The Deal

I went out into the manor courtyard with Elder Kang. There stood the cart, piled high with the lightning-struck jujube wood I had brought back from old Hwang at House Hwang Timber.

Elder Kang spoke up at my side.

“I’ve had the lightning-struck jujube wood loaded onto the cart as you said, but do you have some use for it?”
“I’m going to sell it.”
“So that’s why you had me secure a spot at the market. That was well thought out. A few of the escort runners who came in to work were rattling on about you bringing home something useless — my blood ran backwards in my veins!”

His face had gone red with anger.

“Settle down, Elder Kang.”

I was afraid an old man his age would work himself into a collapse. I had heard the talk among the escort runners he was speaking of, too. They had grumbled about somebody stacking up charcoal for nothing.

You see only as much as you know.

Arguing the point with men who didn’t know the first thing about lightning-struck jujube wood would only waste my breath.

I looked over the loaded cart.

Even sold plain, it would fetch a few dozen taels of silver easily.

Lightning-struck jujube wood was common enough, in its way, but when you actually set out to find some, more often than not there was none to be had. Most of it already had a buyer waiting, and whoever sold it carried it straight there. So it was no surprise the escort runners had no idea what it was worth. There was no way they would know that with the right buyer, silver turns into gold.

I stepped up to the cart and took hold of the handles.

“Elder Kang, lead the way.”
“Young master, let me pull it.”

I shook my head.

“No, I’ll pull. Let’s go to the market.”
“As you wish.”

Elder Kang went ahead and I followed, hauling the cart behind me. We left the Yang manor and made for the market street.

“Plain noodles and dumplings for sale!”
“Rusty blades sharpened!”
“Scent pouches, sweet as flowers!”

At the hour of the Horse¹ the street was in an uproar.

“There it is.”

Elder Kang led me into the middle of the bustle. Nobody came into Qingzhou without crossing that spot at least once.

That’s Elder Kang for you.

My head nodded of its own accord. I had done well to leave it to him.

“As it happened, the man who holds this spot — a fellow named Gil — said he’d be away, so I snapped it up.”
“Thank you. Well done.”
“I ought to stay and help you, but a client is coming today to hand over cargo, so I’m afraid I’ll have to go.”
“Ah, that’s fine. You can go.”
“I’ll come back here as soon as I’m finished. And if the lightning-struck jujube wood doesn’t sell, don’t take it too hard.”

Elder Kang left me with that worry and went back to the house.

Shall we begin?

I had the approach worked out already.

Like any place where people lived, Blood Sand Plain had something close to a market street.

The market.

That was what they called the place where each man sold whatever skill or goods he had. Supplies came issued at the bare minimum, so anyone who wanted to live had to use the market. A skill that amounted to nothing much on the outside could be prized as a great thing there. Unfortunately, I had no skill of my own.

Even so, I tended to come out ahead at the market. The secret came down to one thing.

Doggedness.

I waited, and waited again, until the other man brought me what I wanted. With no particular skill to trade on, it was the only way to sell spoils dear. The worth of a thing changed with the hour and the season, after all. The method worked better than I had expected.

This time too, I meant to settle it with doggedness. Of course, it wasn’t simply a matter of waiting.

If you want the fish to bite, you have to make the bait wag its tail a little.

The method was simple. Start a rumor. If I built a tower out of a whole cartload of lightning-struck jujube wood, there wouldn’t be a soul in all Qingzhou who didn’t know me. Word of the bait would reach the fish’s ears too. So from that day on, until the fish bit down hard, I would build my tower.

— Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

I unloaded the lightning-struck jujube wood from the cart and laid it out on the ground. Then, as though building a house, I set the pieces crosswise and raised tier after tier on top. A black tower rose slowly, and before long the stack had reached my waist.

Without so much as a stall cloth laid out, I piled up block after block of wood, and one by one the merchants around me and the people passing in the street began to take an interest. Some of them recognized me.

“Eh? Isn’t that the eldest son from the Yang manor?”
“That’s Great Hero Yang’s eldest boy.”
“But what on earth is he doing?”
“That black stuff — that isn’t charcoal. Isn’t that lightning-struck jujube wood?”
“It is. No acrid smell to it, and the scent of wood coming off it thick — that’s lightning-struck jujube wood, all right.”
“Hah, lucky him. Did he stumble onto lightning-struck jujube wood somewhere? But why is he stacking it into a tower?”
“How should I know? Let’s just move along.”

The things being said about me were something to hear. Mockery and sneering laughter reached me often enough.

It doesn’t matter.

The time when a few words could anger me had long since passed. My mind was an iron fortress now. That, too, was something I had learned in order to survive the battlefield. How well you held your composure decided whether you lived.

Besides, my reputation had never been good to begin with. As a boy I had been eaten up with a sense of my own inferiority over how poor my martial arts were, so I shut myself in my room and, like a fool, drilled nothing but the internal-energy heart method. It would have been strange if my reputation were good. There was no need at all to care about it, or about what the world said.

