The coin purse was heavy. It was a comforting, dense weight that sat in Jin Ryeong's lap like a sleeping cat, radiating the potential energy of a thousand future possibilities.
The servant's quarters were silent, save for the rhythmic, wet snoring of Ma Goo. The brute was passed out on his bed, drooling onto a pillow that hadn't been washed in months, exhausted from the adrenaline crash of his fraudulent victory. The room was dark, lit only by the dying embers of a charcoal brazier that cast long, dancing shadows against the peeling paper walls. The air smelled of burnt wood, old sweat, and ambition.
Jin Ryeong sat on the floor, his back against the rough wooden post. He untied the strings of the leather pouch with careful, deliberate fingers. He inverted the bag.
Clink. Clatter. Ching.
Silver. Beautiful, tarnished, scratched silver.
Jin Ryeong's hands, usually steady as a surgeon's when stitching wounds, trembled slightly as he began to stack the coins. Ma Goo was a brute with the brain of a jellyfish, but he came from a minor merchant family in the Southern Provinces. His allowance was significant, and his desperation to win had made him generous.
"Forty... fifty... sixty-five silver taels," Jin Ryeong whispered, the number rolling off his tongue like a sacred prayer.
To a normal disciple of the Outer Sect, sixty-five taels was trivial—a new sword, a month of drinking at the Golden Pavilion, or a bribe to a minor deacon. To Jin Ryeong, it was lifeblood. It was the difference between remaining a servant forever—cleaning blood off the floor until he died of old age at thirty—and clawing his way up to the starting line.
He picked up a single silver coin, feeling its cold surface against his thumb.
'I could buy three more Spirit Gathering Pills. That would get me to Qi Level 5. Maybe 6 if I endure the pain.'
But he stopped himself. If he ate them all now, he would just be a slightly stronger servant with no resources left. He needed tools. He needed to professionalize his operation. He was running a business now, and a business required capital investment.
He moved a loose brick near the floorboard—his personal vault—and slid ten taels inside. That was his commission. The rest, fifty-five taels, went into his sash.
He stood up, his shadow stretching across the room like a specter. He grabbed a dark, hooded cloak he had stitched together from discarded rags. It was time to visit the place where the righteous disciples of the Blue Dragon Sect dared not tread.
It was time to visit the Ghost Market.
The Ghost Market wasn't a place for ghosts. It was a place for the desperate, the greedy, and the morally flexible. Located in a deep, fog-choked ravine behind the servant quarters, it was an unauthorized bazaar where disciples traded resources, contraband, and stolen goods under the cover of darkness.
To enter, Jin Ryeong had to slide down a muddy slope, navigating through a thicket of thorns that tore at his cloak. As he descended, the air changed. The crisp, clean mountain air of the Sect was replaced by something heavier—sharper, laced with exotic spices, the metallic tang of polished steel, and the faint, sweet scent of opium.
Lanterns draped in blue cloth hung from the gnarled roots of trees, casting a dim, eerie glow over the rows of makeshift stalls. Shadows moved in the periphery—disciples with hidden faces, rogue merchants, and things that might not be entirely human.
Jin Ryeong pulled his hood low. He adopted a limp—a fake injury to distort his silhouette. He didn't want to be recognized as "Ma Goo's servant." Here, identities were currency, and he kept his bankrupt.
He bypassed the weapon stalls selling chipped blades and rusted armor. He ignored the "Secret Manual" vendors peddling fake kung fu books stained with tea to look ancient. He headed straight for the apothecaries at the far end of the ravine, where the smell of chemicals burned the nose.
He stopped in front of a stall run by a hunched old man with skin like dried bark. The sign above him, painted in dripping red ink, read: Old Man Kang's Needles & Poisons.
On the counter sat jars of preserved organs, dried lizards, and powders of every color.
"Customer," the old man croaked, not looking up from a stone mortar he was grinding. His hands were stained purple. "Buying or selling? If you're selling kidneys, the price dropped. Too much supply after the tournament began."
"Buying," Jin Ryeong rasped, altering his voice to be deeper, raspier. "I need silver acupuncture needles. Thin gauge. Set of thirty. And a vial of Fire Ant Oil."
The grinding stopped.
Old Man Kang looked up. One of his eyes was milky white, blind and wandering. The other was sharp as a hawk's.
"Fire Ant Oil? That's not for healing, boy. That's for torture. Or for stimulating dead nerves in a corpse. Are you a necromancer?"
