Book 3: Chapter 33: The Auction House |
Hu Shui leaned back into the cushion seat of the carriage she had found.
Said carriage was white.
Not off-white, not cream, not "white-adjacent" like the robes Long Ti had tried to pass off as presentable before Shui rejected them and made him find better ones. This was white. Blinding, aggressive, sun reflecting everywhere, brighten the streets, confrontational white. The kind of white that existed solely to make everything around it look dirty by comparison.
Four horses pulled it, each one groomed to a mirror sheen that reflected the slum buildings they passed through like a moving accusation against the entire district's aesthetic choices… Also equally white and pristine.
Shui had found the carriage in the Gilded Knives' storage basement, stolen from a noble family a few years ago and kept as a trophy.
She'd requisitioned it.
That was the word Long Ti used. Requisitioned.
Shui preferred liberated.
The interior was lined with silk cushions dyed a deep crimson that clashed magnificently with the exterior. Gold filigree traced patterns across the ceiling that depicted scenes of mythological battles between creatures she didn't recognize and didn't care about. A small table bolted to the floor held a tea set that rattled with every bump in the road, each piece painted with tiny phoenixes whose expressions suggested they were deeply uncomfortable with their current employment.
Mr. Mo Mo rested across her lap.
Around her, packed into the carriage like expensive sardines in a very expensive tin, sat nine gang leaders who had been told to dress well and behave or face consequences that Shui had left deliberately vague. The old beggar had said it would be more effective than giving concrete and clear punishments and it had worked.
None of them dared to utter a sound and all came dressed far better than she expected.
It helped that she paid for everything.
All nine people who had independently and unanimously decided that riding in a stolen noble carriage through the streets of YellowHearth City toward the most heavily guarded auction house on this side of the continent was preferable to whatever the Red Demon would do if they refused.
Shui smoothed a crease in her own robes.
These were new. Pale red silk with white trim and golden thread along the hems that caught the light and threw it back in tiny sparks. Long Ti had found them in the Jade Serpent's vault alongside enough stolen noble clothing to outfit a small court. The fit was perfect, which meant someone in the Serpents had been kidnapping children of exactly her size, a thought she crushed before it could fully form because she'd already dealt with that particular horror and the people responsible were currently scrubbing latrines under Fao Wen's supervision.
She looked good.
She knew she looked good because Long Ti had told her she looked good and Long Ti never lied about things that mattered.
It took some time as the carriage rumbled far less than she expected until it finally started to slow down.
Shui waved her hand and the closes gang boss parted the curtain for her to peer out.
The warehouse district's main avenue opened before them in a wide boulevard of grey stone that had been swept clean enough to eat off. Buildings rose on both sides in tiers of increasing grandeur, each one larger and more ornate than the last, climbing toward the district's crown jewel that squatted at the far end of the avenue like a fat spider in the centre of a very expensive web.
The Seven Gilded Thrones Auction House.
Nine stories of polished white marble veined with gold. Columns flanked the entrance in pairs, each one carved with scenes of commerce so idealised they bordered on fantasy. Banners of deep purple hung from the roofline, embroidered with the consortium's sigil: seven thrones arranged in a triangle, each one dripping with coins that cascaded down the fabric in threads of actual gold.
Guards stood at every entrance.
Cultivators, all of them, wearing matching armour of black and gold that gleamed under the afternoon sun. Their Qi signatures pressed outward in overlapping fields that created a perimeter of ambient pressure designed to make anyone below a certain cultivation threshold think twice about approaching.
Shui didn't think twice.
She didn't think once.
Neither did any of the gang bosses because they were slightly accomplished cultivators that had been strong enough to dominate a territory.
Long Ti did think twice though.
I need to do a better job and turn him into a nuke… whatever that means. Ancestor was whispering about it last time.
The carriage rolled to a stop before the main entrance and the driver, one of Fao Wen's lieutenants who had been given very specific instructions about speed, smoothness, pace, and the consequences of hitting a single pothole, set the brake with trembling hands.
Shui waited for a few seconds.
Long enough for the guards to notice the carriage and for the nearest attendants to register the quality of the horses, the gold filigree, the silk curtains, and the general aura of wealth that radiated from the vehicle like heat from a forge.
Said time frame was long enough to a crowd to start forming and make a show of her arrival in fashion.
