B3 Chapter 14
Orange-crest took in a deep breath, filling his nose with the fragrant scent of dust and rotting wood.
He'd need to do something about that. He didn't think anyone else was going to.
Because this place was his.
The monkey spun round on one slipper, trusting the closed gate to conceal him from prying eyes. He leapt in place, arms flapping like crippled wings. He twitched joyously, a kettle boiling over, barely restraining the urge to cry out, to celebrate with a noise this great human pack would not appreciate.
His his his his!
He'd given Ruo Ping three shiny pieces of qi-bereft metal, and a promise to deliver more each turning of the moon, and all the humans of Huangshi now agreed this place was his!
Orange-crest felt like a genius. Like he'd scammed the whole city out of something precious. A perfect crime, a trespass without victims. He felt like the stray dog who'd caught the wandering cultivator, supremely satisfied, but uncertain what he was even to do next.
He knew alchemy. That would be easy. Cleaning was conceptually manageable. If it smelled bad, apply water and scrub.
But orange-crest had not the faintest idea how to handle home maintenance.
It would be fine. He'd dismissed the bandits to their drinking, but Hong Bo might come by later. He'd know what to do about rotting boards and rusty hinges.
His! The monkey flinched and hissed with glee, tapping his foot like a stressed rabbit. It would have been nice to celebrate with others. But being alone to appreciate this moment... It was not terrible.
His!
Orange-crest cast his eyes through the courtyard. The building men called a shed would definitely be his dwelling. Clean it out, fill it with plush fabrics and warm lanterns. It was perfect. All the best parts of a cave, enclosed and cozy, with none of the claustrophobia and restraint that came with being underground.
His wine could surround it. He could see it now, dozens of clay jars standing at attention in snow and rain, just like Big Chang's initiates. When he felt like sleeping out of doors, he could survey his stock from the shed's rooftop.
"It needs a name, my place." Orange-crest mused. "Something good. Clever. But no monkey talk... Tricky."
Orange-crest considered the final two buildings. Workshop and shop-shop. But which was which? Both were two stories, but the one opposite the gate was larger by far, and more decrepit by half. It was almost certainly the original main residence. The smaller building on the left also looked like a dwelling, perhaps intended to house servants, or concubines.
Orange-crest liked it for his workshop. It fit, making the workshop the building that once housed the people who did real work. Plus it was more likely to have good hearths. And less likely to contain the rumored ghost.
"Ghosts." The monkey murmured, lost in thought.
Orange-crest was not afraid of ghosts.
He could see them in his mind's eye, scattered across the courtyard. The inhabitants of the mountain at the center of his cultivation, that half-imagined monument that made him more than what he'd once been. His fellow disciples, his master and uncle, the monkeys of his oldest heart, even formless-gleam and the prince. He could see them now, reflections in running water, the way they would lounge and nitpick and snipe at each other. The people who should be here, but were not, shorn from him by choice and chance.
This place was already filled with ghosts.
What bother was one more?
Orange-crest blinked, and they were dust. One day, he would meet them again. But tonight he would clean and craft. Tomorrow he would find wealth, gather up those golden threads, and with them, he would set his foundation.
But first, exploration. This place was supposed to have a well! An underground lake, all for him.
He couldn't wait to climb down there.
The well had been warmer than orange-crest expected. Whatever qi flowed beneath the city, it certainly was not abyssal yin. He might have lingered there for a long soak, except he'd found someone had beat him to it.
The monkey didn't much want to share his bath with a waterlogged dead cat.
Still, it'd all worked out in the end. He'd thrown the cat over the fence into a neighboring alley, and then scavenged some boards from a screened door that definitely needed to be replaced, and stoked a hearth with them.
He wasn't going to use this water for pills until it'd been boiling for at least half an hour.
Firewood. Or charcoal. That was going on his list for tomorrow. Orange-crest carved the character with a nail. He was using a scrap of wood, to save his good paper for labelling pills. His list would feed the fire tomorrow, after he purchased soap, blankets, a broom, four doors, some roof tiles, a pill press, a grinding wheel, medicine books, clay jars, yeast, fruit, sausages, wine, a chest with a lock, and some tables. And now firewood.
