Chapter 610 — The Tang Bargain

CHAPTER 610

The Tang Bargain

The back room was small and smelled of herbs. Tang Wenbo sat on the only good stool, with his lacquered box on his knees and his back very straight.

“The Tang Family doesn’t haggle in front of porters,” Tang Wenbo said.

“Then it shouldn’t make offers in front of them,” Shi Feng said cheerfully. “Steward Tang, I’ll save us both time. I won’t sell.”

“Everything has a price, Master Feng,” Tang Wenbo said.

“It does. And you can’t afford mine,” Shi Feng replied, pulling up a crate. “But I’ll rent you something. Write this down.”

Tang Wenbo hesitated for exactly one breath. Then he took out a brush.

“First,” Shi Feng said. “No sale. The shop, the sign and the Book stay mine. Second, the Tang take a standing retainer. Four reserved sets a month, before anyone else in the queue, at three times my fee.”

“Triple?” Tang Wenbo said.

“You’re buying priority over everyone outside,” Shi Feng explained, raising a third finger. “That’s why it costs more. Third, thirty thousand paid today, against the first four months. Fourth, the furnace clause binds the Tang like any other client. Fifth, the Tang may not resell my pills, and may not use my name.”

“Not use the name?” Tang Wenbo asked, stopping his brush.

“If your family sells my pills as Tang goods, my price falls and yours rises,” Shi Feng said. “I’d be a fool. You don’t hire fools.”

Tang Wenbo wrote it down. His face stayed calm, but the brush was pressing harder now.

Tao Xiaoyu had been standing in the doorway the whole time, pretending to dust a shelf. She leaned in and pointed at the draft.

“Master Feng,” Tao Xiaoyu said. “Article four says the furnace clause binds them. So the Tang can’t collect the surplus either. Right? Even if they own four sets?”

“Right,” Shi Feng said proudly. “Xiaoyu, you’ve earned your sixty percent.”

Tang Wenbo looked at the fourteen-year-old girl for a long moment. Then he looked at his paper.

“The Tang Family,” Tang Wenbo said slowly, “has never paid a retainer to a shop it doesn’t own.”

“Then take home a useful agreement instead of an empty offer,” Shi Feng said. “If you go home with nothing, Steward Tang, someone at your house will ask why. If you go home with four reserved sets at seven clouds, they’ll ask how you got them. I know which question I’d rather answer.”

The room was silent for some time.

Tang Wenbo had come to buy a frontier alchemist for eighty thousand. Now he could secure reserved commissions, but the alchemist would remain independent. His face went a little pale. But he signed, and stamped the Tang seal under his name.

“Spilled water can’t be gathered back,” Tang Wenbo said quietly, and set down a bank draft for thirty thousand stones.

He stood and bowed.

“The Tang usually hang a small crest over a shop on retainer,” Tang Wenbo said. “So others know whose shop it is.”

“Not over this one,” Shi Feng said. “Everyone already knows whose shop it is.”

Tang Wenbo paused at the door. Then he nodded once and walked out to his silent carriage. The porters watched him go, and nobody said a word until the wheels turned the corner.

[Cash: 48,000 | Note: no crest.]

“Master Feng!” Fan Baoshou cried, six weeks later, when the Tang’s first reserved sets had come and gone, sweeping into the shop with his arms wide. “I hear you’re a rich man now! And this Fan has a client who wants to know about jewellers!”

“Who’s the client?” Shi Feng asked.

“You are, of course!” Fan Baoshou beamed. “Old Tao’s girl says you’ve been drawing a hairpin at night. Many friends, many roads, Master Feng! For a small fee, this Fan will walk you down Jewellers’ Street and introduce you to every shop.”

Shi Feng looked at Tao Xiaoyu. Tao Xiaoyu suddenly found the shelf very interesting.

“No fee,” Shi Feng said. “But I’ll buy you lunch.”

Fan Baoshou thought about it, and said yes.

Jewellers’ Street ran along the north canal for half a li, with gold shops on one side and jade shops on the other. Shi Feng had drawn the hairpin from memory on a sheet of good paper. It was thin and plain, with three small crescents at the head, and the metal was worn smooth where a hand had held it for years.

“Southern work? No,” said the first shop.

“Crescents are out of fashion,” said the second.

“Frontier stuff,” said the third. “We don’t buy frontier stuff.”

The fourth through the eighth shook their heads, one after another. Fan Baoshou ate a sesame cake at each door.

The ninth shopkeeper studied the sketch with real interest for a long time.

“I’ve never seen it,” the ninth shopkeeper admitted. “But it’s a good drawing. Would you like a copy? I can have one done by noon. Half price.”

Shi Feng took his own sketch back and thanked him politely.

Three million people, and none of these shops recognised the design, Shi Feng thought. Searching more stalls at random wouldn't help. Next he'd try the people who kept records.

The border registry sat behind the customs house. It was one long room, one clerk and one bell. The clerk took eleven copper for a search, fetched a thick ledger, and turned pages for the length of a stick of incense. A woman who’d left the Empire for the southern frontier twenty-odd years ago. Three crescents. Nothing else to go on.

The clerk closed the ledger.

“No entry,” the clerk said. “Next.”

On the walk home, Shi Feng took the folded paper from his sleeve and read it again. It held Zhuo Tingsong’s three promises and the Zhuo seal. The old master might know where else to search.

There was one more door he could knock on. And its master owed him tea.