"I have a patient with... stubborn meridians," Jin Ryeong said evenly. "He requires aggressive stimulation."
"Heh. Stubborn indeed." The old man cackled, a dry, rattling sound. He reached under the counter, rummaging through a box of straw. He produced a leather roll and a small, sealed glass vial filled with a liquid that glowed a sinister, viscous red.
"Standard set of thirty silver needles. One dram of pure Fire Ant Oil, harvested from the Volcanic Pits. Twenty taels."
It was robbery. The market price was fifteen. But Jin Ryeong didn't haggle. Haggling attracted attention. Haggling meant you were poor. In the Ghost Market, being poor made you a target.
He placed two heavy silver ingots on the counter. Twenty taels.
"And," Jin Ryeong added, placing another twenty taels down with a heavy thud. "Do you have 'Bone-Rotting Powder'?"
The old man's good eye narrowed. The atmosphere around the stall dropped a few degrees. Nearby chatter seemed to quiet down.
"That is a Class-B poison. Illegal within the sect. If the Enforcement Hall finds it on you, they will flay you alive. And if they find out I sold it..."
"I have a rat problem in my quarters," Jin Ryeong lied smoothly, his face an unreadable mask beneath the hood. "Big rats. They don't die easily. I need something that leaves no trace."
The old man grinned, revealing a mouth full of gold and rot. "Ah. The two-legged rats. I hate those too."
He glanced left and right, scanning the fog. Then, with practiced sleight of hand, he slid a small black paper packet across the wood, hiding it under the leather roll of needles.
"Pleasure doing business, young master. Try not to spill it on yourself. There is no antidote."
Jin Ryeong swept the goods into his sleeves—needles in the left, poison in the right—and turned to leave.
He had walked ten paces when the sound of a whistle pierced the fog.
Phweeeeeet!
"RAID! ENFORCEMENT HALL!"
Chaos erupted.
The blue lanterns were suddenly drowned out by the bright, harsh glare of white illumination stones. Figures in white uniform robes dropped from the trees like birds of prey. The Enforcement Hall. The Sect's law force.
"Nobody move! Lay down your weapons!"
Disciples scattered like cockroaches. Stalls were overturned. Jars smashed, spilling pickled organs into the mud.
Jin Ryeong's heart hammered against his ribs. He had Bone-Rotting Powder in his sleeve. If he was caught with that, it wasn't expulsion. It was execution.
'Think. Don't run. Running makes you prey.'
A path to the left led up the ravine wall, but an Enforcement Disciple was already blocking it, sword drawn.
"Halt! Show your face!"
Jin Ryeong didn't halt. He didn't run away, either. He stumbled.
He let his fake limp become a real fall. He collapsed into a puddle of mud near a pile of discarded trash, curling into a ball, pulling his dirty cloak tight around him. He made himself small. He made himself look like a piece of refuse.
The Enforcement Disciple ran past him, chasing a merchant who was fleeing with a bag of gold. The guard didn't even look at the pile of rags in the mud. To the high-and-mighty elites of the Enforcement Hall, a servant in the mud was just part of the scenery.
Jin Ryeong held his breath. He waited until the boots stomped past. He waited until the screaming moved further down the ravine.
Then, he moved. Not up the path, but under the stalls, crawling through the mud like the rat he claimed to be hunting. He slithered through the thorns, scratching his face, tearing his robes, until he found a drainage pipe that led back to the servant's latrines.
It was filthy. It smelled of death.
But it was unguarded.
Half an hour later, Jin Ryeong slid back into Ma Goo's room.
He was covered in mud. He smelled terrible. His hands were shaking, not from fear, but from the adrenaline crash.
He barred the door. He checked his sleeves.
The needles were safe. The Fire Ant Oil was unbroken.
And the black packet of poison was dry.
He exhaled, sliding down the door until he hit the floor.
He had survived.
He looked at the sleeping Ma Goo. The brute hadn't moved an inch. He was dreaming of glory while Jin Ryeong crawled through sewage to buy him his crown.
"Enjoy your sleep, Senior Brother," Jin Ryeong whispered, peeling off his ruined cloak. "Because when you wake up... the surgery begins."
He laid the tools out on a clean cloth. The silver needles glinted in the firelight. The red oil glowed.
Jin Ryeong's eyes were cold. The fear from the raid was gone, replaced by the icy calculation of a man who had just cheated death.