Chapter 722 — Stall Forty-One

CHAPTER 722

Stall Forty-One

“Forty-eight stalls,” Ke Lianshu said from the steps of the West Market gate. “Seven days. Each candidate runs one stall under Her Highness’s banner.”

The West Market was the busiest quarter in Tianjing. Its lanes ran in a grid of covered stalls and stone shopfronts, and the smell of frying dough, herbs and lamp oil hung over all of it. Today a crowd of hawkers and buyers had stopped to stare at forty-eight candidates in fine robes standing in a muddy square.

“Each stall is given the same stock from the pavilion,” Ke Lianshu went on, and bowed to the crowd as if they were also candidates. “Pills, herbs, salves, at the pavilion’s prices. You may sell anything else you like, as long as it’s honest. Her Highness will read your ledgers on the seventh evening. The bottom twenty-four go home.”

A murmur went through the candidates.

“Selling? That’s a merchant’s work!”

“My father didn’t send me here to shout prices at farmers!”

“Quiet. The princess built half this city by shouting prices.”

A clerk carried a lacquered box down the steps. Inside were forty-eight bamboo slips, each with a stall number painted in red.

The candidates drew one by one. Qu Ming drew without looking and handed his slip to Yao Chen. The broad Situ candidate drew stall six and grinned. A young man in a green brocade robe drew stall forty and swore.

Shi Feng drew last.

“Forty-one,” the clerk read, and coughed.

“Is that bad?” Shi Feng asked.

“This humble clerk wouldn’t say bad, Master Shi,” the clerk said carefully. “It’s at the far end of Lantern Row.”

Lantern Row was the far end of everything.

Lantern Row sloped toward the canal. Each stall sat lower and damper than the last. At forty-one, a leak fell onto the warped counter’s left side, while an open drain forced customers to step over it before approaching. Shi Feng inspected the dry space first.

“Cold,” Ji Yuanhe said, looking at the puddle on the counter. “Damp. Three.”

“Three what?” Shi Feng said.

“Three leaks,” Ji Yuanhe said, and pointed.

There were three. Shi Feng moved the pavilion’s stock to the dry end of the counter.

Wei Hanlu, a young man in green brocade, had stall forty, right next door. Yan Boqing, in a blue robe with a jade fan, had thirty-nine. They stood together under thirty-nine’s awning and looked at Shi Feng’s stall as if it had insulted them.

“So the pill-boy gets the drain,” Wei Hanlu said. He was an Old House son whose family owned salt boats. “At least it suits him.”

“Brother Wei, don’t be cruel,” Yan Boqing said, opening his jade fan despite the cold. “He’s used to smoke and ash. A drain is a step up.”

They both laughed.

Shi Feng didn’t answer them. He was looking across the lane.

On the other side of Lantern Row stood a real shop, not a stall. It had a stone front, two floors and a gilded sign. Golden Abacus Hall. A gold abacus as long as a man hung over its door, and every bead on it had the Tang family’s seal carved into it.

A queue ran out of its door and halfway up the lane.

On a board beside the door, in large, fresh characters, was a price.

Spirit Tempering Pill. Deity Transformation-grade. Minor Success. One thousand stones.

Wei Hanlu stopped laughing.

“One thousand?” Wei Hanlu said. “The pavilion price is three thousand!”

Yan Boqing compared the Golden Abacus price with the household’s red slips on his stock. The same Minor Success Spirit Tempering Pill cost three thousand at his counter and one thousand across the lane. He stopped fanning himself.

“Nobody will buy ours,” Yan Boqing said slowly. “Not at three times the price. Not with that shop right there.”

“The Tang family are at war with Her Highness’s pavilions,” an old woman selling candles at the top of the row called down to them. She didn’t sound sympathetic. “Started last month. Every Phoenix Tail price in the city, the Tang cut it to a third. You young masters picked a fine time to sell pills.”

“Even a clever housewife can’t cook without rice,” Yan Boqing muttered.

“We didn’t pick it,” Wei Hanlu snapped.

“No,” Shi Feng said. “She did.”

The two young masters looked at him.

“She put us here knowing about the Tang price cuts,” Shi Feng said, setting down his cauldron. “Anyone can sell when customers already want the stock. She wants to know what we do when the shop across the lane offers it for a third.”

Wei Hanlu stared at him for a moment. Then he snorted.

“Big words from the man next to the drain,” Wei Hanlu said.

Across the lane, a young man stepped out of the door of Golden Abacus Hall and leaned on the frame. He wore gold-thread brocade, and a string of small gold beads was wound round his right wrist. He looked down the length of Lantern Row, at the forty-eight new stalls with the princess’s banners, and smiled very widely.

“Welcome to the West Market, honoured candidates,” Tang Mingyu called. “Please don’t worry. We’ll leave you the drain.”