."