Hu Shui snapped her finger and Fao Wen hurriedly pushed the carriage door wide open and the afternoon light flooded into the interior.
The nine gang bosses all filtered out and created an honor guard. Long Ti stepped out next and held his hand out for her. The whole setup had been thought of by him, though it took a while to convince her that this was necessary to improve the image she was trying to garner.
Shui stepped out holding Long Ti’s hand.
Even thought she didn’t need it.
Her boots hit the polished stone with a click that carried further than it should have. The pale red silk caught the breeze and billowed once, a single dramatic flutter that she had absolutely not practiced in front of a mirror that morning. Mr. Mo Mo hung across her back, the weapon spirit's presence a low thrum that made the nearest guards shift their weight and tighten their grips on their weapons.
She stood there for a moment. Chin up and eyes forward.
The honor guard bowed deeply to her.
Nobody drew a weapon.
Long Ti had drilled them on this for two hours to make sure everything was perfect.
Shui walked toward the entrance.
The guards parted because the combined Qi pressure of nine gang leaders, each one a cultivator of varying but collectively significant power, preceded the group like a wave pushing debris aside. The guards felt it and stepped sideways. Each one had a stunned face as they stared at what they were struggling to understand before them.
The doors opened.
The interior of the Seven Gilded Thrones Auction House hit her senses like a wall of concentrated wealth. Marble floors polished to a mirror finish. Chandeliers of crystal and Qi-infused metal hanging from a ceiling a couple stories above, each one radiating enough light to make the entire ground floor glow with a warm, golden ambience that said you are welcome here as long as your money is real. Display cases lined the walls, each one containing items that pulsed with Qi signatures ranging from modest to eye-watering.
For normal people… The whole scene was bland to Hu Shui. She had already seen the Palace of the RabbitKin.
This was nothing compared to the treasure she collected there.
Attendants in matching purple robes moved between clusters of well-dressed patrons, carrying a dozen items and the practiced smiles of people whose entire livelihood depended on making rich people feel richer.
One of them spotted Shui's group and moved to intercept. His smile widened. "Welcome to the Seven Gilded Thrones! My name is—"
A hand landed on his shoulder from behind that made him start and spin around.
The hand tightened and pulled him backward with enough force to make his heels skid across the polished marble. He stumbled, caught himself, spun around, and found himself face to face with a woman who made his practiced smile look like a child's drawing next to a master's painting.
A lady stepped forward, taller than even Fao Wen, the tallest among them. She wore robes of deep purple trimmed with gold thread so fine it looked woven from actual sunlight. Hair pulled back in a severe knot that added two inches to her already considerable height. Her face was all angles and authority, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, eyes that swept the room with the efficiency of someone who had been managing wealth and wealthy people for long enough that she could calculate a person's net worth from the quality of their boot leather.
Her Qi signature pressed outward in a controlled pulse that made the young attendant's knees buckle.
He dropped into a bow so deep his forehead nearly touched the floor. "M-Manager Li! I was just—"
"Leave."
The young man didn’t even hesitate for a second as he bolted away.
Manager Li's eyes found Shui, searched for something and seemingly found it because he smile grew much wider. She bowed deep enough to show respect, but shallow enough to maintain her authority as the manager of the Seven Gilded Thrones Auction House. "Honoured guest. I am Li Li, senior manager of the Seven Gilded Thrones. Please allow me to personally attend to your needs today."
Shui looked up at her.
The height difference was comical. Manager Li towered over her by nearly a few feet.
Hu Shui had to tilt her head back far enough that a lesser person would have felt small and diminished, but Shui did not feel small. "Lead the way.”
Hu Shui and the crew were lead to a private enclosure on the third floor.
She had been expecting a room with good accommodations… instead she had gotten a literal palace.
The enclosure jutted from the auction house's upper gallery like a gilded balcony, overlooking the main auction floor a few stories below. The railing was carved from a single piece of white jade, smooth and cool to the touch, inlaid with gold that traced patterns she didn't recognize but suspected cost more than most buildings in the city. Curtains of deep purple silk hung from ceiling to floor on multiple sides, heavy enough to block sound, light, attention, and the prying eyes of anyone in the neighbouring enclosures.
Qi arrays hummed in the walls.
Shui could feel them the moment she crossed the threshold. Layered arrays with different purposes that she was not familiar with.
