A Sickly Sweet Smell

Chang walked through the bazaar with her mother and Hao Jin Ying, careful not to get too far from them as they wandered. She was still cautious after the last time she had been alone in the market, and with Jian's fresh warnings to be careful she was trying to take extra care.

She wandered with them, not buying anything, versus the other two who loaded up on snacks and sweets like Chang had her first time through. She chuckled seeing them sampling everything. Nothing truly caught her attention until she saw a stall selling pistachios as well as other nuts.

'Ooh, that looks good.'

Seeing her approach the man started to call out to her.

"My lady, come here!" She understood most what the man was telling her from all her practice. "These are very, good, very fresh! Come buy my products!"

"How much?" She gestured with her hands asking how much for a couple small bags, her mother loved pistachios too. The man stared at her hands for a half a second before snapping back up to her face light gleaming in his eyes.

"Very good only 40 dinars." The man held up 4 fingers as he spoke.

"that price seem kind of high 30 would be more better would it not?" Chang rebutted hearing the man's high quote for the nuts and started to lightly haggle with the man. After a few minutes the two settled on the price of 32 dinars and as she set the coins on the counter he filled two sacks full of nuts for her.

The man gave her an appreciative look as he handed her the bags.

"My lady is an expert haggler and carries a shrewd eye, your family is blessed to have such a clever young lady. Would you perhaps be interested in marrying my son, he's a good strong lad and not too bad looking on the eyes."

Chang giggled covering her mouth with her fist.

"Sorry but I am already happily married."

The man openly tsked at the misfortune, "well you remember if he turns out to be no good you come back to me. In fact little lady let me give you a special gift, come with me inside my storehouse, I dont want people to think I've gone soft and give stuff away to just anyone!"

The man shuffled inside the small squat building that sat right behind his stall. Chang hesitated momentarily and saw that her mother and Jin Ying were were not too far away munching on Şekerpare1 happily.

'Ooh, that looks good I'll have to get some of that after this.' Chang thought to herself as she followed the man into the building.

She adjusted her hijab to see better in the darker building as she entered ducking slightly as she entered through the squat doorway. It took a second for her eyes to adjust as the only light came from behind her. As soon as she stepped inside a strong hand clamped over her mouth holding a cloth that stank of something sickly sweet.

Chang tried to pull back and away from the smell but the hand clamped onto her face forced her to breathe it in as she clawed desperately at the hand, leaving red trails on it. Her retaliation grew weaker though and darkness quickly overtook her.

The last thing that Chang felt and saw was the ground rapidly approaching her face at a weird tilt.

The man quickly took a large burlap sack and stuffed her into one and threw her onto a small cart that he had stored inside with another large sack. He then piled other sacks of varying size and piled them onto the cart, preparing for later in the evening.

It only took him about ten minutes for the whole process and he returned back outside and nonchalantly restocked his wares and continued to hawk until the late afternoon when he packed up his stall. After closing down he took his cart and left for the day, heading back to his hometown as he did every few days.