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From the back of the store, Fang Rui heard the bells chime.
“Shit,” he muttered, looking at the half-counted pile of safflower due for delivery to Tiny Herb before sunrise. He scrawled a quick note for himself, gave himself five seconds to deeply regret not taking up Ruan Yongbin’s offer of help, and ducked under the hanging curtains to the counter.
“Fang Rui, at your service,” he said to the startled customer eyeing the energy-increasing pills with dubious curiosity. “Are you buying, selling, or both?”
“Selling,” the man said. “They say your sect is the only one that trades openly in artifacts.”
Where had this cultivator been the last two hundred years, to miss the signing of the eight greater sects’ era-defining treaty? With a start, Fang Rui realised that he did not recognise the pattern on the cultivator’s lilac robes or the jade plaque hanging from his waist – but surely even rogue cultivators knew of their history. And the meticulous recording of sect standards and changes meant Fang Rui should have recognised his clothes, even if the other had just come out of a two-hundred-year seclusion.
“Many smaller sects trade for artifacts on a limited scale,” was what he said instead, swallowing all his questions for later. “We are merely the most able to identify which artifacts will be useful to others beyond our own sect.” And the most financially stable, he finished silently in his mind.
That was the misfortune of smaller sects; even when they knew an artifact was valuable, they passed it up if there was no immediate use for it. Wind Howl, running off the expansive knowledge of Lin Jingyan, had both the capacity to maintain an artifact and the ability to locate a sect that could use it before the costs piled up. “May I see?”
“Interesting,” the cultivator murmured without elaborating. He produced a bag – bottomless, but the stitching was worn enough to suggest he would want to take it to Thunderclap soon – and tipped the contents over the counter.
Fang Rui felt himself break fifty rules of decorum as his jaw dropped, and kept on dropping.
Most artifacts cultivators brought in were the concentrated essences of demons and spirits, waiting to be refined into pills by the reclusive Tiny Herb. A few brought scales and horns – again, Tiny Herb – or lesser catalysts salvaged from even lesser-er dead cultivators trapped in old domains, for Thunderclap to melt down or Blue Rain to merge into existing catalysts. But Fang Rui did not need the forging mastery of a Thunderclap disciple to know what a tragedy melting a catalyst with even half the calibre of the ones resting on his counter would be, and this cultivator had just dumped ten.
“What sect are you from, and what domain were you raiding?” he asked, dazedly reaching out to touch an emerald-set twist of silver. It hummed under his hands, radiant with power.
“I thought a hallmark of Wind Howl was not asking questions,” the cultivator replied, amused. “How much are they worth?”
If Fang Rui hadn’t known better, he would have seriously wondered which sect masters had been recently murdered for the treasure trove in front of him. But he didn’t recognise a single catalyst, and all the flames in the replica life-lamps for different sect leaders burning in the central hall at Wind Howl were alive and well. “It’s a pity they aren’t blades,” he said, feeling his own catalyst warm in its sheath on his belt. “We’re in quite the blade-heavy era. As for how much they’re worth… it’s been a long while since Wind Howl’s priced these in such quantity. Are you still in the area tomorrow?”
“I can be,” the cultivator answered. “I hadn’t realised they were… it’s been a while, for me.”
Sooner or later Fang Rui’s curiosity would get him forcibly transferred to sweeping the library, the elders of Wind Howl less forgiving even if Lin Jingyan was the definition of blind when it came to his antics, but today he stalled it off. “If you can show up before sundown, we should be able to agree on a satisfactory price,” he said. It would be very satisfactory – Royal Style had been looking into increasing their stock of amulet catalysts for a very long time. “I don’t believe I got your name?”
“Wu Yuce of the Void Sect,” said Wu Yuce. “I’ll see you at sundown tomorrow.”
Curiosity promptly wrestled good sense into submission. “I’ve never heard of a Void Sect before,” he blurted out to Wu Yuce’s back.
A laugh floated back to him. “You will.”
It took a long time before he could settle enough to sort the safflowers, after that.
“Ridiculous,” an elder of the Wind Howl sect snapped. “Fang Rui must have seen wrong. How could an unknown cultivator appear from nowhere with ten premium-grade catalysts? The lighting is notoriously bad, we should have replaced the lux spirit shells last decade. Preposterous.”
“I think we should still go and see,” another elder said. “If they are premium-grade we’ll have opened our eyes, and if they aren’t we can flip them to Thunderclap. And if Thunderclap doesn’t want them, many of their disciples are celebrating graduation this decade. Lesser catalysts would be a suitable present.”