Orange-crest was running out of room on the panel.
A house was starting to seem like an endless pit to throw silver into. Orange-crest had exchanged two of his five spirit stones for a bulging sack containing sixty-one taels of silver. He'd felt so wealthy earlier this evening, but now his silver seemed to be evaporating before he could even spend it.
Two years ago, he'd wanted for nothing except an interesting new thing to add to his wine. Tomorrow, he'd eat his big hat if his list cost him less than twenty-five taels of silver. Might be more, he wasn't sure if good books cost more than bad ones. That would be more than a spirit stone gone in a day, after paying the bandits.
Orange-crest rolled onto his back, letting the fire warm his exposed head as he stared up at the ceiling beams of his new workshop. Cities were expensive.
He already needed more money. The monkey had a vague feeling this was somehow unfair, even though he'd been the one who made all these purchasing decisions. He'd just made money yesterday. He shouldn't have to think about it now, before the sun had even risen on tomorrow.
Maybe he'd stop bleeding cash once he had all the things he wanted. He somehow doubted that. Cultivation was even more expensive than cities.
It was time to make some pills. Night was a good time for alchemy. Less interesting things to miss.
But what pills would he make? What did people want? What would they pay for?
Qi and Blood Pills were the obvious answer. Orange-crest could not imagine having too many of those. If they could afford it, he imagined every human in the city would want half a dozen of them.
But they were most effective for people who had cultivated qi, and had recently lost blood.
He also couldn't make them. He had all the ingredients, the most basic Millet Vigor and Clear Breath Pills only required two lesser spiritual plants each, and he had all three of those. But orange-crest would need a proper pill furnace to contain those energies, and those were not cheap. Twelve spirit stones, for the one he wanted. It wasn't on his list, because he couldn't afford it yet.
A lot of other pills were very situational. Compared to injury, treatment for illness was far more dependent on the ailment. One healed one disease could harm the sufferers of another.
Orange-crest knew many formulae, but he was fuzzier on their exact applications. His pill demon of a master hadn't really bothered with that part, the two of them had made pills, then sold them. Some distant apothecary or doctor had handled their dispensation.
But orange-crest didn't have well connected inner disciples to pawn his pills. He had some shifty looking mortals.
Qi and Blood Pills would be his sausage and wine, once he had a furnace and reputation. His wine would sell itself, spiritual or not, but wine took months at minimum to do right.
What could he make now that lots of people wanted... What would practically sell itself?
Oh.
Orange-crest sat up.
"Thank you, Master. Sometimes it takes a while, but I always remember what you taught me. Eventually."
Orange-crest began searching through his bags. He removed a handful of roots, gave the pile an appraising look, then slipped his paws back in the bag.
Daoist Scouring Medicine might not like as much ginger in his tea as orange-crest did, but some of his pills called for an awful lot of it. A surprising number of mushrooms too, most of a very particular shape. Hmm, he didn't have Barrenwort. Horny Goat Weed, to a non-alchemist. Too lowly and vulgar for Yuan Hua's shop. That was fine, for his first batch, he could substitute. Li Xun said only hacks rely too much on that, or include antler shavings. He can just compensate with a little Sage's Grass boiled in wine, honey, and cinnamon. Cinnamon twig, not bark. Gentle's the way, when mortal men are the patients...
A tael of silver could be a lot, or a little, depending how a man lived. Six months in straw and millet, or six hours drinking fine wines in perfumed company.
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Fu Daxian had certainly made less in a week. He'd also made more. The burr was not in the quantity, it was in the fact that the boss had made no mention of when the next payday would come.
"You gotta think like the cultivator." Ruo Ping said, tapping his head. Daoist Big Hat had given him a second tael of silver, for finding him that ghost den. "That's where the money is."
A round of laughter followed. Nobody thought too much of Ruo Ping. He wasn't dumb, he just wasn't smart either. When good things happened to him, they were usually luck.