Her Ancestor didn’t really care for things of this nature and had not taught them anything about them either.
The seating was arranged in a semicircle facing the railing. Cushioned chairs upholstered in fabric so soft Shui's fingers sank into it when she tested the armrest. A low table sat at the centre, already laden with tea, fruits, sweetened cakes, and small pastries arranged on porcelain plates painted with the Seven Gilded Thrones' sigil.
Shui eyed the pastries.
Probably taste like mud. They always taste like mud.
She sat in the central chair and the nine gang leaders arranged themselves around her.
Long Ti materialized from somewhere behind them and pressed himself into the corner furthest from the railing with his eyes darting between Shui and the exits.
He was still worried they would get attacked by someone.
Manager Li stood at the enclosure's entrance. "The auction begins in a few minutes, Madam. Is there anything else you require?"
Shui waved her hand in dismissal. The gesture was pure Ancestor. An unhurried wave that carried the implicit message that the person being dismissed should feel grateful they'd been acknowledged at all.
Manager Li bowed and withdrew and the curtains fell shut behind her.
Shui leaned forward and peered over the jade railing. The auction floor spread below her in a vast oval of polished stone and tiered seating. Hundreds of people filled the lower galleries, their voices creating a constant hum that rose through the air like heat. Attendants in purple moved between the rows, taking last-minute bids, delivering refreshments, and managing the controlled chaos of several hundred wealthy and deeply competitive individuals packed into a space designed to extract maximum coin from each of them.
A raised platform dominated the centre of the floor that was empty for now. A podium stood at its edge, flanked by attendants holding covered items on velvet cushions.
Shui settled back into her chair and crossed her arms.
"Lot seventeen! A blade of superior craftsmanship forged in the fires of Mount Hei! The Crimson Fang Sabre, once wielded by the legendary—"
Shui's eyes glazed over.
The caller's voice bounced off the marble walls. He held the sabre aloft, turning it so the light caught the blade's edge and threw red reflections across the audience.
The bidding started at one hundred gold.
Fao Wen leaned forward. His eyes locked onto the sabre with a hungry focus. His fingers gripped the armrest and Qi flickered in waves showing exactly how much he wanted that piece even though he was a spear wielder. None of the gangs had carried incredibly rare of powerful weapons, making due with what they had and fighting amongst themselves for the scraps that were available in the wider world with the war blazing around them.
"Two hundred!" someone shouted from the lower gallery.
"Two fifty!"
"Three hundred gold!"
"Three fifty one!"
"Three fifty nine!"
Fao Wen's hand twitched toward the Qi-infused bidding crystal embedded in the railing before each seat.
Shui sighed and cupped her face in her hands. “Don’t bother.”
Fao Wen's hand froze mid-reach. His head turned toward her slowly. “L-Lady Shui, that spear costs nothing to you. Please. It would mean–”
"That thing would shatter if Senior Zhong Da sneezed on it." Shui waved her hand at the sabre below. "When we get back, I'll ask him to pull some real weapons from the shop. Stuff that won't break if you look at it wrong."
Fao Wen's hand retreated from the crystal wondering who this Zhong Da is, what his affiliation was with the Red Demon was, his affiliation with the previously mentioned Hu Clan of Demons, and what his role was in the wider city considering he supposedly had a shop with weapons in it too.
Beside him, Shen Mei's eyes had been tracking a set of throwing needles displayed three lots prior. She opened her mouth—
"You too," Shui said without looking.
Shen Mei's mouth snapped shut.
Hu Shui looked around the room at each person drooling at one item or another that was sitting on the bottom floor on the cushions. Trash heaped upon trash. "All of you, stop drooling. Senior Zhong Da's shop has better stuff than anything in this building and I'll make sure you get equipped properly. You're my people now. You don't use garbage."
Nine gang leaders settled back into their seats with expressions that ranged from acceptance to reluctance.
The auction continued either way.
Lot after lot paraded across the central platform. Weapons, armour, cultivation manuals, rare ores, formation flags, spatial pouches of varying quality, a set of matching rings that supposedly enhanced dual cultivation between partners which Shui had asked Long Ti about and was quickly informed wasn’t in her age bracket to know what it was… to which she just shrugged and continued on with more things coming.