“Fang Rui should be able to identify lesser catalysts,” a third said, age carving frowns on his face. Fang Rui bristled at the implication. Out of the two of them, he was the one with working eyes, thank you very much!
“Please,” Lin Jingyan said, just as another argument threatened to break out over whether Fang Rui was fit to be in the trade section of Wind Howl at all. “Fang Rui has an excellent eye for treasure, and I trust his judgement.”
“You can’t really think there are domains out there with premium-grade catalysts left in them, Jingyan,” muttered an elder. “We’ve scraped the lot of them empty, and Misty Rain keeps meticulous calendars for the unopened ones. They’re probably lesser catalysts with a layer of polish on them.”
“I trust Fang Rui’s judgement,” Lin Jingyan repeated. “I’ll go with him. The meeting is adjourned.”
The elders mumbled and grumbled. Fang Rui flashed his sect master a grateful smile, and scurried out before he could throw a teacup at a doubtful elder’s face.
Wu Yuce arrived with the last of the sunrays, full of a wraithlike grace and camouflage incongruous with the lilac he wore. “This is Sect Master Lin,” Fang Rui said by way of introduction, and settled back on his stool.
Was that a flicker of recognition in Wu Yuce’s eyes, or confusion? “You honour me,” he said to Lin Jingyan.
“Hardly,” Lin Jingyan said, waving a hand. “I believe I am to be the honoured one, in fact. It has been a long time since premium-grade catalysts have showed up on the market.”
“So I have learned,” Wu Yuce agreed, and tipped the contents of the bottomless bag back onto the counter. Fang Rui’s sect master was a master of his expressions as well as Wind Howl, but even he blinked twice at the treasure spilling out.
Several elders, Fang Rui realised with no small amount of glee, were going to be very shamefaced when they returned today.
Lin Jingyan named a price that to Fang Rui seemed simultaneously reasonable and absurd; Wu Yuce agreed without hesitation. After he had left, Lin Jingyan was frowning.
“What’s wrong?” asked Fang Rui.
“He could have pushed for higher,” Lin Jingyan mused. “That flower catalyst alone could have gone for – well, maybe not immediately, but some kind of wedding must be happening in the next century and it would be difficult to overvalue then. Some of these pieces will be difficult to sell right now, particularly that bracer, but… either he needed the stones badly, or not at all. If he comes back with more, offer him higher.”
“You’re not going to price them again?”
Lin Jingyan gave him a shrewd look. “As if you hadn’t already figured out how I was pricing them when I wrote out the price breakdown in the ledgers,” he chided. “You’ll have to learn how to price these on your own eventually if I have my way. Wind Howl’s coffers can withstand a few learning mistakes.”
Even the least of those catalysts had been a good hundred times Fang Rui’s annual allowance; Lin Jingyan was letting him make some expensive learning mistakes. Or he was being underpaid, though Wind Howl ensured he had no use for money anyway. Fang Rui began boxing the catalysts, labelling each one carefully.
“Void Sect,” Lin Jingyan said, thoughtful. “I think we’ll be hearing a lot from them in the future.”
Lin Jingyan, as always, was right.
First there was the night hunt that ended with a full two dozen jiangshi dead at the hands of Void Sect, then a string of hauntings across the river delta solved by a lotus-patterned blade sinking into the hauntings’ puppeteer, then the revelation that all of Void Sect – from the masters down to the youngest disciples – wielded premium-grade catalysts in a shocking display of wealth. Fang Rui had snorted when he’d heard the last one; it was far more probably Wu Yuce simply did not care about its value. If it was usable–
“At this rate you’ll tank your own market,” he said, as Wu Yuce poured another stack of premium-grade catalysts onto his counter. “Why not release them into the world slowly?”
“You say it as if it is a bad thing,” Wu Yuce observed. “Why should I stand in the way of a fated match?”
Once upon a time, when the world had been richer in spiritual energy, a cultivator’s first catalyst was their fated catalyst – something that bound to them, something that would not respond to another as anything more than a lump of metal until death – and if they could not find that catalyst, they could not be a cultivator. But now a first catalyst was simply a first catalyst, something its owner had likely scrimped and saved for if they were not a disciple of Thunderclap, tradable and breakable and usable in other hands. There was not enough spiritual energy in the world left for the waste a fated catalyst represented if it could not find an owner, but there was, Fang Rui admitted, something very romantic in the notion.
