“How long have you been sitting there?” Aunty Wu slowly opened her eyes.

“I don’t know. It’s around midday, so a few hours.” Tian smiled a little.

“I guess the better first question would have been ‘What are you doing here?’” Her voice wasn’t as strong as it usually was.

“Same as you. Healing. Except I’m touring around the Broad Sky Kingdom with Elder Feng while I’m doing it.”

“Elder Feng?”

“Yep.”

She closed her eyes again. “Be careful.”

“That’s always good advice, but was there something in particular I should be careful about?”

“She’s the Sect’s chief diplomat. Her reputation is pretty good, but none of the other sects in our part of the continent are nice or simple people. So that means neither is she.”

Tian nodded. That made sense. “Would you like me to peel you an orange?”

“Hah. Sure.”

Tian started peeling it. He had seen visitors in the hospital carefully peeling the orange so it made one long spiraling peel, and he thought it looked fun. For a first try, the results were decent. A little wonky, sure, and not exactly even, but it was in one piece at the end and that was presumably the important thing.

“Here.” He passed her the segments on a little plate. “Can I fix you some tea? I have to warn you, my opinion of my leaves has gone way down since coming here and I haven’t yet managed to steal any of the good stuff.”

“How long have I been telling you to save your money? This is why.” She smiled, a little more life coming into her face. She ate a slice of orange, and her eyes opened wide. “What a fragrant orange!”

“Yes, Brother Wang got a deal on them, and he gifted them to me.”

“Good brother!” She chewed a bit longer. “Which Wang? There are a million of ‘em, and I don’t know of anyone in Depot Four with that name and an orange supply.”

“Three Rivers Town Outer Court Wang Shizhong. Comes from a rice merchant family, apparently.”

“Oh them. Yes, I know them. A rising force in the rice market, but they don’t have anyone in the Inner Court to hold the fort. We’ll see if they last.” She shook her head. “Still, nice of him.”

She happily munched the orange slices. “You aren’t asking how I got injured.”

“You are the quartermaster for the Depot. The warehouse would have been a priority target for plundering heretics. It wasn't hard to guess. Though I can’t tell how you are injured.”

She nodded. “At the Heavenly Person level, things start getting a bit more… esoteric. Sometimes an attack is charged with elemental fire, or demonic ice or something similar. Sometimes, it’s aimed at your dao heart or soul or cultivation.”

Tian nodded along. He had seen things like that.

“And sometimes, some absolute bastard curses you to have no sense of balance, extreme nausea, a persistent feeling of terror, an endless burning sensation in the marrow of your bones and a dreadful foreknowledge that something awful is growing inside of you, and one day it will eat it’s way out of you and kill everyone you love. A sensation that grows in intensity if you try to cultivate, to the point where you start trying to claw your stomach open to rip out whatever the hell it is. And then ties it all to your cultivation so that, even if you do escape the immediate fight, you won’t be a threat ever again.”

Tian felt the room freeze.

“The good news, however, is that the Bamboo Medicine Hut is quite experienced at dealing with curses. Currently, the curse is suppressed and I’m not in any pain. I can still cultivate. I just can’t safely leave the hospital, and most days, I’m not strong enough to leave my bed. Can’t say I’m enjoying the enforced rest.”

Tian recognized the calm tone of voice. There was a state of helpless acceptance some patients reached, where they stopped caring about their condition. Not that they didn’t want to get better, just that it was out of their hands. It was what it was. It would be what it would be. Sometimes that attitude was a good thing. He hoped it was this time too.

“What’s the treatment plan like?”

“It’s a new curse. It builds on things they have seen before, nothing is completely new, but right now, there is no cure. So I’m to be a research subject in addition to being a patient. It seems I’m going to be here for quite a while.”

Tian nodded and started asking questions about trivial things. Auntie Wu knew what he was doing, but she just smiled and let him. After a while, it was her turn to ask. “What’s eating you?”

“Salt.”

There was a pause, then a long sigh. “I had explicit orders from the Monastery not to discuss that. A lot of us did. It’s why the war started, you know. We knew what the salt merchants were up to. We just didn’t know the scale of what the Gorge had managed. There are production limits to what you can get out of even an enormous brine spring. We figured that the income would be huge, but not above a certain level. We were wrong. We, all of us in the sect, and all the sects we are allied with, didn’t realize the big picture, because nobody at the highest levels cared about mortal affairs.”

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“Until it was too late.”

“Mmm. It’s like managing vermin in a grain warehouse. You will always have vermin trying to eat the grain, and you always have to manage them. It’s like a sort of constant pressure, and the amount of pressure varies based on the season and conditions of the warehouse and the world. The Heretic pressure just kept steadily building. We started seeing Heavenly Person Heretics more often, and they are supposed to be very rare. Then some Elders from different sects got together over some wine and started complaining to each other about their problems.”

“Then they started doing the math.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “And shortly after that, they started reaching out to other sects. We weren’t the first to figure it out, I’m ashamed to say. That was the Star Gazing Platform, a sect on the far side of the Wastes from us.”

“Never heard of them.” Tian shrugged.

“No reason you should have.” The silence settled in again. Then Auntie Wu frowned and said “There was another reason the Monastery didn’t figure it out. It all turns on the merchants.”

