A man came to the disposal shed while Bai was waiting for Yan to finish a cart count. He carried a small pill jar wrapped in gray cloth. The guild seal across the lid had bent under the metal clasp, cutting through two of its characters.
“Strong qi tablet,” the man said. “Sharp accumulation. Worth more than the weak batches you’ve been buying.”
Bai did not reach for it. “Where did it come from?”
“A guild storehouse.”
“Which one?”
“The north one.”
Yan leaned closer to the label without touching the jar. The warning said the heat might overwhelm a novice’s channels. The batch number had been scraped away. The part of the seal that remained was bent, and the lid shifted when the man set it down.
“Which north storehouse?” Yan asked.
The seller frowned. “The guild’s north storehouse.”
“There are two.”
“Then it came from the other one.”
Bai gave Yan a look. The answer had changed before they had even agreed on a price.
“How did the number get scraped off?” Yan asked.
“It rubbed away in the pouch.”
“Numbers don’t rub away in one clean strip.”
The man lifted the jar. “If you don’t want it, say so.”
“I want to know the source.”
“You’ve got the guild seal.”
“It’s crooked across the lid. That proves the lid was pressed, not what’s inside.”
The seller’s mouth tightened. “A laborer shouldn’t be this particular.”
“A courier shouldn’t buy something he can’t describe.” Bai kept his hands on his satchel strap. “You said you wanted to sell, so show us the receipt.”
The man laid the jar on the counter and stepped away. “I’ll fetch it.”
He left the shed at a quick walk. Yan waited for him to come back. Instead, the man crossed the yard and vanished into the east lane.
Bai looked down at the jar. “He left it.”
“Don’t open it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Don’t buy it cheaply, either.”
Bai’s face shifted. “I could sell it to someone willing to take the risk.”
“You don’t know what risk you’d be selling. The source is unclear, the number is missing, and the seal is damaged.”
“You make it sound like a trap.”
“It could be counterfeit. It could be real. We can’t tell.”
Bai rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had a courier route to protect and no reason to lose it over a jar. “We should check whether the seal was returned stock.”
Yan closed the shed ledger and set it beneath the jar so no one would mistake it for accepted inventory. “The east gate is closer than the storehouse office.”
They followed the lane the seller had taken. Yan wore his blue coat over his work shirt, and its repaired cuff brushed the edge of the satchel as he walked. Bai kept the jar wrapped in gray cloth, holding it away from the rest of his parcels.
At the east gate, they found a storehouse runner checking receipts before a handcart went through. Bai showed him the damaged seal and asked whether he could identify it.
The runner examined the remaining stamp. “This seal is from a returned batch.”
“Can you tell us what was in the jar?” Yan asked.
“Not without the number.”
“Could the contents be matched to the seal?”
“Returned batches go back through inspection. The seal tells me the container passed through our hands. It doesn’t tell me which pill batch it held.” The runner pointed to the scraped label. “The number is what links the contents to the record.”
Bai asked, “Can I sell it as a returned guild jar?”
“You can describe what you know. You cannot claim you know the contents.”
The runner wrote down the seal mark and the time, then asked Bai for his courier badge. He copied its number onto the return log. Bai held still while the runner worked.
“Will this cause trouble for my route?”
“Not if you report what happened accurately. The jar was left without a receipt. I’ll log the seal as found and hold it for the clerk.”
“Who handles damaged labels?” Yan asked.
The runner wrote a name and the location of the relevant desk on a small receipt. “Clerk Yao. Bring the jar and this record. Do not pry the lid open.”
Bai folded the paper and tucked it inside his coat. “We won’t.”
The runner placed the jar in a shallow tray and marked it for return. He did not call the seller a thief or promise that the pills were false. The record had only the seal, the condition, and the gap where the number should have been.
On the walk back, Bai was quiet. “I could have made good coin on that.”
“You could have lost your route permit.”
“I could also have sold it to someone who knew what it was.”
“Then they would have known the batch number.”
Bai gave a reluctant nod. “I’ll take it to Clerk Yao with the receipt. Not a threat. Just the record.”
“You want to keep the route.”
“I need it to eat.”
“So do I.”
At the shed, they marked the remaining jar slot as unfilled. Yan wrote UNKNOWN—DO NOT USE on a stiff tag and tied it to the quarantine bin, then copied the seal number from the runner’s receipt. The jar stayed wrapped. Bai wrote the courier badge and time in his own book.
The choice cost Bai a possible profit, so Yan paid him the agreed inspection fee. Bai pocketed the coin with a grimace.
“Caution is expensive.”
“A clean name is worth more than one jar.”
“A clean name still has to eat.”
Yan took the wrapped bun he had saved in his food cloth. It had gone stale around the edge. He broke it in half and offered a piece to Bai.
Bai looked at the bread. “A fine meal for two careful men.”
“Better than the mystery jar.”
They ate beside the shed door, keeping the quarantine bin in sight. The wrapper had dried stiff. Yan brushed a crumb from his blue cuff and promised himself he would mend the seam properly when he had time. Bai finished his half and folded the paper around the remaining crumbs.
“Next time I bring a special offer,” Bai said, “I’ll check its source before I carry it to you.”
“Then I’ll know it’s worth looking at.”
Bai slung his satchel onto his shoulder. “You’re a difficult customer.”
“You keep coming back.”
“That’s because you pay.”
Yan returned to sorting metal, satisfied that his advantage did not require him to gamble on substances he could not identify. The jar remained sealed in quarantine, waiting for the clerk who could trace its damaged label.