Fu Daxian sipped his wine quietly. It wasn't a bad thought. Ruo Ping didn't know what the boss was. But Fu Daxian did.
What would the furry bastard want, in a city of men? It wouldn't be women. Did the new boss have a taste for finer things? He had spent an awful lot on fancy robes and a spacious compound.
No. He wouldn't have gone for that haunted derelict, if it was as simple as a taste for luxury.
Was Ruo Ping righter than he knew, and it was the cultivator part that mattered, not the monkey part? Perhaps it was both. A monkey couldn't join a sect. He had to get the things cultivators needed some other way.
"I'm out." Chen Guo said, setting his saucer down. "I'm grateful, but I'm out. There's too much wrong with him. He hides his face so doggedly for a reason. If he's not a demon of some stripe, I'm a deity."
He had that look in his eyes, like he was daring one of them to disagree with him. Fu Daxian certainly wasn't going to. He'd been the boss, but that didn't matter much now. Not with a cultivator around. He'd thought the brown-nosing Sun Guiying would be his main competition; now the game had changed, and clever tongues mattered more than strong arms. But perhaps it'd be Ruo Ping who succeeded in courting the new boss's favor.
"I'm out too." Wei Huo added. Fu Daxian was more surprised he'd stuck around this long. Perhaps he'd been waiting for a payday before making his exit. He'd have to watch him, Wei Huo didn't seem fool enough to steal from a cultivator, but Fu Daxian doubted he'd have any compunctions about filling his pockets before parting with him.
"Why?" Ruo Ping asked, with what sounded like actual emotion in his voice. "We've been through so much together."
That boy really wasn't cut out for living by his wits. A tragedy his aunt hadn't been able to tolerate him.
"It doesn't bother you, how he treats us?" Chen Guo asked.
"What are you talking about?"
"He treats us like the pigs."
"No, he doesn't."
"He does, Brother Ruo. He listens to us, just as much as he listens to them. He's polite and gentle and doesn't really care what we think. And he pays us about as much as he pays the pork."
"He hasn't paid the pigs yet! And we didn't even help find the pearl! If anything, he should pay the pigs more than us." Ruo Ping's expression slackened, a small smile growing from one cheek. "Nobody's ever called me a genius before."
"If that's how you feel, Brother Ruo, I wish you well. But I'd rather be a chicken's beak than an ox's behind. No matter his fortune, you'll never get more than the scraps from his table, and you wont know what trouble those horns are dragging you into until it's too late."
"I'll miss you, Brother Wei, Brother Chen."
"You sure you're not coming with us, Daxian? You weren't a bad boss. Could be one again, if things work out with my cousin."
"I've had enough of the road for a long time." Fu Daxian replied, but his mind wasn't on the words. Sun Guiying had been quiet. He'd tried to position himself as the face of things, when the cultivator had first rescued them, spewing his fancy addresses, hoping one of them stuck. He'd seen now he'd botched it, and he wasn't fool enough to keep digging into rock.
Fu Daxian leaned back in his chair. Wei and Chen might think the monkey a miser, but Fu Daxian could recognize someone with bigger ambitions.
There was money here, if he could keep the boss alive and kicking. And Fu Daxian was tired of sleeping rough and scaring rubes.
Mo Ju did not know what he was doing.
Well, he was standing at the gate of a derelict manor, staring up at its new sign.
"Ten Thousand Medicines and One Poison." He read aloud. Beneath the flowery title, as if an afterthought, was the character for 'Shop'.
No, Mo Ju knew what he was doing. He just didn't want to be disappointed again. Sometimes things vanished from the world, and no amount of longing changed that. This sad place apparently was an apothecary now. That part of the rumor was true at least.
The gates were thrown open, revealing a courtyard filled with sawhorses and stacks of roofing tiles. And for some reason, dozens of empty clay jars.
Cautiously, Mo Ju stepped forward.
There was an eeriness to the place, so many supplies, without any workers to make use of them. Perhaps they were on break.
Mo Ju had heard the rumors. But sometimes luck was just luck. Men killed themselves, when fortunes turned cruel. And sometimes the tenant after a suicide suffered night terrors from the atmosphere. A drunkard could mistake the teeth of a rat for those of furniture. These things happened.
