At seven-thirty the next morning, the sun rose over Cloud-Mist Town, the busiest commercial hub in Three-River Province.
Inside the five-story Myriad-Pill Hall — Border Branch #1, Elder Dan sat comfortably in a carved rosewood chair on the second-floor balcony, sipping a cup of snow-lotus tea while two pretty maidservants fanned him with peacock feathers.
Down on the first floor, twelve apprentice alchemists had polished the glass medicine cabinets until they shone. On the velvet shelves sat rows of porcelain bottles labeled: Rank 4 Qi-Healing Pill: 50 Spirit Stones (Kneel 3 Times at Door) Rank 4 Blood-Staunching Pill: 80 Spirit Stones * Rank 5 Marrow-Cleansing Foundation Pill: 500 Spirit Stones (No Bargaining!)
“Hehehe,” Elder Dan chuckled, stroking his oily mustache as he looked at the clock on the wall. “My nephew Ma didn’t come back last night—he must have sold out all ten thousand pills at the border gate and stayed at a tavern to celebrate! Once the doors open at eight o’clock, those rich silk merchants and martial clan heads in Cloud-Mist Town who caught the Bitter-Lung cough will come crawling up my jade stairs with chests full of Spirit Stones!”
“Vice-Pavilion Master is wise beyond measure!” a skinny shop deacon bowed low, rubbing his hands together. “Yesterday afternoon, Old Master Zhao from the Iron-Fist Martial Hall was coughing so hard he spat blood. Today he will have to sell us half his family’s farmland just to buy ten healing pills for his disciples!”