“Yes, but when so much of the Inner Court has ties to merchant houses-”

Auntie Wu shook her head and chopped off the end of his sentence. “Ties. They have ties. The merchant companies are all run by mortals. I don’t know of a single one of them that has a cultivator anywhere in their day to day management. It would interfere with our cultivation too much.”

“That makes sense.” Tian had already choked on mortal air enough for one lifetime.

“But there is another reason. Merchants are the lowest class.” Wu pushed on.

“I… think I remember something about that.”

“It’s not a daoist teaching. At least, not directly. Daoism has sages, students and ignorant people. Arguably, we just have sages and everyone else. We recognize secular social hierarchy, but it’s not inherent to daoism is what I’m saying.”

“With you so far.”

“Merchants are the lowest class of mortals. That’s something the mortals came up with, and we adopted it for no good reason. But we did adopt it. Do you think immortal daoist sages are going to concern themselves with the lowest class of mortals?”

Tian shook his head. “No chance. Universal compassion or not.”

Aunty Wu smiled thinly. “I want you to do me a favor.”

“If I can manage it.”

“I’m going to be stuck here for who knows how long. So I’m giving you a mission. You are going to be flying around a lot, right?”

“Yes?”

“Good. Here are a hundred spirit stones. I want you to turn it into something seriously useful for your cultivation by the end of the trip. Send me letters about how you are growing the money, making trades, tracking down resources. I know you don’t know a damned thing about money, so talk with people you trust. Figure something out. Go with the flow, if you like.”

She shoved the money into his hands. “Auntie Wu, I don’t-”

“I know. But that’s what I want. I want you to struggle with it. And send me lots of letters. Go now, I’m tired again.”

Tian left in a wondering sort of mood. He wandered around until he found his way to the back patio, and cornered a doctor on break. He made polite enquiries and was told that access to the medical library was utterly forbidden to outsiders. However, as a special favor to the Ancient Crane Monastery, he could be allowed to buy copies of some ordinary medical texts. Very ordinary. Probably already copies of them in the scripture pavilion back at home. Hint hint.

The medical librarian was even less enthusiastic than the doctor, but relented when Tian showed him what textbooks he was working with. Tian hadn’t known humans could squawk. Tian invested a whopping seven of his rapidly dwindling spirit crystals on a book on treating curses. He looked so heartbroken and reluctant to part with the crystals, the librarian threw in a free monograph on osteopathy.

“It’s early afternoon. How long does it take for the Elder to have a chat?” Tian hesitated, then went looking for Daoist Shu. And couldn’t find her. Which was awkward.

He tried to think who he could ask for help, and the only name that came to mind was Daoist Jun. Daoist Jun was easy enough to find, Tian just stood at the foot of a forested hill and blew the whistle hung on a post for that purpose. A few minutes later, Daoist Jun rode out of the woods on the back of the biggest horse Tian had ever seen. He didn’t think the horse could quite manage to eat him, but since it was a brilliant grass-green color, who knew what it was capable of?

Tian explained Aunty Wu’s instructions, and how the only thing that came to mind was aged white tea, because they had that here.

“Why don’t you buy medicine? It’s a lot more valuable, and the markup is immense, depending on how you sell it.” Jun asked.

Tian remembered the other hospital workers who sold medicine on the side. Tian didn’t know if the hospital ever ran into shortages as a result. Either way…

“OKAY! Good heavens, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look sick at the thought of ripping off rich cultivators before. Tea. Sure. I can’t sell you anything older than a hundred years old. The fifty year stuff is probably the best value for money. I’ll buy it from the sect at the internal price, and take a commission of half the difference with the retail price, which is still several times cheaper than what it sells for away from the sect. Does that work for you?”

Tian didn’t have the faintest idea. But Jun looked like he was trying to sell him a favor, so he accepted it.

“Perfect, thank you, Fellow Daoist Jun. Here are the spirit stones. There was a good tree for meditating by the river. You can find me there when the deal is done.”

Jun laughed, scooped up the stones and hopped back up onto the horse. A horse, Tian noticed, with neither saddle nor bridle. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll run off with the money? Don’t you at least want to check the prices and make sure you aren’t getting cheated?”

Tian looked Jun directly in the eyes and smiled. “No.”

Jun shook his head. “Yeah, fair enough. Silly question, really. I have no idea how you are going to live as a merchant, but being able to slap the lungs clean out of a man will definitely help. We all looked up Thunderous Palms in the library after your exhibition. The doctors looked green and were making heaving noises by the second paragraph. Send me letters too, I’m curious to see how this goes.”

His list of people to write was getting longer. He had the sudden premonition that he was going to be making a sort of alternative tea circuit, sending letters all across the Broad Sky Kingdom. But how did you send snacks with a letter? Or ask leading questions? Actually, how did you send letters outside of the sect? He had no idea.

He had only really sent one letter before, and the recipient was completely ungrateful. Not a promising start. He settled in under the tree Disciple Shu had shown him. It remained a wonderful cultivation spot.

Wandering the Broad Sky Kingdom, seeing what he could turn a hundred spirit crystals into. That didn’t sound too bad, actually. Auntie Wu didn’t say anything about making the most money, just that he should find a way to keep it growing and keep turning it into cultivation materials. But he was in the Earthly realm. He didn’t need any materials. And when you got right down to it, what did the kingdom even look like? Where was The Good Stuff? His brothers would probably have some ideas, they got all over the place. He’d have to write them letters too. Tian slipped quietly into meditation. Not realizing that he had started to smile from the heart.