"May the utmost Lord Lao have compassion." Mo Ju murmured. A respectable man wasn't afraid of ghosts. But a respectable man didn't go taunting them either.
Perhaps he should turn around, he wasn't that invested in finding—
"Greetings." The words were clipped, the voice polite, yet somehow oddly chipper. "You are my first guest."
Slowly, Mo Ju turned around. A short man in cornsilk robes stood behind Mo Ju, his hands clasped behind his back.
A man with no face.
Drifting veils like a jellyfish's tentacles somehow obscured what Mo Ju's eyes screamed they should be able to see.
"Gh-" Mo Ju's breath caught like a rusty hinge. "I-"
"Honored customer." The faceless man greeted formally, bowing his head. "Be welcome in my hall."
He gestured toward the main building, still missing a section of its roof.
"Come." He commanded. "And we shall see what is wrong with you."
The rumors of the last few months suddenly felt far heavier than those he'd heard last night at the wineshop. Those men speaking of pills suddenly seemed crueler, more malicious in his memory. Where had their leader gotten that horrible scar?
Had it been here? Had he been allowed to leave, if he brought others in turn?
Mo Ju swallowed. He did not want to enter the hall where a man was said to have died.
But one did not argue with ghosts.
Mo Ju clutched the peachwood charm in his pocket. It had not helped any of his ailments, but perhaps it would show its worth now.
"Sit." Perhaps the figure wasn't a ghost. Perhaps he really was an immortal, like the rumors claimed. The thought did not make Mo Ju feel much safer. He sat.
"What did you come here for?"
"There were men—" Mo Ju swallowed. What was he doing, stuttering like an anxious child in the face of strangeness? "I heard you have Yang Stallion Pills. If that is true, I would like to purchase some."
The faceless man's head tilted. Without an expression, the motion was inscrutable. But he selected an unlabeled box from the many piled high upon the tables dotting the hall, and flipped it open.
Mo Ju knew he'd found them the moment the smell reached his nostrils. There were many counterfeits, these days. But he'd used the real ones for years, he knew that scent. Earth forward, with subtle notes of spice. Something like pine, but not. That burgundy color, with the little red specks.
They were not quite the same quality as the ones he remembered. These seemed a little less uniform in size, a little less glossy of sheen. But they were clearly the same recipe.
Cultivators did not usually bother to prepare remedies for mortal ailments, let alone frivolous ones, like the deficiencies of yang energies that accompanied a man's fading years.
Apothecary Hu had claimed that his Yang Stallion Pills came from the Azure Mountain Sect. That he purchased them directly from one of the inner disciples who arranged supplies for their peaks. That was, of course, bullshit. Many apothecaries claimed things like that. But Apothecary Hu's pills had worked. And they had not left Mo Ju's head as light as air, or his heart thumping like a festival drum. Just a gentle warmth, slowly travelling down the chest, and a dragon's horn that did not retire before the dawn, nor redden so furiously a light breeze left him in agony.
"I will take them."
"Of course." The man Mo Ju was beginning to hope was not a ghost agreed. "How much?"
"A dozen. To start."
"No. Well, yes, but not that. How much will you pay? What are they worth, to you?"
That was not how commerce was done. Did this strange figure mean to imply that Mo Ju might pay in something other than currency?
"I don't—"
"Wait!" The faceless man turned his unseen eyes upon Mo Ju. "I am getting ahead of myself. I must take your four signs first."
Mo Ju acquiesced. He did not feel declining was an option.
The figure circled him like a wolf inspecting its prey. He asked after Mo Ju's sleep, and the sort of medicines he took. He sniffed disapprovingly, at Mo Ju's tobacco habit, which reassured him for a moment. Then he sniffed hungrily, like a wild beast, as if trying to memorize Mo Ju's scent. Mo Ju did not know what to think. He knew doctors evaluated the odor of their patients, but the doctor who had saved his wife from fever had never acted like this. This strange fellow did not even remove his hat, when he listened to the sounds of Mo Ju's breathing.