Shui yawned something fierce. One that started in her toes and rolled upward through her entire body until it escaped her mouth with enough force to make the curtains flutter. She didn't cover it nor did she even try to hide it. She yawned with the full-bodied commitment of a girl who had been promised cake ingredients and was instead being subjected to a parade of sharp hunks of metal and shiny rocks.
The nine gang leaders sat in rigid silence around her.
Long Ti scribbled in his corner while the auction kept droning on with pathetic items.
It took some time before a knock finally appeared from outside of the room.
"Enter," Shui said from the depths of a slouch that had consumed the entire chair. Her legs were draped over one armrest, her head propped against the other, Mr. Mo Mo balanced across her stomach like a blanket.
Manager Li stepped through the curtain. Her severe expression had developed a hairline crack. Her eyes swept the enclosure, cataloguing the untouched tea, the uneaten pastries, the nine gang leaders who sat like statues, and the girl who had turned a chair worth more than most noble houses into a makeshift bed. In her hands, she carried a leather-bound folio embossed with the Seven Gilded Thrones' sigil.
"Madam." Manager Li bowed. "I've taken the liberty of preparing a detailed itinerary of the remaining lots for your review. Should any particular category interest you, I can arrange for priority presentation and—"
Manager Li froze when Shui raised her arm and waved for the itinerary without as much as shifting her bored posture.
Shui opened one eye and read its contents. Scanning the pages that were full of weapons, more weapons, armour, formation materials, rare beast cores, cultivation aids, spatial equipment, decorative pieces for the wealthy, and tasteless—
Her eyes stopped.
Her slouch evaporated as she popped up into a seated position.
Shui sat up so fast Mr. Mo Mo slid off her stomach and cracked the tiled floors, much to manager Li’s consternation. Both of Shui’s hands gripping the folio, eyes locked onto a single line of text halfway down the seventh page.
Lot 94 — Crown of the Spirit Queen. Origin: Unknown. Classification: Spirit-Aligned Artifact. Starting bid: 2,000 gold coins.
Her pupils dilated.
The red miasma that had been dormant since they'd entered the auction house stirred. A single wisp curled upward, thin as smoke, before she clamped it down.
Crown of the Spirit Queen? Spirit Queen? But I’m the Great Spirit Queen. How can anyone wear that crown except me?
"When does lot ninety-four come up?" Shui's voice had changed from the bored, yawning child to the intense personality that dominated everyone around her.
She became the Red Demon within a blink of the eye.
"I-It's next, Madam,” Manager Li gulped audibly. “The caller is preparing the presentation now!"
Shui closed the folio and handed it back. "Good."
Manager Li took it, bowed, and retreated through the curtains.
Shui stood from the chair and walked to the railing. Her hands gripped the white jade and she leaned forward. Her eyes were fixed on the central platform below where attendants were arranging a new display. A velvet cushion, larger than the previous ones, sat on a pedestal of dark wood. Something rested on it beneath a cloth of shimmering silver that caught the chandelier light and threw it back in fractured rainbows.
The caller stepped to his podium. He adjusted his collar, cleared his throat, and raised his voice. "Distinguished guests! Lot ninety-four!"
The cloth was pulled away and exposed a crown that sat on its cushion like it had been waiting for this moment since before the auction house was built. It was small and delicate. A circlet of woven silver and white gold that twisted together in patterns that looked organic, grown rather than forged. Tiny crystals dotted the band at irregular intervals, each one pulsing with a faint inner light that shifted between pale blue and soft white in a rhythm that matched no heartbeat Shui had ever felt.
Shui's grip on the railing tightened.
"The Crown of the Spirit Queen! Origin unknown! Classification: Spirit-Aligned Artifact of considerable power! Our experts have determined that this piece resonates with spirit energy at frequencies that suggest a connection to—"
He continued talking, but Shui had stopped listening and only had time and attention span for the crown itself.
“–starting bid! Two thousand gold coins!"
The auction floor buzzed as hands reached for bidding crystals. Murmurs rippled through the galleries as cultivators assessed, calculated, debated with their neighbours, consulted their advisors, and generally performed the elaborate theatre of pretending they weren't about to spend obscene amounts of money on something they wanted desperately.
"Two thousand!" A voice from the lower gallery.
"Two thousand two hundred!"
"Two thousand five hundred!"
The bids climbed in increments that would have fed the refugee camps outside of the city for months.
Shui pressed her palm against the bidding crystal embedded in the railing.