“You’re certainly tanking Wind Howl’s coffers,” was what he said out loud. “This is the fourth visit in two months. I don’t suppose you could drop a hint on where these are coming from?”
“I think everyone would know where they’re coming from, if they thought a bit deeper,” Wu Yuce said, frowning at him. “Wind Howl’s coffers?”
Fang Rui waved a hand. “That’s private sect business. Also, you’re way overestimating everyone – you realise there’s a prevailing theory Void Sect is murdering hundreds of secluding masters for their catalysts? It doesn’t hold any water once you remember none of these catalysts have been seen on anyone before, but the people do love making up their villains.”
“That explains the influx of petty criminals,” Wu Yuce muttered. “And you?”
“Me?” Fang Rui asked.
“What’s your prevailing theory?”
“Oh.” Fang Rui propped his chin in his palm. “Well, you’re certainly good looking enough to be a mass murderer of cultivators, but like I said, these catalysts haven’t had owners for centuries. What would you be killing them for anyway when you’ve got wherever these are coming from? I’d like to think you’re salvaging them, but Misty Rain confirmed repeatedly there haven’t been and aren’t going to be any newly-reopening domains this decade, so that’s out. So my savings are on one of your sect members finding some ancient forging scroll and developing a new technique to transmute lesser catalysts into premium-grade ones.”
“Your savings?” Wu Yuce repeated. “Is there a betting pool? You should take them out if you can, that’s not the right answer.”
“It’s not? Shit, and they were offering such good odds,” Fang Rui said in dismay. “I’ll see about taking them out then, thanks for the tip. But – was at least one of my guesses correct?”
“Oh,” Wu Yuce said, blankly. “I thought you were just trying to tell me I was handsome in a convoluted way, so I wasn’t paying attention.”
Fang Rui choked on his water.
“About last time, I wasn’t trying to say you were handsome in a convoluted way, I was just trying to tell you the prevailing theories. Not that I mean you’re ugly or anything, in fact you’re perfectly handsome I just didn’t want you to get confused–”
“Thanks,” Wu Yuce said, “but actually, you should have stopped at perfectly handsome.”
“Yeah yeah, and next I’ll be saying your eyes are a bottomless well and as refined as walnut wood – wait, no. That’s not what I meant, your eyes are just fine as they are, no walnut wood needed. Actually I’m going to stop talking now.”
“You haven’t told me the price yet. Though, if you’re planning to mime it out, I’m all walnut-wood eyes.”
Fang Rui buried his face in his hands.
“Are you sure you don’t want to keep this catalyst set? The amethyst suits your robes, you know.”
Wu Yuce touched his catalyst. “Heavenly Crimson Lotus assures me I am quite sure, yes.”
“Is this seaglass? When I was young and had no financial sense I wanted some, and then I learned the truth… anyway, come and double check the sum.”
“No need. I trust your accuracy. What’s the truth about seaglass?”
“They ran out of dreams, the last I heard. Blew the price sky-high.”
The next time, after Wu Yuce had left, Fang Rui found a glittering piece of seaglass wedged into a crack against the counter. No matter what he insisted, the other refused to admit he’d left it there.
It was astounding how quickly Fang Rui could adapt to expecting Wu Yuce to dump a bajillion expensive catalysts over the counter every fortnight, and just a little worrying how he started to anticipate them. But Wu Yuce was a surprisingly decent conversationalist for someone with no financial sense, quick and dry-witted and a relieving escape from the arguments now constantly occurring in Wind Howl’s central hall. Thanks to him, even the colour lilac had become more pleasing to Fang Rui’s eyes, to the point where he’d managed to gag down the taro ‘health drink’ a member of Tiny Herb had offered him without seeming impolite.
And then Wu Yuce didn’t show up.
And then he still didn’t show up.
And then someone in lilac who was decidedly not Wu Yuce turned up and dumped a bag of premium-grade catalysts on his counter.
“What happened to Wu Yuce?” Fang Rui demanded, throwing all customer-storekeeper etiquette into the eighteen pits of hell as he leaped across the counter. “Is he alright?”
The Void cultivator paused, looking at where Fang Rui’s hand was holding onto his sleeve. “He’s… been better,” he said. “Are you a friend?”
“Um,” said Fang Rui. “Yes. What happened to him?”
