The warning came from Wang Chen's eastern watchtower forty eight hours ahead of schedule.
"Rider approaching," the message read, encoded in the commercial cipher we had established. "Single figure. Qi Gathering level nine. Jade pendant visible. Traveling faster than standard pace. Estimated arrival: thirty six hours."
I read the report twice, then a third time. The timeline was wrong. Lin Feng should not arrive for sixty days. He should not be level nine. He should not be moving with purpose that suggested urgency rather than wandering.
Something had changed.
"Xiao Hong," I called, "pull the full surveillance records. Every report from the eastern road for the past two weeks. I want to know what spooked him."
She moved with the efficiency I had come to expect, assembling scrolls and crystal recordings in the warehouse office we had built above the auction chamber. Wang Mei observed from the corner, silent since her formal partnership began three days prior. She had not spoken of the lost Fate Token, but her presence here indicated she was investing in the future rather than mourning the past.
"The tomb," Xiao Hong said, spreading maps across the table. "Our observers reported activity eleven days ago. A secondary entrance, previously unknown, opened in the northern cliff face. Someone entered. Someone emerged with... this."
She produced a sketch. Rough, drawn from a distance through observation lenses, but clear enough. A figure in travel worn robes, carrying a bundle wrapped in what appeared to be golden silk. The posture was wrong for Lin Feng. Too cautious. Too aware of surroundings.
"Not the protagonist," Wang Mei observed, leaning forward. "Lin Feng is written as confident. Arrogant in the way of the chosen. This person moves like prey."
"Or like a merchant," I said, understanding crystallizing. "Someone who knows the value of what they carry. Someone who understands that possession is not ownership until the transaction is complete."
I examined the sketch more closely. The figure's build was slight. The hands, visible in the drawing's detail, were uncalloused. Not a fighter. Not a cultivator who had trained their body to withstand spiritual energy.
A thief. Or a proxy.
"The inheritance was stolen," I concluded. "Someone reached the Tomb of the Fallen Prince before Lin Feng. Someone who knew the script well enough to find the secondary entrance, but not well enough to claim the full legacy."
"How is that possible?" Wang Chen demanded from the doorway. He had arrived without announcement, urgency overriding protocol. "The tomb was sealed. The prophecies were clear. Only the destined heir could enter and survive."
"Prophecies are marketing," I said. "The Fallen Prince wanted his legacy found. He created the narrative of destiny to ensure someone would try. But he was also practical. A secondary entrance allows for... contingency. For the possibility that the chosen one might be delayed, or distracted, or simply unlucky."
I straightened, feeling the pieces assemble into a picture I did not like.
"Someone else has read the novel, Wang Chen. Or they have access to information that approximates it. They knew about the tomb. They knew about the inheritance. And they have forced our protagonist to accelerate his timeline."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning Lin Feng is not coming to Azure Cloud City for opportunity. He is coming for answers. For revenge. For the restoration of a destiny that was stolen from him." I looked at the map, at the roads converging on our city. "He will be angry. Desperate. Unpredictable. And he will arrive not as a naive village boy, but as someone who has already learned that the world is hostile."
Wang Mei stood, her sharp features sharper in the lamplight. "This changes your business model. You planned to sell him support. Guidance. The infrastructure of success. But if he has already been betrayed..."
"He will not trust easily," I finished. "He will see manipulation everywhere. He will suspect every offer of help, every convenient alliance, every piece of information that seems too timely."
"So what do we sell him?" Xiao Hong asked.
I smiled, feeling the familiar cold calculation settle over me. The same feeling I had known in boardrooms, in negotiations, in moments when the market shifted unexpectedly and only the prepared survived.
"We sell him honesty," I said. "Radical, uncomfortable, expensive honesty. We tell him exactly what we know, what we want, and what we have done. We admit to profiting from his story. We admit to preparing for his arrival. We admit to selling information about him to our other clients."
"That will make him hate us," Wang Chen objected.
"That will make him respect us," I corrected. "Lin Feng has spent his entire life being manipulated by people who pretended to be his friends. His village elder who pushed him toward cultivation. His first master who stole his technique. The sect recruiters who saw his potential as resource to exploit." I gestured to the warehouse around us. "We will be different. We will be the first people who treat him as a customer rather than a tool. Who name our price openly. Who deliver exactly what we promise, nothing more, nothing less."
"And if he refuses to pay?"
"Then we let him walk away," I said. "Knowing that every other interaction he has will confirm the value of our approach. That eventually, when he is betrayed again, and again, and again, he will remember the merchant who asked rather than took. And he will return."
Wang Chen shook his head. "You are gambling everything on the psychology of a stranger."
