Chapter 73 — The Second Offer

CHAPTER 73

The Second Offer

“Master Zhou has raised his offer,” Peng Jian said, setting a folded sheet beside the medicine jars.

Shi Feng pressed a seal onto a lid and didn’t look up. “Read them to me,” Shi Feng said.

Peng Jian cleared his throat. “Close the stall. Name the private refiner who makes your medicines. Never sell medicine in this district again. The payment is bigger,” Peng Jian said.

Shi Feng read the sheet twice himself. Zhou Mingde no longer feared a false complaint, he thought. He feared real medicine, and he was willing to pay for its silence.

He pushed the paper back unsigned.

“Which term—” Peng Jian began.

“All of them,” Shi Feng said. “Take it back.”

Peng Jian bowed and left.

Before noon, three men who usually bought one small jar each came to the stall together.

“All of it!” Hou Ping said, slapping a purse on the board. “Every jar!”

“At the stated prices,” Shi Feng said.

“And the batch in seven days too. Promise us,” Hou Ping said.

“No,” Shi Feng said, and counted the jars into their baskets.

They left down the same alley, whispering. The noodle seller next door leaned over his pot.

“Three men emptied the cripple’s stall?”

“Since when do they have that much money?”

“Those are Zhou’s Medicine House shoes!”

“…”

The whole row of stalls was stunned. Nobody had ever seen the cripple’s little board so empty.

Shi Feng watched the baskets go. So that was the first half of the scheme, he thought. If he sold out and promised more, he’d be tied to a delivery he couldn’t make. If he refused, Zhou Mingde would learn that he couldn’t make another batch quickly. Either way the man was spending good stones to measure him.

He closed the empty box and went to the suppliers. There he found the second half.

One merchant claimed the Dryleaf was sold.

The jar seller claimed every jar was reserved.

The furnace clerk claimed no room was free until next month.

Not one of them could meet his eyes. Shi Feng thanked them. He bought a different herb for ordinary wash and bigger jars he could divide at the stall, then pulled up his hood, covered his face, and went to Gao Yuan’s furnace yard as Master Shen.

Gao Yuan was posting a new rate notice on the gate when Shi Feng arrived in his hood. Every furnace room in the yard had gone up by five stones.

“Maintenance?” Shi Feng asked from beneath his face cloth.

“Demand,” Gao Yuan said, scratching his neck sheepishly. “Zhou’s Medicine House sent clerks to every furnace yard in the metalworking quarter this morning, paying five stones to close uncertified rooms until they find out which private refiner is supplying that Qingliu Lane peddler. They don’t know who works here, Master Shen—I didn’t give them a single name!—but since half the street shut its doors for the bribe, my remaining rooms cost extra today.”

Shi Feng took back his unsigned booking slip. Zhou Mingde was firing blind at every furnace yard in the district, and Gao Yuan was using the blanket squeeze to pad his own rent.

“Enjoy it,” Shi Feng said, and left.

Across the metalworking lane he rented a smaller furnace. Its owner demanded a deposit for the lid and charged separately for fuel. Shi Feng paid after checking both. The room was narrow and hot, but the air channel was clear and nobody’s awkwardness was written into the agreement.

The smaller furnace spoiled his usual timing. The first trial portion caught on one side, because the base held heat unevenly. Shi Feng saved the residue, shifted the supports under the vessel, and tried again. This time the liquid thickened correctly.

By evening he had ordinary medicines for the stall, and he’d lost most of a working day. He wrote the extra cost in his account, right under Zhou Mingde’s earlier interference. His hand was steady. That didn’t mean he’d forgiven anything.

At home, Ling Qingzhu found him cutting vegetables far more carefully than vegetables needed.

“Did your rich customer complain?” Ling Qingzhu asked. “Or did he cry about the price like everyone else?”

“The rich customer paid,” Shi Feng said. “Other men don’t like that.”

She leaned on the kitchen doorpost and watched him lay the knife down. She’d expected a boast or a complaint. His bluntness gave her nothing to tease.

“So selling medicine isn’t peaceful,” Ling Qingzhu said. “I thought it was jars and yawning.”

“Only to people who don’t sell medicine,” Shi Feng said. “Want broth with supper?”

“Yes,” Ling Qingzhu said, and she hung around while he added water to the pot.

Shi Feng noticed these small visits to his kitchen, and he no longer took each one for a request connected to their public act. She stood there without deciding how long to stay, and he was pleased, though he told himself it was only the stove. When he went back to put away the display box, he found a folded note pressed under the wooden divider.

A private buyer wanted several jars. Cash in advance. An afternoon meeting, at a hired room behind a disused preparation house. In the corner was a stamped medicinal leaf, its stem bent exactly like the design on Zhou Mingde’s packaging.

Careless, or on purpose? Shi Feng held the paper under the lamp. The buyer named no medicine and no amount. No sensible customer paid in advance without naming either one.

A trap, he thought coldly. Good. Let me see who set it.

He slipped the note into his sleeve, picked his ordinary knife up from his corner of the room, tucked it under his outer robe, and locked the stall account in its box. His own affairs didn’t need to follow him into another man’s snare. Ling Qingzhu looked up from her book, where she sat on the edge of the bed, as he crossed the room.

“Another buyer?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“Someone willing to spend stones,” Shi Feng said.

“You sound thrilled,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“I want to find out what they want,” Shi Feng said.

Her book shut harder than it needed to.

At the gate Shi Feng stopped. “There’s broth in the pot. Keep the heat low and add water if it thickens,” Shi Feng said.

Her expression stayed polite. She gave him the look she saved for merchants who thought she couldn’t count.

“I can watch a pot,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Easily.”

Shi Feng left before he could say what he thought of that.

Across the district, Zhao Sheng checked the hired room's window latch. Zhou Mingde wanted preparation notes or sound medicine, taken without an injury that would bring the Ling household down on his shop. Zhao Sheng had half the fee already. A buyer's invitation and a quick hand should earn the rest.