“He got into a fight with some idiots when he was outnumbered, which makes him an idiot as well,” and abruptly Fang Rui placed the name with the face: Li Xuan, sect master of Void. He supposed only the sect master could insult someone as impressive as Wu Yuce with fond exasperation. “I’ll let him know you were thinking of him, though he’s already a terrible patient as it is.”
“But he’s going to be fine?” Fang Rui asked, just to be certain, and released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding when Li Xuan nodded. “That’s – that’s good. That’s good. I’ll – can I write him a message?”
Li Xuan shrugged. “Go ahead,” he said, drifting away to inspect the blood-replenishing elixirs.
Fang Rui had to shred three messages before he could write something vaguely appropriate for someone recovering from grievous injury. Li Xuan gave him an amused look when Fang Rui finally handed it over, a neatly folded note containing all of his sheer disbelief and relief for the past month, and promised to memorise Wu Yuce’s reaction.
The bells chimed when Fang Rui was weighing ginseng. He debated not going outside – they closed early today, dammit – when he heard a familiar voice call, “Fang Rui, I know you’re there.”
His face was slightly wan, and there was more looseness to the lilac robes hanging off him, but Wu Yuce looked the same as ever when Fang Rui ducked out to the front. “I read your notes,” he said. “Thanks.”
Fang Rui sniffed. “Don’t do it again. Writing was terrible.”
“So Li Xuan said.” There was a smile on Wu Yuce’s face, just the edge of impish. “One could get the wrong impression from all the notes you sent after, you know.”
“Or the right impression,” Fang Rui said, folding his arms. “Did the second master of Sect Void bring anything to trade, or is he here to take up my valuable paid time?”
“Well, I did bring something,” Wu Yuce said. “The last for quite a while, too, though I believe my sect’s finances are in excellent order now. The domain is becoming unstable again.”
“The Demon Domain,” said Fang Rui.
“I did say everyone knew where they were coming from, if only they would think harder,” Wu Yuce agreed, as if he had not dropped a mountain over the cultivation world’s collective heads. There was good reason none entered the Demon Domain, which strictly was not a domain at all – domains were left behind by cultivators, but the Demon Domain was the shared dream of a thousand vanquished gods – but it also explained too excellently why there was a near-endless supply of premium-grade catalysts filled with spiritual energy the world had long lost. Wu Yuce, put simply, was a madman.
The madman in question removed a paired set of – gauntlets, perhaps, though they also seemed like rings, and the metal all but flowed across the table – from his bag. Against his better judgement, Fang Rui reached out to take it from him; their fingers brushed, and he had to bite back the startled smile.
The catalysts were more gloves than gauntlets, he decided after a closer look. There was something resonant about their power, an echo of a familiar tune, and when Fang Rui slipped his hand inside the right glove he tasted salt on his tongue, the great roar of an ocean rushing through his ears. Distantly, drowned out by the seaspray, he heard Wu Yuce’s laugh, and lightness unfurled in the air like the flowering of a lotus plant.
“Interesting design,” Fang Rui managed, when he thought he was on solid ground again. “I think I can–”
“It’s yours,” Wu Yuce interrupted. His eyes were very bright. “It was yours when I found it, and it’s certainly yours now. You shouldn’t pay for things you already own. It’s fated to you.”
Fang Rui froze. He looked at the gloves, one on his hand, the other on the counter, both innocuous. “I thought only the first catalyst could be the fated catalyst,” he said, thinking of the long string of premium-grade catalysts that had passed harmlessly through his hands.
“Fate will travel the four oceans and eight winds to attend a destined union.” Wu Yuce quoted the first line of an impressively sordid series of poetry without a hint of shame, the impish smile back on his face. “I’d like to think I know catalysts, and you, well enough to spot a fated candidate. In any case, I don’t want it, and you can’t sell it now that it’s worthless to anyone but you.”
“I refuse to take it for free,” Fang Rui said. “Wind Howl takes pride in never lowballing a seller. But, uh. That bet turned out to be non-refundable, and this is worth at least a hundred of my annual salary.”
“Well,” Wu Yuce said, “to go back in time, if one was taking the right impression… I think a century would be long enough to know if it works, wouldn’t it?”
“You drive a hard bargain, Sir Wu.” Fang Rui held out his ungloved hand; Wu Yuce took it. “But I suppose I can graciously accept.”
Wu Yuce tangled their hands together, his calluses an assuring roughness against Fang Rui's fingers. “I graciously accept your gracious acceptance,” he said, and Fang Rui beamed.