And then came the pulse. That cornsilk robe had long, wide sleeves. The faceless man's hands alighted upon his wrist.
Mo Ju froze.
Those were not human hands.
The skin of the palm was too leathery. The curve of the nail resting against his inner wrist was too thick, too sharp. He could feel the tickle of hair, and a strength that felt like it could snap his wrist between two fingers.
"Your heart is weak." The ghost whispered.
"I just came in looking for those pills I don't need a medical examination and I don't want to bother you please just let me—" The words spilled out of Mo Ju like a dam overturned. Only the fear of that unyielding grip kept him in his seat.
"Stop." The ghost's other hand rose up, flickers of fiery light dancing within his sleeve.
"Immortal, I meant nothing—"
"Not you."
The ghost released his hand, and rose. Mo Ju rose with him, turning.
"Heegp." Mo Ju felt like he'd choked on his own breath. His weak heart skipped a beat and his legs turned to jelly beneath him, sending him tumbling.
The ghost loomed over him, trapped in glimmers of blazing light. Bloodless skin, pulled taut across bruised bones. A savage warrior's mane, eyes shot with blood, veins squirming like maggots, and bared yellow teeth fit to shame any fierce beast.
And then there was nothing to see. The shopkeeper had thrown a sack over the frozen ghost's head.
"Sorry about that." The cultivator, for what else could he be, apologized. He grabbed the mouth of the sack with one hand, and then socked the ghost in the stomach.
The ghost's legs vanished into smoky mist, but the cultivator was already cinching the bag shut.
"He hasn't learned his lesson." The impossible apothecary explained, wrestling the bag to the ground. "He keeps getting out of his box. Trying to steal my silver, and scare my men. They're on break. Because he bit Sun Guiying's hand."
Mist was still seeping out of the bag. Clawed hands seemed poised to rip free, before the shopkeeper stomped down, drawing a pained gasp from the struggling ghost.
Mo Ju had no idea what he was watching. He felt like he'd been drugged, as he watched the shopkeeper brutalize the apparition, before eventually throwing the haunted sack into the largest chest in the room and slamming the lid shut. A two-handed incantation and another admonition sealed the chest with more of that warm orange light.
"Don't worry. I won't let the stupid ghost bother my honored customers. Your heart is tired though. You have scallion stalk pulse. Full, but soft in the middle. These are not the best medicine for you."
"I understand." Mo Ju said. He didn't. This was a real daoist. A proper immortal doctor.
"Do you still want them?"
"What?"
"The pills."
"Y-yes. How about..." Mo Ju's mind raced. He was not going to insult the ghost-taming immortal doctor with a low offer. He had money. He even had some friends who were in the same situation as him. If these really were the original recipe, one did not even need full doses, for a normal evening.
"Four taels of silver, for twelve?" That was almost thrice the original price, nobody beneath heaven could find fault with such an offer.
"Done!"
Mo Ju stood in a daze as the cultivator wrapped his purchases up in paper.
"Ghosts." The cultivator said, making conversation with the same tone normal men used to complain about stray dogs. "I'll get him eventually. Put him in a gourd or something. Have a thirteenth pill. Free, because he bothered you."
"It was no trouble."
"Don't use them too often. Your heart needs yin more than it needs yang. I will think about it. Come again next week, and I will make something for your heart. And your sleep."
"I'm fine." Mo Ju said weakly.
"No." The cultivator insisted. "You are not fine. Tired heart, not enough sleep. You will come again. And that next pill will be free, for you. You paid a lot for these."
Mo Ju did not protest as the cultivator walked him to the gate. What was he going to tell his wife about today? He certainly would not have believed his own story.
"Good business, flexible prices, best medicine. If anyone else can do it, I'll do it better. I'll sell wine soon, too." The cultivator was still chatting airily. "Tell all your friends, about Daoist Big Hat."
Mo Ju didn't really want to. But he wasn't sure he dared not to. He had to tell someone about this. It would drive him mad, to take the memory to his grave without inflicting it upon somebody else.