Huo Jue set up his stall opposite Bai’s before the market bell. He hung a red cloth over the table and wrote across it in thick ink: DEATH-DEFYING PILLS. Beneath the slogan sat two labeled packets and a cloudy jar without a tag.
Bai looked at the display from his own counter. “You’ve made a promise you can’t prove.”
“I’ve made a sign people can read.” Huo arranged the packets with their seals turned forward. “The laborers want strength. I’m telling them what they want to hear.”
Yan stopped beside Bai’s stall. “What do the labels say?”
“Qi gain on one. Warmth on the other. The jar is a powder blend.” Huo tapped the blank lid. “No one knows the ingredients, but it smells expensive.”
“Then it’s not part of a labeled bundle,” Yan said.
Huo gave him a thin smile. “You’re the one who tests pills. You should know they work.”
“I know what happened to me with particular batches. That doesn’t establish what’s in an unmarked jar.”
Bai had a smaller display board under the counter. He took it out and wrote the source, listed ingredients, benefit, and price beside each sealed packet. He left a clean space where the powder would have gone.
“What are you doing?” Huo asked.
“Showing the buyer what I can verify.” Bai turned the board toward the foot traffic. “People can compare the actual price and label without asking either of us to boast.”
A pair of workers stopped. One asked whether the warming pill would help his cold shift. Bai showed him the tag, then explained that the effect was only what its maker claimed. The worker read the instruction slip and asked whether the packet was sealed. Yan watched as Bai held it up without tearing the edge.
A young apprentice named Tao Fen came along the lane. She recognized Yan from the yard and reached toward Huo’s jar after hearing him tell another customer it gave instant strength.
“Wait,” Yan said. “There’s no tag on that jar.”
Fen paused with her hand a finger’s breadth from the glass. “Huo said it was a strength powder.”
“I said it could be.” Huo flicked the red cloth. “You’ve heard the rumor.”
“You can’t tell me what’s inside?” Fen asked.
“I bought it from a wholesaler.”
“Then I don’t know what it is,” she said, drawing her hand back.
Huo turned to Yan. “You’re sabotaging the sale.”
“Bai’s labels are visible. You can sell what you know and say what you don’t.”
Bai nodded toward the jar. “Customers can choose. They should know the contents are unknown.”
Fen studied the packets on Bai’s table. She chose one with an intact seal and a complete instruction slip. “I’ll buy this one. I can ask my older cousin whether it’s appropriate before either of us takes it.”
Bai named the price. Fen counted out the coins and kept the tag with the packet. “I want the instructions too.”
“They go with it,” Bai said.
Huo looked at the small crowd, then at his banner. “No one buys uncertainty until someone proves there’s something inside.”
Yan stepped toward the practice block displayed at the end of the lane. It was a plain wood block used by the yard instructor to teach striking distance. “I can show how my own technique works on a target, but it won’t prove your pills do anything.”
“Go on,” Huo said. “Show them your strength.”
“I’m showing them the difference between a visible result and an unknown claim.” Yan asked Bai to stand clear, then checked the block’s feet. It had two wedges holding it steady. He waited until the lane had space around him and took a measured stance.
He used the Ashen Marrow sequence at a small charge, following the corrected release point. The qi passed through his marrow and settled into strengthening warmth. His fist struck the center of the block. A sharp crack split the wood along the grain, and the target remained on its wedges.
A few people applauded. Yan flexed his fingers and felt the strength settle without pain. The block had broken because he had struck it. The display proved what he could do under the observed conditions; it said nothing about an unmarked jar or the effects of another person’s pill.
Huo lifted his chin. “That gets attention.”
“It gets attention for the strike,” Yan said. “The block’s result is right there. Your jar still has no tag.”
A customer examined the two labeled packets on Huo’s table and asked about the sourcing. Huo gave him the wholesaler’s name but could not provide an ingredient list. The customer thanked him and crossed to Bai’s display, where the batch and price were visible. Bai sold another sealed packet at its stated price without promising how it would affect the buyer.
Huo pulled the jar back from the table edge. “You’re taking my customers.”
“They chose what they could compare,” Bai said. “I’m not asking you to leave. I’m asking you to label what you can verify.”
Bai took an unused display tag from his book. He wrote the price and the phrase “contents not verified” on it. “Use this instead of ‘death-defying.’ If you learn the source, add it. If not, people can decide with the facts you have.”
Huo refused at first. He pointed to the red banner. “That slogan is why people stopped.”
“They stopped to look,” Fen said, “but I bought the sealed packet because I could read what it was supposed to do.”
Huo looked at the coins in his tray. None had been paid for the powder. He took the tag from Bai. “I’ll use it on this jar. I’m not giving up the rest of the stock.”
“Your stock is yours,” Bai said. “The tag only says what you know.”
Huo pulled down the red banner and set it behind the table. He placed the tag next to the jar. The contents remained unsold, but the slogan disappeared. Several workers drifted toward Bai’s stall to compare the two labeled packets and their prices.
After the crowd thinned, Huo leaned across the lane. “You made a show of me.”
“I put a price on my own goods,” Bai said. “You chose the sign.”
“I could still bring more money next week.”
“Bring tags next week.”
Huo rolled his eyes but did not tear up the new card. Fen tucked her sealed packet and the instruction slip into her bag. She told Bai she would show them to her cousin before anyone decided to use it.
“Good,” Yan said. “The label belongs with the pill.”
Fen thanked him for the warning about the jar and went toward the apprentice hall. Bai recorded the sale, the listed batch, and the price in his route book. He did not record a result he had not observed.
At the end of the market hour, he had sold several labeled packets. Huo’s unknown jar remained untouched, now marked with a fair description instead of a false promise. The trade had not made the powder safe or identified it. It had given each buyer a chance to see which claims rested on a tag and which rested on a guess.
Bai closed his book. “That block demonstration might bring people back.”
“They might ask about the technique.”
“Then you can tell them it isn’t a pill.”
Yan laughed. “And you can tell them not to buy a jar with no tag.”
“Now that is a slogan I can afford.”