I went on stacking the lightning-struck jujube wood into a tower. The next day too. And the day after that. And even when three days had gone by. I brought the cart, built the tower, and went home again, over and over.

The tenth day.

Today too, without fail, I stacked the tower again. By now a rumor had gone round the streets of Qingzhou: ‘the eldest son of the Yang manor is building a tower out of lightning-struck jujube wood’.

One of the men who had come to gawk walked up to me.

“Looks like you mean to sell that lightning-struck jujube wood. Sell it to me. I’ll give you a good price.”
“No, thank you.”
“Fist-sized pieces, five taels of silver. Forearm-sized, I’ll go as high as thirty. Well?”
“I’ll pass.”
“You drive a hard bargain for a young fellow. All right. Out of generosity I’ll put two more taels of silver on top. Seven for the small ones, thirty-two for the big.”

I answered without even glancing at him.

“I don’t sell to people who don’t know what it’s worth.”
“…For that, your own eye doesn’t seem to be much. You’ll have a hard time getting more than this price anywhere you go. Just how much more are you after? Ten taels? Twenty?”
“Something around that, yes.”
“You’re out of your mind. Who buys a piece of lightning-struck jujube wood for fifty taels of silver?”
“Not silver. Gold.”
“Hah.”

The man gave a hollow, dumbfounded laugh.

“So you’re a madman after all. You want gold?”
“If I meet the right buyer, it’s perfectly possible.”
“Hah! I’ve made my living in trade for over twenty years, and this is the first I’ve heard of anyone buying lightning-struck jujube wood with gold.”
“Then today will be your first time.”
“If you sell that lightning-struck jujube wood for gold, I’ll change my surname. I’ll change it.”

Several others laughed at that and said they would throw in with him.

…Makes me want to smack that mouth of his shut.

My hand tightened on the wood before I realized it. It was not the man’s mockery that had angered me; the serious problem lay elsewhere. By my plan, the lightning-struck jujube wood should already have been sold. But I was still stacking the tower.

Damn it.

Was my memory wrong? Or was this simply not the moment yet? I’d have sworn it was around now, so could I have gotten the timing that wrong? It was possible. The memory was more than ten years old. The timing might have shifted, or Mo Cheonho might have gotten his lightning-struck jujube wood by some other route.

— Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

My heartbeat quickened little by little, and unease drew my face into a frown before I knew it.

I called up the memory of my past life again. When I was young, at exactly this time, I had once seen a strange carriage, yellow all over from the horses to the coachwork. The odd-looking thing stayed in Qingzhou so long that even I, shut up in my room, went out to see it.

Years later, I met that carriage again.

At Blood Sand Plain, of all places.

Of course, it looked nothing like it had the first time. The yellow carriage had turned the color of gold. A carriage slathered in gold, selling goods of every kind. At Blood Sand Plain they called it the Golden Carriage.

Having lasted ten years there, I grew close to the carriage’s owner, and what he said to me then is still lodged in my memory.

You’re from Qingzhou? I went to Qingzhou after lightning-struck jujube wood a long time ago, you know. Back then, to win trading rights with Cheongongbang², I needed lightning-struck jujube wood that had taken the bolt only recently. While I was asking around, it turned out an unorthodox sect out of Qingzhou — Geodobang — had some, so I bought it off them with gold.

Lightning-struck jujube wood, Geodobang, a yellow carriage. Put those three together, and the Golden Carriage had certainly come to Qingzhou at this time. That was why I was raising a tower here. To call the Golden Carriage in. To draw Mo Cheonho to Qingzhou.

But the Golden Carriage had not appeared, though five days more than I had expected had gone by.

At this rate the lightning-struck jujube wood loses its value.

Right now it would fetch a few hundred taels of silver easily, but let more time pass and the price would fall to a quarter of that. The time I had left before the wood’s worth dropped was not generous. I was cutting it fine.

— Clack!

I jabbed a piece of the wood down on top of the tower in irritation, and the tower swayed. I did not like it. But I could not give up here. Plans went wrong more often than they went the way you had pictured them, and losing my temper each time solved nothing. Handling it flexibly mattered more than anything.

An alternative had already occurred to me. I simply did not like it.

Nothing for it but to hand it to a materials dealer who buys lightning-struck jujube wood year-round.

He would beat the price down, but there was no help for it. The longer it sat the further the price would fall, so better to sell before that. The trouble was that the second item would be delayed…

I knew the Golden Carriage was bound for Cheongongbang, so I could get it there. It would cost twice the money and twice the time, but obtaining the thing would be no trouble.

— Wobble, wobble.

I looked at the swaying tower. It seemed to be showing me my own impatience.

— Hssss. Hoooo.

My quickened breathing gradually settled. The heat that had risen to my head came down, and I grew calm. On the battlefield or in daily life, you had to keep your composure.

I picked up another piece of the wood and set it on the tower.

— Clack.

The swaying tower found its balance again.

