The morning mist in Red Mist Valley was a cold, acidic drizzle that gathered along the dark rock cliffs and dripped down the ravine walls like diluted animal fat.
At the third quarter of the Hour of the Dragon, the sound of iron-rimmed wooden wheels rattling over uneven cobblestones echoed up the underground alley.
Two mule-draggers hauled a two-wheeled pushcart up the incline outside Old Cauldron Workshop. Behind them walked a man in a greasy lambskin vest. An iron counting frame was hanging from his hemp belt. He was Sun San, a freight clerk from the Rogue Mutual Aid firm—Shopkeeper Qian Tong’s logistics arm.
The cart carried six large wicker hampers, each bound with river reeds and sealed with red clay slates stamped with the firm’s square mark.
Old Monster Gui stood beneath the stone awning of the workshop entrance, his hunched torso wrapped in a patched wool cloak smelling of sulfur and dry rot. His right hand gripped his hickory cane, his knuckles swollen from chronic fire-poison.
“Six hampers of Black Aconite and wild Sulfur Root,” Sun San called out. He spat yellow thick spit onto the flat stone slabs. “Weighed at the central warehouse at sixty pounds even. Four shards a pound comes to two hundred and forty spirit shards. Or two low-grade spirit stones and forty shards in whole crystals. Put your seal on the slip, Old Gui.”