"I am gambling on narrative structure," I replied. "The protagonist needs antagonists. He needs obstacles. He needs false friends and true enemies. What he has never had, in any version of this story, is a merchant. Someone who operates outside the logic of conflict. Someone who offers value without demanding loyalty. Someone who can be trusted precisely because they have no interest in his soul, only his resources."
I moved to the window, looking east toward the approaching figure who did not know that his story had already been sold.
"Prepare the welcome," I said. "Not the one we planned. Something simpler. A room at the neutral inn, paid for three days. A map of the city with our location marked, but not emphasized. And a message."
"What message?" Xiao Hong asked.
"Tell him the Merchant of Fates knows what was taken from him. Tell him the price for that knowledge is a conversation. Nothing more. Tell him we do not care if he accepts or refuses, only that the offer expires in seventy two hours."
"And if he comes?"
"Then we begin the most important transaction of our lives," I said. "The sale of the protagonist himself."
---
Lin Feng arrived at midnight.
I watched him from the warehouse roof, concealed behind a ventilation shaft that provided sight lines to the main road. He moved like I remembered from the novel descriptions. Confident in his body, uncertain in his environment. The jade pendant that marked his heritage was visible at his throat, but it did not glow with the expected resonance. The inheritance was incomplete. Stolen, as we suspected, but not entirely.
He carried himself like someone who had learned that the world was not his ally, but had not yet decided what to do with that knowledge.
At the inn, he found the room key where we had left it, under the third step of the stairs. He examined it for traps, for spiritual markings, for hidden threats. Finding none, he took it. But he did not sleep in the room. He spent the night in the stable, watching the entrance, ready to run.
Smart. Paranoid. Adaptable.
Not the Lin Feng of the original story. That Lin Feng had been naive, trusting, quick to anger but quicker to forgive. This Lin Feng had been tempered by betrayal. He would be harder to manipulate. But potentially more valuable as a client, because he would appreciate competence over flattery.
In the morning, he found the map. Traced the route to our warehouse. Circled it twice, observing from different angles, noting the security arrangements, the hidden entrances, the escape routes.
Then he walked away.
"He is not coming," Wang Mei reported from her own observation post. "Your honesty strategy failed."
"Patience," I said. "He is processing. He has never encountered an organization that does not want something from him. The concept requires adjustment."
For two days, Lin Feng explored Azure Cloud City. He visited the sect recruitment office, but did not apply. He examined the trading markets, but made no purchases. He spoke to servants and laborers, gathering information about power structures, about recent events, about the mysterious auction house that had appeared in the lower city.
He learned about the auction. About the prices paid for his own arrival information. About the merchant who claimed to sell fate itself.
On the third day, with four hours remaining before my deadline, he came to the warehouse.
Not through the front entrance. Through the service door we had left deliberately unguarded, the one that led directly to the cellar. He had done his research. He knew that the public face was performance, and that truth was stored underground.
I was waiting for him.
The cellar was arranged for this moment. Not as a trap, but as a demonstration. The inventory was visible but secured. The Fate Tokens glowed in their case, promising power he did not understand. The records of transactions were open on the desk, showing names, prices, obligations. Transparency as weapon.
Lin Feng descended the stairs with silent precision. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword, not threatening, but ready. His eyes took in everything. The inventory. The security. Me.
"You are younger than I expected," he said. His voice was rough, unused to civilized conversation. "The Merchant of Fates. I thought you would be older. More... impressive."
"I am exactly as impressive as I need to be," I replied. "You are exactly as cautious as your recent experiences warrant. Shall we acknowledge that we have both done our research and proceed to business?"
He blinked. The directness had surprised him. Good.
"You sold information about me," he said. "To my enemies."
"To interested parties," I corrected. "Some wish you success. Some wish you failure. Most wish to position themselves to profit regardless of outcome. I facilitated their preparation. I did not dictate their choices."
"You profited from my life without my consent."
"True. And I am prepared to offer compensation for that unauthorized use of your narrative." I gestured to a chair. "Sit. I will explain exactly what I know, how I know it, and what I propose for our future relationship."
He did not sit. But he did not draw his sword either.
"Speak."
I told him everything.
Not the truth about reincarnation and novels. That would destabilize him, make him question reality itself. But the functional equivalent. That I had access to information sources that predicted his movements with unusual accuracy. That I had built a business on that information. That I recognized his potential and had prepared infrastructure to support his rise.
I told him about the auction. About the prices paid for his arrival details. About the coalition of trading houses that were already positioning to assist him, expecting future returns on their investment.
I told him about the tomb. About the secondary entrance. About the figure who had stolen part of his inheritance and forced him to accelerate his timeline.