She pushed her Qi into it.
The crystal flared bright enough to cast her shadow against the back wall of the enclosure. Every array in the railing activated simultaneously, amplifying her voice and projecting it downward through the auction hall with a clarity and volume that cut through the bidding chatter like a blade through smoke.
"Five Superior Qi Stones." A deafening voice boomed throughout the auction house.
Silence descended like a torrential downpour.
No one spoke, no one shifted, whispered, or attempted to gasped.
The kind of silence that happened when every person in a room of several hundred simultaneously forgot how to breathe. The caller's mouth hung open, his next word trapped somewhere between his lungs and his lips. His hand, which had been gesturing toward the current highest bidder, froze mid-sweep. His eyes went wide, then wider, then achieved a diameter that suggested his skull was reconsidering its structural commitments.
Five Superior Qi Stones was an obscene amount of gold for something that would have never reached that price if there had been ten of them.
Each one worth over twelve thousand gold coins at minimum market value. Combined, the bid exceeded sixty thousand gold. More than every previous lot in the auction combined. More than most sects spent in a year. More than the Seven Gilded Thrones had seen offered for a single item in the five decade.
All for a crown.
The caller's mouth worked but produced no sound. His eyes darted to the wings of the platform where the attendants stood equally frozen, then to the galleries where hundreds of faces stared upward at the third-floor enclosure hidden behind purple curtains and identity-concealing arrays.
A hand landed on his shoulder.
Manager Li appeared beside the podium. Her stoic composure had returned, locked into place with iron discipline. She leaned toward the caller's ear and whispered.
The caller blinked a few times before he finally nodded.
Manager Li stepped back and the caller straightened his spine, adjusted his collar for the second time, and raised his voice with a steadiness that cost him visible effort."F-Five Superior Qi Stones from the honoured guest in Enclosure Seven!" His voice cracked on seven but he powered through. "Do I hear a higher bid? Five Superior Qi Stones going once!"
No one shifted.
"Going twice!"
No one dared to breath lest they insult someone rich enough to drop sixty thousand gold coins without hesitation.
"Sold! To the honoured guest in Enclosure Seven!"
Shui leaned back from the railing satisfied with the outcome of her bid.
Behind her, nine gang leaders sat in their semicircle with expressions that had transcended shock, passed through disbelief, detoured through existential crisis, and arrived at a destination none of them had words for. Fao Wen's scar had gone white. Shen Mei's hands had found each other and were wringing with enough force to produce audible friction. Dui had gone so pale he was nearly translucent. Tong 's bruised nose twitched. Yue's thick forearms had gone slack against the armrests. The remaining four stared at the back of Shui's head with the glazed focus of people whose understanding of wealth, power, and the appropriate use of both had just been dismantled and rebuilt from scratch.
Long Ti's quill had stopped moving.
The old man sat in his corner with the ledger open on his lap and his mouth forming a perfect circle that produced no sound.
Shui sat back down in her chair and crossed her legs. "What's next?"
What was next was more weapons.
Then more armour.
Then a cultivation manual that made Patriarch Guo's entire library look like a children's primer, which still wasn't interesting because Ancestor's Compendium existed and everything else was a joke by comparison.
Then formation flags.
Then beast cores.
Then a spatial ring that the caller spent four minutes describing with adjectives that had been stretched so far past their intended meaning they'd snapped and were now just sounds arranged in an order that vaguely resembled language.
Shui's eyes closed somewhere around lot one hundred and twelve.
Her head tilted back against the chair and breathing slowed.
The caller's voice became a distant drone.
The bidding became white noise.
The nine gang leaders sat in absolute stillness around a sleeping twelve-year-old girl who had just spent fifty thousand gold coins on a crown and then immediately lost interest in the most prestigious auction event in the city.
Fao Wen looked at Shen Mei.
Shen Mei looked at Dui.
Dui looked at Tong.
Tong looked at Yue.
Yue looked at the remaining four.
The remaining four looked at Long Ti.
Long Ti looked at his ledger and pretended very hard that he hadn't noticed any of them looking at anything.
Nobody dared to wake her.
The next knock came forty minutes later.
Shui didn’t even deem it worthy of her attention until Manager Li finally stepped through the curtains with an expression that had gained more lines since her last visit. Her eyes swept the enclosure, noted the sleeping girl who was now being woken up by Long Ti, and the nine statues who hadn't moved a muscle in forty minutes.
