The iron-maple chopping block fell into an unnatural silence.
Around the processing yard, the other skinners stopped their bone-scrapers, their gaze drawn to the three radiant cyan stones glowing softly on the bloodstained wood.
Butcher Tu’s massive, hairy hand hovered two inches above the crystals. He pulled his fingers back, his small eyes darting between the glossy stones and Pei Jing’s calm, impassive face.
“What did you say, scholar?” Butcher Tu rumbled, his thick brows knitting together like two caterpillars. “Wax-boiled gravel?”
The itinerant herb merchant’s expression tightened. The oily, ingratiating smile vanished, replaced by a look of sharp, defensive anger.
“Mind your tongue, boy!” the merchant snapped, puffing out his narrow chest beneath his grey wool robe. “I’m an accredited medicine buyer for the northern trade caravans! You’re a dirty skinner apprentice up to your elbows in pig guts! How dare you question the currency of an honest merchant?”
He reached forward with his long fingers to snatch the three vials of viper bile from the counter.
“If old Tu doesn’t want three whole spirit stones for twelve shards of snake spit, I’ll take my business to the Azure firm!”