I was stacking the wood in silence, ignoring the stares, when it happened. Far off, a yellow object came into view. It grew larger and larger until it stood out plainly.

It’s here!

The Golden Carriage.

It felt strange to meet the carriage I had seen at Blood Sand Plain out here. Just as in my childhood memory, it was yellow through and through. Even the horses’ coats had been dyed yellow, and the outside of the carriage was painted to match.

— Neeeeigh!

The carriage stopped in front of me. The door opened, and a man stepped down, dressed in yellow from top to bottom. The owner of the Golden Carriage, Mo Cheonho. Thick brows, a straight nose, skin bronzed as though by long days in the sun. Apart from being far younger than when I had seen him at Blood Sand Plain, he was exactly the same.

Mo Cheonho came straight up to the tower and asked me:

“Are you the owner of this lightning-struck jujube wood, young hero?”
“I am.”
“Let me have a look.”

He picked up one of the pieces, smelled it, tapped it with a finger, examined it closely. After a moment he set the wood down and let out a breath, and I saw the anxiety smooth out of his face.

Mo Cheonho turned to me.

“I’ll buy all of it. How much?”

I held up two fingers.

“Two hundred taels of gold.”

The sum I named must have been too great; the crowd around us began to stir.

“He really means to sell it for gold? Two hundred taels, no less — is he mad?”
“Mad. He’s mad.”
“Tsk, tsk, the boy’s lost his senses. Where’s the lunatic who deals in gold?”
“He’s about to get an earful of cursing.”

They muttered among themselves and took me for a madman.

“Two hundred taels of gold seems too dear. Shall we say a flat hundred? I’ll hand it over this moment.”

Mo Cheonho had opened the haggling. A hundred taels was by no means a small sum, far above the market price. But I said it flatly.

“Two hundred taels of gold.”
“…”

Mo Cheonho’s face hardened. The price was clearly a burden to him. However precious lightning-struck jujube wood might be, two hundred taels of gold was an absurd figure.

But I knew.

To Mo Cheonho this lightning-struck jujube wood was a necessity for winning trading rights, worth far more to him than two hundred taels of gold.

After a long silence, Mo Cheonho spoke.

“…Very well. Two hundred taels of gold it is.”
“Whoa!”
“That’s insane…!”

He had accepted without a shred of hesitation, and the people around us were aghast.

At a gesture from Mo Cheonho, his driver brought over a box. The lid came off, and inside it was packed full of gold.

“This lightning-struck jujube wood is mine now, I take it?”
“Of course.”

I took the box. This much would be no small help to the family’s finances, and my father’s shoulders would be a good deal lighter for it. My first objective was met, so it was time to get to the main business.

As Mo Cheonho gathered up the lightning-struck jujube wood, I spoke to him.

“There seem to be a great many goods in your carriage. Would you mind if I looked?”
“Of course not. Take your time.”

Mo Cheonho nodded readily.

I went through the goods inside the carriage one by one. There were many curious things in there. A statue of grotesque shape, a dagger studded thick with gems, paper drawn over with patterns I could not read. More than a few of them I had never seen before.

Among all those goods I found something rolled up in cloth. I unwrapped it, and a bundle of roots came into view.

Found it.

The second item I had been looking for.

A He Shou Wu root tinged dark red: Soul-Returning Grass.³ The Golden Merchant Company evidently did not yet know the herb’s true worth; it had not even been stored with care.

I turned to Mo Cheonho.

“Where did you come by this?”
“That? Got it trading with the mountain tribes near Mount Changbai. Even the physicians hadn’t the faintest idea what it’s used for. Why? Do you want to buy it?”
“Yes.”
“All right. It isn’t anything important, so pay me whatever seems fair.”

I nodded, took gold from the box Mo Cheonho had given me, and put it into a pouch. Exactly one hundred taels of gold.

“Here you are.”
“Eh? Eh?”

Mo Cheonho was plainly flustered.

“Young hero, merchant though I am and fond of gold as I am, I don’t take a hundred taels of gold for a few roots of grass. It isn’t worth that much.”
“Doesn’t the worth of a thing change with the man who wants it? Just as you paid me two hundred taels of gold for the lightning-struck jujube wood. To me, this is worth a hundred taels of gold.”
“…”
“If it truly weighs on you, think of it as an investment. Return it to me several times over later on.”
“…”

Mo Cheonho was silent for a long while, then gave me a cupped-fist salute.

“If that is the young hero’s will, I accept it with thanks. This Mo promises to return it to you dozens of times over.”
“I’ll wait for the day you do.”

I returned the courtesy in kind.

Mo Cheonho gathered up the lightning-struck jujube wood, boarded his carriage in haste, and left. I watched until it was out of sight. The people around me still had not shaken off the shock; they stared at me with blank faces.

I walked up to one of them and asked:

“What’s your surname?”
“Eh?”
“You said earlier that if I sold the lightning-struck jujube wood for gold, you’d change your surname.”

I’m curious what he’ll change it to.