"Madam." She bowed to the now fully awake, but kind of groggy Hu Shui. "I noticed that you haven't placed any additional bids since lot ninety-four. I wanted to ensure that your experience has been satisfactory and inquire whether there are specific categories you'd—"
"I want the best cake ingredients."
Manager Li's bow held.
Her spine locked at the exact angle she'd descended to and stayed there. Her eyes, which had been directed at the floor in deference, lifted to find Shui's face. She stared hard for a few seconds as though the words did not register in her mind for a long time. "I... I beg your pardon, Madam?"
"Cake ingredients." Shui sat up straighter. "The highest amount of Qi preferably. Flour, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, whatever else goes into making something that doesn't taste like mud and sadness. I need the best this city has and it has to be the absolute best. Nothing less."
Manager Li straightened from her bow with the same stunned expression. "The... the spiritual herbs section is coming up next, Madam. Several lots of high-grade cultivation herbs, rare botanical specimens, and Qi-infused organic materials that could certainly suit your... desires."
"Good. You've wasted enough of my time with trash items."
Manager Li's complexion shifted a few shades lighter and throat bobbed. "I-I'll have them bring you your crown immediately, Madam."
Shui nodded and turned away, returning to her nap.
The first lot was a bundle of Jade Root Ginseng.
The caller described it as ‘a botanical treasure of immense Qi density, cultivated over five decades in the sacred gardens of—’
Shui's Qi swept over it from the enclosure. Her senses penetrated the display case and analysed the ginseng's Qi… Only for her nose to wrinkle at the how pathetic it was.
The second lot was a set of Phoenix Tear Orchids.
Her wrinkle turned into a powerful sneer that morphed her face.
The third was Thousand Year Snow Lotus.
And it kept going like that for dozens of passes where her expression grew worse and her anger grew in bounds and leaps. It was a procession of trash upon trash in the form of herbs, roots, flowers, fungi, and botanical specimens that the caller presented with escalating enthusiasm and the audience received with escalating bids. Gold coins flew as the cultivators competed.
Prices climbed into the thousands.
Yet, Shui’s mood grew worse and she never touched the bidding crystal.
The nine gang leaders sat with their feet pulled up onto their chairs.
Long Ti had climbed onto his corner table.
The miasma pressed against the enclosure's arrays as they flickered intermittently as it fought between holding steady and dying completely.
Shui went back and sat upon her seat and closed her eyes.
Not a single herb in the entire auction had been worth her time. Every last one of them carried Qi densities that wouldn't register against the baseline her body had established after two years of Ancestor's rice, Ancestor's tea, Ancestor's katas, training, body purification, cultivation, and everything else he had done for them. She could have eaten the entire spiritual herbs catalogue in a single sitting and tasted nothing or gained anything at all.
Much less it being something he could taste considering his elevated foundations.
It was all bullshit upon bullshit upon bullshit.
Pathetic, worthless, insulting garbage that couldn't compare to a single grain of rice from Ancestor's bag.
The Celestial Dew Mushrooms sold for eight thousand gold coins to a sect elder who looked like he'd won the lottery.
Shui looked at the mushrooms and saw compost.
The knock came once more, but this time, it was far more hesitant as it could sense the miasma that leaked out of the room.
"Enter," Shui said.
The curtain parted and Manager Li stepped through. She made it two steps before the red miasma hit her. Her stride broke, heel skidding on the marble as her body registered the pressure before her mind could process it. Her Qi flared in automatic defence, a corona of purple energy that compressed against her skin and held for exactly one second before the miasma crushed it flat.
Her knees buckled.
She caught herself on the back of Fao Wen's chair, fingers white against the upholstery as her arms shook. Her stoic composure shattered into fragments that scattered across her face in the form of wide eyes, parted lips, twitching brow, and a jaw that had forgotten how to close. Sweat broke across her forehead in a sheet that caught the chandelier light.
Shui sat in her chair with the Crown of the Spirit Queen on her head and red miasma pooling around her like a living thing.
"Was that all?" Her voice didn't belong to a twelve-year-old girl. Deeper undertones that vibrated in the chest rather than the ears. The miasma pulsed with each syllable.
Manager Li's teeth chattered once before she clenched her jaw shut. "Y-Yes, Madam."