And I told him what I wanted.
"Partnership," I said. "Not subordination. Not exploitation. A business relationship where I provide information, resources, and logistical support. In exchange, you provide... access."
"Access to what?"
"To your story," I said. "To the events that will shape this continent for the next decade. I do not want to control your destiny, Lin Feng. I want to invest in it. To purchase options on your future success. To sell tickets to the performance of your rise."
He stared at me. "You are insane."
"I am practical. You will become powerful. That is not prediction, it is observation of your current trajectory. When you become powerful, you will need services that sects cannot provide, that governments will not permit, that conventional merchants cannot imagine." I spread my hands. "I am building that infrastructure now. In exchange for early investment, you receive lifetime preferred status. My services at cost, priority access to rare goods, and absolute discretion regarding your... less public activities."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you walk away," I said. "Knowing that every other merchant in this city will try to cheat you, every sect will try to control you, and every beautiful woman you meet will likely be an agent of someone who wants to use your story for their own purposes. You will survive. You may even thrive. But you will do so without the one ally who has no interest in your soul, only your satisfaction as a customer."
Silence stretched between us. I could see him calculating, weighing, trying to find the trap in my offer. There was none, and that was the most suspicious thing of all.
"Why?" he asked finally. "Why this approach? Why not try to control me directly? Everyone else does."
"Because control is expensive," I said. "It requires constant maintenance, surveillance, manipulation. It creates resentment, resistance, eventual rebellion. Commerce is more efficient. You want what I have. I want what you can provide. We exchange. We both profit. The relationship continues only as long as both parties are satisfied."
I stood, moving to the Fate Token case. I unlocked it, removed one of the glowing jade pendants, and held it out to him.
"A demonstration of good faith," I said. "This is a Fate Token. It allows the bearer to alter one narrative event. To survive what should kill them. To succeed where they should fail. It is worth ten thousand spirit stones, or one percent of a major house's annual revenue."
He did not take it. "You give this to me? For free?"
"I sell it to you," I corrected. "For one copper coin. The smallest possible transaction. To establish that we have done business. That you are a customer. That I have delivered value and named a fair price."
I placed the token on the table between us. Then I placed a single copper coin beside it.
"Your choice," I said. "Take both. Take neither. But understand that this offer expires in..." I checked the timepiece on my wrist. "Fourteen minutes. After that, the price returns to market rate. And you become just another potential client, to be served when convenient, not prioritized."
Lin Feng looked at the token. At the coin. At me.
He picked up the coin. Examined it as if searching for hidden mechanisms.
Then he placed it on the table, took the Fate Token, and tucked it into his robes.
"Partnership," he said. "For now. The moment I suspect you are manipulating me..."
"You will terminate the relationship and seek competitors," I finished. "I expect nothing less. Customer satisfaction is my only metric."
He almost smiled. The expression was unfamiliar on his face, rusty from disuse.
"You are the strangest person I have ever met, Merchant."
"I am the most honest," I corrected. "You will learn to value that, Lin Feng. In a world of hidden agendas, the man who names his price is the only one you can truly trust."
He turned to leave, then paused at the stairs.
"The inheritance," he said, not turning around. "The part that was stolen. You know who took it?"
"I have theories," I said. "But that information is not part of our initial transaction. It requires additional payment."
He looked back, and this time he did smile. Cold, sharp, recognizing the game.
"Name your price."
"First," I said, "tell me exactly what you found in the tomb. What was missing. What remained. And how you knew to come to Azure Cloud City, rather than continue your original journey."
"That is three prices."
"I am a merchant. We bundle."
He laughed, short and surprised. Then he sat, and began to speak.
And I began to understand that the story I had read, the novel I remembered, was already obsolete. The variables had multiplied. The script was fracturing. And the Merchant of Fates was becoming not just an observer of the narrative, but a character within it.
The transaction had begun.
There would be no turning back.
---
[TRANSACTION COMPLETED: PROTAGONIST PARTNERSHIP]
[Revenue: 1 copper coin (symbolic), future obligations (substantial)]
[Reputation +5000]
[Gold Rank Progress: 8400/10000]
[New Contact: LIN FENG (Primary Client, Narrative Anchor)]
[New Information: INHERITANCE THEFT DETAILS]
[ALERT: Timeline instability increasing. Secondary reader detected.]
The System notification was unexpected. I read it twice, focusing on the final line.
Secondary reader. Someone else who knew the script. Someone who had reached the tomb first, who had stolen part of Lin Feng's destiny, who had forced the acceleration of events.
The novel was not mine alone anymore.
There was another merchant in the market.
And our competition was about to become deadly.
---
If you like the novel give power stones and golden ticket.