"Pathetic." Shui's chin tilted up. "I was hoping for much better… I am disappointed."
"F-Forgive me, Madam."
Shui blinked and the miasma retracted.
All of it at the same time as though it had not existed at all. Every wisp, tendril, iota, and molecule of red pressure that had filled the enclosure pulled back into her core like water draining through a crack in the floor. The temperature normalized and he arrays stopped flickering.
The air cleared.
Manager Li gasped and colour returned to her face in patches like paint being applied by someone with shaking hands.
Shui sat in her chair looking like a child again, feet not touching the ground and crown slightly askew on her head. She folded her hands in her lap.
"Explain yourself," she said.
Manager Li gulped and tried to get support from the rest of the adults in the room. No one dared to meet her gaze. Her professional composure reassembled itself piece by piece, each fragment clicking back into place with visible effort. She smoothed her robes, adjusted her hair, and lifted her chin to something approaching its usual angle. "Those were the best this auction or any auction in YellowHearth City could provide, Madam. I am sorry. The Seven Gilded Thrones prides itself on sourcing the highest quality—"
"Then how am I going to bake a good cake?!"
Manager Li's reassembled composure developed a new crack.
The words bake a good cake ricocheted around the inside of her skull, bouncing off every assumption she'd built about the terrifying young cultivator who had spent fifty thousand gold coins on a spirit crown and then dismissed the entire spiritual herbs catalogue as garbage.
A cake.
This was about a cake.
Manager Li had not believed it the first time the young girl had said it. "T-There might be a way, Madam."
"Go on."
"The smugglers." Her lips barely moved as the words came out in an almost inaudible whisper. "There are networks that operate between the outer walls and the noble districts along the ports. They bring items into the city through channels that bypass the Seven Gilded Thrones, the Merchant Guild, and every regulatory body the Merchant Emperor has established. Items that are..." She paused to make sure no one else was listening. "...of significantly higher quality than what we are permitted to offer within these walls."
Shui leaned forward.
"The Merchant Emperor's personal hall receives shipments through these networks. Ingredients, herbs, materials, and treasures that would make our entire catalogue look like—" She stopped herself once more and lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Don't say I said this, Madam. If anyone asks, this conversation never happened. But if you want what you're looking for... the smugglers' warehouses outside the rive channels near the northern river docks are where the Emperor's supply chain begins. Raid them and you'll find what no auction house in this city is allowed to sell."
Shui's eyes brightened and a massive smile spread across her face.
Long Ti prayed for salvation and cursed Madam Li under his breath a thousand times for the calamity she brought upon his head.
The nine gang leaders watched the grin form and collectively pressed themselves deeper into their chairs.
Manager Li saw the grin and her professional mask finally broke. A visible crack that ran from her left eye to the corner of her mouth, manifesting as a twitch that she couldn't suppress. She took a step backward. Her heel caught the edge of the carpet and she stumbled, caught herself, and straightened with the desperate dignity of a woman who had just realized she might have made a terrible mistake.
"I... I trust this information is helpful, Madam?"
"Very helpful, Manager Li." Her voice was sweet and musical. The voice of a girl who should have been playing in gardens. "Very, very helpful."
Manager Li bowed and left the enclosure at a pace that was technically walking but carried the spiritual essence of a full sprint.
The curtains fell shut.
Fao Wen's CoolSpear Gang knows the river district. Shen Mei's Iron Talons can handle infiltration. The Jade Serpents have tunnel networks that reach the northern wall. The River Rats literally live on the river. The Stone Tide Crew has the muscle for a direct assault if stealth fails. This is going to be sooooo easy! Its… going to be like cake! Ha!
She had nine gangs, nearly two thousand fighters, a weapon spirit the size of a mountain, a crown that hummed with spirit energy, and the unwavering conviction that the universe owed her cake ingredients of sufficient quality.
Not to mention a certain old beggar that was outside of the auction house waiting for them.
And Zhong Da…
Though that might not be good for her plans if he was keeping a close eye on her.
"Long Ti."
The old man scrambled off his table. "Y-Yes, Lady Shui?"
"Get me maps of the northern river docks."
Long Ti's face cycled through its repertoire. He settled on resignation. "At once, Lady Shui."
Shui stood up from her chair and walked out of the room. Everyone followed in a hurry to keep up while Long Ti took a detour to find maps from somewhere.